Recent posts

#81

Custom Cars with Stressed / Re: Compatibility issue

Last post by Matei - October 03, 2025, 09:13:14 AM

Then why don't you just use C? My chess game, for instance, works everywhere, including in (Free)DOS:

https://matei.one/idxchess.html

SDL doesn't have support for DOS, btw.

#82

Competition 2025 / Re: Cars and rules for 2026

Last post by Duplode - October 03, 2025, 04:10:17 AM

It would be an easy fix to either remove carryover altogether or to allow carryover for all hours. As hinted at  by @dreadnaut and @Duplode this would remove the strategic metagame almost entirely. In particular if all hours carry over one could as well just track the total position time over the whole season.

Indeed. A full removal of carryover is something I don't see happening, as it would make the system unrewarding for the lower positions, which were arguably the main motivation for the change from LTB to PTB. Unrestricted carryover is somewhat more feasible, but it would dull the tactical aspects of the system.

I think exploits are possible if you look at a single pipsqueak. But when you have a system of competing pipsqueaks, connivance notwithstanding, efforts balance out to avoid the extremes.

And because the "exploit" is publicly visible, it becomes part of the stregic game: "it looks like someone is holding back, ah, let me ruin their plan by doing this other thing!"

It's worth expanding on this point with reference to the concrete system. Under the current rules, if you have reached PTB +1 but have no path to PTB +2 within the current race, any further PTB chasing you might engage in is, in principle, only for the sake of fun and entertainment, and as far as the season scoreboard goes you are free to relax. On the one hand, that potentially makes PTB battles less exciting than they might otherwise be. On the other hand, one of the complaints about the 2020-2024 LTB system was that the lead battles were getting too intense for the involved pipsqueaks, so maybe there's an upside to a bit of relaxation!

In the above, I have said "in principle" because there's at least one exception: if your opponent can reach PTB +2 in the current race, stopping them from doing so is a big incentive to stay on the PTB fight! To some extent, that applies even to PTB +1: if, over a pair of races, you can turn your opponent's +1 and +1 to +0.5 with carryover and +1, that's half a point taken away. (PTB +1 is, of course, harder to prevent than PTB +2; nonetheless, such a scenario can realistically happen if, for instance, your opponent joins the PTB fight later in the race, or if you're battling over the lower PTB positions.)


For the moment, my favourite way to address the wrinkle, if we were to address it, would be something @HerrNove suggested many months ago: add one more intermediate PTB goal before the final one. In the context of the current system, that would be PTB +1.5 at 396 hours, with no carryover from the 264-396 hours range. While this wouldn't actually remove the wrinkle (that would require eliminating partial carryover, a change with its own downsides, as noted at the beginning), it would give pipsqueaks who consistently reach 300+ hours per race a goal more attainable than PTB +2 with which to counter an opponent who attempts the tick-tock strategy we've been speculating about.

Adding PTB +1.5, though, would be a significant change, which would likely call for further adjustments in order to preserve the balance of the system. For that reason, I lean towards keeping the system more or less like it currently is for 2026, and then, with a further season of practical experience and observed scenarios to analyse, consider the merits of a bigger revision for 2027.

#83

Competition 2025 / Re: ZCT291 - The Fjords

Last post by Duplode - October 03, 2025, 12:12:38 AM

The balance is awesome indeed. I have no clue about which car will come up on top!

#84

Custom Cars with Stressed / Re: Compatibility issue

Last post by Duplode - October 03, 2025, 12:09:58 AM

So where's the problem?

-fvia-c isn't really a practical option for compiling one's everyday programs. See https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/latest/docs/users_guide/codegens.html#c-code-generator-fvia-c :

This is the oldest code generator in GHC and is generally not included any more having been deprecated around GHC 7.0. Select it with the -fvia-C flag.

The C code generator is only supported when GHC is built in unregisterised mode, a mode where GHC produces "portable" C code as output to facilitate porting GHC itself to a new platform. This mode produces much slower code though so it's unlikely your version of GHC was built this way. If it has then the native code generator probably won't be available. You can check this information by calling ghc --info (see --info).

#85

Competition 2025 / Re: ZCT291 - The Fjords

Last post by HerrNove - October 02, 2025, 10:42:33 AM

Looking at the leaderboard now it's awesome how well calibrated the car balance is. Not sure how the Diablo manages to be so competitive vs the Lotus despite lacking the special grip values of the latter, but the chronometer does not lie 

[and to ANSI C]

#86

Custom Cars with Stressed / Re: Compatibility issue

Last post by Matei - October 02, 2025, 10:00:34 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell

The Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) compiles to native code on many different processor architectures, and to ANSI C, via one of two intermediate languages: C--, or in more recent versions, LLVM (formerly Low Level Virtual Machine) bitcode.

So where's the problem?

#87

Custom Cars with Stressed / Re: Compatibility issue

Last post by Duplode - October 01, 2025, 11:15:17 PM

@stanceboyCZ At the moment, which tool or tools you'd like to have a 32-bit executable, so that we can look into preparing it?

(For my tools in particular, I haven't been making 32-bit binaries because I no longer use 32-bit systems, and also because some relevant toolchains are gradually dropping 32-bit support. Still, I could try to work it out using a VM or some such.)

#88

Custom Cars with Stressed / Re: Compatibility issue

Last post by Matei - September 30, 2025, 05:39:13 PM

I have 32-bit tools:

https://matei.one/idxscr.html

Besides the games, there's a  program for viewing tracks from Stunts in simcarstunts-6.0.4.tar.gz. I always compile the versions for wind0w$ with Open Watcom 1.9, so they are 32-bit. I still recommend that you install some GNU/Linux though and let's not forget that your CPU is 64-bit. My chess game is also 32-bit:

https://matei.one/idxchess.html

 

#89

Custom Cars with Stressed / Compatibility issue

Last post by stanceboyCZ - September 30, 2025, 05:22:08 PM

Hey guys, almost all of the tools and programs for Stunts are not for 32-bit. And i request you guys to do it compatible.

#90

Live Races / Re: September Live race (Onlin...

Last post by Duplode - September 30, 2025, 01:11:29 AM

Sure, I also reversed the corkscrew so we could jump over it.

Thanks, Erik. As Dreadnaut noted in the live chat, that was a very satisfying combo for finishing the track!