Flyin' Miata Super Cup | *Congrats to World Champion Aderrrm!*

[Lord Voldemort]

Okay, BrosifDuder, I will be aware of double posting. Thanks -

Well, I've signed up anyways, so I'll be discussing here.

On the points system, I would like to see relative simplicity. 1st = 16, 2nd = 15, 3rd = 14, 4th = 13, 5th = 12, so on, and so on, if the room is full. Or is that what you did last year? I'm unfamiliar because I haven't participated in this series before.

EDIT: Dr_Watson, the lag has been a problem for me, too. It's simply too much sometimes... I have experience with that. I am really pushing towards limiting play action to North America and start a separate European/Asian/African/Australian series. Also, with myself being right in the middle of the US in North Dakota, at least time zone-wise, it probably won't be a problem for me. But people who live in Vancouver or Seattle on the West Coast, and Augusta (Maine) or New York City will experience lag problems a little, but that's really quite unavoidable. Unless we do a regional series, which I think is really over-the-top.

 

[BrosifDuder]

Not to be confrontational with Watson, but I would prefer that the races stay at 8:00pm EST/EDT as it allows me to take care of any social obligations during the day, watch any races/sports (fantasy football is coming up) that are on TV, and it is a lot easier to convince the GF to leave me be after I have spent the entire day with her.

However, upsetting a wife has a lot more repercussions than upsetting a GF (I think) so I would be willing to start earlier if it helped to reduce the divorce rate in the US.

 

[CodeRedR51]

So, stay on the continent until we figure out ways around the speed of light limitations imposed by distance.

I race in the GT4 cup on Saturday mornings which is run by Aderrrm and has several European racers, and save for the first race (which was taken care of) we haven't had hardly any issues with lag. I can race side by side with Aderrrm and not have any issues...

On the points system, I would like to see relative simplicity. 1st = 16, 2nd = 15, 3rd = 14, 4th = 13, 5th = 12, so on, and so on, if the room is full. Or is that what you did last year? I'm unfamiliar because I haven't participated in this series before.

EDIT: Dr_Watson, the lag has been a problem for me, too. It's simply too much sometimes... I have experience with that. I am really pushing towards limiting play action to North America and start a separate European/Asian/African/Australian series.

I'll be creating a points system shortly. See above for my answer to the lag.

 

[Lord Voldemort]

However, upsetting a wife has a lot more repercussions than upsetting a GF (I think) so I would be willing to start earlier if it helped to reduce the divorce rate in the US.

Lol, I know what you mean. Mine is pretty cool about the whole online racing business. I would personally like 8:00 PM EST (7:00 for me), but I understand Watson's business.

So I suppose its really the bandwidth of the room signal that counts here when it comes to lag?

 

[CodeRedR51]

So I suppose its really the bandwidth of the room signal that counts here when it comes to lag?

I'm not sure how it works, but I do know that one person's signal certainly effects everyone else's. As far as I know, my connection has never caused any problems as long as I dedicate the internet solely to each weekend's race. GT says my connection is "Type NAT2 Very High Bandwidth".

 

[Dr_Watson]

Okay, BrosifDuder, I will be aware of double posting. Thanks -

Well, I've signed up anyways, so I'll be discussing here.

On the points system, I would like to see relative simplicity. 1st = 16, 2nd = 15, 3rd = 14, 4th = 13, 5th = 12, so on, and so on, if the room is full. Or is that what you did last year? I'm unfamiliar because I haven't participated in this series before.

Ahhh points... Thanks for reminding me; that's something I think could use some tweaking.

Season2:
http://fmsc.webs.com/resultsstandings.htm

Position	Points		Bonus Type	Points		
1	18		Winning race from pole	1		
2	16		Attended pre-season race	1	First Place:	18
3	15		DNF	0	Second Place:	16
4	14		Winning B-room race	2	Spread:	1
5	13					
6	12
7	11
8	10
9	9
10	8
11	7
12	6
13	5
14	4					
15	3					
16	2

I always prefer more importance on the podium and lots of emphasis on winning.
On a related theme when we're talking about running two rooms it can also be solved by a points paying B-Room vs complicating things with the 8 and 8 qualifying situation. It seems easier and more elegant to just leave room in the scoring for an "as-needed" overflow race room(s). Makes more sense than doing heat races only on weeks that enough people show up.

