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dosbox for Mac

A tangent: our Stunts tools are unfortunately lacking when it comes to macOS coverage, as the toolmakers among us typically don't have a Mac available for testing or building binaries. CarEdit and several of Cas' tools have DOS builds at least, so they can be ran on DOSBox as a fallback.

And now, something optional: since you're remaking your DOSBox setup, consider switching to DOSBox Staging, which offers a number of nice quality-of-life improvements over vanilla DOSBox (for instance: correct aspect ratio by default; tasteful CRT filters; integrated MT-32 emulation; improved controller support).

I've updated the rules for 2025 with a first draft, have I missed anything?

I think the only thing missing is carryover. Something like this:

• Pipsqueaks who get less than 1 bonus point in a race carry unused hours to the next one. E.g. if you get 100 leading hours in a race, you'll start the next one with 100 leading hours; if you get 200 leading hours instead, you'll bring 68 to the next race, as the other 132 earned you PTB +0.5.

BTW, it's a good occasion to settle what we're going to do about cross-season carryover. More specifically:

• Confirm whether we're eliminating it for future seasons (IMO we should get rid of it); and
• Decide what to do, on an exceptional basis, with the carryover leading hours from 2024 (I think it could make sense to convert them to the new system, in order to honour any expectations from the previous rules).

Can anyone generate side images for the Camaro, Diablo VT, and Oxia? 🙏

Generated and uploaded

Ooh, the track and the cars are up!  I'll get the new car side pics ASAP.

I see your point, but I am not sure on two issues. First, how representative is "default" for a Zakstunts track? Second, could it be that low grip cars benefit more from replay handling than high grip cars?

Default is a mid-speed track. There are faster tracks, in which top speed matters more, but also slower ones, in which things like low-speed maneuverability or grass driving matter more. I feel a Default test is sensible enough as a quick way of getting a rough estimate for the sake of setting initial values for new cars (something for which you don't need more than 2% precision anyway).

On RH benefiting low grip cars more, there's no hard evidence either way, but I'm skeptical. If anything, I'd guess that high grip cars benefit more because there's more margin for improvement in cornering speeds.

You of course can set the custom adjustments for your own track -- cc @dreadnaut .

On the other questions: the Oxia has grip similar to the F40, while the handling of the Mercedes is much closer to the IMSA cars (though the driving feel is different because of the length difference). The Oxia has better brakes, roughly in tandem with the straight line performance difference.

I think the value for the Oxia is too high. Yes, it has a little less grip than the Mercedes but has faster acceleration and a higher top speed. I wouldn't be surprised if the Oxia beats the Mercedes on most tracks if they have equal bonuses. Given the other numbers, I would suggest +2 as a starting bonus for the Oxia. 

The grip advantage of the Mercedes is very significant. I have done the "standard" test on Default with both cars, and the Oxia is slightly slower, with the difference in the order of one second. That being so, a difference of 1-2% in favour of the Oxia is reasonable as a starting value.

It looks like I'll be flying solo this season. Let's see if I can keep up with team play

@Stingray , who used to run Traction Faction, said he's making a comeback this season. Perhaps you two could refound it, or start a new team? Persuade one of the free agents to join, and you'd have a strong spine of a squad.

Any offers for the January track?

While I have a couple track ideas to work with, if we're starting today (and not on the 19th) I won't be able to get them ready in a timely way. @Argammon 's offer looks like a better one if we need an emergency solution.

Here is the end of season update of the rankings! Four pipsqueaks attained a personal best in the final round: Argammon, Mortimer, Spoonboy and me. ZCT281 also saw Akoss Poo and Daniel3D back to the rankings. Here is the evolution graph covering the whole year of 2024:

These are the coefficients I'd suggest for my second list:



The approach was the same from last year: start from the bonuses after ZCT281, guess neutral to slightly favourable bonuses for the new and returning cars, then tweak the values to keep the total sum at 176. The spreadsheet is attached for trying it with different cars or adjustments.

