rules and boundries

[swg]

Simply, what type of race rules, track boundries and penalties can we expect? I know some organizations are much different in how they enforce track limits etc. Will the rules vary by class or format or will we have any ability to select which format to use? Personally I prefer F1 style ruling and limits as theyre more precise and force cleaner driving (IMO). I understand some tracks may lack the appropriate markings to enforce things "by the book" but I'm sure some sort of reasonable exceptions can be made. I just REALLY dont want to see online matches like gt6 or forza where people cut the crap out of the track and the game provides no penalties, leaving it up to the league organizers.

 

[FLX1981]

Hard to answer, really. There are penalties (drive through, black flag, laptime not counting), though I frankly dont know if they differ by game mode, discipline or settings. I know that I ve gotten drive throughs for jump starts and bumping into somebody else in MP (in my defense: I lost the car under braking ) so there is that.

 

[Fryto]

Simply, what type of race rules, track boundries and penalties can we expect? I know some organizations are much different in how they enforce track limits etc. Will the rules vary by class or format or will we have any ability to select which format to use? Personally I prefer F1 style ruling and limits as theyre more precise and force cleaner driving (IMO). I understand some tracks may lack the appropriate markings to enforce things "by the book" but I'm sure some sort of reasonable exceptions can be made. I just REALLY dont want to see online matches like gt6 or forza where people cut the crap out of the track and the game provides no penalties, leaving it up to the league organizers.

IMHO, penalties regarding track limits need to be there, but keep in mind that F1 style ruling is very very strict when applied by the book. In real life F1 races, there are always pre-race meetings to tell the drivers where on track the limits will not be taken too strictly, because some of the painted track boundaries are just not suited for F1 race speeds.
A good example is the last chicane at Monza, where they are allowed to go over the white line when exiting the turn (whereas this is often not permitted in GP3). Also at tracks like Spa, you often see that the race officials aren't bothered too much when drivers occasionally put all four wheels outside of the official track boundaries.

Especially at Spa, I often find it tedious in iRacing, that you're getting off-track safety rating penalties, for what in real life is a normal racing line. So strictly by the book penalties aren't always that good in games, as a game will always detect every infraction, while this isn't true to real life racing.

 

[nepal road]

Especially at Spa, I often find it tedious in iRacing, that you're getting off-track safety rating penalties, for what in real life is a normal racing line. So strictly by the book penalties aren't always that good in games, as a game will always detect every infraction, while this isn't true to real life racing.

This makes me laugh. It doesn't matter whether in real life or not, if what you call a normal racing line goes beyond the boundaries, then it is not a racing line, it is a foul, cheating and IMO is not penalised often enough. If it were people would stop doing it and adopt a correct racing line. A racing line is the fastest line within the track boundaries.

 

[Fryto]

This makes me laugh. It doesn't matter whether in real life or not, if what you call a normal racing line goes beyond the boundaries, then it is not a racing line, it is a foul, cheating and IMO is not penalised often enough. If it were people would stop doing it and adopt a correct racing line. A racing line is the fastest line within the track boundaries.

If race control decides otherwise, that supercedes painted lines.

 

[nepal road]

If race control decides otherwise, that supercedes painted lines.

That's got nothing to do with it. You were complaining about getting off-track penalties, if Race Control decided otherwise you wouldn't be off track and so you wouldn't receive a penalty. It just means you have to slow down more than you want to.

 

[swg]

Doesn't really matter whats considered "normal" in a real race IMO. This is a game, and when rules aren't enforced by the system then people take advantage of the situation in ways real drivers would not nor would they be allowed to. All you have to do is look at the forums of just about any racer with online racing and one of the biggest issues you'll find people complaining about are driver behaviors and track boundaries. One solution is to simply allow the game to enforce the rules by the book. It may result in people having to go a little slower to follow more proper lines than they might be allowed to in a real race, but it's far better than the alternative. The BEST way to handle it would be to give players the option to select "strictly or loosely enforced" rule sets when configuring their quick race, career or online lobbies. Just PLEASE no sticky/slippery/bouncy/whatever grass. I'd rather see guard rails along the entire track boundary than that.

 

[Goruk]

This makes me laugh. It doesn't matter whether in real life or not, if what you call a normal racing line goes beyond the boundaries, then it is not a racing line, it is a foul, cheating and IMO is not penalised often enough. If it were people would stop doing it and adopt a correct racing line. A racing line is the fastest line within the track boundaries.

If one does it it´s cheating, if everyone does it, it´s racing line...

 

[swg]

Purpose of the thread really isn't to debate what people think racing lines are or where boundaries "should" be. The purpose is to discuss how rules such as boundaries are or could be handled in project cars in order to provide the best racing experience and promote clean racing. The last thing I think anyone wants to see is the kind of corner cutting bumper car racing you have to deal with in Forza.

 

[JohnScoonsBeard]

If the driver gains an advantage cutting the corner verses not cutting the corner then the penalty should be applied. If the driver goes off and it takes more time that way then the infraction shouldn't incur a penalty.

 

[swg]

In real life this is fine. In a game though how does the system know the difference? Software would require something to compare in order to arrive at the conclusion that an advantage was gained. It can't compare to the distance to a car ahead, what if they just slowed down? It can't compare to the drivers previous lap times, they could be cutting every time. It can't compare to other drivers, the offender might just drive slower overall. Only thing I could think would be to measure deceleration of the vehicle. Even then though it would have to be carefully tested as even with a heavy speed loss some corners could be cut and still gain advantage. It would be very important to determine just how much speed loss would void the penalty.
Also, they have to take getting pushed out into consideration. If an opponent dives in with too much speed and you go wide to avoid contact do you get stuck with a penalty? That would encourage some pretty reckless passing. You could always refuse to cross the track boundaries resulting in contact but then fault for the contact has to be considered. Its all easy stuff (usually) for a human to determine but much harder to encode into software where everything is ultimately a 1 or 0.

Ultimately I think the best thing would just be to give the penalty any time the boundaries are violated (in accordance with what ever rule set is selected/assigned) with escalating severity to the penalties. Occasionally you would get screwed over by someone plowing through a corner but it'll teach you to pay more attention to opponents as they attempt to pass and if they are really going too fast for the corner, standing on your brakes and letting them fly by in front of you will let them run off track and get them a penalty for it, teaching them a lesson as well.

 

[Blood*Specter]

I think each course should have boundaries based on the actual fastest lap time in a real race.
Basically study the telemetry from the car with the fastest lap time for the course. Then use visual data to determine the track limits that allowed the driver to run that time. Then use that data to create and enforce the proper line.
If the lap time is bested, just download the most current data and update the line and time references as required.

 

[iQuacks]

What about contact? Different racing series "allow" different levels of contact. For example, you wouldn't get away with the amount of contact in F1 as you would in a touring car race.