okay, for these of you who might of played 'poker' online, in the server listing you see some info, and perhaps one of the most important bits is 'average pot', for these who dont know, thats pretty much how much people bet, but i aint gonna get into that. So where does this come in LFS? Well before you join a server, you know what ur up against.

First add-on column, displays the 'average' benchmarking of the server, how this is done by taking the lfsworld pb lap of all the drivers gets an average, which is then compared with the WR times on LFSworld. This figure will be showen as +2.2 etc, and maybe you can work a color code into it....like a box with yellow for average (ie near benchmark times), green for fast and red for the slows. This will help you find a server that suits your pace, but now for the 2nd bit.

By using a little bit of maths, you can figure out the Standard deviation of the laptimes DURING the race, if its really really big, that usually means you have alot of crashing, 10 minute laps and basically not alot of close racing. Again this can be worked into a colour code, Green,Yellow,Red, or maybe 2 shades of green and 2shades of red.

before a session of LFS i usually go on lfsworld live alert and see which of my friends are online and join them, but if none are online, then it takes alot of trial and error until i find a nice server, so this could help.

this is an idea i thought of in 5 mins, including the time it took to post, so maybe we can work on it

Probably not the PERFECT solution, but as the basis of an idea it's very good. I know what you mean about finding a server that you like, and that provides close racing at your own level of competition (there's no point joining a server for close racing if you're 5 seconds a lap faster or slower than where the good racing is!).

The next question is, if the servers are rated to the racers benchmark, then you need to know what YOUR benchmark is. Perhaps, and it's only a quick though, LFS should show more details WITHIN LFS. Perhaps a User Details button on the main menu, where you can see useful statistics easily (rather than just a portal to LFSW in LFS, where finding the useful data might take quite a while).

Nice one Chensta though.

hmmm i think the benchmark should remain the WR + 103 etc, and i guess you just gotta know your own abilities, do i usually drive 5 seconds off WR? or maybe 2 seconds, or am I on par with the best guys. But I guess LFS world can download your PB, and compare that with times of the server, again i havent thought THAT much about it, just throwing up the basic idea and let you guys work it out

P.S and its Chensta FFS! lol

What if there is one fast driver and 10 slow ones?

then the average of the server would be slower, to reflect the slower drivers And if all the slower drivers are equally slow, that will also be shown with the Standard Deviations (gets rid of odd one out, like the 1 fast guy), so then if you are a realtively slow driver, you have found yourself a cool server

Sounds like a great idea to me. Normally I race on a server with people that I know are quick but this would make it easier to find a server when no-one you know is online.

Yea, I thought of that idea myself as well. It's not much fun to be able to lap half of the people and win with a 30 second gap - or otherwise be the ducklin trying his best to keep up with the flock ahead.
The best races are those with slightly faster and/or slightly slower, around your level. If you can spot the servers that have an average PB wich is close to yours, most of the time you can assume the racers are equally leveled.
(Not always of course, the average doesnt say that much..)

I know I would really appreciate a similiar feature.

thats why u work the average and the 'standard deviation', if its extremely high, then you'd know not alot of people are finishing race, or doing 5 minute laps...for woteva reason :P

Bonus!