I wouldn't mind leaving the rules as they are with respect to the cars. Were we to follow your proposal, I would suggest giving the 11% penalty to cars that won 2 or more races in the previous season. This would hit the Jaguar and the Indy in the current situation.

I don't mind sticking with 11 + 5 for 2025 either; that was mostly brainstorming about things we might do in a future season. Targeting cars that win multiple races could lead to a vicious circle, in which split podiums and surprise wins bounce away the same car repeatedly. A rigid cycle seems less risky in this aspect, and the results shouldn't be too different, at least for the first several seasons, if cars with weak bonuses are the first to be targeted. (For instance, going by my criteria Indy and Jaguar would be the current picks as well.)

Interesting proposal. Leaving original cars out was not something I was going to suggest, but I'm also not against it. It could lead to a more balanced field of cars. And this distinction between PG cars and others does make sense.

An alternative to outright leaving out a pair of original cars each season would be giving them a -11% penalty, effectively pushing them back one year in the rotation. That way, while they would most likely be uncompetitive for the season, people would still be able to race them for fun and have it show on the scoreboard. The 22 subtracted points could be redistributed by adding +1% to the other sixteen cars (assuming two additional custom cars would be included) and spreading the remaining six points across newly introduced or reintroduced custom cars (whose initial percentages have a fudge factor anyway). The selection of the cars to be penalised could be done as in my earlier suggestion (one PG and one non-PG, going through all original cars on a strict rotation with periods of four years and seven years respectively, prioritising cars with weak bonuses whenever feasible).

Personally, I prefer voting at the end of the race, because my opinion about a track often evolves through the month. However, I see why others might prefer otherwise, and making the voting more flexible seems okay to me. Mostly, I feel there's no need to overthink what is at heart a simple poll meant to celebrate track designing.

Increasing the number of cars per season would have systemic effects that should be accounted for. Here are some of them, in decreasing order of how likely I think they are to become a problem:

• We already have more cars than tracks in a season. As things stand, custom cars have a fair chance of being featured in the season they are introduced (number of custom cars that won races in the past five seasons: 3, 3, 2, 4 and 4). An increase in the number of available cars could make it much harder for each individual one, cancelling out the intended effect of the change.
• More cars per season means more ambiguity and more time required for exploring the possibilities, which in a way would increase the difficulty of the competition.
• Additional cars would lead to more bonus points being redistributed after each race, pulling the bonuses further apart from each other, which in the long run leads to fewer multi-car races. That might not be a big problem in this case, though, as the effect of an extra two or four points being redistributed could well be quite modest.

If we were to remove a couple of original cars for a year, which one would you pick?

Always on a rotating schedule, as none of the original cars deserves an extended ban:

• One of the four powergear cars, to ease the PG pressure on track designers, going through all of them in a four-year cycle;
• One among the seven other cars. For this pick, prioritise cars with low bonuses relative to their balanced values, so that ideally the excluded car would be unlikely to feature in the season anyway, and go through all possibilities in a seven-year cycle. When it's time to bring back this non-PG car, it could make sense to do so with +12% on the coefficient it had at the time it was excluded.

@Cas With respect to the votes, it might help to set a scale for yourself in advance. For instance, my personal default rating for an enjoyable track is 3, very good ones get a 4, and 5 is reserved for obvious "instant classic" status (typically not more than one per season). Also, you can look at your past votes in the tracks page. All that said, I do agree with dreadnaut on this being a subjective vote 

It'd be better to be able to vote for a track during the race and change your vote any time you want until the race is over or something like that.

Mmmh, maybe that's something that I can make work 🤔

One possibility: allowing to vote (and change your vote) from the scoreboard page, from the moment you send your first replay on the track to the end of the year. The invitation to vote on the front page could either remain as it is (pointing to the most recently completed track), or show the oldest track you have raced and not voted on.

Not a favorite, but quite an interesting one: when Honda CR-Z spends a drunk night with a Lamborghini... 

That's a cool concept indeed. To me, it brings to mind a Lamborghini Espada.