More detailed penalty system

johnbreak · May 24, 2022

I think with using data and possibly machine learning the penalty system could be made quite a bit better than current ones on different sims, especially when it comes to contact between cars. From telemetry data on average racing lines, braking points and speeds you could for example detect a divebomb and penalize the correct person for the crash: the driver braked way later than would be required to succesfully negotiate the corner and thus the resulting crash can be blamed on them. I'm sure a lot of other things could be detected in the same way using data.

Another level would be to train a machine learning model to determine who was at fault in contact situations. This could also be continually improved to be more accurate based on the data that is produced. As far as I understand, this would be similar in principle to what for example Tesla does with their self-driving AI model. Of course I understand that Kunos does not have the resources to be anywhere near the same level but something way smaller in scale and complexity could be really great for sim racing.

Also using the the techniques outlined above, the penalty system could differentiate situations in terms of seriousness: a small mistake resulting in contact would be punished less severely whereas an egregious divebomb where a driver just does not brake into a corner could be punished with a ban lasting for a month for example.

BrightCandle · May 24, 2022

They don't necessarily have to go all the way to machine learning. There are some clear circumstances where blame can be assigned to one party based on some details of brake points and whether the car behind broke near them or not. If they were deep and hit the car ahead then they are at fault, if the car in front broke substantially early it is at fault. They also already have the ability to assess line and limit use of the car and this could be utilised on corner entry to work out if a car was behind and isn't now making the corner before contact or if the other car turned into it as it was making the corner and was suitably alongside. These are usually fairly clear past a certain fuzzy area and would deal with a large quantity of common incidents.