Stunts Forum

Daniel's Stunts Initiative => General Chat - DSI => Topic started by: Daniel3D on May 14, 2022, 11:56:30 PM

Title: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on May 14, 2022, 11:56:30 PM
Quote from: Cas on May 14, 2022, 12:41:21 AM
Oh!  So I see that right now there's 5:00am running there, but the current lap time is 3:20, so I wonder if it's OK for us to post replays already or if you guys are still testing. Just let us know
Yes. We are ready for pipsqueaks to fill the scoreboard.
The track is not really made for the rule set. But that is ok.
I am curious to see how the rules can be bent with this track.
For those that want a challenge, here is one. Try the rules.
What are the weak spots and can we fix that with track design?


I chose this track for its length and difficulty. That is what i'm aiming for.
Quite a bit longer than a standard ZakStunts track, but a bit easier to drive.
Let's see how that goes.

I'll add the rules here.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Ryoma on May 15, 2022, 06:55:56 AM
No BoP for cars ?
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on May 15, 2022, 09:28:24 AM
Quote from: Ryoma on May 15, 2022, 06:55:56 AM
No BoP for cars ?
No. Every race  will have a different selection of cars.
This group was selected for convenience so a bit of a mixed bunch. Next races the selection will be more balanced (in theory). So bop by selection.

We are now in the playtest phase.
The more entries by players the better.
Every time you send will stay on the scoreboard unless an admin removes them.

When the board fills I will keep the best time with each car per player.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Duplode on June 04, 2022, 12:16:24 AM
Ouch, I ended up missing the first round. I thought I'd manage to post something yesterday evening, but the race was already finished on the site when I got to log in. I'll make sure to show up for the next race!
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on June 04, 2022, 06:40:20 AM
Hahaha. That's fine.
Last race was a tutorial race anyway.
Nothing to gain but a feel of the concept.
Nothing to lose either.

Next race it really starts.
8)
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on June 04, 2022, 11:55:46 AM
Quote from: Duplode on June 04, 2022, 12:16:24 AM
Ouch, I ended up missing the first round. I thought I'd manage to post something yesterday evening, but the race was already finished on the site when I got to log in. I'll make sure to show up for the next race!
Maybe a countdown timer is a good thing here to.
I don't really know what timezone it uses  ???

There are a lot of little things to get right. But the best way to do that is to start racing and see what happens.
So thanks for this little piece of valuable feedback.

For statistic purposes, I will try to get 6 real races this year. The first one will start Monday.
Every race will start the first Monday of the month. December will not have a race if all goes well.
During the pause the new (hopefully permanent) site will be setup.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Duplode on June 04, 2022, 06:41:30 PM
Quote from: Daniel3D on June 04, 2022, 11:55:46 AM
Maybe a countdown timer is a good thing here to.
I don't really know what timezone it uses  ???

Either a countdown or mentioning the end time would help. For the latter, I'd suggest "2022-06-02 23:59:59 GMT-3" for a midnight deadline, as what tends to trip me up is figuring out which side of midnight the final day is.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on June 04, 2022, 07:53:44 PM
I've never set a time zone for the site (never occurred to me).
I expect it to be GMT+3. But the server is down under. So I gonna have to check...
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: KyLiE on June 05, 2022, 09:14:42 AM
Quote from: Daniel3D on June 04, 2022, 07:53:44 PM
I've never set a time zone for the site

The time zone for the site is UTC.  This is specific to EasyTour as the server time zone is UTC+10:00.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on June 05, 2022, 10:44:26 AM
Quote from: KyLiE on June 05, 2022, 09:14:42 AM
Quote from: Daniel3D on June 04, 2022, 07:53:44 PM
I've never set a time zone for the site

The time zone for the site is UTC.  This is specific to EasyTour as the server time zone is UTC+10:00.
I can probably set the time then somewhere. I'll have a look. I think it's smart to match the timezone to zakstunts.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on June 05, 2022, 10:52:20 AM
Tomorrow the new race stars.
Today I will setup the race with the new downloads.

I updated the game package with the updated simple garage.
It still has a old version of bliss, just as an alternative track editor.

The new carpack is already setup in the new download. The provided carpack needs the updated simple garage. So there is a bit of a continuity error there.

Zakstunts car's are in the garage, can be easily setup via the prepare cars option in the menu.

This is the race to test my competition concept.

Best of luck to you all.

Alanrotoi and Daniel3D

Thanks to.
CAS and KyLiE
For the support.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: alanrotoi on June 05, 2022, 03:31:32 PM
Also a feedback would make us work better. About the site, the system, the track, the cars. It's not only fill the scoreboard, a competition is about improving and winning. An extra challenge is trying cars from the pack, looking and comparing the differences learning about them. We have a large number of custom cars and it's time to take advantage of them. Let the Custom Car Championship begin  8)
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on June 05, 2022, 03:33:32 PM
If you want to race with the provided stunts version.
I recommend starting with menu.bat but stunts.bat directly starts the game.

