Quote from EQ Worry :

adding a switch to hide these special times.

I know I would appreciate it - it's nice to be able to say you're #1 on the server and actually have your name appear #1.

On a related note - and I could be mistaken - wasn't it possible to type !top while spectating and get the times for the cars that are actually in use on the track currently? On 2.5, without specifying a car or class, I just get the WR for XFG (because no one has run XFG on the track I imagine.)

While you're here - any idea why I can't use the !remove command? I get a message in purple text "insufficient rights" - even when doing it from the console. It's not listed in the Manual and a Pro command.

That is totaly it - thanks so much.

I couldn't find the line in any of my srv files at all. Even from way back. I guess maybe I removed it at some point.

Yeah I'm using Airio - the odd thing is that a demo server on the same install (and with the same settings works correctly.

I read in the Airio thread that the auto-spec is actually handled by LFS; not sure if it was correct.

I've been going around in circles trying to discover why my server is no longer spectating people who false-start? It gives out 30 and 45 second penalties but nothing after. Has anyone encountered this?

I've got two questions that have been bugging me for a while. I can't seem to get the !remove command to work? Is this for the pro version only? It doesn't seem to be listed as anything special. In 2.4.1 nothing happened at all when I used !remove. In 2.5 I receive error "Insufficient Rights."

Anyone know where I've gone wrong?

Oh - and if it were possible to remove the WR from the !top list with a switch (so that it displayed the way 2.4.1 did) or something I would really appreciate it.

Last edited by GobLox, Sat, 30 Oct 2010 17:33.

I have access to a 54" large format printer and I've been planning on wrapping my 18' Hobie Cat for a year now. It's CMYK (although RBG files are fine of course) so it would be a shame to do it in solid colors; I'd like to make something colorful and/or vibrant like the budboat attached.


I'd probably like to integrate かみかぜ (As a boat name) in hiragana, It means divine wind, and maybe something of an Asian theme but not anime. You can see there isn't a lot of room to work with vertical, but the image is deceiving, the boat is 18' long so at 100dpi we are talking about ~21,500 pixels wide. The basic profile of the hulls is attached and I might be interested in wrapping the inside of the hulls as well as the dagger boards - the other picture is just a random Hobie18: mine has white sails and a black trampoline so it's a blank canvas.

I know if I were into skinning I would be down to do something like this... I've spent hours shopping stuff for stupid threads that certainly wouldn't end in results as cool as seeing it printed out life size... but I'm not that good or creative and this is just way over my head. I will include high quality professional photographs of the final product if this is successful.

I plan to hold a bit of a contest and it hinges on being able to tell if someone is using keyboard/mouse. I know I could filter based on controls with Airio but I'd like to allow all users in the race. ideally I'd like to be able to see what controls a user is on at any given moment but I'd settle for the server reporting controls on join like I've seen some do (Lapper?)

Anyone have any solutions? (I'd rather not run lapper if possible)

Quote from EQ Worry :

Hm, if you look up the !len command in help screens (!l2 in this case), you'll see it support values from -96 to +96, that means maximum race length in minutes is 96. Lengths over 48 minutes are always rounded to even number, that is why 61 changes to 60. But using up to 96 should be possible. If not, it would be a bug...

Strange that they would set the limit so low. Oh well, thanks.

I was hoping to run a 2.4 Hours of LeMans tonight with some people but I've found that setting -mins in rotatetracks command only seems to work correctly for 60 minutes or less. beyond 60 airio acts like there is a syntax error and does not change the /rcm notification. Is this a known limitation?

example

RotateTracks=FE3|-60|FBM > FE3|-60|FBM

works.

RotateTracks=FE3|-61|FBM > FE3|-61|FBM

will still report 60 after !rld. If you then set it to a number at or below 60 again everything works. If I load right in with a number above 60 and end the race to load the rotation data airio acts like it's bad syntax and never changes the race from 5 laps to time e.g. 61 minutes; ignoring the input.

Any idea where i've gone wrong?

How do you change the 110% of WR requirement to post a PB/SB in Airio. I've had no luck fing the variable.

Quote from Tim NL :

Hi,

In lapper you can change number of laps , qual time and can change a lot of other things like type of cars with !gui

Be sure that your username is in the admin.txt and type !gui

Oh cool. I had admin setup but had never noticed !gui. Thanks

Quote from Bass-Driver :

u need to set ur own admin rights

I'm afraid I don't quite follow. !Laps exists as a non-admin command already - it would be pretty easy to separate what happens based on admin status but it seems like the code you have there would just be overidden the next time the server is reset, wouldn't it?



