Hi everyone!

In addition to Airio (LFS server tool) and Aonio (LFS client tool) a new LFS feature is finally complete and ready to be presented. It is a set of Web scripts, database tables, and pages showing various statistics and data. I call it Autio and it includes both static (only regularly updated) data from certain Airio-powered servers, and dynamic (always up-to-date) information.

The static part of Autio has been in existence for some months already. It simply allows online browsing through certain servers stats as are usually available using commands such as !sb, !pb, !ptt, !ptc, and dozens of others. The dynamic part is very new and most of the text below concerns only this new part.

Just a few quick links to get an idea what this is about. First static things:Complete AA demo servers stats; Standings in Genuine Racing GTI/TBO series; Best WE1+FOX lap times on FragMaster. And some dynamic data: Current highest LFS Experience Indexes; Best clean online BL1+FBM laps; My current stats in custom cars.

As many people probably have noticed, recently there are new messages on Airio PROS powered servers appearing, starting with AIRW and reporting some lap time improvements or standings. I've been very busy making adjustments to the whole idea, but I consider it now basically complete so the time has come to explain what it is and why it is.

You all know what it is LFS World, LFSW. The Airio World, which the AIRW stands for, is in no way trying to compete with the huge LFSW database. It is simply adding things that are missing in the LFSW and that may help to have more fun, new and more targets to aim for. AIRW consists in essence of three parts.

1) Full support for custom cars. For many years there are certain restricted cars used in LFS, yet they never received "official" support. Examples are GT2 cars (restricted FXR, XRR, FZR) and the very popular UFB (heavily restricted UFR). Some time ago Airio added local support for custom cars, which from then can have separate local statistics. AIRW is basically moving the statistics to global level.

If someone is using a supported custom (restricted) car, data of each lap are sent to airio.eu server, processed, stored in a database, sometimes also response message is sent back. The Web server keeps a database of personal best laps on each track in every custom car. Such laps just need to be complete, cutting and pushing is ignored, improvements are reported back with time difference. This is very similar to what online LFSW improvements do and show.

In addition "clean" laps in custom cars are evaluated separately. Clean lap is one in which the car was always seen by the LFS server/local Airio inside defined path (no grass) and also the car was driving basically alone for the whole lap, there was no other car close by for a prolonged period. This second check/condition excludes all drafting and pushing. Times of clean laps are stored separately and the best of them is current world record (WR) valid for certain custom car on certain track.

Local Airios are getting back information about personal and world records in custom cars and existing commands showing such info from LFSW will show also data from AIRW. That means !pr ufb or !prs fx2 or !wr ufb so1 are perfectly valid commands that will use data coming from AIRW (if such are already available). This full support of custom cars is what I consider the more important part of the AIRW databases.

2) Support for best online hotlaps. This is a feature added on request and the aim is to make online hotlapping somehow more attractive. The BL (best lap) database includes data about unrestricted (standard) cars, but only about clean laps in such cars. Read above to see what is a clean lap (on the path, no cars near).

It keeps/reports only times withing 2% of the current best online clean lap. If there is a BL improvement, records outside the 2% are removed. If someone makes a clean lap and improves his time a message is sent back showing his current position in the BL database and also total records in that particular track/car combo.

I hope showing such data publicly will prove to be a good thing that will make some people proud or happy and others constantly trying to improve. Also I hope online hotlapping may get more popular. It is almost impossible to do clean laps on a packed server, especially multiclass, because there'll be always someone near making the lap invalid. But there is quite a lot other empty servers where hotlappers could go and show their abilities. Such servers could attract more attention and maybe become known and popular even among general community. I must note however that to have the AIRW features the server must run Airio PROS version 2.4.2 or newer.

3) Web interface showing the lap times. Data about custom cars are available online, in Airio, using such commands as !wrs or !prs. Data about best laps are available using !bl and !bls. But there is also a Web interface where you can go through current records and maybe see your positions or go for a possible improvements.

AIRW data are part of Autio site, which anyone can access at stats.airio.eu. BL time tables include both standard and custom cars, in case of custom cars the top time is current "official" WR. PB tables include only custom cars. There is also a link to LFS Experience Index table, now stored as a true database and not just temporary table resetting itself occasionally.

Well, that's about it, welcome to AIRW. I hope you will like it and I must repeat that the point is not to compete with LFSW, which is a much more professional matter. The point is to add new and missing things in an attempt to move LFS again one small step ahead while there is no other visible development concerning tracks, cars, general LFS user experience.

As always, comments and suggestions are most welcome. I was thinking about making this announcement only in the main Airio thread, but the message/explanation got so big I considered a separate new thread more suitable. One last note: Only time will show how much is the service reliable and useful. After all, it includes remote communication that may fail for various reasons. Also bugs may still appear, in scripts, database tables, and in Airio itself. Enjoy!

Very informative post EQ, THX for the hard work mate!

With this R2R may be reopening the GT2 server soon!

Thanks a lot man, sssooo helpful thinking of GT2 series!

