Devs, please!

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by sirBodo, May 8, 2019.

  1. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    I dont see any issue with making pit boxes larger for 2 reasons:
    #1 this is for human players, not AI. AIs dont even need to be touched on this, a separate online racing function could be created (a suggestion for the issue @Marcel Offermans )
    #2 Track creators dont need to do anything in the 3d part, a quick update on the AIW will be enough and the community itself can create league updates, this is nothing new. Of course whoever is doing that will take into account the pit lane size.

    Need to stop with that "oh let's not do this or that because xxxx" it's annoying man. May as well stop updating the game with that logic, geez.
     
  2. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    More coding work of course, would a need for a Separate Online Function require Two installs of the same track? One for Online & One for Offline? Or Separate AIW files for each may be the best way forward, again a lot of coding work would need to go into that as it's not just simply changing AIW it's changing Packaging as well, Online coding would need an update so it knows which AIW to pick. Again all potential avenues need to be investigated (by S397 of course) and the result of that will be what's suits the game overall, but this is not a quick fix my any stretch of the imagination.

    It's not about the "3D part", what I was referring too was changing the Code for Larger Pit Boxes *may* cause issues elsewhere, again look at every eventuality, the pros the cons, how would it work, will it affect other areas etc etc.

    It's called Discussion Will, please allow others to have their viewpoints made :).

    Finally, like above whenever something this important is raised it needs to be looked at from every angle possible, it's no good just going the direct route and putting it in game without any consideration for what might happen and I know S397 will investigate as much as they can. :)
     
  3. McNolo

    McNolo Registered

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    Another option that would be even more automatic and that would avoid having to modify the tracks would be a selectable option like "box pit X2", which would automatically convert the space of the pit stop to twice as large.
     
  4. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    Regarding an indicator of whether someone is in your pitbox, I'm sure in rF1 during league races (which were organised properly with the teams and tracks, so 2 cars per pit) I once requested a pit and didn't get told my pit crew was ready until a lap later - and then realised my teammate had already requested before me.

    On the other hand, on another occasion I requested a stop and got told they were ready, went in and I was in a different pit bay (remember, we'd assigned them all properly, so I'd used the exact same pit bay through 2 weeks of practice and qualifying, but for this single stop I went into a different one) seemingly because the game decided to let me pit 'at the same time' as my teammate, in a different place.

    I couldn't say if I had any similar experiences in rF2.

    I think any workarounds here can potentially be done in configuration rather than even needing AIW mods (and would be preferable, given the packaging). Assuming we exclude AI to keep things simpler, the existing pit box will be level enough that you could extend it to double its size without causing dramas. You'd want (as the admin/player) to be able to say which way it gets extended (length or width, and probably some options as far as whether/how it moves (centred, forward/back, left/right).
     
  5. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    Yep, this is to me very simple. Some just need to make things way bigger than they are, no pun intended :D
    No need extra files, extra packing, extra server option. Only an extra box in the pit area for the human player or extend the current one, all in the same AIW.
     
  6. McNolo

    McNolo Registered

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    Extending the idea a little bit and to avoid problems of a double pitstop without space, perhaps a line could be implemented in the GDB in which the modder itself could set the size multiplier for the pit box and the direction in which it could be done.
    The line could be something like "PitStopMult = (0,0,0)", where the first value would be how many times its value could be multiplied (0 = nothing, 1 = x2, 2 = x3, etc), the second value it would indicate if it is possible to extend it widthwise (0 = false, 1 = true) and the third value if it is possible to extend it lengthwise (0 = false, 1 = true).
    With this configuration, then the user or the admin could select the option they wanted within the available values.

    It's just an idea, but it could be very useful.
     
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  7. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    I think they could add a extra box only for humans. So current ones would be used by AI or humans (if specific human box is not added)
    The human box go around the AI ones, when player go to pit the whole area appear but for offline racing purposes the arrow points to the AI box in that area (so u wont stop ur car in a random position and block the AI when racing offline) but the player is aware if he stops at any area inside that box he gets the service done
     
  8. Corti

    Corti Registered

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    - can this command help create an automatic order that indicates where there is an empty pit to be able to stop?
    Example:
    namedriver push pit button a few seconds later the team confirms that they are ready
    /pitbydriver xx namedriver if pit xx empty (clean)
    - I do not have a good memory, but I remember that the Spotter plugin indicated that the position of the stop was approaching. That means that at the moment you request the pitstop, the game knows the place assigned to it. If it were possible to find out if it is busy or not and to tell the pilot would be great
    maybe I'm too naive
     

