Season 6 Race 1 - 50 Laps of Sebring

i think that making the rooms smaller would decrease lag significantly...just using common sense here since everyone seems to be complaining about basically the same problem. that's my solution.

Raceboy77 wrote:

i think that making the rooms smaller would decrease lag significantly...just using common sense here since everyone seems to be complaining about basically the same problem. that's my solution.

Lag has nothing to do with the size of the room...Lag has to do with your internet connection and speed. I have raced 16 ppl in a room with good internet connection and there was never any issue with Lag

I wish I had a solution for lag but I do not. So we can only do the best we can.

Basicblaq wrote:

Raceboy77 wrote:

i think that making the rooms smaller would decrease lag significantly...just using common sense here since everyone seems to be complaining about basically the same problem. that's my solution.

Lag has nothing to do with the size of the room...Lag has to do with your internet connection and speed. I have raced 16 ppl in a room with good internet connection and there was never any issue with Lag

you fail to realize that someone's connection might be okay if there is 8 people in a room but as soon as there's a larger amount, their connection starts to lag.

If Prone's horrible internet can take 16 player rooms then there is no excuse. We had lag last race for three reasons that I know of (Of the people I know were lagging) 1) Because some live across the pond. 2) Because there were three people were play from the same house. And 3) Strict NAT settings.

Can't really do anything about the guys across the pond (They hardy lag anyway.). The three RAFT guys that are in the same house was a big problem that I don't want to deal with again, but in their defense, that's the first time I've seen them lag like that. The last one is all on them. ***In my opinion*** if they can't work out the their NAT then they shouldn't race.

We shouldn't have to lessen our fun because of a couple of people.

Why don't we start right at 8 regardless of who is not there 10-15 min past the time is crazy.I know on y part it hard to make all the races nothing new there but I have to get up a 2 am and I wish we could start on time ,the real series never wait to start a race ......sn I left after waiting 15min to start and that room locked up.

Also Admin I know you have a lot on your plate but maybe we should everyone in rooms ready at 7:30 7:45 and do a quick run to check for lag and other issues just sayn....but I truly think rooms should be ready at 7:45 and there should never be any one starting 15 min after 8pm....if your not in your room at 8 then ohwell even myself.

Blahzay xxl wrote:

Also Admin I know you have a lot on your plate but maybe we should everyone in rooms ready at 7:30 7:45 and do a quick run to check for lag and other issues just sayn....but I truly think rooms should be ready at 7:45 and there should never be any one starting 15 min after 8pm....if your not in your room at 8 then ohwell even myself.

I have to agree with the waiting part it can get a little frustrating waiting for someone to make it and then not show up after you waited the 15 minutes.

Just an idea to tack on to what Blahzay said.....

Everyone has to be in the room for a "drivers meeting" at 7:45. The "drivers meeting" is actually a 1 lap positioning race where we finish in the order we are supposed to start the main event. If the room is set up based on lobby points, we all start where we are supposed to, and anyone who missed the drivers meeting is sent to the back of the field in their race room. Race starts at 8 and if you miss the race, so be it...extenuating circumstances aside (like getting booted from the room as we start the race).

Its a little extra pressure on the officials to make sure they are ready to go, but it might help keep things rolling. Just a thought.

snowman529 wrote:

Just an idea to tack on to what Blahzay said.....

Everyone has to be in the room for a "drivers meeting" at 7:45. The "drivers meeting" is actually a 1 lap positioning race where we finish in the order we are supposed to start the main event. If the room is set up based on lobby points, we all start where we are supposed to, and anyone who missed the drivers meeting is sent to the back of the field in their race room. Race starts at 8 and if you miss the race, so be it...extenuating circumstances aside (like getting booted from the room as we start the race).

Its a little extra pressure on the officials to make sure they are ready to go, but it might help keep things rolling. Just a thought.

I like this idea (as well as the other recommendations). It would certainly help to stabilize the pace laps.

Stabalizing the out laps and already having everyone in order would make things much easier for everyone.

Agreed. Yesterday and last week both, the room I was in had to restart more than once due to someone ramming someone else before turn 1 trying to get into position.

Tallon535 wrote:

Agreed. Yesterday and last week both, the room I was in had to restart more than once due to someone ramming someone else before turn 1 trying to get into position.

This leads to a pretty serious question. If drivers cannot drive slowly enough and clean enough to get into position how in the hell can you race at speeds clean?!?! I am baffled by the inability to simply stay left or right as someone moves to get in front of you or pass cleanly to gain your position during the out lap. I mean seriously?

