AC Corner Cutting Analysis Tool

[Captain Condescending]

Hey everyone!

So with the recent push in the Club races to stamp out corner cutting, I was trying to think of an effective way of enforcing it. In the absence of any proper reliable flag and penalty system in AC (that I'm aware of), it seems looking back post race is the best way. I'm not a staff member, so I can't comment exactly on how this is done for club races, and so this thread might be totally redundant.

I know a lot of people choose to simply set penalties to off, and set the max wheels out allowed to 4, so people don't get messed up by dodgy penalties, and it's just a case of policing within servers. There's probably a great and effective way of doing it, but to me this seems prone to errors and conflict. To me, surely setting the max allowed wheels out to 2 (in club racing we allow 2 wheels outside the track), that way cuts are registered as such, but keep the penalties set to off. This way, especially in qualifying, everyone can be certain no cuts are being made, as laps will be invalidated (as far as I'm aware this is how it works?).

I was discussing this with a friend, in conjunction with showing him simresults, and what they do with the race_out.json files, when I noticed that those files actually include a "cuts" value for each lap! A bit of explaining to my non-sim-racing friend and him fiddling with Go later, and we have made a little tool for analysing this.

Now, this is in revision 1, literally thrown together by him in about 20mins, but i'll explain how it works, link to the GitHub and if this sounds like it's useful for you guys maybe we can get some improvements made: https://github.com/cj123/acstats

The gist of it is as follows. Firstly, it prints out each lap for each driver in each session, showing lap times and number of cuts on that lap. Secondly, it flags which lap was the fastest by that driver in that session (this for qualifying sessions, you can see if their fastest lap had them cut the track). Thirdly, it compares each lap to the average of that driver's previous laps to determine if that lap could be considered faster. Finally, if a lap had cuts, and it was faster, it flags that lap as the driver having cut and gained an advantage (this is more for the race than other sessions of course).

Pretty simple, I know, but I think with some work it could be very effective. I think the first thing that needs fixing is that it needs to disregard very slow laps from the averaging. Maybe it should ignore any laps slower than 107% of the fastest clean lap? Maybe higher than that? I don't know, that's where more experienced drivers need to weigh in.

Anyway, I guess my basic question is, have I completely wasted my friend's time by not knowing or understanding something? Is this potentially a useful tool? Is there a better way entirely of judging corner cuts? I'm totally out of my depth here, so I'd love some experienced guys to weigh in.

-Joe
Edit: here's a download link for the tool -
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w19oomoof9micwf/acstats.zip?dl=0
Just extract them both in documents\assetto corsa\out and double click the .bat file. Results are in analysis.txt

Edit 2: Scroll down a bit to see the results of some of my experimentation to get AC's track limits to be better. There's a download for a surfaces.ini file for Silverstone GP that makes it much stricter, and might be worth some testing. I'd love feedback on this!

 

[PresidentSmug]

It sure is Andrew.
It would be interesting if those detractors of RD's track limits rule would come on down and discuss their corner. I mean they tried their upmost to belittle me at every opportunity and defend track cutting because in their words, it's not a big deal,everyone does it, just race etc etc blah blah. A couple of those said members even went as low as to say "you are only crying out for this rule because you are not as fast as me" childishness. I really would like to see their contribution to this thread and their reasoning as to why we shouldn't pursue this quest to stop track cutting here at RD.

Back to the topic, guys if I can be of any help in testing, just let me know. And keep up this fantastic work.

Andrew there is no need to turn this thread into an argument. Andrew if you would like to have a discussion with me about track limits please PM me, this has nothing to do with being quiet but being respectful to the thread and everyone in it. This thread is for those who wish to discuss how to improve track limits in AC which i'd like to congratulate everyone in this thread for doing. Brilliant work so far guys, and look forward to seeing the finished product.

 

[Christian Moreau]

As a few have mentioned, this could be a pretty cool tool for the future. The main issue I see here is having a bunch of safeguards coded into the application to manage exceptions. Like Matheus mentioned, there are times where off-tracks will be warranted to avoid incidents, or even times where you are racing someone and run out of room or get pushed out of the track. These are moments where you shouldn't necessarily be penalized as these are out of your control. You'll need some sort of threshold that takes these incidents into account.

