Hello,

I am a big fan of the league functionalities on LFS.net. However there are a few improvement suggestions I came across this past weekend:

1. Dropdown menu for car choice: Currently the car choice can only be done by the competitor via typing the cars name/abbreviation into a text field. Meanwhile the calendar already asks you for the cars used in this event. Maybe there can be a dropdown menu for the available cars a potential competitor can choose an option from, if it is a season sign-up and if all rounds uses the same cars.
   
2. Export function: Depending on what type of league you are running, you are using different amounts of external software (tracker, results applications, ...). Especially some software to analyse mprs needs team definitions in endurance races to properly generate their outputs. Currently, the entries on the leagues' section need to be copied and pasted, with a good chance to make mistakes or to have outdated entry informations, especially when facing a defined deadline. A simple export function (i.e. csv-file) would improve the data transfer massively.
   
3. Password sharing/Message all competitors: A similar situation appears in regards to the distribution of information to competitors, especially the distribution of the event server password. I could think of a partially automated process as we alraedy have the option to join servers by using a hyperlink. Alternatively a "message all entries" function could work for this process as well.
   
4. Result archive: Currently the event passes and appears as completed event in the carlendar. Meanwhile there is already a online race results archive on lfsworld.net. To give more value to the leagues' section, linking the race dates to the results would come in handy.
   

best regards!

Last edited by TFalke55, Mon 22 Jun 2020, 14:08.

NGTR qualifying results

LRF qualifying results

Provisional NGTR results

Provisional LRF Results

Provisional point standings

Last edited by TFalke55, Fri 10 Jul 2020, 09:55.

Quote :

Protests shall only be filed in the designated thread. Every team has the chance to file a protest against scoring, decisions or incidents. This has to happen until Tuesday 23:59 UTC after the event. Protests submitted after this deadline will be rejected.
A protest must contain information about the involved cars, the lap and/or the time in the session and a brief description of the incident.
All involved parties must only write one comment. Posts from uninvolved parties will be deleted.

Round (1, 2, 3 or 4):
Session of Incident (Qualifying*, Race):
Protestor's LFS Lap:
Timecode of Incident (EITHER MPR time OR Time of Day):
Your Car number:
Protested Car number(s):
Brief description of incident

Server passworded for Open Endurance Cup Five Round 1

updated the opening post

Quote from TFalke55 :

Since so far only 6 of over 20 sign-ups posted their skins here, I thought to upload simple blank ones in the OEC colours for you to use if you are in desperate need of a car livery. The only thing you have to do is to fill in the numberboards with your starting number. The NGTRs follow soon.

And the NGTRs

Since so far only 6 of over 20 sign-ups posted their skins here, I thought to upload simple blank ones in the OEC colours for you to use if you are in desperate need of a car livery. The only thing you have to do is to fill in the numberboards with your starting number. The NGTRs follow soon.

these times are totals for the race distance. so during the race you need to be stationary for 22 seconds in a XFR at the pits.

EDIT: Important, the timing stops once you've moved. So if you accidently move when it says "finished" and stop and wait again in the pits, it does not count. Keep that in mind.

Last edited by TFalke55, Thu 18 Jun 2020, 16:44.

it's Matlab code I've used... first tried Excel sheets, as I thought that would be much more transparent when releasing, but that they got too big to really understand anything and they confused me, so I switched to coding and as the first round approached quite rapidly I used the language in which I did most of my stuff recently. If I have time for it and get around it I want to rebuild it to python, to have it in an open language, but I currently lack the experience there.

EDIT: Seeing what Origin is, I now understand why you thought so Sobis.

Last edited by TFalke55, Thu 18 Jun 2020, 12:52.

So while it was silent here, Lacko reminded me of the Corse Motorsports RAC / FZ5 Cup and the New Endurance Cup. Furthermore I used the data of all suitable races from City The inclusion of these races in my data drastically changed the curves, which is not a negative. It helped a lot to get data points to later stages of a stint and thereby helping the least square fitting there. While it definitely is the case for the LRFs and the UFR, the XFR was not so lucky. Hence I only update the LRF pit stop times for now:
Just to give an overview of what data went into it so far:
Anyways: If you know some competitive NGTR races that were also won by XFRs and had a decent field let me know!