As for the suggestions, I am completely open to both suggestions. I have no problem making the start time cut and dry for the most part. I think +5 minutes is acceptable. However, getting the room started and having the 1 lap 'race' to get folks in order is something we used to do and just went away from it. and the 'late' joiner would go to the rear of the room.

Admin wrote:

Tallon535 wrote:

Agreed. Yesterday and last week both, the room I was in had to restart more than once due to someone ramming someone else before turn 1 trying to get into position.

This leads to a pretty serious question. If drivers cannot drive slowly enough and clean enough to get into position how in the hell can you race at speeds clean?!?! I am baffled by the inability to simply stay left or right as someone moves to get in front of you or pass cleanly to gain your position during the out lap. I mean seriously?

As for the suggestions, I am completely open to both suggestions. I have no problem making the start time cut and dry for the most part. I think +5 minutes is acceptable. However, getting the room started and having the 1 lap 'race' to get folks in order is something we used to do and just went away from it. and the 'late' joiner would go to the rear of the room.

I really think standing starts are the best way to go, similair to the way FWC (can i mention them?) do them. Although there is a high chance of contact going into the first corner, that contact comes under racing conditions and not under a "formation" lap (in FWC ive never seen a big pile up, and if there is it can warrant a restart). Not to mention other aspects besides driver error can make someone get early damage when no one really made a mistake. If someone has to slow down for any reason when the cars are close, it cause a domino effect down the line of cars. When that happens, fault doesnt necessarily lie anywhere, it just comes with the nature of outlaps. Lag has also caused outlap issues as well.

Other than that the only other alternative is simple: the outlaps need to be slowed down. Accidents are going to happen if we keep doing outlaps as fast as we are, especially the way some people (Bimmer) yell at others to hurry up. All that does is fluster people (no one likes getting yelled at) and makes it more likely that mistakes will happen and people will run into the back of others. Be patient. We have an hour long race or more, you can wait to do a 5 minute outlap. I think that in order to get rid of the tendency to do a blazing fast outlap (and thus reduce the number of errors made) is to simply subtract the outlap time from racers overall time, which is easy to do (watch telemetry, when leader goes full throttle stop the replay. than basic math takes place).

I am not calculating time to subtract from an out lap. Not a chance. Now the real solution is a 1 lap run to get racers in grid order and then start the outlap in order and do as we always do. I will post this change soon for the room host to know.

Admin wrote:

I am not calculating time to subtract from an out lap. Not a chance. Now the real solution is a 1 lap run to get racers in grid order and then start the outlap in order and do as we always do. I will post this change soon for the room host to know.

This doesnt solve anything though. Half the incidents happen after everyone has already gotten into order anyways. Hell, we have problems in practice races when we DONT change our order on the outlap.

And why wouldnt you? The incidents happen because the outlaps are basically done at race pace. Their done at race pace because people know the outlaps arent subtracted from their overall race. You watch the replays anyways, i do not see why you wouldnt do the second grade level math involved in subtracting the outlap from the overall race time.

theres 2 fixes for this issue: Standing starts, and slowing down the outlaps (which only happens if they dont have the potential for changing the outcome of the race, which they currently do).

Standing starts are far superior to what we do here. It sounds good in theory, but Christ is it nerve wracking, and has gone wrong every time I've been in one so far. Not to mention, us slower people in the later rooms have less experienced people (myself included). I'm pretty sure we lose at least a minute because of the out lap (vs. room A) before the race has even technically started.

Slowing down the outlaps is precisely why there are wrecks. It's when people aren't used to going 100 mph into a corner vs 150. The faster the outlap is. The cleaner it will be THAT is why BIMMER and the rest of us want a "Hot" outlap.

Chenstrap wrote:

Admin wrote:

I am not calculating time to subtract from an out lap. Not a chance. Now the real solution is a 1 lap run to get racers in grid order and then start the outlap in order and do as we always do. I will post this change soon for the room host to know.

This doesnt solve anything though. Half the incidents happen after everyone has already gotten into order anyways. Hell, we have problems in practice races when we DONT change our order on the outlap.

And why wouldnt you? The incidents happen because the outlaps are basically done at race pace. Their done at race pace because people know the outlaps arent subtracted from their overall race. You watch the replays anyways, i do not see why you wouldnt do the second grade level math involved in subtracting the outlap from the overall race time.

theres 2 fixes for this issue: Standing starts, and slowing down the outlaps (which only happens if they dont have the potential for changing the outcome of the race, which they currently do).