GT2 FTW ! Really big thanks EQ you have made something really usefull for the game ! I really enjoy all the few stuff that Airio (& Co) have and that last one is really a good things again

COngratz and thanks !

So far it seems it all works reliably. The question is what restrictions of the GT2 cars to use. Currently it stands like this: FZ2 (20%), FX2 (23%), XR2 (24%). We should find good and definite values soon. It will not be possible to have the three cars perfectly balanced, but at least the same balance as with GTR cars should be achieved. As the system works, it is basically possible to move restrictions up and down, but moving it up to higher percentage means many of the already recorded data will be excluded. Well...

Quote from EQ Worry :

So far it seems it all works reliably. The question is what restrictions of the GT2 cars to use. Currently it stands like this: FZ2 (20%), FX2 (23%), XR2 (24%). We should find good and definite values soon. It will not be possible to have the three cars perfectly balanced, but at least the same balance as with GTR cars should be achieved. As the system works, it is basically possible to move restrictions up and down, but moving it up to higher percentage means many of the already recorded data will be excluded. Well...

NDR used the 20/23/24 in GTAL, and seemed to me that most drivers felt it was a good balance.

MoE added some ballast to the XR2, but that seemed to keep people away from it there.

I'd say that the 20/23/24 is sufficient for GT2.

Quote from dekojester :

NDR used the 20/23/24 in GTAL, and seemed to me that most drivers felt it was a good balance.

MoE added some ballast to the XR2, but that seemed to keep people away from it there.

I'd say that the 20/23/24 is sufficient for GT2.

I agree with you, we've tested it intensively on our GT2 server last year and came to the same conclusion, beginners seems to use the FX2 more and often makes it looks slow, but with Masai in it we had to hold him off with 23%...

So I'll say 20/23/24 too...don't like to combine added mass with air restriction...

Me neither, I use the same settings on the servers.

Great! Thanks for your responses, so the restrictions can stay, which is good. What is also defined is 45% for UFB, but I believe that is a pretty much standard that does not have to be balanced with other cars. Note that you can use such cars on any Airio 2.4.2+ PROS server, whether the cars are defined there or not. But having them defined ensures some special Airio commands will work reliably also with custom cars.

And don't forget the now somewhat unknown FJR.

I took the specs from this post. Luckily that attachment is not necassary anymore due to AIRW

Yes, indeed, FJR is also supported, exactly by the mentioned specification. Furthermore there are restricted demo cars, which (maybe) can make LFS more interesting even for demo people... They are XFG, XRG, and FBM, all restricted by 20%...

Nice name... Will test i as soon as I can get rid of the Wi-Fi...

EQ Worry, a few questions about the EI page

How long does it retain data? It seems like a few weeks ago it would only keep a few hundred to 1000 entries, and now it's up to 7000 to 8000 entries. Do you keep changing the retaining length?

Is there a way for you to record how many of the people are on S2 servers, so there can be a measure of how many S2 licensed users visit FULL/PROS Airio powered hosts in however long you keep data?

Would you consider allowing FREE Airio to update EI data on the site even if you couldn't see it on the server?

Quote from pik_d :

... questions about the EI page ... How long does it retain data?

The table used to be in-memory only, so it was erased on each ASP.NET application reset (at least once a day) and the number of items was artificially limited to 1000.

Last week, as I gained more experience, I turned the in-memory table to a database table. That means the table is persistent and there's no real limit concerning the number of entries.

To keep the rubbish out only people with LFSEI higher than 100 are stored.

Quote from pik_d :

Is there a way for you to record how many of the people are on S2 servers, so there can be a measure of how many S2 licensed users visit FULL/PROS Airio powered hosts in however long you keep data?

You mean to generate some graph similar to the one shown under Home icon on LFS World?

Quote from pik_d :

Would you consider allowing FREE Airio to update EI data on the site even if you couldn't see it on the server?

Calculating the experience index is relatively expensive concerning the number of requests that need to be processed. For each driver on server three separate tables must be downloaded from LFSW on connect, each LFSW PB improvement, or regularly every 20 minutes (newly 30 minutes). The data needs to be processed, a request to airio.eu formed and sent. The site must then crunch all the available data, do the calculations, store it, and send results back.

Limiting all this to FULL/PROS version has two effects: 1) It is quite probable the server owner knows Airio reasonably well and is able to configure communication properly, because he/she already spent some not negligible amount of money to get the system. 2) The number of requests directed to airio.eu is limited to make sure I do not exceed the allocated server processing time, bandwidth, and database size.

For these reasons, especially the 2nd one, I'm not for now considering processing requests from FREE Airios. There is very similar situation concerning processing of best/good laps (standard cars) and world records/good laps/personal bests (custom cars), limited to PROS Airio versions.

Quote from EQ Worry :

The table used to be in-memory only, so it was erased on each ASP.NET application reset (at least once a day) and the number of items was artificially limited to 1000.

Last week, as I gained more experience, I turned the in-memory table to a database table. That means the table is persistent and there's no real limit concerning the number of entries.