With regards to my car car rotation question; What would happpen if I inserted code in the Onrotatetrack event that checked the track (Would it have to be current or next track at that stage of execution?) and then set /car to -fbm if track = BL2.

EDIT* Ah - I see you had a similar idea. If I'm not mistaken setting /car that way would still allow people to keep the wrong car if they already had it selected though wouldn't it?

Also - If someone could please help me set /laps and /qual. Lapper seems to override LFS on these and I've looked through every file in lapper; I can't find where to set laps and qualification time.

I'm running a demo server for a small group; a few times a day the server becomes busy and exceeds the 12 car demo max. I would like to use the license system to spectate players above a certain lap-time when the server is over full. Is this possible? Right now I gather it kicks players off the server. And idealy I would rather base the decision to move to autorization on the number of cars in the race not the number of players on server; there are often spectators!

In the same vein; I would like to be able to rotate tracks and classes. but currently I don't see a way to make sure the FBM is not selected for BL2. Is it possible to make sure FBM isn't selected for BL2 and also alternate between XFG+XRG and FBM on BL1?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Although I'm not doubting anything you've said, you seem to miss the point.

That the point of electric cars is pointless because you get the power for them from a big fossil fuel burning powerstation - The amount of pollution created by those for power for houses and buisness far exceeds the amount of pollution created by cars - that's without the added strain of an extra 5 million cars being charged up every night..

Yes, by and large they both run off fossil fuels. The point is that a centralized Power Plant such as a Gas turbine combined-cycle plant is a lot more efficient (No really, way way way more efficient) than your car's engine. You're still burning fuel, but your burning less. Why is it more efficient? For one, they are designed to be and they don't have to make compromises for weight, complexity, or cost. Two, the idea is really to far reaching to discuss here but suffice it to say - reductions in complexity usually mean energy savings. So let's say your using 65HP driving your car at 60MPH. The engine has hundreds of moving parts and is producing 45KW. A 1000MW power plant has hundreds maybe thousands of moving parts but can produce as much power as 23,000 Cars. To have all those car's running to make their own 45KW requires Millions of moving parts all burning off energy while the power plant has just a hand full by comparison.

The massive freighters that haul incredible amounts of stuff over the ocean have the largest diesel engines in the world. They are comical; crankshaft journals the diameter of a grown man's height. Turbo-chargers you could walk though - Literally 1.5Million Cubic inches (25,000L) 100,000 Horsepower. They use over a gallon of diesel per second. They literally have million gallon fuel tanks. Get the picture? (The numbers are hard to imagine because they are so large we don't deal with them on a daily basis.) It's also the single most efficient way to haul stuff on the face of the planet. To have thousands of trucks haul the same amount of stuff would, literally, require an exponential increase in fuel spent. Way way more fuel. Take all the stuff and break it down into tiny boxes you can put in fuel sipping cars and it would take even more fuel!

The point is, less is more. By the way; the most powerful diesel engine in the world? 4,600,000 Pounds, 100,000HP, 5 Millions Lb/ft of torque? Also, hands down, one of the most efficient engines on the planet! 50% Energy efficiency!
Check it out here: http://people.bath.ac.uk/ccsshb/12cyl/

This does not mean everyone needs to drive a 4.6 Million Pound engine with wheels attached to it. It uses 63 gallons of fuel per minute for christ sake! It's only efficient if it's utilized - much like the power grid in a city? See where I'm going with this? It's not a conspiracy theory, people. EV = Less Fuel used, take my word for it.

Last edited by GobLox, Sun, 6 Jul 2008 05:39. Reason : ugh - typo

Quote from tristancliffe :

That would mean we need 150 really tall, vulnerable power stations to power them alone. Then you need another 1000 to run the electric cars. Then you need another 1000 to run all the villages. Then you need another 10000 to run all the businesses......

What are you talking about? I understand you may not have taken statistics but really? You suppose that the current grid in your city is designed to allow every household to turn on every appliance they own, all at once? It’s called probability. Maybe if you ran the power company, it would be prepared for the unlikely circumstance when every person on the planet plugged in their car but I can assure you your local power station will never be prepared for that eventuality.

Do you also not believe in Atoms? Are you not buying that the earth revolves around the sun?