I 100% agree with this

You guys aren't going to like what I have to say, but I'm going to say it:

#1: The outlap on Sunday:

If you see people over on the right to allow faster cars through and you are on the left wondering why the car starting ahead of you won't pass, you might be a raft-neck. And I'm getting really tired of the leader finally slowing down going into the final corner, expecting the entire 16 car field to catch up and then be perfectly in-line at 60 mph in 100 yards. Its just not going to happen. We should've been at 60 mph (which this pace speed needs to be regulated. Pick a speed Pred we should all abide by, it will stop some of the speed up/slow downs) entering the back straight, not having people starting in the middle guessing whether to maintain 90 or slow down to 60 without getting rear-ended or rear-ending someone else.

#2: Accidents:

First off, Chenstrap, I do apologize for blatantly hitting you. I messed up. I should've given more space being the first lap and I didn't. I don't want to make excuses for myself or the incident, but I'm going to: The field being so close at the beginning of these races, and having so many different PI'd cars (which unfortunately PI means POWER, NOT HANDLING) allows for less experienced guys to make up their lap-times on the straights and not the corners, not where they need the most help. That incident I believe was caused by cars taking that corner much, much slower. I know I can Apex that turn at 54 mph, and I'm sure Chen was doing 50 mph or less when I hit him, before the corner, hopefully by no fault of his own. Now, because I am so much lower on PI, I have to get everything I can out of the corners and braking zones because I stand absolutely no chance to keep up on the upcoming straight with anybody. When driver's who cannot take a corner consistently every lap have the ability to run the same (or faster) times its just very frustrating, and incidents are going to happen. I hit Chenstrap because I was trying to get too much knowing I didn't have a chance to stay with him if I didn't stay in his draft.

#3: Lag/Mic's

Pred, your mic is annoying, but you do a good job in keeping it muted knowing you will interfere with the concentration of others if you left it unmuted. It is so unprofessional and discourteous of some of these guys to race with long standing echo's and unbelievable amounts of static and whatever else I heard on Sunday.

As far as those of you who Lag: You know who you are. You know you Lag every race. You somehow think that its going to miraculously fix itself before every race and you won't cause a problem. When every car around you is moving around, sometimes you must look inside and spend another $30 a month on decent internet. I'm really getting tired of having to slow down not because I can't pass someone because of their car but because of their internet. And because you don't pay for it with your ISP, I pay for it with Championship points. Do the decent thing like some and sit at the back of the room and make your time up on having a car capable of running fast times without close racing required.

My 13.5 cents. I'm looking forward to the Alps though, I swear.

SSRT Pronebird wrote:

Slowing down the outlaps is precisely why there are wrecks. It's when people aren't used to going 100 mph into a corner vs 150. The faster the outlap is. The cleaner it will be THAT is why BIMMER and the rest of us want a "Hot" outlap.

If we run the outlaps slower and keep people spread out the chances for contact will go down. NTM the faster youre going the higher damage you get if you run into someone. if we run a slow outlap and keep people spread out, contact in general is less likely to happen simply due to slow closing speeds, and if it does it is less likely to be severe enough to warrant a restart. Plus, a slower outlap can make lag less of an issue on the outlap.

Spurtle wrote:

You guys aren't going to like what I have to say, but I'm going to say it:

#1: The outlap on Sunday:

If you see people over on the right to allow faster cars through and you are on the left wondering why the car starting ahead of you won't pass, you might be a raft-neck. And I'm getting really tired of the leader finally slowing down going into the final corner, expecting the entire 16 car field to catch up and then be perfectly in-line at 60 mph in 100 yards. Its just not going to happen. We should've been at 60 mph (which this pace speed needs to be regulated. Pick a speed Pred we should all abide by, it will stop some of the speed up/slow downs) entering the back straight, not having people starting in the middle guessing whether to maintain 90 or slow down to 60 without getting rear-ended or rear-ending someone else.

