Quote from EQ Worry :

@ goerge : Very nice analysis! It is for me hard to comment on all the mentioned things. Web stats, pages, announcements, subscriptions, all that would be great, but is there someone willing to do it? If so, raise your voice now! I can add some functionality to Airio supporting what would be needed, but I cannot do such pages.

I mentioned web stats, etc as some sort of footnote or would-be-nice-to-have features
The main message I wanted to deliver is 4 points list of ideal server features.

Last edited by goerge, Thu 10 Mar 2011, 18:13.

Hi,
let me delineate my idea of ideal server for average racer.
I consider myself as average racer, not by PBs (they are much worse ) but by behaviour.
So what average racer want? I want to race not to crash. I want somebody to race with - at least one or two racers at similar level whom I can keep up, it usually requires fellow racer with the same car and similar setup.
How does my usual racing session looks like? I pick a car by actual taste and some known track (usually BL1 for nostalgic reasons ). Do several laps with default setup to get feeling of the car, get some "better" setup from web, do some other laps, try to improve my lap times, maybe change to another track. Then I go search for some populated server with combo I would like to try.
At this point a usualy realize that there is no such server with people racing. Last time I ended up in single player race with AI. Believe it or not, it was quite fun. Same car. Same setup. As last on start grid I have somebody to race with. I even improved by PB (yes, I know pretty lame) but if you have somebody to race with suddenly you become faster

Basicaly there are 4 steps:

1. Get used to the car, standard setup
   
2. Get used to the track
   
3. After I get used to car, track combo, I try to improve my lap times, try other setups
   
4. Do some racing against other people
   

So finally, ideal server for me would be:

1. one, at most two comparable car classes per combo, longer rotation interval, let say 3 * X (see point 2.) minutes
   
2. track rotation X minutes
   
3. provide some reasonable initial setup (maybe link on welcome screen?)
   
4. I would also appreciate if there will be some regular schedule for combos. E.g. Every monday at 19:00 there will be FBM at BL1. Rotation intervals would need to be carefully thought out to schedule combos for major timezones at reasonable time
   

General idea is to let people drive 1 car on more tracks (e.g. 3, this is the 3 in 3 * X) and to allow to try more cars, but to get balanced races (one car class in race).
Idea behind 1. and 2. is to let people try more tracks with car they got used to.
Idea behind 3. is to achieve balanced races (I know it's not only about setup, but it helps).
Idea behind 4. is that regular combos would attract racers to come back and race their favourite track with favourite car.

All this stuff should be supported by some web page with combo shedules, statistics, click&join, etc.

I do not request anything I just think you would appreciate average racers point of view.

I hope I didn't go too far off topic

Last edited by goerge, Thu 10 Mar 2011, 15:53.

I finally added OutGauge and OutSim support . Check SVN for latest version

Quote from bukhem :

I know this is a difficult questions for such a project but ... WHEN?

I'm under time pressure right now, it won't be as soon as I'd like too

Quote from bukhem :

Hi.

Am I correct that you lib (currently) doesn't support OutGauge Pakets?

Cheers.

Yes, you are correct. InSim4J currently doesn't support OutGauge, my shame :ashamed:.
But it will soon .

Why?
- just try if I can make it

Features
- latest InSim version (Patch Y; INSIM_VERSION = 4)
- UDP and TCP client

Where to get it?
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/insim4j/

Notes
- packets have JUnit tests
- logging

Sample usage is in test/net/sourceforge/insim4j/General.java
Testers welcomed

Last edited by goerge, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 09:54.