A Thermal Efficiency can be easily calculated for any Heat Engine. Internal Combustion engines are Forward Heat Engines. The Steam Turbines in most power plants are heat engines as well. It does stand to reason that the Thermal Efficiency of these devices can be calculated and compared right? This is first year engineering.

Modern, hydro-carbon burning power plants are, on average, 35% (Non-Super Critical) to 60% (Combined Cycle) efficient. By “Efficient” I of course mean that, of the available energy in the fuel being used, some fraction of this theoretical number is actually yielded as work; that fraction is the efficiency of the device.

A modern gasoline engine is approximately 25% efficient. That’s pretty good; the number was substantially lower even 20 Years ago.
Line-drop due to power distribution is not negligible but relatively low; between 5%-8%. Out of the box, even an area serviced by a decrepit coal-plant with an inefficient grid has you doing as good as or better than a Gasoline powered car in an EV, not counting the other obvious advantages that only British pseudo-science could ignore with a straight face. That’s with both an EV (Yes, don’t be a twat; it stands for Electric Vehicle; differentiation if required; do we really have to tip toe around some negative connotation you’ve acquired?) and an IC vehicle at 55MPH. In reality, most people often have to stop and remain stopped two seconds to two minutes or even longer.

Regenerative braking and simply not running an engine during this time are easily worth a 25% difference in fuel consumption when one isn’t in motion non-stop; whether that fuel is consumed the night before by a power station or this instant by the engine makes no difference. Hell, 25% is the difference between the City and Highway rating of the VW Rabbit. That difference does not even account for an EV’s regenerative braking and lack of an idling engine.

Everyone:
To sum it up; hybrids get better mileage than conventional cars right? (Shake your head yes) You like saving money? Sure you do. Imagine if you could take the 25% thermally efficient engine in your hybrid and replace it with a 50% Thermally Efficient engine! Well you can't retard! So plug your car into the wall and get an equivalent (based on current fuel prices in the US) 190MPG. Get it? Good.



Me? I wouldn't mind seeing a Tesla Roadster look-alike. I highly doubt it'd be boring.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Instead of burning them in your engine you burn them in a power station. The overall efficiency is going to be about the same really...

The overall efficiency isn't in the same ball park. Without looking anything up It's no less than twice as efficient as an individual small engine; but that's pretty conservative. Performance is available with the usual efficiency trade-offs but obviously were still not dipping anywhere near IC-Engine numbers.


Where does a gasoline engine make the most torque approximately? Electric makes it at 0RPM. Around town it's the torque you want for fun. Power = Work/Time? We've got you covered there too.

Range? I don't know about you but my 911 rarely goes farther than 60 Miles round trip - 120 Mile range would be fine for 90% of my driving. Batteries won't replace hydrocarbons for potential to carry energy; even considering a lone IC-engine is around 25% Thermal Efficiency. But imagine a five minute stop at a recharging station every 100 Miles; Might be worth it for $.02 a mile or a 190MPG equivalency. Five Minute recharge? Considering the advancements in batteries made during the last 15 Years you'd have to be crazy to bet against it.

Maintenance? Two years? What? It just comes down to cycles. Yes the GM EV1 did use Lead Acid batteries; hell, the car effectively predated the mainstream use of Lith-Ion batteries and owners loved the cars. Why is GM scrapping them rather than letting owners buy out the lease? Purely legal.

Sound? I love to hear a flat-six scream, or a v12, or a Ford 5.0L for that matter. But it's a pretty weak argument against EV for 98% of the road going populous. Yes, the deaf and dim witted hearing-pedestrians are concerned. You can bet money EVs will be fitted with systems to produce an audible report for pedestrian safety; the "technology" (I mean really, it's not that hard.) is already developed.

Why do I care? I'm not suggesting we need to legally require people to do anything but it always bothers me to see hold-outs make absurd arguments and do their best to slow-progress. Forget what you think you know about Electric Vehicles. It doesn't much matter what I say; Unless fuel prices start going down monkey-see monkey-do will be an unstoppable force when your neighbor is paying six times less per mile than you are.

Quote from Woz :

The trouble with the current gear option is that its just too flexible. In reality you might pick gears by ratio's but then there will only be a few ratios you can pick.

You will not be able to adjust by 0.0001 steps like LFS. Guess that was more I was getting at. So if they are in ratios it should work on teeth internally and work out the ratio for display, that will give realistic options and steps

I agree, on the road going cars there should only be a handfull of final drive ratios available and two maybe three (and three is a stretch) gearbox ratio sets available.

