Simmunity pre-alpha testing + offline championship discussion

Edit - I am re-purposing this OP to contain the latest news and testing/training materials...

UPDATED (Feb 28) introductory video for new testers explaining basic site functionality:

Race config tool ==> http://www.mediafire.com/download/zfckkje5huqkr8h/tracks(2).rar

Development update:

• Added car filter to Interactive Offline Championship

• Added position-based Rank page

• Added total race time to Session Summary

• You now have to add Rank submissions to the Lobby. This enables drivers to review statistics in Session Summary in advance of "applying" result to Rank.

• Various bug fixes

Wish list:

• Based on learnings from process test, develop ability to publish race configurations to website for download by other drivers

• Add to config tool support for naming and selecting config files as well as alternate file extension to enable one-click download/apply via Windows file type association

• Add to config tool a button to backup current files

• Add to config tool a check that required content is installed

• Change labels of registration form to recommend ISI forum name + to clarify rF2 in-game alias/nickname + real name instead of "SWUsername1" and "SWUsername2"

• Add detail (i.e. lap, AI result, etc.) views to both Solo AI and Interactive Offline Championship

• (Re-)implement the Pickup Championship, Ranking and Head-to-Head pages

R&D:

• Explore/consider adding a couple of more pages (although we will need to test concept using this thread first to get the process right) to enable sharing/"publication" of championship designs (VEH/Talent/AIW ; Setups ; VMOD ; race configs ; skins ; etc ; etc.) as well voting on the design(s) to use for structured weekly Interactive Offline Championships.

 

Thanks PSR, this is really nice.

What would be great, and this all depends on if you know how to program or not, is to have an external bit of software by you that can read your player.json file. As you may know this file holds the config of the last race you ran offline. The software will gather info from it like track name, car, laps, fuel multipliers, Aids, AI strength etc. This app could save all this info into a little profile file that it (or you) can upload to website for other people to use.
Someone with your Combo profile file loads it into their profile software app and that would change automatic the lines in their player.json to match what the profile file has. They run game and everything should be setup ready just for that person to click race. Of course that player would need to have the same content, only downside of things.

Someone could make 10 profiles making a 10 race championship, would be one example.

I remember a while ago you had a thread going suggesting great track/car combos that were good. This software would be a great aid to making that easier too.

DJC

 

Everything you mention is available in result file except for AI strength and I added a backlog item last night to add that information in. Having said that I LOVE the idea of the auto config and it aligns perfectly with some other goodies coming a bit later that will require some additional local file processing so I will add that to the super secret backlog

Regarding popular tracks you are 100% correct about that along with a lot of other benefits like discovering drivers with common skills, interests and schedules as well as many secret goodies which are forthcoming

Cheers

 

Good stuff PSR

 

RaceTime, MechFailRate, DamageMult, FuelMult, TireMult, ControlAndAids and GameVersion added to Lobby.

 

Really love this idea PSR, so thank you for doing this! One thing I am confused about is it seems that points is more based on time than position finished which is the essence of racing no? Having said that though I can see making position the main thing can be tricky since AI competence is not just related to AI strength %, but also your custom AI talent settings. I always change the AI talents since I hate racing against 10 AI that are bumper bumper with each other as it looks so unrealistic and the result is normally 1st or last. By changing talents you can get the AI to spread out which is essential for fun racing imo.

So it would be ideal when racing against someone else that you are racing against the same AI with the same talents, but not really sure how this could be implemented.

 

@Rapala,

You are exactly right and there will also be a position-based championship which is dependent on some additional technology that is planned which is also required for advanced rule enforcement.

Regarding implementability anything is possible because if you can change it I can change it

Most critical need at the moment is tester involvement so if interested please PM me. Even if not interested in testing would you please send me an example of your modified talent files so I can test the manual process before developing the automated solution?

 

Snap! Apparently mas2 doesn't work the way I thought or it has changed so what I had in mind (specific to talent files only) doesn't look possible

 

That's a pity, although not the end of the world as I guess the AI do spread themselves out a bit over time.

 

I agree not end of the world but also do have some possible workaround ideas and other design considerations also which will send you via PM in the next day or two...

 

OP updated with new tester training video and status

 

I have an idea that won't stop rolling around in my head so I might as well get it out there so hopefully I will have some peace

I have not fully formulated the idea so perhaps a brainstorm is in order...

Currently drivers have full control over what results are included in the Solo AI Championship and can even create unlimited numbers of Solo AI Championships, which is a good thing...check.

Currently drivers have full control over what results are included in the Lobby and thereby what has potential to be included (if another driver has already or later chooses to add a result for the same combo to the Lobby) in the Interactive Offline Championship...good.

The remaining (potential) hurdle (as I see it) is lack of consistent driver participation across all the races given the "pickup" nature of the lobby-based pairing mechanism combined with the "expiration" of race results after 7 days.

If you are having trouble following what I am describing then (1) you are not alone as testers who have been around for several weeks are still discovering and wrapping their minds around how the Interactive Offline Championship works and (2) this is further evidence that another or an additional option is worth exploring.

Ideas...

One possible option is in direct opposition to one or more founding design principles (and for a number of reasons) of Simmunity and that is the idea of filling out one or more forms to define a championship by selecting the combos, etc. for the championship.

An alternative option which keeps rolling around in my head is related to or some hybrid/leveraging of the idea on the OP regarding "championship sharing". For example, imagine the following scenario...

1) Kevin creates and adds race results to a Solo AI Championship just as he does today via the "Add Event to Championship" link at the top of a particular Solo AI Championship page. And keep in mind as Kevin does this he may NOT add every race he does to the Solo AI Championship.

