Help - Does AMS2 drivers really want to race online?

yep, sorry I've messed up one thing while deploying new version, it should be good now

 

Finally we have F-Inter.
Thank you.

 

Hey, just want you to know that I've added few new race series in multiple driving licenses. Also I've moved few previous race series into different race license.

Keep in mind that it's still work in progress, I will add/change few race series more.

 

Why race duration just 12 minutes?
Rookie ok, I can understand.
But also the high(er) classes?

 

Idk, how long they should be?

 

For my taste not shorter than 20 minutes.

 

I think it makes sense to have some shorter races, especially in the lower classes. New players will just be getting used to RCO, so they might have some weird stuff happen like mismatched AI - it's better to be in a shorter race in those situations.

The other reason for shorter races is to allow players to race every half hour. If you have 8 minutes qualifying and a 12 minute race, that's 20 minutes on the track, with 10 minutes left over for connecting, registering, server transitions, etc. Running 20 minute races with 10 minute qualifying takes about 40 minutes to finish, which means that you have to wait 20 or 50 minutes for the next races.

One way to compromise here might be to change race timing. Instead of hourly races on the hour and the half, have them on the hour, 20, and 40. Or run races every 90 minutes, with half the series offset by 45 minutes instead of hourly races offset by 30 minutes (edit: that doesn't make sense because it can actually increases waiting times). That would allow for a 20-minute race without missing the time slot for another set of races. I think it is a good idea to time the races so that players don't have much downtime if they want to keep racing.

The best solution might be shorter and more frequent races for rookies and longer races for other series. I like to see some shorter 12-minute races, but longer battles would be nice too.

Edit: 3 observations after my first 12-minute race.
1. I thought the length was okay for a "real" race, but that is just my opinion of course and most people racing are not me.
2. I ended 2 minutes before the next races, which was cool. If I had started the server later, I might have missed the next race slot by a few minutes. This would be okay if I was already registered, but not if I waited to register until the prior race was over.
3. The shorter length allowed me to be harder on my gearbox without consequences, using clutchless downshifts to save a few hundredths. In a 20-minute race, this would leave me without a 2nd gear eventually, so I have to think more carefully about when to use it in longer races.

 

To be honest, I hate short races. That's one of several reasons I avoid public lobbies too, ie: 5 laps or 10 minutes races. It's like doing time trials with obstacles

I also think having less wait time between races is a 100% valid point tough. May be there is a way to compensate race duration with race's time spread. Having 12 minutes races for some of the rookie license races is a good starting point for newcomers, I agree, but there must be at least 20 minutes races too for rookies to get accostumed for the higher licenses.

The challenges of racing is to be as fast as possible without breaking the car, to wisely manage the tyres, look after fuel consumption, etc. In a short sprint race you don't have time to recover for even a tiny mistake too, and people tend to be overly aggressive because there is almost no time to study the rival driver for a couple laps before attempting a mostly clean overtake.

I think would be good to have 20 to 40 minutes races on higher licenses, but may be it's not what most online racers want.

That's my 2 cents about that matter.

 

I've changed race lenght in higher series, check them out, be warned I didn't put much tought in to that yet.

I totally agree with you guys: longer races, with smaller wait window. It's doable, but it's little tricky.

If you hava an idea on how to arrange the races, then write it here in the format:
Rookie:
Q: 8, R: 12 on *:00, *:30 - almost not wait time between the races
Silver:
Q: 8, R:20(?) on *:??, *:?? - such and such time between the races
and so on

 

Not sure how to read it?

Q:10, R:15, every 15 minutes?
Q:15, R: 10, every 20 minutes?

 

Ok I think I get it.

I don't have enough money to spare for 20 or so race servers to run in the loop for 24/7, it would be a waste. That's why RCO run race servers on demand only - Someone want to race? cool, let's just spin new race server and shut it down when they finish racing or there is no one there.
Also RCO have separate practice servers, they are also run on demand and are shutted down when there is no one there.

So you need to take practice session out of equation when calculating race schedule and take into consideration that with such small driver base I don't think we can have races every 30 minutes within one race series. I think that I am stretching the limit already with races every hour per race series, but AI is filling the gap, so it's not that bad - at least it's some kind of alternative for single player races.

 

I think the right answer will be different while you're building a player base versus when you have enough players for consistent populated races.

 

idk, even iRacing doesn't run races more frequent than 1 race/h within one race series and their driver base is huge, also the higher the license requirement is the less frequent the races are.

In RCO we have AI so there is no need to have less frequent schedule, but I don't think the more frequent schedule will allow to gather enough people to one race, but to be honest I don't know

so yes, let's see what will happen and let's adjust accordingly

 

Thanks for increasig race duration.
Do you have to pay everytime a server is started?

 

np.

Yeah I am paying, but I can handle it for now, so don't worry. If it ever start to hurt my pocket then it would mean that RCO is succesfull and I will figure out how to keep it free

EDIT
How did you think it was managed?

 

So how many zloty you have to pay every time I practice on your server?
Because then maybe I will not practice online.

 

Really not much like 0.1$ (or less) per 1 hour race/practice server. There are additional costs like RCO internal services and website hosting, but with current RCO load this is almost free. The cost will increase with the number of active drivers, but I think I would be able to manage costs from there.

Cost of work hours used to create RCO is far more bigger than it's hosting price

Please do practice online as much as you can/want, you're increasing RCO visibility that way.
I can add "Donate" button to ease your conscience

As a side note:
I don't have an idea why iRacing want me to pay 10$/month just for 2-4 hours of racing I am doing there, 10$ it's like 100 hours of races on RCO...

 

Just to clarify costs issue a little more

0.1$ x 24h x 30 days x 20 race series = 1440 USD monthly = 17280 USD yearly

We can double that if we add 20 practice servers = 34560 USD yearly

After 1 year I could treat myself with real F-Vee right? I dont even mention how my sim rig would look like

And with such setup all the servers would be bound to only one world region, so we can multiply that costs by regions...

What I was trying to say is that 24/7 race servers are not the way to go, it's a waste of money and clean air (servers do generate CO2)

My bills for RCO are around $50-60 per month and really I can live with that burden ;P

Please do more racing on RCO