Quote from ACCAkut :

AFAIK X-Plane calculates the planes aerodynamics in real time. On a normal PC. These models don't have to be as accurate as you know them from F1 windchannel simulations

Good Point. XPlane is, arguably, the most advanced flight simulator available to the public! There are no "canned" flight characteristics; any move a modeled aircraft makes happens as a result of Aerodynamic calculations based on the shape of the aircraft or other physics concerns such as Inertia or Torques. Bar none, the most accurate helicopter flight model I've ever been in and I have sat in $60,000 Simulators.

Unfortunately Laminar's engine is a master piece that NASA was involved with and is not a simple matter to replicate.

Quote from dougie-lampkin :

I know the air doesn't get any colder (probably a bit hotter) but the majority of people don't live in climates with enough heat to melt plastic. And the air rushing through will stop the engine overheating the plastic. But plastic on a bonnet would surely be easy to melt from underneath? It has no cooling underneath, and an engine running in a confined space underneath it?

IDK...I've never had to deal with this

There are certain engine components that do get very hot; Exhaust valves in particular. The time they spend in contact with the watercooled valve-seat when they are closed is all that keeps them from melting. It's also unlikely that you will ever see a plastic Exhaust manifold. These are exceptions though; most of the engine stays below 300F. Engine oil usually runs a bit warmer than Coolant.

There are many, many types of "plastics" and even some fairly mundane varieties (Nylons) have melting points above 400F. Your plastic Intake manifold does not require air moving through it to avoid melting. Sensors, Timing chain guides (ramps on a porsche lol) and rubbers in various gaskets; there are lots of plastics in a modern engine =)

This has gotten pretty far off topic. Cars do not produce sparks when they collide with other cars!

Quote from Woz :

+1

There are various things like this. Gears should be set by number of teeth on the cogs etc

I've purchased a handful of ring and pinion sets and concerned myself with transmission gearing ratios as well. Off-roaders are more involved with gearing ratios than the on-road scene; which is not to say it isn't important for cars as well. I've never purchased-by, or cared how many teeth are on which gears. I've never seen it even mentioned except in over-the-top tech articles that are concerned with how to fit some absurd ratio into an existing platform.

The Ratio style listing for gearing ratios is very appropriate.

Considering percentage is all you are concerned with in the fuel department I'd say the choice they made there is fine as well. Most fuel gauges give readings in Percentages. Either way works I guess, race teams probably wouldn't go by the gauge when estimating fuel use so much as taking difference of fuel that had to be refilled. Six of one half dozen of the other. Want to estimate a figure? Estimate it back to liters; they give you the total tank volume. LOL

I think I followed him. I have a g25 and yes it is possible to pull transmission into neutral without clutching (good) and then select next gear with RPMs unmatched (bad) when you are past the apex, press the clutch once and you're off. I don't do it because it doesn't make sense to learn a pointless habit.

The only way around this would be, like OP said, make it such that you have to repeat the operation if you miss a shift. I guess I'm not totally against this so long as Sequential+clutch people have to do it as well. But then most sequential people use auto-clutch anyhow. Until all the other driving aids go I think this is a non-issue. I guess one could argue this slightly reduces workload but not nearly as much as Auto-Clutch. And /agree with poster who noted no way to accurately model gearbox behavior until we have ForceFeedback Gated shifters.

Quote from Woz :

Far far too short a time penalty.

Also, if you are on your roof/side your race should be over.

If you off IRL it eats a huge amount of time if marshals and lifting kit are needed. This is what makes an off costly.

2+ minutes is fair and for me I would prefer 5+. IRL its probably far more.

Anyone asking for less is just looking for a crutch to allow them to continue when they make a mistake. Mistakes are part of racing and people need to learn to live with them.

I don't see this being implemented but, for the most part, Online racing is pretty different than a race weekend. 10-20 Minutes is a pretty long race online. Most people don't want to commit 1-24 Hours to a single race. in a two hour race 5 minutes for a recovery is significant but the driver would still opt to recover and get back in the race -- it's about 4% of the race. A 5 minute recovery in a 10 Minute race? Why bother. The delay would need to be scaled or it will never be of any use except for the guys who really do run 1+ hour races.
... That's about 25-30 Seconds for a 10 Minute race.