We all want a league which is as realistic and challenging as possible, I think the virtual safety car is a great idea which brings an interesting dynamic and realism to the race. However, Globespy is spot on, we can't have people putting it in the fence and then gaining an advantage from it. If we can find a way to tweak the rules to stop this, then I'm all for it! This was only the first race of the season as well so these kind of teething problems were bound to surface. All in all a good race and a fantastic league which will only get better as we improve the format.
Thanks again Michael, great job!
Appreciate your supportive comments. I race in other leagues with much less forced realism and a crashed car either limps to the pits or retires. Like real life.
it has to be a multi car collision for a caution, meaning more than one car goes off track and gets damaged (one guy screwed up, but the other guy could be fully innocent, this allows him to still have a chance at good points where as before his race would be well over). This was voted on waaaay back and the majority went with this option so it should have been expected. if one guy goes off, he IS NOT allowed to call for a caution.misuse of the caution feature will result in penalties, and I don't think anyone is sad enough to have to do that here hopefully.
the two involved must make it clear to the leader and everyone else in the race.
70 mph will be the speed at all times for cautions now to avoid confusion. leader calls green at the line next time by providing the accident is then cleared up. We went over this in and after race but I suppose some didn't hear.(some more clarification will likely be made about the restarts and caution rules before round 2) If you don't listen to the rules in race you must come on to this forum and read them all instead. It's illogical to do otherwise really and it's not like its difficult.
The people who crash and go in to pits can do whatever they feel in the pit strategy, they're still gonna rejoin at the back of the field, so yeah they lose their place (a big variable with this highly skilled field). Anyone else is welcome to give up their spot and pit to do the same during a caution if that's how you decide to flip up your strategy. You're not forced to stay out while the field is running 70mph under caution, take advantage if you believe it gives you one but you'll still have to get by a bunch of cars and also the leader who might have stayed out could be well in front again by the time you get further up the field.
This only spices up strategy even further and it means there will always be some good racing to be had.
Everyone seemed to agree and like this method except for a handful tonight, hopefully you guys can come to terms with the neat new format and still show next race.
Nothing is ever gonna run in line with reality, or as smoothly as we'd all like in this game, so it doesn't have to be taken so seriously all of the time...
I'll make a more detailed response to your points tomorrow Globe, unless mike wants to clarify further beforehand.
Toast, appreciate the response.
Let me propose you try some testing and let me know how you feel after you investigate the data for yourself.
Imagine you are at Spa, you are averaging 2:20 laps (more likely 2:18 or less), and you're about to head across the finish line on, say lap 20, a comfortable 10 second lead on tires that are about 60% - you are feeling good about this one.
But, gadzooks!!! There's a fender bender where two cars are involved a few turns back, say at the fast sweepers or chicane before the pit entrance, and there's some damage. A little aero or suspension, but the car is perfectly fine to drive to the pits. The cry for help goes out! It's more than one car so in line with the rules you mentioned - there's absolutely no way to actually verify that it's significant damage and if you live in a world where you honestly believe that in competitive environments everyone always tells the truth then I'm quite speechless.
Despite absolutely zero danger to you or the cars in front of the fender bender for at least 2 minutes and 20 seconds you have to slow down allowing the rest of the field to gobble up your lead that you've been working on. Meanwhile the 'damaged' cars dive into the pit to fix their damage, take the opportunity to change tires and perhaps load on fuel, fuel they had perhaps planned to stop for as part of their race pit strategy.
Spa is 4.352 miles long, let's just round that up to 4.5 miles. At 70mph it will take 3 minutes and 55 seconds to complete a full lap. That's assuming you never slowed below 70 miles per hour, which as you know isn't physically possible on sections of the track. On much tighter/twisty tracks you average much less than 70mph over the lap. So for argument's sake, let's just round that up to 4 minutes 20 seconds with everyone being careful not to bump each other (slow down domino effect), even though it will absolutely be more.
Meanwhile the fender benders and anyone behind them who's smart enough to do simple math will also jump into the pits to get fresh warm tires and maybe some gas. Without any damage (they haven't been in a crash) and not taking fuel, they hop into the pits for a quick 5 second tire change with a very good chance they are out of the pits in FRONT of the damaged cars/other cars who also decided to take on gas, gaining places and a nice fresh set of tires. They bomb up eau rouge, catching the pack, and bunching up right behind you and the other leaders with about a minute to spare before you get to the line and restart the race. You could try to mandate that cars leaving the pits must also travel at 70mph, but in reality that's impossible to police or record unless there was a time stamped record of the actual time gaps between cars. Again, it's a competitive passtime and as BigD keeps mentioning, he'll "take what he can get" and that's how it works. Nothing personal Big, you just affirmed exactly the point I'm trying to make. In real life if your car was damaged you would sit your butt in the pits at best or at worst have your car towed and DNF'd.
As previously pointed out, it's a really nice, realism based idea in principle, but in reality it is sabotaging other racers. A real car with real suspension/aero damage won't get fixed in 20-30 seconds, yet you are slowing down and driving like it's actually real damage which just isn't consistent with the actual reality that it's a video game.
There's no trouble making here, and there's nothing personal. Just logical analysis and food for thought as this is something that I can almost guarantee will happen in every single race. It's worth thinking about.
Cheers.
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