- 93
- New Zealand
I hate Suzuka, I've seen my SR drop from a B to a D in just a few races there, however the constant stream of negative SR and time penalties had lead me to realise what I think the main flaw with how penalties are handed out for racing incidents. This isn't a rant btw, it's just an observation of how the penalties system works and I'm curious if other have reached the same conclusions.
As far as I can tell the system makes no distinction between straight and corner and appears to treat every incident as though it occurred on a straight. This is why obvious examples of dive bombing on corners which many of us believe should be obvious to the system go unpunished or worse, punish the victim. From what I can tell because it can't differentiate between a straight and a corner it interprets normal turning motions as blocking which is why you are sometimes given a penalty when someone slams into the back of your car, or puts their nose inside your real wheel arch right before the apex. If the same thing happened on a straight the car in front would probably be at fault as most of the time this sort of contact would be a result of a dangerous swerve to block rather than just following the racing line through a corner.
Similarly I've noticed on sharp corner exits (specifically the chicane at Suzuka but I've had this occur on other corners like the slow hairpin at Kyoto) that when the car behind me gets a better exit and just runs into the back of me while I'm following the racing line I've been given 10 second penalties because I think the game is interpreting me following the racing line as swerving to block a faster car. Again if I moved from the inside to the outside while on a straight while a car was close behind and making up ground the penalty would absolutely be correct but on the exit to of a corner you are basically locked into your line and there's not much you can do about the fact the guy behind you got a better exit and has attempted to drive through you rather than being patient enough to sit tight and wait for the straight to begin.
Hopefully as PD accumulates more data they can adjust the penalty rational to take corners into account but I suspect this could be a lot of work (mapping all the tracks and then adding the new decision making algorithms) so it will be a long way off - if it happens at all. But hopefully this will give you some insight into why I believe the penalty system works the way it does right now - assuming my observations and conclusions are correct of course.
As far as I can tell the system makes no distinction between straight and corner and appears to treat every incident as though it occurred on a straight. This is why obvious examples of dive bombing on corners which many of us believe should be obvious to the system go unpunished or worse, punish the victim. From what I can tell because it can't differentiate between a straight and a corner it interprets normal turning motions as blocking which is why you are sometimes given a penalty when someone slams into the back of your car, or puts their nose inside your real wheel arch right before the apex. If the same thing happened on a straight the car in front would probably be at fault as most of the time this sort of contact would be a result of a dangerous swerve to block rather than just following the racing line through a corner.
Similarly I've noticed on sharp corner exits (specifically the chicane at Suzuka but I've had this occur on other corners like the slow hairpin at Kyoto) that when the car behind me gets a better exit and just runs into the back of me while I'm following the racing line I've been given 10 second penalties because I think the game is interpreting me following the racing line as swerving to block a faster car. Again if I moved from the inside to the outside while on a straight while a car was close behind and making up ground the penalty would absolutely be correct but on the exit to of a corner you are basically locked into your line and there's not much you can do about the fact the guy behind you got a better exit and has attempted to drive through you rather than being patient enough to sit tight and wait for the straight to begin.
Hopefully as PD accumulates more data they can adjust the penalty rational to take corners into account but I suspect this could be a lot of work (mapping all the tracks and then adding the new decision making algorithms) so it will be a long way off - if it happens at all. But hopefully this will give you some insight into why I believe the penalty system works the way it does right now - assuming my observations and conclusions are correct of course.