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  9. Staenker

    Staenker Registered

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    A clean solution would be to have the TRACK contain the places, where a car can pit - the PIT_SPOT - nothing else(This way, it has no dependency to a DRIVER, TEAM or RACE, hence no reason to change, hence even encrypted tracks won't be a reason to worry.). When creating a RACE in-game, a PIT_SPOT_GROUP is assigned to every PIT_SPOT and a DRIVER is assigned to a PIT_SPOT_GROUP. The algorithm, assigning DRIVERs to PIT_SPOT_GROUPS could be a simple as random, or as complex as using number of PIT_SPOT, number of teams, number of DRIVERs or even be a mod/plugin. The important part is, that the UI used to create the RACE, has the functionality to manually change the mapping DRIVER to PIT_SPOT_GROUPS. Delivering PIT_SPOT_GROUP related messages in the message center would be the icing on the cake.

    That should enable the admins of a league to set up the races the way they want, respecting the limitations the track. If they want more, can mod the track and shall not complain about the complexity of that process. Or did I miss something?
     
  10. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    An Automatic Order would could work but it would have to work at first Practise and then "Stick" for the remainder of the Weekend, the last thing an Endurance Driver (or any Series of racing driver) needs is for his/her Pit Box to be Automatically assigned during the Race. Let me explain:
    When a Driver enters Pit Lane He/She knows *Exactly* where their Pit Box is, they know long before they Enter Pit lane how much time they have to change Fuel Amount or Tires etc, whether they can do that whilst on track or in Pit Lane itself before they get to their Pit Box. If for example it is Automated every time then that could cause unnecessary panic and a major loss of concentration on the In lap or entering Pit Lane, a Countdown Voice/Timer *could* help with this, but personally I would not like to see it Automated during a Race Scenario.

    Your Pit Garage essentially becomes your "Home" at a Race Track, every time you enter Pit Lane you know exactly where you "Live" so to speak and I believe it it needs to stay that way in game as well all the way through the Race Weekend. So really this goes back to the original points in this thread, that Pit Garage Designation needs to be better handled by the Game from the very beginning.

    (For reference I've seen it on a few occasions over the years where a Driver has changed teams during the Off Season and their first Pit Stop of the next Season they turn into their old Teams Pit Box! Here's one very famous & funny example of that - although to be fair Hamilton probably turned in when he saw the familiar McLaren outfits :D)
     
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  11. Corti

    Corti Registered

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    lol thx mate. Good explanation
     
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  12. McNolo

    McNolo Registered

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    Like I said in previous threads, the administrator has the ability to prevent the assigning garages / pits by the game and using the specific order made for the track that will never change.
     
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  13. Corti

    Corti Registered

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    :rolleyes: now understand. the puzzle is taking shape. Thx
     
  14. 64r

    64r Registered

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    Regarding => "There's already a Car in my Pit Box"

    I have had a bit of a think about this and a look at the available functions in the InternalsAPI and I think that this is something that we as a community could implement immediately without requiring any changes or new functionality in the codebase.

    Basically we could create a new plugin that does the following:
    1) Detect automatically when our car is in the correct pit box region (using plugin mInGarageStall) and then take the current vehicle position and create and store a virtual box around our current car position (using plugin mPos). When this is done a message is displayed notifying user that our pit box region has been defined.
    2) On each update of the plugin UpdateScoring call (>1hz), for each session car, get the car position and test if the car is inside our virtual box. If there is a car (not our car) inside the virtual box display a message, and also show a message when the car leaves the box. That way we will have notification if another car is in our box. The message could be shown again every xx seconds whilst there is a car inside our virtual box.

    The above should be fairly simple to do and has the advantage that it requires no user configuration, it will handle the dynamic allocation of pit boxes, and finally that it can be done now without any work required by s397.

    The above is just a bit of an initial first pass of a possible solution, ideas, comments and thoughts are welcome. As it's such a simple concept and the code logic is fairly simple, perhaps its something that the exiting crew chief or spotter plugins can implement to expand their usefulness?
     
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  15. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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  16. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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    So you guys would like to know if another car is in pit stall assigned to you? Yes, that should be possible. How would I go about it:

    * Check if user requested pit stop (or it could be a voice command "is pit stall open" or something) by checking VehicleScoring::mPitState
    * If pit stop is requested, check other vehicles for mPitState == 3 (stopped)
    * check if such vehicle's lap distance is close to VehicleScoring::mPitLapDist

    I never tried, but I hear SimHub is scriptable, so anyone could add indicator today based on above logic. We might add this to CC at some point, I am not 100% sure however if this will work online, because not all data available in single player is available in an online session.
     
  17. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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  18. Corti

    Corti Registered

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  19. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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  20. Corti

    Corti Registered

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    ok i'm going to look for a race with many riders ;)
     
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