And same as Matheus mentioned, if you managed to get the application to provide live logging for an administrator to look at, it could be a great tool for leagues. A penalty system where you accumulate offences over the course of a race would be cool as well.

 

[Captain Condescending]

The system you proposed is decent, similar to what rf2 properly edited with limits give you. Although I have some remarks on it:

First, it needs to ignore a lower threshold off the fastest lap. 107% is too much. Sometimes we need to avoid an accident and that can cost 1 second or 2, which right now is detected as a cut. It also shouldn't be able to penalize people for being slower using more track. Remember that AC slows you down off track already.

Second, I wasn't sure how the wheels were detected. It should only care for the outside of the tire.

Third, is there any way this can be logged live, so a steward can look at it? Or at least set a number of times before the driver receives a penalty? I ask because AC penalty system is stupid, as it gives you a slowdown penalty, which any sensible person would turn it off.

Lastly, some tracks don't have lines to mark the road, often being a kerb to determine limits (Adelaide I.e.) that system will be useless if there is tarmac in the other side.

Anyway, that system is a great tool for leagues. It would have saved me plenty of time back in GTC S6.

On your first point, I agree it needs to allow for slower laps, which is exactly why I proposed the 107% rule. Laps slower than 107% would be disregarded from the system. It would do this by only comparing current lap times to the average of all the previous laps *within* 107%, thus only flagging ones which have cut and are within that value. Perhaps 107% can be changed, I just suggested that as it is standard.

Secondly, it seems to be the point of contact with the road, something that AC simulates. There's no way of getting around this and allowing for more leeway, so any disputes around this would have to be solved in the traditional way. As for slowdown penalties, you can disable those independent of the cut track detection (ie disable penalties but still set it to "allow 2 wheels out"), so the tool would detect cuts, the qualifying times would be deleted, but nobody would be punished directly on track. It would still have to be an honour system, it just means people are aware on track (they get a message) and there is no way to hide.

Thirdly, theoretically yes, it could be logged in real time, but my friend CJ who build the tool (and is currently fixing a bug we found) is not a sim racer, and definitely not a game developer or modder. All of his code is on github, and I doubt he would have any issue whatsoever with someone taking it and implementing it or something similar to a real time app. At the moment I'm trying to come up with solutions that require minimal effort from all parties.

Finally, I'm only going through the Kunos tracks for now. If the RD Staff want me to do the same editing of the track files to specific mod tracks I can, but it could be more difficult due to different syntax or development methods. For now though, it's easy to do on the Kunos tracks - or at least the ones RD uses for club events.

 

[Captain Condescending]

My only point of discussion is this:

Server side, user side or both?

I agree on Matheus remarks, though I'm 100% certain this won't solve the game problems, track limit abusing problems and stuff.

For leagues it would be useful for GTC S6 really when me Matheus and Tobias ran it, and I meant it in every sense of my word.

So the track modifications to fix the track limits are both server and client side, otherwise you get a check sum error. The tool that analyses the json results file can be done either with the server file or the client file, as i believe they are in the same format.

 

[Mike Davies]

This is wonderful Rasmus. I am crying out of joy. This is going to revolutionise AC for starters. RIP you pesky track cutters. Funny how they are very quiet now eh? But this is an important start on the road to stopping the race cheats and hopefully they won't like it and move to other places to do their poor racecraft.@RIP

Andy, what is the meaning of tagging my profile in your post? Show me where I have cutted and gained an advantage. These weekly accusations are ridiculous. Can you please stop PMing me and tagging me in your posts? Thank you.

 

[Captain Condescending]

As a few have mentioned, this could be a pretty cool tool for the future. The main issue I see here is having a bunch of safeguards coded into the application to manage exceptions. Like Matheus mentioned, there are times where off-tracks will be warranted to avoid incidents, or even times where you are racing someone and run out of room or get pushed out of the track. These are moments where you shouldn't necessarily be penalized as these are out of your control. You'll need some sort of threshold that takes these incidents into account.