Try this on for size it's something I cooked up for a Ferrari Challenge Cup series I'm thinking about running when I'm not busy running in other people's events:

pos     pts    gap above / below     value
1        80        0 / +12           100%
2        68      -12 / + 8            85%
3        60      - 8 / + 4            75%
4        56      - 4 / + 4            70%
5        53      - 3 / + 3            66%
6        50      - 3 / + 2            62%
7        48      - 2 / + 2            60%
8        46      - 2 / + 2            58% 
9        44      - 2 / + 2            55%
10       42      - 2 / + 1            52%
11       41      - 1 / + 1            51%
12       40      n-1 / n+1            n-0.8%
   (...)
48        4      - 1 /   0            0.5%

* You've got room for A,B, and C rooms (48 racers @ 16/room)
* Graduated scale with emphasis on winning, second emphasis on podium, with small differentiation down to 10th place.
* It's based on "value" with winning being 100% of the "value" of the event. Everything below that has points scaled down by how much "value" you want to place on that position, the point gap is far less important because it's pegged to the first place by a percentage.
* With a formula like this you can place values on positions and scale the points as high or low as you want to support however many drivers are in the series.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Trying to keep the numbers as low as I can. Wardez had a good example that a real racing series uses a month or two ago, waiting on his response as we'll probably use it.

 

[Egghead43]

So imagine the lag between poor egghead in Vancouver trying to race against someone in Germany with about a quarter of a second lag between them.
PSN is also sadly peer-to-peer which makes things even worse (i really miss the days of dedicated servers).
So, stay on the continent until we figure out ways around the speed of light limitations imposed by distance.

---

Personally I would prefer earlier start times than last season. My wife is less annoyed if we're not racing in "prime-time" on weekends. But I understand that can't get too early due to west coast time constraints.

I actually regularly race with a group of Europeans at the Nürburgring, mostly from Germany and England, with very little lag issues. More often people might have issues joining the room, or there is one lagging driver, rather than lag issues that affect everyone. These rooms are usually pretty full at around 10-12 racers too, but that's not quite the 16 we'll have in a Miata race.

As far as start time, the current time works well for me. It would certainly not work for most Europeans though if we get some regular participants from across the pond.

 

[CodeRedR51]

As far as start time, the current time works well for me. It would certainly not work for most Europeans though if we get some regular participants from across the pond.

There's always the possibility of running a separate European championship...

 

[SohnVonStig]

The current time is convenient for me, if anything I'd like for it to be later in the evening. That being said, if we were to move it to noon est (or even 11) that would work for me as well. I realize that'd be a bit early for our west coast friends

 

[Dr_Watson]

I'm not sure how it works, but I do know that one person's signal certainly effects everyone else's. As far as I know, my connection has never caused any problems as long as I dedicate the internet solely to each weekend's race. GT says my connection is "Type NAT2 Very High Bandwidth".

In a peer-to-peer system we're connected in a cloud. That's how one person's net can have an effect on other people but not everyone.

Here is a client/server model where everyone's connection is dedicated. And distance to the central server and YOUR connection are the only factors determining lag.

                  (C)
                   |
                   |   (C)
            (C)    |    |
              \    |    |
               \   |    |  .------(C)
                .--------./
           (C)--| Server |----------------------------------(C)
                '--------'
        .------/  /   |   \
       /         |   (C)   \
     (C)         |          \
                (C)          .----- (C)

(C) = Client machine

In this model the server is responsible for the game and it's timing. Clients send their version of the game and any updates made from the user to the server. The server processes everyone's updates and sends out the combined version of what happened in that time slice which the clients synchronize to so everyone is on the same version of reality governed by the server.

Now I haven't done extensive research on GT5's network code or how PSN does it's p2p networking. But based on knowledge of bit-torrent (the daddy of modern p2p mesh networking) and peer-to-peer environs in general were looking at a system more like this one:

                 .(C).
                /  |  \
               /   |   (C)
            (C)----+----+ \
            / \    |    |  `------.
            |  \   |    |  .------(C)---------------------.
            |   .--------./                                \
           (C)--|  Host  |----------------------------------(C)
            |   '--------'                                  /
        .---+--/  /   |   \                                /
       /         |   (C)   \                              /
     (C)         |    |     \                            /
       `--------(C)---+------`---- (C)------------------`

(C) = client

Where the host is the authoritative source for game time. But the clients are all aware of each other and interconnected. So that the host can find clients that are close by and high bandwidth and use them as 1st tier seeds (I wager there is a "tracking server" which does this for the host). So rather than have the server update everyone (requiring a dedicated machine with lots of bandwidth) the host will update what it thinks are the *best* clients which will then update other clients.