I attatched my files as a zip. (yeah... it is MATLAB code... at a later stage I want to bring it over to python or some other open language, but for know I coded with what I knew would work)

Well you can use custom grids and thereby reduce the speed into the breaking zone... but turn 1 shenanigans are usually a quality of field or discipline of field issue. However I recall league races that gave the green flag signal for their rolling starts on the back straight in Blackwood for similar reasons.

I tweaked the model a bit more and plotted the expected race graphs. Target was to have the cars within a second in the final lap as seconds are the smallest time frame I can expect racers to keep an eye on during pitstops. I noticed that there is a difference between the (more) continuous modelling based raced distance and the discrete modelling based on completed laps of the estimated race time. Therefore the minimum pit stop times change once more:

Last edited by TFalke55, Tue 16 Jun 2020, 14:13.

I calculated with 2 pit stops in the LRF class. From what I see the LX6 should be able to do so. Then again if I am wrong that extra time in the pits would probably not change the minimum pit time as the time penalty would be reduced by the amount the LX6 needs longer in the pits.
Anyways I think a 3 stop strategy could very well be a viable option for LX6 drivers and FZ5 drivers.

Edit: Probably less so for the FZ5, as tyre usage is a bigger factor.

Last edited by TFalke55, Tue 16 Jun 2020, 11:35.

The server is now equipped with Airio again! Feel free to spam it with lap times.

So... I've crunched the numbers for the first round of the season. I therefore wrote a little script to fit a quadratic parabola into lap data I gathered from several league races from the past 5 years. I only used the laps from the winning driver of these races and divided the lap time by their personal best lap or personal hot lap time to normalize them. The script does not use data points that are too far away with a naive data snooping approach, so starting laps, pit stop in and out laps or accidents are ignored. The rest is used for a least-square adjustment with a Gauss-Markov-model as backbone. From the resulting curves I calculated the area and thereby got an average lap time that was multiplied in the final step with the WR to get the actual track into the model.


The LRF class is naturally less dense


Still a big problem of this very method is the data quality and the availability of good long races for the LRF cars. I hope to introduce the lap times set during OEC into this model. I want to release the script and raw data I used later this week, therefore the LRF numbers might change. Final pit stop times are to be released by Thursday.

Last edited by TFalke55, Tue 16 Jun 2020, 11:41.

21st June 2020

Track: Aston Grand Prix reversed (AS5r)
Cars: NGTR - UF GTR, XF GTR & LRF - FZ50, Raceabout 06, LX6

16:30 UTC - start of the qualifying practice session (20 minutes)
17:00 UTC - start of the race (57 laps, approximately 3 hours)
If you are unsure what time it is in your timezone, you can check it out on websites like this one.

Please remember: Chatting is prohibited on the server during qualifying and race.

Qualifying
During qualifying all drivers will be able to complete as many laps as they wish. However, a team needs at least one timed lap to be allowed to start the race. During the qualifying practice session only one driver of any competing team shall be on server and on track at any time.

Race
The grid departs just after the final hairpin in two-by-two formation. The NGTRs may depart with the green lights, while the LRF class will be given a seperate signal. The field shall accelerate to 80kph (49mph). Overtaking is allowed with the Green-Flag-Message, that is given to each class seperately. Please be careful on the approach to the first braking zone, as the chicane is narrow and no race has been won yet on the first lap.

The balance of performance for OEC V is done via minimum pit stop times. That means that the aggregate time you are standing in the pit box needs to be greater or equal the following times:

Important, the timing stops once you've moved. So if you accidentally move when it says "finished" and stop and wait again in the pits, it does not count. Keep that in mind!

Please remember, there are NO Safety Cars, NO restarts. Rejoins are allowed at anytime but result in the loss of one lap, including rejoins due to connection loss.

I hope you will have a fun race nonetheless.


The server is again kindly provided by New Dimension Racing. The live stream by SimBroadcasts is scheduled to start with the qualifying session.
The password will be sent to the teams on race day. Please check if your profile allows private messages, otherwise you will not get the information.

