Thought I'd try recreate the layout for the recent Mexican RoC.
However, once I'd got shape and tried few laps, found that it's too tight and twisty for something I would use, so rather than let it all go to waste, thought I would upload here if anyone wants to do anything with it.
This is a pursuit type track (think cycle velodrome racing but with convoluted route rather than oval). One driver starts on outside (bottom of image) going left to right, and other driver start on other side of wall, on inside, going right to left. All things being equal, both drivers should be on other side of track to where they started by the time they've done half a lap, then they finish where they started after full lap.
The track is approx. 870 metres / 0.54 miles long, and I could only do a 1:14 in an XFG.
For anyone interested in how I made it, I started by laying out cones in as close to how I thought track layout was, tried a lap in car, but kept getting lost - going between spaces in cones to wrong part of track, so put down coloured lines, which helped a lot - especially as they're 8m wide, which is what I think the width of the real layout might be. Then I put tyre stacks round to make it easier to drive round faster, and put in some barriers, start, finish and checkpoint.
Not sure many people outwith Scotland, or non Gaelic speakers will get your point!
I was born in Edinburgh, but have now lived about third of my life in Livingston, a town with lots of roundabouts, so abit more like that, or even more like Dunedin NZ don't you think?
To be honest, I find it easier to come up with track layouts than names for these layouts.
You're correct in that autocross still counts in distance travelled, but it's up to the autocross designer whether to add checkpoints and finish lines, although the sector/split/lap time stats aren't saved by LFS.
However, I personally always use 3 fixed checkpoints and a finish line, as my layouts are for 1 lap hotlaps and drifting, and all times and scores are shown when doing lap and saved on my server and can be viewed in tables.
I think both videos are fine, and better than I could have come up with!
I think you should add bit about signage; on most Blackwood straights, there are both countdown markers (100, 50) and arrow signs to show which way the next turn goes.
I would imagine most people, even with the mini map, aren't sure which way to go, so prompting to look out for corner signs might help, and where there are countdown markers, these are usually placed at corners where you need to do a lot of braking.
Also, break up video a bit with some on track examples - show start lights go green, show how to put car in gear, show how to press down on gas. First corner, look at direction sign to see which way to go, and look at distance markers to give you an idea of where to brake (150 might be early for most turns, and 50 is getting late!).
Lots of people will crash, so show a crash, and how to reset to get car repaired (press button, get in gear, press gas to go).
Maybe show them screenshot of the car they'll be driving, and what its top speed is. Big maybe - let them know what the WR is for the track/car combo is, and if only they are as good as they think they are ...!!
InSim - I once did a layout where I provided option for "Pace Notes" - for example, see my YouTube video - HERE Skip first 1 min 20 secs, and turn sound down a bit.
Plus, don't know how long normal queue time may be, but maybe time your video to show at least twice during this waiting time. First time, most people may not realise what its meant for, and 2nd time gives them time to take it in.
Lastly, show some bloopers of people getting it totally wrong - let the new drivers know what the competition is like!
Made new autocross layout, which is now on my server (Sin'rs).
Lap of 22 turns is 2,360 metres / 1.47 miles long.
Set some times for people to chase, although after doing it, decided to make server open to S1 players, so not all cars that I've set times for are available.
As far as I'm aware, anything you want stored in a lapper database that isn't the top times or top drift scores, are ALL stored in the storedvalue.dbs when you use something like "SetCurrentPlayerVar".
All that does, is make another field that the database saves under your username, with the var name you saved it as.
I'm not sure that you can create another database.
According to Scawen's reply, the issue may be related to needing to control the lights for InSim checkpoints to work.
Been trying this out using the startlights script you made, but doesn't seem to matter what I do, I can't get the timer to start properly when green light goes on.
While I was doing that, I was thinking about the saving of the InSim sector and lap times (using Set and Get). Likely that these could be saved, but I think I'm right in saying that these would be saved in the storedvalue database rather than in the GripPB database, in which case, you couldn't list the top times from both databases in the same table. Maybe unless you also saved (Set and Get) the AutoX checkpoints too?
Anyway, decided as I can't get things to work, I am abandoning the project now.
Thanks for the help during my attempts to get it working.
Its probably going to take a programmer to work out what all that means, but thanks anyway - much appreciated.
However, didn't stop me trying to make sense of at least some of it, and I think I have.
The first 3 ETime's appear to show the sector times, and the next is the lap time. The next again 3 ETime's are the 2nd lap sector times, followed by the full race time.