This is how a client having problems can mess up someone else since most people are getting updates from other peers not from a central server. I think this is also why some people have complained of "phantom lag" as Brosif calls it. Or reduced frame rates due to being close enough to the host to operate as a preferred seed. Running as the "host" and forwarding server data to peers chews up resources GT5 needs for rendering frames, crunching numbers, and processing input.

The idea is to distribute the load of playing online across the geographically dispersed players. Good from a cost perspective (PSN is still free), but bad from a performance and stability perspective.

 

[Jav]

Trying to keep the numbers as low as I can. Wardez had a good example that a real racing series uses a month or two ago, waiting on his response as we'll probably use it.

I think that's the way to go, keeps everyone chance alive and people don't loose interest if they miss a race.

 

[CodeRedR51]

^^^ Yeah that's way over my head.

Edit: @ Dr_Watson

 

[Dr_Watson]

Trying to keep the numbers as low as I can. Wardez had a good example that a real racing series uses a month or two ago, waiting on his response as we'll probably use it.

ahh, you have that psychological block. where smaller numbers are somehow *better*.
I used to be that way until I thought about it objectively.

Q: why is the metric system better than imperial? A: higher resolution
Q: why do modern monitors/camera/any optical equipment produce sharper more precise images than older generations? A: higher resolution

Higher resolutions in any numerical system produce *better* data with less statistical variation. The only reason I used to hold onto for using smaller numbers is that it creates an artificial sense of parity since the driver that wins everything isn't a mile ahead in the points.

 

[SohnVonStig]

Watson, that's regardless of whether it is fixed host or not correct?
I've noticed, that I've had lag issues when the host is someone in turbo's house but as soon as spank leaves and gives hosting duties to someone else, I stop lagging. Even when he comes back as long as he's not the host. Do you think fixed host has ANYTHING to do with connection or is it just a failsafe so your room will close if you get disconnected?

 

[CodeRedR51]

Watson, that's regardless of whether it is fixed host or not correct?
I've noticed, that I've had lag issues when the host is someone in turbo's house but as soon as spank leaves and gives hosting duties to someone else, I stop lagging. Even when he comes back as long as he's not the host. Do you think fixed host has ANYTHING to do with connection or is it just a failsafe so your room will close if you get disconnected?

Steve is on a wireless connection, and we're usually both online at night during the week. On Sunday nights, the internet connection is all mine. (I do pay for it afterall)

Edit: I've never had anyone tell me I was lagging...

 

[SohnVonStig]

Steve is on a wireless connection, and we're usually both online at night during the week. On Sunday nights, the internet connection is all mine. (I do pay for it afterall)

Gotcha 👍 still what I'm saying is that the hosts connection, regardless of fixed host or not seems to affect others in the room...I know I've periodically had small troubles joining your rooms/lagging when I'm there. I don't think it's either of our connections on their own, as I have nat type 2 and have always been wired (Except for this past weekend, where I had the phone trouble ). Even with wireless I was at a near perfect ping and 100% signal. I think it's just that our connections don't always "get along."

edit: Lol well on sunday I saw everyone lagging but that was my connection I believe sunday was my first lagging problem, although there have been instances where we haven't been able to hear or see each other on track remember?

 

[OutlawQuadrnt]

I race in the GT4 cup on Saturday mornings which is run by Aderrrm and has several European racers, and save for the first race (which was taken care of) we haven't had hardly any issues with lag. I can race side by side with Aderrrm and not have any issues...

I can attest to that as well. In fact, I also participate in SSCS races which normally have UK and European drivers and even with 14 drivers, I had no issues even though I'm all the way in the West Coast.

The current time is convenient for me, if anything I'd like for it to be later in the evening. That being said, if we were to move it to noon est (or even 11) that would work for me as well. I realize that'd be a bit early for our west coast friends

That isn't much of a problem for me. I'm already waking up early for the GT4 cup on Saturdays.

