Hi everyone, So after some investigation over the past two weeks we have found a fairly long term 'loop hole' in RF2's coding which has now been made use of in various pieces of software to enable a count down timer for race starts. The investigation found this existed some time ago already as a widget in some old IOS software called RacePad and more recently in some software called Tiny Pedal and maybe other huds. Essentially it is a countdown timer to the start of sessions but this one relates to race starts and programmers have now extended it to countdowns in hundreths of seconds. This bug/loop hole has allowed programmers to introduce widgets into huds etc. which allows a countdown timer to run for a race start such that the driver knows when the last start light will go out and can therefore effectively predict the start for better starts off the line. We tested this software for the first time last week and whilst it is not without it's own risk of false starts, once learned, it certainly gives a driver an unfair advantage off the start line in races. We realise that this 'feature' or attribute is not in line with real life racing but unfortunately it exists in the RF2 software nevertheless. Unfortunately as this is a bug/loophole in the RF2 software, and is very easily accessed by various huds etc., it will be impossible for us to police its use. Whilst we considered an honesty system we are concerned that people will still be suspicious of others good starts and comments and tension will likely arise even when comments may be made in jest. The issue is that anyone can use it without making it obvious that it is even in use. Given the inability to police its use, we have decided to divulge this information to everyone to effectively 'even the playing field' such that everyone has access to this 'feature' but only until hopefully the RF2 programmers close the loop hole! So we would like as many people as possible to make this public and complain to the RF2 developers. In my opinion, the sooner we can have this sorted the better as this is not true to real life racing. I will be trying to post this in various forums. So in the meantime, if you want to be on an even playing field for your starts, then all you need is the Tiny Pedal software and enable the feature in "flags" called "Show Start Countdown". As simple as that! I am disappointed to have to post this but now that 'the cat is out of the bag' we think this is probably the best coarse of action until RF2 plug the hole! We do not make this post lightly and it is only after testing last week and long discussions with my fellow Stooges and Tony that we have decided to allow its use until it is fixed. Not very realisitic we know but at least we will know that everyone is on even playing field. I am sure this post will create a lot of discussion not just in this group but with our friends in the DUS series and also on the various RF2 and Sim racing forums. I suppose the only positive is I think we have caught it pretty early and hopefully with pressure from many RF2 racing fans, the developers will plug this hole fairly quickly. Cheers, 3 Stooges Racing
I've never understood the mentality of cheating it's just a false inflation of your own ability. There will always be somebody better than you no matter what you take part in. Just accept your own abilities or lack of. Thanks for highlighting this loophole.
Just saying, you can avoid the problem by using a rolling start which is quite common on GTs, but not on BTCC ... Question : Does rF2 checks correctly the false starts ? I never tested it ...
Yes. This issue has been around since rf1, not really sure how easy it is to fix, but I'm not a programmer.
Hi, I agree with all the concerns. The issue was also mentioned in this post last year: https://forum.studio-397.com/index....ive-fuel-calculator.71557/page-7#post-1101888 There were various reasons that countdown feature was not remove at the time. The interaction was first discovered by my friend (though we weren't the first to know it either), and since we are part of our league admins team, we did had several lengthy debates on whether this is legit and to keep the feature or remove. Some prefer it removed, some didn't. And then we learnt one shocking fact that this issue has been around since RF1 days. So at the end I decided to keep and let user decide their preference. But still, my apology for not removing this feature despite all the concerns around. This countdown feature will be removed from all future version of tinypedal (and all old version DL will be removed from project page). As for a fix, a possible solution could be to give a random fake "mLapStartET" value until the moment race starts, so that it will not affect or break normal usage of mLapStartET value that many normal functions depends on it (ex. check whether vehicles has passed start line or whether a new lap has started), since mLapStartET value is important for various calculation including basic laptime calculation.
