Stunts Online race (2024-06-15)

[Duplode]

@HunterBoy344 has generously offered to host a live race on his Stunts Online server, and I think we should definitely do it 

As usual, we just gotta arrange a date and time will make for a reasonably well-attended race. On the shoutbox, HunterBoy has suggested doing it this Thursday, June 13th. While, personally, I might be able to make it for a quick race in the South American evening, between 22:00 and midnight UTC or so, aligning schedules on a weekday could get tricky. What do y'all think about it?

[HunterBoy344]

If a weekday is hard to plan, I'd be happy to move it to the weekend on the 15th or 16th! Whatever works for you guys should work for me, last I checked I'm free for that entire week.

[dreadnaut]

Plus one for the weekend!

[Erik Barros]

During the weekend is better for me. Between 6am and 1pm UTC-3

[Cas]

I adhere to the weekend. If it should be a business day, I can too, but it'd had to be before 22:00 UTC-3. It's more complicated... Can't be a Wednesday, for example, unless it's much earlier.

[HunterBoy344]

Alright, consensus is weekend! I think Saturday the 15th should be good. As for the time, does 3:00 PM UTC work? That's 11:00 AM in my time zone (EDT/UTC-4) and 12:00 PM in UTC-3, which falls within Erik's time range. Does that work for the rest of y'all, or should I make it earlier? The event will last about an hour over the course of 6 tracks.

Let me know if I've got my timezones wrong, I'm using an online converter!

[Cas]

It's good for me. That'll be noon here

[Duplode]

Saturday 15th and 15:00 UTC are okay for me as well!

[HunterBoy344]

Alright, the date and time have been decided! 3:00 PM UTC on Saturday, June 15. Now, for a few questions:

How should scoring work? If we're going to do 6 tracks, should they all count towards a total score, or are we counting individual victories? Stunts Online has no built in scoring system, so we'd have to tally up points separately if we're doing things tournament style.

Also, is anyone willing to help design tracks for the event? I can make all of them if necessary, but I fear my general lack of knowledge of good track design would make the live race boring and repetitive. There will be 6 in total, and ideally they should be about half the length of a usual ZakStunts season track (or less) to ensure every pipsqueak can learn the track and finish several attempts within each 10 minute round.

[Erik Barros]

Alright, the date and time have been decided! 3:00 PM UTC on Saturday, June 15. Now, for a few questions:

How should scoring work? If we're going to do 6 tracks, should they all count towards a total score, or are we counting individual victories? Stunts Online has no built in scoring system, so we'd have to tally up points separately if we're doing things tournament style.

Also, is anyone willing to help design tracks for the event? I can make all of them if necessary, but I fear my general lack of knowledge of good track design would make the live race boring and repetitive. There will be 6 in total, and ideally they should be about half the length of a usual ZakStunts season track (or less) to ensure every pipsqueak can learn the track and finish several attempts within each 10 minute round.

Great, I can contribute with a track. On how to count the score, I believe you can have a score per track and also in general, without any problems. I will be in the online chat at least 1 hour before scheduled if you need any help.

[HunterBoy344]

Alright, awesome! Should I make a separate post for track submissions or just do them here?

Also, for score counting, I agree with your idea of both individual and overall scores. As for the actual process of saving scores for each track, there is one little problem, but I don't think it'll be that much of an issue as long as at least one person has a text editor open. Let me explain:

At the end of each 10 minute round, the results of that round are displayed for 20 seconds before the leaderboard is cleared and the next track is loaded. As long as someone copies and pastes those results into a text file every round, we'll have a complete record of each pipsqueak's score. As a "just in case" measure, I personally think everyone should do that at the end of each round to make sure we have the scores even if someone forgets. All in all, not much of an issue, but definitely something to be aware of.

[HunterBoy344]

Oh, one more thing: When the time of the live race rolls around, we should all meet in the live chat. There are a few quirks to Stunts Online and the way I'm hosting the server that I gotta explain before the race starts.

[HunterBoy344]

I've decided the tracks should go here because it's convenient. If possible, try not to play any of the tracks (unless you made them) until the event! It'll be way more fun if it's a surprise

[Duplode]

At the end of each 10 minute round, the results of that round are displayed for 20 seconds before the leaderboard is cleared and the next track is loaded. As long as someone copies and pastes those results into a text file every round, we'll have a complete record of each pipsqueak's score. As a "just in case" measure, I personally think everyone should do that at the end of each round to make sure we have the scores even if someone forgets. All in all, not much of an issue, but definitely something to be aware of.

All right    Something related: Stunts Online allows us to download files from the running game. right? (I remember having tried that in the client, at least.) It would be nice if we could save our race replays for posterity.

Oh, one more thing: When the time of the live race rolls around, we should all meet in the live chat. There are a few quirks to Stunts Online and the way I'm hosting the server that I gotta explain before the race starts.

Sure, we meet at the chat for coordination 👍

[HunterBoy344]

At the end of each 10 minute round, the results of that round are displayed for 20 seconds before the leaderboard is cleared and the next track is loaded. As long as someone copies and pastes those results into a text file every round, we'll have a complete record of each pipsqueak's score. As a "just in case" measure, I personally think everyone should do that at the end of each round to make sure we have the scores even if someone forgets. All in all, not much of an issue, but definitely something to be aware of.

All right    Something related: Stunts Online allows us to download files from the running game. right? (I remember having tried that in the client, at least.) It would be nice if we could save our race replays for posterity.

About that... back when I initially developed the time-sending system for Stunts Online, I made it so that you couldn't add or remove files while connected to a server (to prevent cheating). Thinking about it now, I probably should've kept in the ability to save replays but not upload them while connected, since that accomplishes the same effect while still allowing for the preservation of replays, but there's not enough time to fix it and debug it before the race on Saturday. I'll put it on my priorities list for the next update so future live races can be better documented.