Messages

Chromosome disorder

I am a bit late to the party, but here is mine: 

1. Duplode -correct-
2. Argammon -correct-
3. Alanrotoi -correct-
4. Frieshansen -correct-
5. Spoonboy -nearly correct-
6. Akoss Poo -very incorrect-
7. Mortimer McMire -correct-
8. Zapper -nearly correct-
9. Overdrijf -nearly correct-
10. Ryoma -incorrect (2 places)-
11. Erik Barros -correct-
12. Dreadnaut -incorrect (2 places)

I think I won the prediction game at least. 

I am a bit late to the party, but here is mine: 

1. Duplode
2. Argammon
3. Alanrotoi
4. Frieshansen
5. Spoonboy
6. Akoss Poo
7. Mortimer McMire
8. Zapper
9. Overdrijf
10. Ryoma
11. Erik Barros
12. Dreadnaut

I like the system suggested by @Duplode above.

@alanrotoi: Duplode's system is better for the sub-top pipsqueaks than the current one without a doubt. One way of going even more in that direction would be to reduce the weights from (1,2,3,5,8,13) to (1,2,3,4,5,6).

Advantage of the change: The sub-top pipsqueaks need less hours to get points.
Disadvantage of the change: When the weights are close, the top pipsqueaks have less of an incentive to try to take the lead because sitting in 3rd position may be good enough.

Which of the two (advantage vs disadvantage) should we put more weight on?

CTG used at Unskilled Stunts 'Podium time bonus', if I remember well.

Btw, that will only interest people who favorize collecting as much points as possible to finish as high as possible in Season's Standings. For those who focus on winning as many races as possible, it will not lure out replays or times.

I think this is a valid point, but it applies to the current leading-time system as well, perhaps even more so. Taking myself as an example, I am not going to participate in the leading-time fight next season should the system remain unchanged. Having a job and a family makes it difficult (and exhausting) to compete for the top spot for an entire month, particularly if the opponent is a motivated top pipsqueak like @Duplode or @alanrotoi. On the contrary, I am much more willing to submit a replay if I find it likely that it is good enough to stay in the top 6 for a while.

But as you pointed out, all of this is only relevant if you care about the season's standing at all.

[partial carryover]

[...] The alternative, then, would be some form of partial carryover, not unlike what we have in the current LTB system. For instance, we might make it so that excess hours only carry over if the pipsqueak hasn't attained 1 whole point in the race. That could bring two significant advantages, at least from my point of view:

• Firstly, much of the tactical richness of the current LTB system would be restored. Partial carryover is, IMO, the secret sauce of the current system, given how it introduces a qualitative difference between LTB +1, for which you can rely on carryover, and LTB +2, for which you must buckle down and sort it out before the deadline.
• Secondly, it would reduce the total amount of points being distributed, specially at the very top, which means less risk of unbalancing the season scoreboard.

When doing partial carryover in this way, some care might be needed to avoid weird edge cases. For instance, if there were fixed steps of 1 point, someone who earns 0.8 "credit" in a race (say, by leading for a some time early in the race and then spending most of the remaining hours in 3rd and 4th places) might get to 1 point very quickly in the next race, and then spend the rest of it outside of any PTB fight unless they make a serious push for the lead. However, I think mixing step sizes, as suggested above, would make that much less of a problem in practice.

I like this suggestion. To keep it simple, I would prefer to keep this part identical to the present system, meaning pipsqueaks earn full leading-time points and stunts hours beyond 280 do not carry over to the next race. To make it a bit more realistic to gain 2 points, one may say that 240 stunts hours are enough per point. This way, the new system remains "spicy" like the present system but also makes it easier for midfield pipsqueaks to gain some leading-time points.

I am not too concerned about the edge case you are describing (a pipsqueak earned 0.8 * 240 = 192 stunts hours). In such a scenario, one of the midfield pipsqueaks would have an opportunity to gain some valuable hours since one of the usual suspects is out of contention for a month.

