keiran, you relate LFS to NK, NK is a new game that has problems with it's online play, more so than LFS having people that cannot drive. Because of those the player base is nowhere near LFS. With a larger player base like LFS I think a hardcore mode would work well.
On topic: great idea becky, thats the type of idea I had in mind, but I know nothing about programming so I couldn't see my idea's a reality. Goodluck with the rest of the programming =P
what really pees me off is whe your at pit exit and waiting for someone to pass on the track and one of two things happens
1 if your still in the actual "hard walled" pitlane (behind barrier at blackwood, wall at south city etc) some idiot will drive straight over top of you and then abuse you for blocking
or
2 if you stop in the "soft walled" pit lane (i.e. behind yellow line then ssome idiot on the track will either loose control / miss braking point (blackwood) or take a stupidly tight line into first bend (south city) and wipe you out and then start abusing you for getting in his way
simplest answer ( though probably not to code) is a traffic light system like in real life but if you pass the light then you get booted back into your pit, this will hurt people far more than disqualifying them but will allow people to join the track.
to be fair thouhg if you have 16 + racers at south city in fox doing 43 sec laps then after 6 laps it can be hard to actually find a gap to join the track in
After reading Tinvek's post, I was wondering something. We know what everyone's opinion of someone leaving pitroad and not crossing the yellow line. But what is the opinion or IRL racing rules of racers crossing INTO the yellow pit exit? I'm only familiar with Nascar where someone leaving the pits has to stay on the apron usually around turns 1 and 2 until they are on the back straight. By then, they are up to speed and able to merge into traffic. Obviously, they are not going to get wiped out by someone pulling down on the apron. But what about in road racing where you have a yellow lane for pit exit? Is it allowed to enter this area by cars out on the track? I try to avoid this area, at Westhill for example. You want to be on the left side as t1 is a right hand corner, but I will go past the pit exit before I pull over to the left side.
Also, in Nascar, the only time they are stopped at the end of pitroad is during a caution when the pack is coming around. After the pack is past, then they are allowed to exit. All other times, they leave and don't have to stop for traffic like is being complained about here.
The majority of the problem is folks exiting pitroad from midrace joining. But what about those actually in the race who happen to stop for tires/fuel/damage, such as with 1 pit required setting? In my opinion, they should be allowed to exit any time they want as long as they don't interfere with someone coming. You shouldn't have to stop. The car on the track should also share the responsiblity of not making contact when someone is leaving the pits.
This discussion I think is always thought of with folks joining in midrace and blasting out of pitroad. As suggested, a light at the end where you would get penalized or kicked back to the pits helps in respect to midrace joiners, but it doesn't address those who make legitimate pitstops during a race. This would destroy the race for them. Example, I'm the leader and the fastest and I pit. I can pull out of the pits as the new leaders come around, I should be allowed to leave and try to beat them so I don't loose the lap. I would obviously get the blue flag, but that would go away eventually as I was the fastest on the track (hypothetical, it's hard for me to be the fastest, LOL).
With that, I think the only solution is to have no midrace join and no "teleporting" to pits and rejoining. That way, everyone who would be exiting the pits would be ones who are still in the race and therefore legitimately have the right to try to beat the cars coming.
Alas, this is becomming to complicated to be practical. Maybe everyone both on the track and in the pits should just learn to be careful. All it really takes is one person to be careful, which means YOU, the person reading this can fix the situation. If you're in the pits, be careful comming out. If you're on the track, be mindful that those exiting the pits have the potential to be oblivious. If ONE person is mindful, things are less likely to go awry.
Just like all the other threads - if you want serious racing where everyone (hopefully) understands racing, then join a league. Pick up races have fundamental problems that cannot be remedied without compromising accessibility and practicality.
There is no limitation regarding the drivers on track and the pit exit line. Your wise to be mindful of it especially during pit windows, but you do not have to avoid it and some tracks even go as far to make it impossible to avoid as the pit line sometimes crosses the race line, i'm not sure if I mentioned it above in this thread, but an accident involving a friend of mine occured at just such a pit lane exit where the flag marshall wasn't paying attention.