RT, I know I've asked you before about this but do you have a tentative start date for Season 3? I know that everyone's availability is going to be contingent on when we're going to get this rolling (other racing series, real life, football, etc.) and it would be a shame to lose all the participation we have right if we set the date too far off into the future.

 

[CodeRedR51]

RT, I know I've asked you before about this but do you have a tentative start date for Season 3? I know that everyone's availability is going to be contingent on when we're going to get this rolling (other racing series, real life, football, etc.) and it would be a shame to lose all the participation we have right if we set the date too far off into the future.

End of July is my thought.

 

[Dr_Watson]

I think that's the way to go, keeps everyone chance alive

what's the difference between being 50 points behind when a race victory counts for 100 and being 5 points behind when a race victory counts for 10?
None really... it's all perception.

But my main point is that larger point scales solves the problem of multiple rooms easily and elegantly since everyone in the B,C,D rooms are still getting points.

 

[Dr_Watson]

Watson, that's regardless of whether it is fixed host or not correct?
I've noticed, that I've had lag issues when the host is someone in turbo's house but as soon as spank leaves and gives hosting duties to someone else, I stop lagging. Even when he comes back as long as he's not the host. Do you think fixed host has ANYTHING to do with connection or is it just a failsafe so your room will close if you get disconnected?

Fixed host is most likely irrelevant. I would expect that is just a check box which closes the room rather than let someone else take over. What is relevant is the "owner". When spank leaves and someone else gets the king-crown they're now the "master host". Being the authoritative source will require more resources. More importantly though it will change the peer relationships inside the cloud. Which will change lag conditions.

 

[Adam41]

Yes. However, with your points suggestion the gap between 16th and 12th is too small. Imagine someone who was at the back, and made 4 overtakes throughout the race to get himself up to 12th. He receives 4 more points, great! Oh wait, I've only closed the gap up to the leader by 11%. As the points system is now, if you went from 16th to 12th you would receive 4 more points but you would have closed the gap up to the leader by 25%. That's more than 2x.

There's that, and there's the advantage of keeping the numbers simple in the sense that it's easier on the eye to look at the points standings towards the end of the season (someone doesn't have 400+ points, for example).

EDIT: Now thinking about it, have I completely messed up my calculations?

But anyway, what I'm trying to get at is from 16th to 12th you're only gaining 5% (36 points up to 40 points, out of 80) in the total haul of points. With the points system as it is now, you're gaining 22% more points (2 points to 6 points, out of 18). So it's as if with your points system, there's not much incentive to work yourself from 16th to 12th. (Although in games people almost always try their hardest, whereas IRL there's the risk of crashing etc).

 

[OutlawQuadrnt]

Yes. However, with your points suggestion the gap between 16th and 12th is too small. Imagine someone who was at the back, and made 4 overtakes throughout the race to get himself up to 12th. He receives 4 more points, great! Oh wait, I've only closed the gap up to the leader by 11%. As the points system is now, if you went from 16th to 12th you would receive 4 more points but you would have closed the gap up to the leader by 25%. That's more than 2x.

There's that, and there's the advantage of keeping the numbers simple in the sense that it's easier on the eye to look at the points standings towards the end of the season (someone doesn't have 400+ points, for example).

EDIT: Now thinking about it, have I completely messed up my calculations?

But anyway, what I'm trying to get at is from 16th to 12th you're only gaining 5% (36 points up to 40 points, out of 80) in the total haul of points. With the points system as it is now, you're gaining 22% more points (2 points to 6 points, out of 18). So it's as if with your points system, there's not much incentive to work yourself from 16th to 12th. (Although in games people almost always try their hardest, whereas IRL there's the risk of crashing etc).

I see what you mean. I suppose my perspective of it is that if anyone is that far back in the field in the first place, they are driving more for personal pride and to compete against others with similar pace than earning championship points.

On a related note, what we could do is gather all the ideas for point structures we've had so far and apply them to the results first two seasons. It may help everyone to "see" hard numbers based on actual prior results.

 

[Dr_Watson]

Yes. However, with your points suggestion the gap between 16th and 12th is too small. Imagine someone who was at the back, and made 4 overtakes throughout the race to get himself up to 12th. He receives 4 more points, great! Oh wait, I've only closed the gap up to the leader by 11%. As the points system is now, if you went from 16th to 12th you would receive 4 more points but you would have closed the gap up to the leader by 25%. That's more than 2x.