And same as Matheus mentioned, if you managed to get the application to provide live logging for an administrator to look at, it could be a great tool for leagues. A penalty system where you accumulate offences over the course of a race would be cool as well.

Yes I agree on the safeguards, which is why I suggested the 107% rule. The good thing about that tool is that I can test it on any race without any hassle, so I will be doing plenty of testing before suggesting it is used. Something like this of course needs to be done right or it will provide false flags.

 

[Christian Moreau]

Yes I agree on the safeguards, which is why I suggested the 107% rule. The good thing about that tool is that I can test it on any race without any hassle, so I will be doing plenty of testing before suggesting it is used. Something like this of course needs to be done right or it will provide false flags.

Cool, well, I look forward to seeing the progress you make in the future. I have absolutely no patience for coding so I always take the time to appreciate the effort that others go through to improve our wonderful hobby.

 

[RasmusP]

Nice discussion guys!
Lets stick to the topic and keep it all clean

A few words about the tools, our track limit mod etc.:
The Tool is just a very very small program that just sorts the json file to something readable and useful. It's not tracking anything.
How much would be possible? That a question for @Captain Condescending

I will use it as the following->

The Track Mod:
it's really simple. Every surface other than the main racing tarmac triggers a cut (you have to be completely off over the white line with the very last pixel of your wheel).
I tested it at Spa with 2 other guys and it's just AWESOME! @RainhamIron

A small problem is indeed that if the tarmac is the same but there is a white line: it won't trigger, as it's the same "surface". BUT if you want to really help please give examples where this is a problem
I didn't find one turn where the fastest line would be over some of these spots yet.
Okay, Nurburgring GP Turn 4 after the first chicane on the outside. You could go wide there because the endurance Layout comes to the track there.
But would it gain time to go over there? I think not!

We are onto it and if it's possible (legally and manageable) we will test it on some "special nights" or something like this. It looks really really good at the moment!

Mod Tracks could be difficult. I would prefer to get the Authors to do another layout

The Game now invalidates EVERY lap with a cut in PRACTICE and QUALIFYING and RACE sessions. Sadly you don't get the little notification in Race sessions

I will put the server side json file in the little program and take a few samples (if there are no reports) and watch them in the replay. Really helpful to have a quick overview over the cuts

About live tracking: Well sTracker is pretty much doing exactly this. LiveMap, see if the lap was valid etc etc. But it's online and you have to implement it into the AC server.
This little tool here on the other side is offline, small, and you just put a file in it

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

App looks promising!
Just one thing, in the past I've seen staff decisions where skinpacks and even modded tracks were not allowed for clubraces anymore, so it's easier to join races.
Now we have to install this app and new versions of existing tracks? I don't mind but I feel it is a bit weird that it's suddenly going in the opposite direction.

 

[RasmusP]

App looks promising!
Just one thing, in the past I've seen staff decisions where skinpacks and even modded tracks were not allowed for clubraces anymore, so it's easier to join races.
Now we have to install this app and new versions of existing tracks? I don't mind but I feel it is a bit weird that it's suddenly going in the opposite direction.

That's why I'm being very very careful with my wording. All Staffs that have replied to me already stated that it's purely awesome.
But you are right, we are not using Mods at the moment!
So time will show how, when and if we will implement it, but I'm looking forward to it
To put a Layout folder in is really easy and it's gonna be a "one timer" for all default tracks!

The "App"... Well it's only a few MB big exe file at the moment and no App is even planned anywhere AFAIK! It's just a tool to have some statistic from the json file

So the "maybe, not sure if"-Plan looks like this: in a few, special events we will use this. Every driver will have to put the mods in his AC folder ONE SINGLE TIME. I think that's a very low entry barrier

 

[Captain Condescending]

App looks promising!
Just one thing, in the past I've seen staff decisions where skinpacks and even modded tracks were not allowed for clubraces anymore, so it's easier to join races.
Now we have to install this app and new versions of existing tracks? I don't mind but I feel it is a bit weird that it's suddenly going in the opposite direction.