@Duplode:

Yes, the systems are mathematically identical if, using my terminology, you need 14 stunts hour for 0.05 points. The difference is indeed how it is displayed:

Let's consider the following screnario:

"Within a race, however, hours are transferred between positions when the scoreboard changes. For instance, if a pipsqueak spends 72 hours in fifth place (out of 112 needed to get 0.05 at that position) and then moves up to second, those hours are converted to 72 × 2 / 8 = 18 hours, and so they will only need 10 hours in second place (instead of 28) to get the next 0.05. Internally, that could be implemented by tracking the fraction of "credit" earned towards the next 0.05, or by incrementing a counter every hour according to the proportions shown above. (How to display that information to pipsqueaks is a different matter, which I'll get to in a moment.)"

Using my terminology the pipsqueak spent 72 real hours to earn 9 stunts hours. Hence, they need 5 more stunts hours to obtain 0.05 points or equivalently 10 real hours in second place. As far as I see it, it would be sufficient to display the number of stunts hours obtained behind each pipsqueak's name.

I will chime in on the discussion about a "chunkier" system in a separate post.

[The modified proposal]

This is a very detailed and thoughtful proposal and definitely a considerable improvement over the current system. I like the system per se but find the 0.05 steps somewhat arbitrary and to quote what @Chulk wrote on Telegram: "[...] I am not entirely convinced of the way to show progress, but I can't think of [...] a better proposal."

The modified proposal

• Everyone gets 1 point after 280 hours (or 0.5 points after 140 hours)
• The second place accumulates minutes at half the speed of the first place, and so on, with the sixth place accumulating minutes at 1/13 of the speed of the first place. So, the second place needs 2 real minutes to gain 1 stunts minute.

The benefit

Progress can always be displayed in a simple way:

- Argammon: 60 stunts hours 20 minutes
- Duplode: 200 stunts hours 0 minutes
- Spoonboy: 70 stunts hours 13 minutes

Considering the pipsqueak Duplode, and remembering that all pipsqueaks need 280 stunts hours to gain 1 point, Duplode knows that he needs 80 hours in first place, 160 hours in second place, etc., or a combination, to obtain one bonus point.

Under this proposal, since everything is measured in stunts minutes, there's no need for conversion when pipsqueaks change positions. For example, if a pipsqueak spends 130 real minutes in 6th place, they accumulate 10 stunts minutes. When they switch to 1st place, they still have those 10 stunts minutes and will continue to accumulate additional stunts minutes at a faster rate.

I think the tie-break rules should work as described on the Zakstunts page, at least for this season. For the next season "SUM" is an alternative for the first tie breaker to award consistency/effort. However, I am also fine with having number of wins as the first tie breaker.

I would also suggest that the rules explicitly state that a pipsqueak cannot get more than two leading-time points. I wasn't aware of this last month and thought Alanrotoi should have gotten three points. However, Duplode and Alanrotoi reminded me of the fact there was a precedent, so it seems fine to only award Alanrotoi two points. However, given that the rule exists, I do not see a reason why it is not written down.

As an alternative, the continuous variable could measure the percentage of time the car has spent in power gear on a given lap. For the Corvette/GTO/Indy a speed above 225mmph (230?) may be a good proxy for that. So, for example, if the GTO drove faster than 225mph for 1 minute on a 2-minute track the variable takes a value of 0.5.

This should not be difficult because cartography measures the speed continuously anyhow, or does it? 

Great Work!

I think it would be cool to make all cars start with their balanced bonuses in January 2025. The scoreboard would surely look interesting. 

I thought I would share the concrete line we were discussing on Telegram. This line only makes sense with a PG car. The issue described by Duplode arises because the car technically switches from one path to the other when next to the dirt road. However as has been pointed out this path would also be valid if the second path did not exist. 

You cannot view this attachment.

Thanks! We already had a Stratos and a LM002 race. So why not +10 F40 -10 Indy? 

You cannot view this attachment.

And here is the promised teaser! 

Any suggestions for car bonuses?

This is the thread for ZCT274 Mirage, which I have just submitted to dreadnaut. I am posting this thread early so that you guys do not have to worry that I forgot making a track due to me being inactive otherwise.

I will post some teasers later this month so as not to distract you from exploring ZCT273 Kelvin.