Well not so bad really but want to vent. I read the ctra faq and agree on the clean racing.

Now I haven't earned point one, I can't just get fast enough. I finish near the end and race as clean as I can, but you get no points for clean!

Then again some of the fastest drivers seem to disregard the rules, and it helps them get up front at times. It's hard to pass clean, easy to pass dirty.

What I seem to see all the time is someone knocking me out of the way, I get a sorry and they just zoom away. I've never gotten them letting me have my pos back. Now I may be a tad slower, but not slow, and it's just annoying.

Another is rejoining after a wreck. People just zip right on the track again and you have to break your line to avoid them. This is probably because it's newer players etc, but boy it's also annoying.

Yes I know I can report people but I don't want to until I know what I'm talking about, just venting for agreement/disagreement!

Hey Rick..
I understand your frustrations. As long as you know there's nothing that the admins can do about it until someone raises a report... it's in your hands

Quote from SamH :

Hey Rick..
I understand your frustrations. As long as you know there's nothing that the admins can do about it until someone raises a report... it's in your hands

We can only do our job as well as people can make reports

Quote from Rick. :

Well not so bad really but want to vent. I read the ctra faq and agree on the clean racing.

Now I haven't earned point one, I can't just get fast enough. I finish near the end and race as clean as I can, but you get no points for clean!

Then again some of the fastest drivers seem to disregard the rules, and it helps them get up front at times. It's hard to pass clean, easy to pass dirty.

What I seem to see all the time is someone knocking me out of the way, I get a sorry and they just zoom away. I've never gotten them letting me have my pos back. Now I may be a tad slower, but not slow, and it's just annoying.

Another is rejoining after a wreck. People just zip right on the track again and you have to break your line to avoid them. This is probably because it's newer players etc, but boy it's also annoying.

Yes I know I can report people but I don't want to until I know what I'm talking about, just venting for agreement/disagreement!

I understand your frustration when it comes to the points. At the moment you have to be something like top 5 in a race to get points. Well, I have got points at 8th place before, but then you need to have the fastest lap if I remember right.

But if I remember right, they say that they are working on a change in the point system at CTRA servers, since there is a lot of people that have the same experience as you, getting zero points because they are not on the top list. I do hope they find a solution for this, because there is a lot of people that deserves some points imo.

Rick,

I know it is frustrating when you are a clean driver and you get rammed, but you will get there in the end.

I haven't picked up many points lately but get a buzz out of improving my lap times.

To get faster spend some time watching the fast guys and concentrate on getting a good set that suits you. The fast guys sets are often a nightmare to use and often won't suit your wheel/pedal setup.

Good Luck

Rick,

You're right, it's a pain but as you get faster you'll start further up the grid and the quality of racing is higher there although you still often get non-brakers into T1.

I wish the reporting system was simpler and/or there was a way for CTRA to auto ban (of course this is complex and I'd never expect it to happen).

nonetheless, it's a super system.

I mostly play LFS offline as a form of relaxation - other people play solitaire, I do laps (around a circuit - don't get any funny ideas). Therefore I'm not really fast, infact I am rather very slow. However the other day I checked out the CTRA single seater server and had two or three races on it.

The quality was great - being a backmarker I yielded in logical places for the forerunners and didn't get in anyone's way without hindering my slow pace even though it was in South City Town Rev. No one rammed me, I even got people saying "thanks" when they overtook me cleanly. No spamming, no jabbering, etc.

Maybe the difference is I didn't try to overdrive myself, stuck to my snail-pace, or got anxious when I saw someone in my mirrors and just planned ahead where to let them through - OR I was just lucky and landed with a good crowd. *shrug*

Quote from nigelpm :

I wish the reporting system was simpler and/or there was a way for CTRA to auto ban

I think it's good that the reporting system isn't over-simplified. It takes a little effort to raise a new report and submit it. If it was too easy you'd get people raising reports for every little thing and the admins would be drowning in new reports even more so than they already are

Quote from nigelpm :

Rick,

You're right, it's a pain but as you get faster you'll start further up the grid and the quality of racing is higher there although you still often get non-brakers into T1.

I wish the reporting system was simpler and/or there was a way for CTRA to auto ban (of course this is complex and I'd never expect it to happen).

nonetheless, it's a super system.

Nigel,

It's fairly simple only problem being if the guy you wanna report disconnects before you can raise a report..

In terms of the reporting thou, its been quite good..

I think i've raised 7 reports.

1 dismissed
3 warnings
1 cautioned
1 short term ban
1 ban

The system works, it just needs people to report things that are valid, also looking at the replays to see whether or not things were deliberate or just a geniune mistake..

Yes the sytem work, and it`s easy to pass a complain about something. Often you don`t know what you`v done, but it allways get good explained when you get it.
And yes I talk by experience, 2 bans and 2 warnings, I know every part of the system

i do find it very frustraiting when i always seam to end up just out of the points and the people in front are often platinum or gold witch i do find very annoying

I realize I have to report, I just want to make sure it's not a false report. Maybe sometime I'll post a replay if I have a question about passing or something like that first.

And I guess to get to a better server you have to have skill points and slow guys won't get there.

But perhaps if the system could be tweaked to know if a car "did something wrong" they wouldn't get points. That "did something wrong" would be hard to know I suppose.

Quote from Dru :

Nigel,

It's fairly simple only problem being if the guy you wanna report disconnects before you can raise a report..