Last edited by TFalke55, Sat 20 Jun 2020, 21:02. Reason : Updating the race information

Yeah, this topic kind of grew to big for the rules thread

Quote from Excellent15 :

I did the work for you. I'm adding two video files(sorry for background music), those are clutch timing comparisions between BC and AC, also AC and AC with BC being used, data speaks for itself. :-)
https://www77.zippyshare.com/v/UiI4ovwr/file.html
https://www77.zippyshare.com/v/GHpb9L99/file.html
program used:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1368765#post1368765
Couple notes:
I got no macro's so BC one varies a lot.
as you can notice, pressing clutch while AC is on, makes your clutch engaged same amount of time or slightly longer, which means, it makes upshifts identical, or slower. And for downshifts, there isn't much difference if there's any, maybe as Isaac said, slightly changes car balance, but seeing how little the difference between clutch timings are, it doesn't seem much.
Adding .raf files for anyone who wants to get them into app to compare themselves.
P.S. For me, this is more for trolling purposes than actually gaining an advantage.

Thank you very much! This is very helpful. Only the video files don't seem to work for me (403: forbidden).
Just to get this right: the conclusion is, the mandatory auto-clutch does not help the situation, it takes the same time or a just slightly longer but does not limit it to the time Auto-clutch would take.

One appeal of the "use auto-clutch" rule was, that it presented itself as an easy solution and was easy to monitor.

Last edited by TFalke55, Sat 13 Jun 2020, 14:23. Reason : misunderstood the earlier posts, therefore striken the wrong conclusion I made

One common way to penalise rejoins and resets, as done by other endurance leagues, could also be to reduce the completed scored laps for a team. I think
could work.

Ok, I did not know that before and hear of that now for the first time. The question now is how to monitor it in a different way and I currently doubt there can be a system to monitor it. It is not like an InSim package is sent each time one uses the clutch button, or is it, there is "just" the option to check if button clutch is used in the options or not?

I'm looking into it again. Especially after rewatching the TRR Championship race last week, I share the feeling that the FZ5 might be disadvantaged by my method as it is so far. This weekend I tried to derive something from the variance of the AI performance over the course of a stint, but that lead to nothing (obviously). So I probably spend some evenings analyzing lap charts.

Basically I do not want to run different models for different cars. Keeping it to one approach hopefully also means that I can use the data of all cars that run the race to reevaluate the numbers after each round.

Quote from TFalke55 :

To balance the strengths of cars within each class, the cars will be fitted with the following weights, restrictions and/or pit stop times.
A dynamic balancing system is be introduced to balance the cars on a race-by-race basis. The methods used in the dynamic balancing system need to be transparently published.
The mandatory pit stop times are a minimum time a competitor has to spend in the pit service area over the course of the race session. They are calculated considering the world record lap time, the race distance, the expected number of stints and the expected service times of the pit stop. It is assumed that the change of all tires takes 13 s and the refueling takes place at a rate of 0.2 l/s. It is furthermore assumed, that the change of cars’ performances throughout a stint are similar enough, to base the model on WR laps.
Failure to complete the pit stop times will result in a post-race time penalty of 10 s + 2*Δt, where Δt is the difference between the mandatory pit stop time and the served pit stop time rounded up to the next whole second.
The pit stop times will be published in the threads for each round.

I thought to start this thread as a dedicated place to discuss the Balance of Performance. The model for the calculation of these numbers is described in the excerpt of rules. The final values will be determined a few days before each round.

(last updated 9th July 2020)

I'm looking forward to your comments.

Last edited by TFalke55, Thu 9 Jul 2020, 15:13.

Rules updated to version 5.0 in the opening post. Just waiting until Rony again points out a mistake.

+1

To be honest without legal consultation the whole discussion about the legality of VOB mods and what sharing platforms need to make sure to be safe will lead nowhere. Even with international agreements local implementations and the general framework of the national laws differ and cause edge cases only experts may be aware of.

EDIT: Also legally precisely defined terms might differ from the colloquial use of these terms and without training one might not be aware of it.