There's that, and there's the advantage of keeping the numbers simple in the sense that it's easier on the eye to look at the points standings towards the end of the season (someone doesn't have 400+ points, for example).

EDIT: Now thinking about it, have I completely messed up my calculations?

But anyway, what I'm trying to get at is from 16th to 12th you're only gaining 5% (36 points up to 40 points, out of 80) in the total haul of points. With the points system as it is now, you're gaining 22% more points (2 points to 6 points, out of 18). So it's as if with your points system, there's not much incentive to work yourself from 16th to 12th. (Although in games people almost always try their hardest, whereas IRL there's the risk of crashing etc).

That's a factor of value, as I said I value wins and podiums. But that's the beauty of using more points. The higher resolution lets you tinker with weights depending on where you place value. Fighting for 12th is right up my alley... and IMO it isn't 22% more valuable than finishing 16th.

 

[Wardez]

Shoulds should be spread depending on series length. I like seeing smaller points totals (no more than 30) for seasons that are from 4 to 8 races. Longer series I usually like to have big points like what you suggested TNJ. But that's just preference, and that's just what it comes down to. It's really hard to go wrong with points but making the points too great for podiums really just ends up putting people off in the long run that don't finish as highly.

And to shed some light on your networking splurge, GT5, just as it usually is with most console games, is based on a mesh network. It's never a star network no matter what room settings you use.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Apparently we're inspiring many people:

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=209957

 

[SPANK]

I really wish I could get in on this...but I will never be able to have time. Cant make it on the week days? Pleeeeeaase??

 

[Schadenfreude13]

^^^ That's another thing. As stupid as it might seem to some people, I would encourage people to find a sponsor, match their car to that sponsors colors, and stick with them the whole season. 👍

Find a sponsor? As in find someone to actually sponsor us, or do you mean for us to mimic some well-known livery, like Vodafone McLaren, Petronas Mercedes, etc.???

 

[Dr_Watson]

I see what you mean. I suppose my perspective of it is that if anyone is that far back in the field in the first place, they are driving more for personal pride and to compete against others with similar pace than earning championship points.

On a related note, what we could do is gather all the ideas for point structures we've had so far and apply them to the results first two seasons. It may help everyone to "see" hard numbers based on actual prior results.

Fully agree with your perspective. 👍
on your related note here's what happens if you ran season 2 with the high-res points I mocked up earlier.

As you can see the only real difference is that larger point totals reward participation.

btw turbo your results are wrong for race 4. you have two people in 12th.

Shoulds should be spread depending on series length. I like seeing smaller points totals (no more than 30) for seasons that are from 4 to 8 races. Longer series I usually like to have big points like what you suggested TNJ. But that's just preference, and that's just what it comes down to. It's really hard to go wrong with points but making the points too great for podiums really just ends up putting people off in the long run that don't finish as highly.

Just to be clear... I'm suggesting higher points so that more people can get points. As someone who finished mid pack all season and had to sweat in qualifying to make the grid. The only thing that put me off about the series was the week I didn't qualify in the top 16 so I got a 0 in race 1. With more points I would have had incentive to run in the 'B' room and picked up valuable points.
Going by the mock-up above, had I gained even a small amount of points that week I would have been closer to the leaders. More importantly I would have been a 4th person who put up points in every race. After-all from my quick look at season 2 from a data analysis stand-point the thing creating gaps was participation.
Only 3 people scored points in every race (highlighted in green).

You want people running every week you have to give them a carrot to chase... that's what points are for.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Find a sponsor? As in find someone to actually sponsor us, or do you mean for us to mimic some well-known livery, like Vodafone McLaren, Petronas Mercedes, etc.???

It would be cooler if they were real, but doesn't have to be. 👍

Might have the points figured out. Don't ask me how I came up with the numbers as there really isn't much logic to them.

Qualifying Race:

1. 10
2. 8
3. 6
4. 5
5. 4
6. 3
7. 2
8. 1

Feature Race: (or only race)

1. 21
2. 19
3. 18
4. 17
5. 16
6. 15
7. 14
8. 13
9. 12
10. 11
11. 10
12. 9
13. 8
14. 7
15. 6
16. 5

Edit: I'll fix the Race #4 mistake when I get home.