In the menu the option prepare cars will bring you a carpack menu. It has a couple of actions scripted for your convenience.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on June 06, 2022, 09:57:29 AM
Quote from: Duplode on June 04, 2022, 12:16:24 AM
Ouch, I ended up missing the first round. I thought I'd manage to post something yesterday evening, but the race was already finished on the site when I got to log in. I'll make sure to show up for the next race!
It was not your fault. It turns out that the end date is not included in the code. So the 3rd of June was locked because it closed at the turn from 2nd to 3rd.

This will be changed in a future update. [EDIT: This has been fixed June 9th]
For now, I've added the time and timezone to the date,
So Sunday the 26th is the final day of this round
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on October 31, 2022, 11:53:05 AM
Alright. time for some thoughts.
Feel free to contribute.

OK. First off. I made mistakes. Things I planed out do not work that way in practice.
So for the future contests I'll change some things, Namely:

In the beginning i tried to make CarPacks that were close together. This makes it possible for a good driver to get a lot of points, and that is not fun. Also, the cars all feel kinda the same. That is also not really fun.. In the October race, I tried a bigger scope in performance that resulted in a more diverse scoreboard and was more fun to drive because the cars were so different.

Smaller car packs make it more fun to drive them all. Maybe if it gets more popular, ill make bigger packs so there are more points in game. But for now 5 or 6 cars is good.

My first race (lancia) was a nice experiment, but not a good start. It was kinda boring and to many cars.

Thats it for now,
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: KyLiE on November 01, 2022, 01:24:28 PM
After participating in every race since the start, here is my honest feedback:


Also, I've seen similar comments to this a few times:

Quote from: Daniel3D on October 31, 2022, 11:53:05 AMThis makes it possible for a good driver to get a lot of points, and that is not fun.

How is that not fun?  I would expect a good driver to get a lot of points in any competition.  Regardless of the changes you make, good drivers will always rise to the top of the scoreboard.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on November 01, 2022, 01:38:39 PM
Quote from: KyLiE on November 01, 2022, 01:24:28 PMAlso, I've seen similar comments to this a few times:

Quote from: Daniel3D on October 31, 2022, 11:53:05 AMThis makes it possible for a good driver to get a lot of points, and that is not fun.

How is that not fun?  I would expect a good driver to get a lot of points in any competition.  Regardless of the changes you make, good drivers will always rise to the top of the scoreboard.
I meant that it's not fun if you can take 60% of the points every time. Nobody has a chance to compete.
The best driver will always win (in theory) but its more fun if there is a smaller difference. Like last race.
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: alanrotoi on November 02, 2022, 05:13:07 AM
Aham... And the new track?
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on November 02, 2022, 07:45:03 AM
Quote from: alanrotoi on November 02, 2022, 05:13:07 AMAham... And the new track?
First Monday of the month.  8)
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: alanrotoi on November 02, 2022, 12:30:00 PM
Oh! Right, it was 31th last monday :D
Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on November 03, 2022, 10:05:52 AM
Quote from: KyLiE on November 01, 2022, 01:24:28 PM
  • I think you should limit the cars to 2-3 per race.  The races where I only drove the cars that I enjoyed driving or thought were the fastest were the most fun, whereas the races where I drove the entire pack felt more like a chore.

I agree that the packs were too big. And with no clear faster or slower car, it was kind of mandatory to drive all cars to be sure of points. Also, the cars were very similar that gave me the feeling of having to do the same thing over again as well.

So next season will have smaller packs of 4 to 6 cars. And more distinction to them. You can choose to drive only the fast 3 for the top points or drive all if you like them. The advantage of driving them all is smaller next season because of the smaller packs.

Quote from: KyLiE on November 01, 2022, 01:24:28 PM
  • The scoring system is complicated and combined with the fact that there is no easy way to see how you are doing makes the whole experience less engaging.  I know that a lot of this is due to the limitations of EasyTour, but it's something to think about.

I agree that the scoring system is a bit complicated. But not more so than the LTB system.
I am looking at ways to make it more visually clear. I will try to make time to discuss this with CAS when he is here 12 days from now. Since he has to code it  8)

In general. I have a project that needs to be finished, so I can make more time for this. And it is overdue. I really hope that will be done in the coming months.


Title: Re: And the custom cars championship is started.
Post by: Daniel3D on November 03, 2022, 10:10:55 AM
Quote from: KyLiE on November 01, 2022, 01:24:28 PMThe rules work well.  Obviously you will need to add details as issues arise, but I think you should continue with the current set of rules as a base.

Thank you. I also really feel that it is a fair and balanced set. I did add a rule that was kind of obvious to me, but I felt the need to add it after watching a Zakstunts replay a realized that it may not be that obvious.

QuoteThe finish line is also a checkpoint,
Finishing by passing outside the poles or
over the banner is not considered a legal finish.