In between we have LTimes - 1st lap time (= ETime) and 2nd lap time (with ETime = to lap1 + lap2).
UCO Raw, SPX Raw and Lap Raw numbers mean nothing to me.
UCO Time - is this the LFS checkpoints rather than the InSim checkpoints?
To make sure I wasn't doing anything silly, I made new layout and set checkpoints.
Then I did a couple of laps in UF1 to see what happens with times.
The top time that refers to the Finish Line, is me crossing it as a start line. Thing is, in a UF1, it takes over 2 seconds from green light, my reflexes, overcome inertia, move and cross line.
As you can see from Run 1 and Run 2, there are differences in the time recorded to cross checkpoint/finish line, and time recorded for Racetime. By that, I mean in 1st run, difference in Checkpoint 1 time is 0.04s, but 2nd run is 0.32s.
If anyone wants to test this, I have included copy of my layout.
The only code I've changed in the standard lfslapper file, is...
<?php Event OnCrossingChecker($userName,$Flags,$Time,$Object,$UserSpeed,$CircleIndex) # Player event
$racetime = GetLapperVar("racetime"); # Elapsed racetime (in Milliseconds) after the race has been started privmsg("^7Racetime: ^3".(NumToMSH($racetime)));
EndEvent ?>
I'm using very latest version of lapper, including new .exe file in previous posts.
... when driving in dark (night or very overcast day), and cars in opposite direction have their lights on, it can take long seconds for your eyes to adjust from having lights shining in your eyes, to being able to see reasonably well again, made worse if you wear glasses because of glare (even with anti-reflective coatings).
And in recent years, with xenon and led lights that are even brighter than normal bulbs, this problem has got much worse for me. So much so, that I won't drive long distances anymore. Especially to places I don't know my way around.
I realise that if you're on a track, this shouldn't be so much of a problem, as (hopefully) everyone is driving in same direction, and most of the glare will come from your mirrors.
As it's for a 2 player RoC track, that will mean 3 InSim checkpoints and finish line will be triggered by both players even though only 1 player should have times recorded, as 1 player should be using LFS autox checkpoints and the other the InSim checkpoints.
The smallest time difference is 0.40secs, and largest 0.70secs, but not once do differences match.
As I recorded times from a video, there is likely slight difference in the LFS time shown on screenshots as each frame is 0.12 seconds apart, but the InSim times shown don't rely on me capturing correct frame, as lapper captures the times.
It would also appear that there is a difference in lap time between LFS time and InSim time
LFS Timer Racetime Checkpoint Time Green Light 00:00.00 00:11.06 00:10.47 Finish Line 01:27.54 01:39.32 01:38.91 Lap Time 01:27.54 01:28.26 01:28.44
$racetime = GetLapperVar("racetime"); # Elapsed racetime (in Milliseconds) after the race has been started privmsg("Racetime: ".(NumToMSH($racetime)));
$elapsedms = GetLapperVar("elapsedms"); # Elapsed racetime (in Milliseconds) after the race has been started privmsg("Elapsed Milliseconds: ".(NumToMSH($elapsedms)));
$elapsedsecs = GetLapperVar("elapsedsecs"); # Elapsed racetime (in Seconds) after the race has been started privmsg("Elapsed Seconds: ".(NumToMSH($elapsedsecs)));
$elapsedmins = GetLapperVar("elapsedmins"); #Elapsed racetime (in Minutes) after the race has been started privmsg("Elapsed Minutes: ".(NumToMSH($elapsedmins)));
EndEvent ?>
My results
I didn't jump start, but from green light, to crossing finish line at start is over half second difference between what's recorded between sector split and racetime. And both InSim times are over 10secs on from LFS recorded time.
Feeling like I'm spamming this, as already on 2 posts, but the problem I'm having may actually be a bug, rather than a Technical Issue (where I originally raised it) so raising it here too.
I thought maybe the InSim timer starts when you spawn onto the start position, rather than when the green light comes on. Almost right. But time taken between spawning on start position to crossing checkpoint line takes about 11 seconds.
I left volume as was, as I'm not a fan of music during videos unless it adds atmosphere, as you would get in a movie, to highlight a particular scene.
Also, not sure why you didn't just finish video at about the half way mark once the yellow and black car had finished. Was it to show how the white car looked different to black car in your filtered view? If so, why not have AI race round in different white, black, blue, green, red, yellow, etc, cars to see how each colour shows up?
