One of the biggest dramas in Rfactor2, Simracing and Endurance Multiplayer events, such as the 24H of Le Mans, are disconnects and connections lost. Who never drop from the server in the middle of a race? Who has never had a teammate who lost internet connection, ran out of electricity at home, or had a game, PC or GPU crash? Who has never quit from a race, because the game blocked by Windows updates? There are multiple situations that can lead a player/driver to drop from a game server and receive the famous "connection lost" message, and when that happens it is a huge frustration for the player, but also for his teammates, and many times these are completely unrelated situations to the players and the game itself, without them being able to do anything to avoid these situations, and even today Rfactor2, apart from the possibility of rejoining, which was already a huge advance, has never managed to find an ideal solution for this drama that afflicts us all. The famous situation of Verstappen's rage in the VLM24 was an example of this, widely publicized and greatly affected the image of sim-racing and more specifically of the Rf2. Since these situations will always happen, are factors that cannot be controlled by the players and the game itself, how to mitigate the impact on the competition itself, and how to find a solution so that players and teams have a minimum loss in the race they are participating? In the forum this topic has already been addressed several times and some possible solutions have been given, and by compiling these solutions I also leave my suggestion, so that the developers can check their possibility of application in the game. Here goes my suggestions using features rf2 already have: Whenever a player has a disconnect from the server, the AI would take control of the car. We have this functionality in single player (AI Control), including that the game already is able to detect latency problems of a player, which is usually an indicator of a potential disconnect; After the AI takes over, the car would be driven at reduced speed (e.g. pace car speed) with yellow flags in-game to alert other drivers. The AI would take the car to the pits, perform a pit-stop according to the player's pit settings, and repair the car if necessary; The issue of performing the pit-stop would solve the current bug that if a driver as a connection lost and rejoins the server at a time when he has little fuel, the game does not allow refueling, which for example in Le Mans represents a DNF, as taking an additional lap without fuel it is impossible. With the car in the pit, it would remain there until the same driver or another driver from the team could re-enter the car and regain control, and thus return to the race. This situation could be compared to a breakdown in the car and the repair time in the pit, as it happens in real life. This solution would allow the teams not to be left out of the race, not to lose part of the lap they had already completed and thus be able to remain in competition. This solution would also prevent teams from taking advantage of inadvertently trying to force a disconnect.
Forget the Ai, it will be used as a cheat because they are driving sometimes way better than a few real drivers. It will need some adaptation to driver disconnected performance, which is not available or needs some real learning AI. Best thing is, like a real mecanical issue, implement a tow function. There is already a way to achieve that. Player disconnects and reconnects, or "Exit to monitor" properly. An admin can DQ and then UnDQ him and he can get back on track, with setup and fuel "as wanted". Next, add laps "lost" to the driver to get him at least on the same lap he was before the incident. And that is a fair back on track imo ... If a massive disconnect occurs, red flag, every body stops in pit immediately. Frozen lane at previous lap. We wait to recover all drivers with the DQ unDQ method. Then here is the complicated part : Everybody gets on track under safety car and somebody makes the wave arounds based on previous lap. We can't make wave arounds today. We need to chat with some drivers to make them wave around by themselves in a "not frozen" lane and alert other drivers of the maneuver. RFactor2 has everything needed i think. Make the "Dq/UnDQ + laps" method by one press of a button, tweak the auto "safety car wave around", or add a real "wave around" and you're good to go. My 2 cents
S397, please make it when you get the "Connection lost" message, instead of the game booting you back to the main menu and having you waste 2 minutes reloading the track and cars again, just bring up a Re-Connect button to get you back driving quicker. No need to reload track and cars. OP idea is good too.
He just mentioned the AI being slower than usual - I think this might be possible because e.g. there is possibility to choose AI strength when setting up / loading track on a dedicated server. Our community is using the AI on some servers for practicing short races and starts and according to the cars chosen we are setting the performance of the AI which works very well. IMHO a good approach to reduce the frustration and time waste when a disconnect occurs.