#2: Accidents:

First off, Chenstrap, I do apologize for blatantly hitting you. I messed up. I should've given more space being the first lap and I didn't. I don't want to make excuses for myself or the incident, but I'm going to: The field being so close at the beginning of these races, and having so many different PI'd cars (which unfortunately PI means POWER, NOT HANDLING) allows for less experienced guys to make up their lap-times on the straights and not the corners, not where they need the most help. That incident I believe was caused by cars taking that corner much, much slower. I know I can Apex that turn at 54 mph, and I'm sure Chen was doing 50 mph or less when I hit him, before the corner, hopefully by no fault of his own. Now, because I am so much lower on PI, I have to get everything I can out of the corners and braking zones because I stand absolutely no chance to keep up on the upcoming straight with anybody. When driver's who cannot take a corner consistently every lap have the ability to run the same (or faster) times its just very frustrating, and incidents are going to happen. I hit Chenstrap because I was trying to get too much knowing I didn't have a chance to stay with him if I didn't stay in his draft.

#3: Lag/Mic's

Pred, your mic is annoying, but you do a good job in keeping it muted knowing you will interfere with the concentration of others if you left it unmuted. It is so unprofessional and discourteous of some of these guys to race with long standing echo's and unbelievable amounts of static and whatever else I heard on Sunday.

As far as those of you who Lag: You know who you are. You know you Lag every race. You somehow think that its going to miraculously fix itself before every race and you won't cause a problem. When every car around you is moving around, sometimes you must look inside and spend another $30 a month on decent internet. I'm really getting tired of having to slow down not because I can't pass someone because of their car but because of their internet. And because you don't pay for it with your ISP, I pay for it with Championship points. Do the decent thing like some and sit at the back of the room and make your time up on having a car capable of running fast times without close racing required.

My 13.5 cents. I'm looking forward to the Alps though, I swear.

Only thing i disagree with is i always take the first lap very conservative and take turns slower than i have the ability simply to help avoid accident due to the close proximity. I broke early and you misjudged.

I agree with your take on the way PI is set up. Helping on straightaways does nothing but make people way to frustrating to pass.

My 2.5 Cents: No standing starts. They usually lead to more carnage unless we do a time delay and that I am not interested in. We do rolling starts because ALMS does rolling starts. Now YES I know they have a pace car etc etc. we do not. So at this point the FIRST solution is a 1 lap run to get people to finish in order. Then on the outlap all it will take is for people to be sensible enough to keep a SAFE distance from the car in front of you. The outlap should be a decent pace. EVERYONE simply needs to understand the outlap is not a race but just a chance to warm the tires up a bit and get yourself ready for the race to come.

I think the solution is practice practice practice the outlap every practice race and the 'rookies' will get better at going slow until it’s time to go fast.

As for the PI adjustments...Watch the replays. There is no huge speed advantage on the back straight or front straight the higher PI cars are not leaps and bounds faster. Surprisingly I see cars keep almost the same distance on both straight aways. I am not saying they are not faster I am simply saying it is not such a huge difference. I do feel sebring does accentuate this though because it has long straights that end in some heavy braking areas and not many flowing corners that racers have to set up for and exit to maximize speed. Sebring is in the books time to look forward to some track that will require a bit more finesse, handling and skill.

Admin wrote:

My 2.5 Cents. No standing starts. They usually lead to more carnage unless we do a time delay and that I am not interested in. We do rolling starts because ALMS does rolling starts. Now YES I know they have a pace car etc etc. we do not. So at this point the FIRST solution is a 1 lap run to get people to finish in order. Then on the outlap all it will take is for people to be sensible enough to keep a SAFE distance from the car in front of you. The outlap should be a decent pace. EVERYONE simply needs to understand the outlap is not a race but just a chance to warm the tires up a bit and get yourself ready for the race to come.

I think the solution is practice practice practice the outlap every practice race and the 'rookies' will get better at going slow until its time to go fast.

We use standing starts in Wilkersons league and there are LESS issues on the start.

His league is more based off of Speed World Challenge or Pirelli World Challenge as it is Called these days where they do standing starts.

We are more based off of ALMS GT class where rolling starts is how it goes down. It is not the rolling start that is the problem it is the execution of it that creates the problem.

Trust me There are more 1st corner crashes with Standing starts then with rolling. I watch every World Challenge race every year since like 1995 or something. If you just use this year as an example they had some crashes that took out 5-10 cars in one whop on the first turn of the first lap. Cars would be like crashing on top of one another. Just carnage. ALMS has had no such problems. What WE need to do is just get better at not crashing on a simple out lap! THAT is the solution. Its not hard, it should be easier we are not at 'racing' speeds. Just keep safe distance and as we get a few corners away from the front straight we just simply slow it down to a safe manageable speed so everyone can get in a line with 100 to 200 ft distance per car and then GO GO GO. It just takes a bit of discipline.