The app doesn't need to be installed by anyone. If the RD guys want to use it, the race organiser can run it with the log file after the race, and that's all that needs to be done.

As for mod tracks, it's still not confirmed if the staff are interested/able to use these variants, considering that there has been use of mod tracks and cars on occasion recently, I suspect it should be fine. We tried to come up with a way around the clients having to install the track too, but unfortunately that's not how AC works.

 

[Brandon Wright]

App looks promising!
Just one thing, in the past I've seen staff decisions where skinpacks and even modded tracks were not allowed for clubraces anymore, so it's easier to join races.
Now we have to install this app and new versions of existing tracks? I don't mind but I feel it is a bit weird that it's suddenly going in the opposite direction.

My thoughts exactly.

So the "maybe, not sure if"-Plan looks like this: in a few, special events we will use this. Every driver will have to put the mods in his AC folder ONE SINGLE TIME. I think that's a very low entry barrier

Could do the same thing with mod tracks though, have a post with like 10 RD approved mod tracks in it with all the links to them and the user could download and install them all at once and then have all the mod tracks already installed for any future races, very low entry barrier, one time effort and then good to go after that. Don't see how that's much different than this cut track mod.

 

[RasmusP]

My thoughts exactly.



Could do the same thing with mod tracks though, have a post with like 10 RD approved mod tracks in it with all the links to them and the user could download and install them all at once and then have all the mod tracks already installed for any future races, very low entry barrier, one time effort and then good to go after that. Don't see how that's much different than this cut track mod.

It isn't different at all, that's why I'm planning on "special" events with mods
And this is why we won't implement this new cut-proof layouts to all our races in the very near future, but maybe to some!
Captain and me stumbled across this possibility just yesterday, I'm hyped but give me/us time to see what exactly we can do

I would appreciate the list you have!
You know I'm quite new and at the moment I am the one going for it so it takes time.

 

[Bobby Pennington]

A small problem is indeed that if the tarmac is the same but there is a white line: it won't trigger, as it's the same "surface". BUT if you want to really help please give examples where this is a problem
I didn't find one turn where the fastest line would be over some of these spots yet.

I recommend we try it at Barcelona Motto layout. There are a few places there I know.

As for mod tracks, it's still not confirmed if the staff are interested/able to use these variants, considering that there has been use of mod tracks and cars on occasion recently

Oh we are very interested. You and your mate have made a great tool that is fair. We just need to find the most equitable and fair settings we can and if we can bring the threshold to a point where it gives the leeway to accidents or losing the rear end and catching it in a runoff area we are headed it in the correct direction.

If we get to the point where we can use the mod, we wouldn't be using it in our Rookie/Friendly/Social events. That's a night that we all need to make it as easy for a new member to come in, be comfortable and help them out as much as we can. They are the new blood that is needed to keep our clubs and grids growing and healthy.

Could do the same thing with mod tracks though, have a post with like 10 RD approved mod tracks in it with all the links to them and the user could download and install them all at once and then have all the mod tracks already installed for any future races, very low entry barrier, one time effort and then good to go after that. Don't see how that's much different than this cut track mod.

Brandon's idea is something that he and I have talked about and is a great idea. We will try to put something together when we get the list started.

Like Rasmus said, thank you all for your input. This is the way we make progress as a community. Good clean discussions.

 

[Dimis]

just want to let you guys know. that you are doing an amazing job here. I'd come back to the races with such a system in place. love it guys Keep it up

 

[Bobby Pennington]

just want to let you guys know. that you are doing an amazing job here. I'd come back to the races with such a system in place. love it guys Keep it up

Thank you for the kind words. We're all trying.....members and staff. It's a work in progress so I'm sure I will make mistakes, but hopefully everyone will be patient while we try to get it right.

 

[Captain Condescending]

I've uploaded the track mod for those who wish to try it!
http://www.racedepartment.com/downl...stricter-track-limits-for-kunos-tracks.17117/

@Andy Jackson i am told this may interest you