Montreal track, not enough penalties

Genci Estebanez · Oct 13, 2015

Yesterday we had a race in Montreal and we were quite disappointed with the penalty system at the chicanes.
Some drivers earned time clearly by taking shortcuts and they didn´t get any warning.

We think this issue has to be corrected in a future update to give this track some credit.

Gringo · Oct 14, 2015

Unfortunately the cut track system used by the games engine is quite weak in this regard. It can trap some types of corner cutting, however (from my experiments) the "cut" needs to be very large time gain to trigger the penalty.

As I recall this issue has been known since the initial release of ISI gmotor (+10 years).

Genci Estebanez · Oct 14, 2015

Thanks Gringo I know it's not perfect but in this case, you can gain a precious time in three places without any warning.

Gringo · Oct 14, 2015

Yes I understand. But the problem has no fix to my knowledge... the system used is unreliable.

You will notice many mod tracks will have some type of barrier, a stack of tires normally to prevent cutting or at the very least make the cut a time penalty.

However the Reiza track is meant to be accurate.

Yves Larose · Oct 14, 2015

@Genci Estebanez and @Gringo

the cutting rules or lack of it doesn't come from the ISI Gmotor its simply a choice the developer or modders makes to either make them tight or not. There is a tool called AIW Cam editor that can be use to edit the TV Cams and the track bounderies ( read cutting rules) and a few other things so the track bounderies can be change, here's a pic of Montreal in that tool the red lines is the track bounderies and that can be edited.

Alex Sawczuk · Oct 14, 2015

We do everything possible to limit the track boundaries to make the cutting system work as well as possible. The red lines there follow the edge of the road - aside for a minor bug on the pit exit which would have no effect, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

Also having run league races at Montreal in the past (not GSC), the only way is to place hard barriers on the chicanes or to run some post race analysis.

Genci Estebanez · Oct 14, 2015

We did a Super V8 race. Testing the track we saw you could cut in some turns: 3, 8 y 12. Obviously not al full throttle, but doing it well, you could gain time. My best clean lap was 1.37.315, and cutting with no warning or penalizes I did a 1.35.928.

Alex Sawczuk · Oct 14, 2015

Unfortunately the cut detection as it is at present is not likely to pick up those types of cuts. We have had discussions about trying to improve the cut detection code, however I don't know how much of a priority that is right now.

The AIW files are setup so those are completely 'no go' zones.

As I said, all I can suggest for now is better communication with your drivers, tougher marshaling, or tweaking the TDF properties of 'crete', 'grass' and 'rdil' materials so they are sticky and distributing these to your racers. (Will cause mismatches)

Genci Estebanez · Oct 14, 2015

Thanks Alex for your info. Very useful.

Gringo · Oct 14, 2015

I would like to add that the cut detection system is more complex than the simple position of the car in relation to the track edges. It has something to do with speed and the distance of the cut.

The track edges are primarily used by the AI to calculate the speed and determine the path they follow with some variations. Of course the fast line is the primary variable the AI use to determine path, but the track edges are also important and part of the AI system as a whole.

Cheers

Gringo · Oct 14, 2015

Yves Larose said:
developer or modders makes to either make them tight or not.

Ahh ok... I have been thinking about your point here.

If you make an AIW that would be used only by real life drivers in a multiplayer situation then I guess you could alter the track edges (make the track width abnormally narrow) and perhaps improve the cut detection in some cases.

It would be an interesting experiment.

Marcel Kleene · Oct 14, 2015

The best solution is racing in a league where pilots do not drive the way what is possible from the Sim just to be faster than the others, but like a race driver according to rules. I always wonder how people check out what is possible, instead of training a good racing line. Gentlemans agreements....It's all about Fairplay. Every Sim Racer should have the goal to drive clean and not only fast.

Will Mazeo · Oct 14, 2015

Edit the run off areas (asphalt and in some cases grass too, but take care you don't want people crashing) of your league tracks to be like ice and nobody will try to cut them (we did it in EEC back in GTR2, probably will happen again in current leagues)
Better to have this and avoid future problems. Hey! We are all humans, sometimes people can't resist temptation.
But if well done cut warning will work just fine.

Marcel Kleene said:
The best solution is racing in a league where pilots do not drive the way what is possible from the Sim just to be faster than the others, but like a race driver according to rules. I always wonder how people check out what is possible, instead of training a good racing line. Gentlemans agreements....It's all about Fairplay. Every Sim Racer should have the goal to drive clean and not only fast.

It's not about checking what is possible. People find these bugs by accident