Why? Several reasons. Maybe a given combo that Kevin races is a combo he hasn't raced yet and decides that it is not a good combo and decides to try a different combo. Maybe the AI strength is too strong or too weak compared to other tracks and needs to be adjusted to produce a challenge comparable to the races added to the Championship thus far.

Who knows? What we do know is that Kevin has full control over what gets added to any given Solo AI Championship and therefore as the power and opportunity to test and gain experience and by the end of this Solo AI Championship he has something that is both valuable for him to use in the future and also likely valuable to others if he were able to easily share it with them.

So, before moving on to step 2 of the scenario, consider the possibility that, in addition to building a great championship with great combos and a custom AI strength setting for each track which provides a consistent challenge, Kevin might also be creating skins, setups, race condition configurations (weather, time of day, rrbin, AI settings in player.json, etc. etc.), AIW/VEH/Talent mods, motec data, results, IRL historical background/fun facts/materials, logos, etc. (as stated under R&D in the OP above).

OK now on to step 2 of the scenario...

2) Kevin saves this masterpiece championship design to a "championship configuration" (a superset of the race condition configuration, if you will, which I am testing now) for his own re-use and also to be able to share with others by "publishing" it to a Simmunity Championship Catalog which others may download for use (just like they will be soon be able to do with the automated race configuration tool) in their own private offline Solo AI Championships.

3) Kevin, or anyone (now that the championship design is available to all), submits a "championship challenge" or something to that effect which is in effect an announcement to the rF2 community that he would like drivers to join him in an Interactive Offline Championship using the championship design. This would provide a number of benefits beyond just the advantage of having a high quality championship design package with the main one being that drivers would know in advance what tracks the full championship would be using (the full "schedule" if you will) and thereby be able to more fully commit to racing all of the weekends which would make the points more meaningful than might be the case with somewhat random, dynamic, pickup racing that is supported today and where results expire, etc. which presents other challenges.

Anyway, this all seems to make sense to me however it is now after midnight here and the good news is that I may be able to sleep now that I finally got all this out on "paper"

Any and all comments welcome

 

Sounds like a great plan! Some further ideas:

- Perhaps then there would be a 'quick race' section and championship section with the quick race section comprising of single events only, so you do your race and that is that. Results would be based on where you place and in case of a tie, time is then used to decide the winner. Doesn't really matter how many of these there are in the lobby since you can see which is popular by a number saying how many people have raced that particular event.

- Quick races don't have an expiry date but perhaps if a critical mass is achieved for a particular race - say 10 people, it means people like it, so a new event is automatically created to allow the people who have already raced it, to race again.

- Championship section is more organised and to make it feel more 'high stakes', perhaps there should only be 3 - 4 of these running at any one time catering for different car classes. So something like a slow saloon eg. clio, fast saloon eg gt3, slow open wheeler (f3) and fast open wheeler (f1). Perhaps some sort of voting system could be arranged for people to vote on championships submitted to see which ones are raced. By limiting the number of championships available, it will ensure as high participation as possible rather than lots of them scattered around with low participation in each.

- Championships have an expiry date, so a winner is announced on that day and new championship which has previously been voted for is entered.

- a ranking section could be added, both for quick race and championship to give people a goal to strive for. And/ Or perhaps doing a rating system like Iracing does.

- Would be great to have a comments section for each event, be it quick race or championship. Nice to be able to discuss what happened in your race and to be able to critique the event eg' Ai should be faster in this one' etc.

- For quick races, a rating system would be cool, so be able to give the event between 0 and 5 stars, which allows others to scan the lobby and see which events have been rated highly and which have poor ratings.

Ok so I wanted to just start by saying 'add a quick race section', but the ideas just kept coming.

 

Automated race configuration tool has passed my testing so I am releasing it to the test group. Here is what I need you to do...

• Create (using "Collect..." option in the tool) and post your Filtered_Data.zip files to this thread for others to download and "Apply"

• Download and "Apply" Filtered_Data.zip files that others post to this thread.

• Try different combos, settings, full race weekends, weather, rrbin files, anything you can think of in any combination will be good to test

• MOST IMPORTANTLY, if tool is working properly BEGIN TO USE IT!! Design and share several race weekends with your favorite combos, settings, weather, rrbin, etc. AND UPLOAD RACE RESULTS FOR OTHERS TO RACE AGAINST to the website. So in addition to testing the tool itself we need to test the PROCESS of how we share and use configurations so the website can fully support the process.

...and HAVE FUN (if it works )


http://www.mediafire.com/download/ic4mc23g1471j2e/tracks.rar

 

Here is the config for a Clio race at Hockenheim Short 2 that I just added to the MySimmunity.com lobby...

Edit - No qual ; back of grid

http://www.mediafire.com/download/851g97wpwf0823t/Filtered_Data.zip

 

Thanks for this PSR.
Seems very easy to use.

I made one.

Lola T280 at BRIANZA1966.
Back of the grid, no qually.

Good luck

I will try yours tomorrow.

DJC
View attachment 15734

 

Empty your inbox m8.

I gave your Clio race a quick go. First bug, the car did not change to Clio, I still had my Lola, which was the last car I used. I do have the latest Clio car installed.
Then I tried my config, the one I made with the Lola car, and that worked. The car changed to Lola, along with all my other configs.

Bedtime.

BIG thanks again.

DJC

 

It does not appear to capture "Vehicle File" or "Team" from the Driver section in player.json.
Additionally, if the player.json is being written to, you must include a backup system, same for any file I guess.

 

same for me, changed the track and race settings, but not the car

 

watched the latest video on this tool... looks interesting!!