To keep the rubbish out only people with LFSEI higher than 100 are stored.

Two or three days ago I am pretty sure I saw "Total number of records: 83xx", then today it was down to 6700 and now back up to 7000. I'm guessing that drop was due to everyone under 100 being dropped?

Quote from EQ Worry :

You mean to generate some graph similar to the one shown under Home icon on LFS World?

No, that graph shows the number of users on at a specific time. What I'm asking is if you can give the unique number of S2/S1/demo licenses over the past day/week on Airio powered servers.

Quote from EQ Worry :

Calculating the experience index is relatively expensive concerning the number of requests that need to be processed. For each driver on server three separate tables must be downloaded from LFSW on connect, each LFSW PB improvement, or regularly every 20 minutes (newly 30 minutes). The data needs to be processed, a request to airio.eu formed and sent. The site must then crunch all the available data, do the calculations, store it, and send results back.

Limiting all this to FULL/PROS version has two effects: 1) It is quite probable the server owner knows Airio reasonably well and is able to configure communication properly, because he/she already spent some not negligible amount of money to get the system. 2) The number of requests directed to airio.eu is limited to make sure I do not exceed the allocated server processing time, bandwidth, and database size.

For these reasons, especially the 2nd one, I'm not for now considering processing requests from FREE Airios. There is very similar situation concerning processing of best/good laps (standard cars) and world records/good laps/personal bests (custom cars), limited to PROS Airio versions.

OK, that all makes sense. I suspected it had a bit due to cost of bandwidth. Thanks for the answer.

Quote from pik_d :

Two or three days ago I am pretty sure I saw "Total number of records: 83xx", then today it was down to 6700 and now back up to 7000. I'm guessing that drop was due to everyone under 100 being dropped?

Exactly, I let it run for a day without limit, but it proved out to be pointless to store below 100 indexes. We'll see, in time the limit may be raised to 150 or even 200...

Quote from pik_d :

No, that graph shows the number of users on at a specific time. What I'm asking is if you can give the unique number of S2/S1/demo licenses over the past day/week on Airio powered servers.

That's a tough call. As far as I know, the information about s0/s1/s2 licence of specific people is not readily available using LFS World. (I was asking more than a year ago for this info to be added, but...) Airio makes simple assumption that anyone under 8 PBs on LFSW is demo, anyone over the count is licensed. But even this (partially unreliable) info is not sent anywhere, so Autio currently has no info available concerning licence status.

An option would be to use the LFSEI updating, but then the counts will include only people on FULL/PROS Airios and everyone with hidden LFSW stats would be excluded. Another option would be to make Airio update sending guessed S-statuses together with other server data. Uff, sounds rather complicated...

Well if someone joins a S2 server, then they must have an S2 license. You've already got a database of drivers, inserting a license variable to that would make sense for this idea. If someone joins an S0 server, then later joins a S2 server then S2 overwrites S0. S0 would obviously not overwrite S2 though.

I suppose if you don't want to store everyone (below 100 EI, not ever joined FULL/PROS server) then it's a problem.

Good idea about using joined server to guess the licence. The Web site is downloading server data so it may (hopefully) see what is S0/1/2 server. I'll keep (try to, I mean) the idea in mind and see if some new database table could be used to store people, their licences, and last joined time/date. From this number of unique S0/1/2 people for specified past period could be extracted easily.

PS: In fact the site downloads complete data of all servers every minute, which contain all you're interested in, so the whole system may very well be Airio-independent...

Check http://stats.airio.eu/PPL.aspx, see if that's what you were asking for... The page is not linked properly yet to navigation, but the data should be correct. I'll try to think of some more interesting info to show.

Excellent

I don't trust the LFSW graph so this is nice

Hopefully you can use this data also for the InSim. Sometimes I'll wonder when the S1 server is populated who really is S1 instead of S2.

I did some updates, it now shows one more number and all of them a bit more compressed, hopefully still understandable and meaningful. In time I'll try to add some picture showing LFSW servers and people as well as Airio FREE/FULL servers and people...

The LFS graph is really strange currently it shows almost 1000 people online, while there are less than 700 on all the servers. Either there's 300 more on hidden servers (but usually such do not connect to master, so I have my doubts), or there's something wrong with the count...

Quote from EQ Worry :

hidden servers (but usually such do not connect to master, so I have my doubts)

Hidden servers are /usemaster=hidden I guess? Surely they do because what else are they hiding? If you check the Racers & Hosts Online in LFSW, the names that don't have a host value are on hidden servers.

I agree there's something strange, the graph and the total value in LFSW's RHO window appear to not match

Hm, interesting, thx for info. It seems there are currently about 80 people on hidden servers (all of them Finns, for some reason, which I'm not going to speculate about). We're still missing some 250 souls though.

80 Finns hidden?

Loooolll

Since they're all Finns, it's probably 'Maailman nopein kansa' thingy, dates match too. The finals were televised some time back I think. http://www.maailmannopeinkansa.fi/tournaments