As far as sounds go, I didn't mind the wind noises (in low volume), and liked the tyre squeal under turn in and braking.
I've made a layout with both normal autox and InSim checkpoints and finish times, and am having a number of problems, especially in regard to the timings.
Not sure if this is a lapper or lfs issue, so I've posted my issues and findings HERE
However, a lapper request:
When you cross an InSim checkpoint, lapper only outputs the word "checkpoint". It doesn't tell you which of the 3 you've crossed. Could lapper be amended to show checkpoint number?
This may be necessary if anyone wants to record times, as lapper may just record as a single sector and keep overwriting sector splits between checkpoints depending on which is fastest, rather than record fastest splits for all sectors.
After reading about, and getting involved in a post by scania regarding making a 2 way RoC course, I thought I'd try making my own autox layout with autox and InSim checkpoints.
If you complete a lap using the normal LFS start position, checkpoints and finish lines, it all works as normal.
However, I'm finding that when I start from a autox start position, cross the InSim checkpoints, then the InSim finish line, there are timing problems.
Issues that I'm having;
Firstly, spawning points from garage are different.
Secondly, there's a huge difference in time (approx 11+ secs) between the LFS timer, and the InSim timer.
Thirdly, in normal autox mode, a timed lap is from green light, to crossing finish line. In InSim timing mode, a timed lap is from green light to crossing normal finish line 2nd time.
My InSim start is half lap from normal start, so you have to do lap and a half to get a finish time.
Anyone else used the InSim checkpoints?
Did you note any discrepancies?
Is this an InSim issue, or an LFS autox issue?
I've loaded a lap on YouTube to show results.
InSim start line is half way round lap.
Used all 3 autox checkpoints and autox finish line, and all 3 InSim checkpoints and InSim finish line on the layout. For video, start position 1 in front of InSim finish line. Originally, I had start position 1 in front of autox finish line, and start postion 2 in front of InSim finish line, but as I'm testing alone, kept them in same position, but changed start position numbers round in edit mode.
I've broken down my observations, especially the timings.
LFS Route = standard checkpoints and finish line
- start position 1 in front of finish line, and start postion 2 in front of InSim finish line
- leave garage and spawn off track. Shift R to start race, spawn on start 1 position
- recorded lap time is from Green light to crossing finish line
InSim Route = InSim checkpoints and InSim finish line
- start position 1 in front of InSim finish line, and start postion 2 in front of autox finish line
- leave garage and spawn on start 1 position in front of InSim finish line
- recorded lap time is from green light at InSim start, crossing LFS start position, crossing InSim finish line, to crossing LFS finish line
0:59.01 cross normal start line (after half lap) 1:18.37 from green light, crossing normal start line, to LFS checkpoint 1 1:37.80 from checkpoint 1 to crossing checkpoint 2 2:01.13 from checkpoint 2 to crossing checkpoint 3 2:25.32 from checkpoint 3 to crossing LFS finish line
InSim lap time => 1:42.90 - 0:13.74 = 1:29.16 from standing start
LFS lap time => 2:25.32 - 0:59.01 = 1:26.31 from rolling start (at full speed)
Now that I've got it working, and am playing with InSim checkpoints ...
Would it be better rather than having to play about with changing time outputs from numbers, lapper gave you the proper, real time, without having to use NumToMSH?
gives me a number such as 70210, which I then have to add code, in proper format, to change into a proper time (ie 1m 10.21s).
Not so bad for people who have some experience of lapper, but its complicated when you don't really know it, (or in my case, forget how to use it) and expect things to work without having to delve into code and change it.
Also.
Would be worth adding comment to the !myconfig line in the lfslapper.lpr file - there's nothing to say what it does, and it seems to be hard wired into lapper, as you can search for the function, and find nothing. Maybe comment such as "#function to change language, unit of speed, etc"?
I tried 3 times last night to get this working, each time copying original zip file into new directory, renaming to version number, and changed the admin and superuser text files, and the ini passwork file, and each time the error and the self deleting exe file.
Tried it after getting home from work earlier, doing exactly same as last night, and 3 differences.
AVG didn't send the exe file to its server to check if virus - I forgot to mention that in my earlier post. Probably because it recognised it as same exe it already checked.
Didn't get any error messages on the command prompt.
Now works flawlessly!
I didn't change any .lpr files yesterday or today, so don't understand the illegal character error message.
Anyway, now works, so ok now.
Apologies if this caused you any work to check out