Live Races 2023

[Daniel3D]

Alternatively, we might ask pipsqueaks to complete the first lap after the 8 minutes mark. An advantage is that the designer wouldn't have to guess laptimes in advance. A disadvantage is that a luck factor might be introduced, in that crossing the finish line at 7:59 would require one to drive another full lap. One workaround for this problem would be making the deadline relative, so that the deadline for each pipsqueak becomes 12 minutes plus some tolerance which increases with the length of the replay past 8:00.

We could use the lap time as calculated by bliss with a predetermined car and driver from the available data.

For the time we could allow a minute for every minute the replay is longer.
So past 8 minutes you have 12.
Past 9 you get 13,

With the set amount of full laps, automatic ranking can be made (and manual verification)

[Duplode]

Using the Bliss times as references could work -- as they are OWOOT times, they should be usable as a conservative estimate.

Expanding a bit on my suggestion of deadlines with tolerances, to keep things as simple as possible it might make sense to keep the 12:8 ratio, and use windows of 20 seconds so that the division comes out nicely:

Total time by räcer    Deadline
-------------------    --------
8:00.00 -- 8:19.95     12:30
8:20.00 -- 8:39.95     13:00
8:40.00 -- 8:59.95     13:30
9:00.00 -- 9:19.95     14:00
9:20.00 -- 9:39.95     14:30
9:40.00 -- 9:59.95     15:00

(Note that I'd rather err on the side of giving people a few seconds more than to make the deadline stricter.)

[Argammon]

Hello pipsqueaks!

I have an idea for a different live racing format which I would prefer over the LeStunts one. That does, of course, not mean it is objectively better.

Here it is:

- Track is published in advance so that pipsqueaks can practice it.
- Pipsqueaks meet in the chatroom, someone posts a modified version of the track, and the countdown begins.
- Pipsqueaks start driving and start a 15 minutes DOSBOX video.
- The pipsqueak who drives the fastest lap wins. RH is strictly forbidden.
- Pipsqueaks upload their DOSBOX video -somewhere- no later than 17 minutes after the countdown started.

Voila, we have a working NORH competition, assuming I did not forget anything. Please help me out to fix the last details! 

[alanrotoi]

It would work if the main objective is to restrinct completely the RH which in live races is not much more than a crash recovery


I think the adrenaline of the consecutive laps gives a particular taste to the live races. In fact, I would add an extra minute to have a 9 minutes race and maybe 14 or 15 minutes for prepairing.


 I would not loose the consecutive laps as a standard but we could try your idea as well.

[Daniel3D]

So you have 15 minutes to drive a track of x length as fast as you can. You may restart anytime but have to start at the beginning again. So your in-game highscore is your time.

I like the idea. But I would have 2 problems.
I don't think my computer can handle 15 minutes of gameplay without performance issues and the resulting file is probably to big to upload in 2 minutes.

[Daniel3D]

With

I would not loose the consecutive laps as a standard but we could try your idea as well.

It would be impossible to do consecutive laps unless you have a really boring track.
It would be more like a GAR video of Marco but with Free driving rules.
Although maybe we should add a checkpoint system as well for argammon his idea

[Argammon]

Thanks for the replies Alanrotoi and Daniel. 

@Daniel3D: I don't think performance issues would be a problem for most of us, correct?! In your case, I would be totally ok with you just uploading your replay file.

[Duplode]

These best-lap-in-15-minutes rules are fine as a racing format. They are closer than Le Stunts to the traditional hotseat live racing format (5 attempts per pipsqueak). While I really like the Le Stunts format, it could be good to try out alternatives.

The main issue that should require careful thought, though, is the operational part. I'd say the greatest thing about the Le Stunts format is that all you need to take part is doing a replay and uploading it in time. Requiring videos would make everything more complicated: now one has to make sure DOSBox is correctly set up for recording and that the computer can handle it (as @Daniel3D notes), start the recording, drive, possibly save the replays (for analysis, rerecording and archiving), have a place for uploading (YouTube? Dropbox? Personal site?) and, if a cloud service is used, count on it being helpful (for instance, YouTube can take several minutes to process an upload). All in all, it makes things quite a bit less accessible.

If we're going to explore live racing rules based on single-lap NoRH, I think the way to go is using some kind of controlled environment, as in @HunterBoy344 's Stunts Online project, which automates some of the steps to make it as easy as possible for the pipsqueaks. (Cc'ing @Erik Barros , who has been thinking about similar questions lately.)

[Argammon]

Thanks @Duplode, you are raising some valid points. An easy-to-use server that prevents RH may be the best option. As long as that is not available, I suggest the following fix to address your main concern:

- Everybody uploads their replays. Then, only the winner uploads the video.

Would that work? I don't think taking a video is difficult as long as you do not have the hassle to find and upload it. :-)

[Cas]

I agree with Duplode. Uploading a video is complex, sometimes very slow and requires relying on a 3rd party platform. Anyway, if the replay has to be uploaded very quickly, there's not much one can do with RH. That is, we would have to assume RH is allowed, but in practice, it couldn't be well exploited. This is what already happens with LeStunts. It's RH, but in reality, it's not.

On the other hand, something like HunterBoy344's system would solve for NoRH. In fact, if the purpose is only verification, it doesn't have to be a complete online system like that. It's enough that each pipsqueak stream their controls live and one computer be grabbing all the streams. This doesn't need to be reproduced while it's being played. It can just be stored and then analysed.

There's this part I don't know: how to create a channel in DOSBox to stream information out?  With this base, the rest should be easy.

[alanrotoi]

The video of the last two races from March 2023 is out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBUxgUVJIC8

[Erik Barros]

Counting down the days to this month's live event.

[alanrotoi]

Me too     

[Overdrijf]

I won't be there for this event, hopefully. (Hopefully because of the alternative.) But I wish you all a fast race and a good time!

[alanrotoi]

Even if it will be an afternoon event?