Hey Dru, you can still report that offending driver even though he's decided to do a runner

Simply fill in the report as usual but select any driver at this stage as the culprit. (Don't worry, no harm will come to them) When you look at the the report on the website you can then edit the details to the correct driver before submitting it. I think this is right as I mistook a driver one time but was then able to change it after watching the replay.

Quote from james12s :

i do find it very frustraiting when i always seam to end up just out of the points and the people in front are often platinum or gold witch i do find very annoying

The thing is James, the guys that are Gold or Platinum(or Titanium) got to that level by being fast and clean. It doesn't matter if your only Bronze, if your fast and clean enough then you will get to a points scoring position and progress more quickly up the license levels.

The system is set up to reward fast and clean drivers. If your not able to compete with the higher licensed guys then you aren't of a good enough standard to get the points. (I'm not referring to you personally btw )

Another couple of tips to make sure it's not a false report:

- Wait for the next race to start before you fill out the report. From X-System point of view, a race ends only when the next one begins, and the replay becomes available in the list only at this point (this confused me at first).

- Get a link to download the replay emailed to you (requires you to set your email address, obviously), and check the replay before submitting the report (I've decided not to submit some reports at that point because only the replay showed that an accident had been caused by lag and not with malicious intentions). When you file a report from within LFS and click OK, the report is stored but not submitted. You have to go to your MyCTRA page on the website to submit (or delete) it.

- When watching the replay, don't look only at the incident that involved you, but check your "opponent's" behavior in the rest of the race. If the guy is clean the rest of the time, grant him the benefit of the doubt. He may have been disturbed IRL, or something. If he's always dirty, then he definitely deserves to be reported.

yeah moose i am more frustrated with myself tbo not the ctra system, mainly because i am a crap driver

Quote from james12s :

mainly because i am a crap driver

It just takes practice. Don't get frustrated, just think of every mistake as something to learn from. You learn something new every time you go on track.

I have done far to much racing on this sim, yet nearly every day i manage to improve my PB on one of the combos as i always find somewhere to improve my times, or i learn a slightly different way to take a corner.

Its just practice,practice,practice

Don't think of yourself as a crap driver, think of yourself as a driver that isn't as fast as others yet, but will be someday if you keep learning and trying new things

Quote from The Moose :

It just takes practice. Don't get frustrated, just think of every mistake as something to learn from. You learn something new every time you go on track.

I have done far to much racing on this sim, yet nearly every day i manage to improve my PB on one of the combos as i always find somewhere to improve my times, or i learn a slightly different way to take a corner.

Its just practice,practice,practice

Don't think of yourself as a crap driver, think of yourself as a driver that isn't as fast as others yet, but will be someday if you keep learning and trying new things

moose, thanks mate

Quote from The Moose :

The thing is James, the guys that are Gold or Platinum(or Titanium) got to that level by being fast and clean. It doesn't matter if your only Bronze, if your fast and clean enough then you will get to a points scoring position and progress more quickly up the license levels.

The system is set up to reward fast and clean drivers. If your not able to compete with the higher licensed guys then you aren't of a good enough standard to get the points. (I'm not referring to you personally btw )

That's interesting. I don't know if the points system is supposed to represent normal real world racing or more like a ranking system.

It seems to me if it's more ranking, a higher level licensee beating a lower level shouldn't count as much. Because if higher level licensees run on the beginner server, beginners won't have a chance to get points.

So regarding this comment, if higher licensed players play on a novice server, they are artificially raising the standard of a novice server right? Unless the points system does like I said.

Think of it like chess rankings or other games, beating someone way below you should get you nearly nothing, and beating someone ranked way higher should yield the greatest reward. Just my opinion anyway.

Quote from Rick. :

It seems to me if it's more ranking, a higher level licensee beating a lower level shouldn't count as much.

Exactly, and that's how the system works. A Gold, Platinum or Titanium driver will only receive very little points on a lower tier server I've had it happen quite a few times that I finished behind a Platinum licensed driver that got 0 points while I got 3 or so.

Quote from obsolum :

I've had it happen quite a few times that I finished behind a Platinum licensed driver that got 0 points while I got 3 or so.

I can confirm that.

Quote from Rick. :

It seems to me if it's more ranking, a higher level licensee beating a lower level shouldn't count as much. Because if higher level licensees run on the beginner server, beginners won't have a chance to get points.

I jumped on the CTRA race1 server last night for a fewraces, just because it was late and there were no other servers that appealed to me. I thought it would be a challenge to race in cars that i have hardly ever driven as well.
My Titanium license counted for nothing in there i tell you
Not only was i soundly beaten several times by Bronze licensed racers who have experience of those cars (i was racing UF1's in my copper/bronze days) but when i eventually did win a race i got no points for it.

The 'begginers' scored all the points and were generally faster than the higher licensed guys on most occasions due to their experience with those cars.
The system works perfectly

I try to stay off of server 1 now. But I have to admit when I see a south city / XRG show up on there, I might pop in for a few races. But that is purely because of the combo and not because of points.

When you guys get your silver and higher licenses I hope to see you on server 2 where the real action is at (and points).

If you want to know how to use the reporting system, there's a link to the Reporting Guide in my sig.

Glad to find out the points work that way. Which means all I have to do is shed my stinky speed and I'm good, easier said than done!

And I really have to get a wheel, analog sticks aren't as much fun (I was an act labs user but alas it's no go on my vista box).