Another Newbie – how to start competitions?

[Geoff L]

Background – In RL, this year I’ve done 10 air experience/beginner flights at local club – brilliant – but due to work, outdoor gliding is going to have to wait 18 months to retirement – except for a week’s course next year…whoopee. So, have taken advantage of Condor flight school, which to me seems superb. Have got to the point where in the Free Flight tab on a modified (eg airborne start) Novo Mesto 100km triangle, I've twice done 2 TPs…then deliberately landed out due to time constraints. Have saved the flight tracks – probably slow and inefficient flying, but got there and landed safely.

Problem – I’ve been through the Manual, the Forum incl FAQs & Condor Club, can’t find a step by step guide to starting competitions. Is there one, if so where? Someone must have asked before!!!

1 Can anyone join a comp, regardless of ability level?
2 Do I just go to Condor website\Servers list, make sure I’ve downloaded the correct scenery, and click on a Server that says joining enabled?
3 Presumably Private after the Players column means restricted joining?
4 What does Server Uptime mean?
5 If I click on say the Server headed Postfrontal Alpi 3 Easy, and it opens up Condor Multiplayer, then in LAN Server list, what do you type into Host Address and Session Name and what on earth does Latency mean?! And what goes in the Address Book entries? Where do you get a password from, or is it your Condor Forum password, or your Condor Club password, which could be different?
6 Am I the only person to be baffled by all this – no, don’t answer that! I suspect I've missed the answer somewhere.

I’m after an answer that doesn’t assume lots of technical knowledge that I don’t have – please! Maybe there’s an answer buried in the Forum from 2 years ago….

Thanks,

Geoff L.

[OXO]

1 Can anyone join a comp, regardless of ability level?

Yes

2 Do I just go to Condor website\Servers list, make sure I’ve downloaded the correct scenery, and click
on a Server that says joining enabled?

Exactly right!

3 Presumably Private after the Players column means restricted joining?

Yep

4 What does Server Uptime mean?

How long the server has been runnig

5 If I click on say the Server headed Postfrontal Alpi 3 Easy, and it opens up Condor Multiplayer, then in LAN Server list, what do you type into Host Address and Session Name and what on earth does Latency mean?! And what goes in the Address Book entries? Where do you get a password from, or is it your Condor Forum password, or your Condor Club password, which could be different?

Shouldn't need to enter anything.

[MaintenanceMan]

Hello Geoff,
Welcome to the forums and to the Condor community mate

I can help you with a few things.
1/ Firstly if you are looking at the online server list in a browser then use either IE, Opera or Firefox, Google Chrome is still not working with this in the new version.
2/ To join a server make sure Condor is shut down first, then click on the server name, the browser will start condor up (You might get a security warning in IE, just click allow.)
3/ Condor will open at the multiplayer screen, you should see an IP has been pasted into the "Host Address" field.
5/ No need to do anything else other than click "Join" at the bottom.

A1: Yes anyone can join, some comps require a pre registration to gain access to special areas on the hosts comp server.
A4: Server uptime is just that, the time that server has been running in the "ready to join" state or in the case of "Free Fly" servers it is the total time the server has been running from the last reset.

Hope this help you out mate.
Regards, Mark.

[Geoff L]

Oxo and Mark - thanks for quick reply. Always good when you don't have to fill in forms. A few supplementaries. What's an IP? Google found me an internet acronym dictionary and it didn't know. More important...

1 Is Slovenia 1.03 the standard scenery used in the Condor software that you buy? I couldn't find it in the sceneries list.
2 For a guy with his L plates on, mountain/Alp soaring would seem to be bordering on the suicidal. Apart from Scotland, any suggestions on sceneries most like what I will have to learn to fly over in the UK? I guess New Zealand.
3 I puzzled by knuckles. I did a seach in the forum and it gave me Tail knuckles are "balls", attached to the tail of the glider. The number, density and size of the knuckles can be configured in NOTAM screen as you have seen.

The "tail" becomes visible once the race starts. Players can "eat" the knuckles of other players and get rewarded In fact the player whose tail knuckle was eaten gets penalty points

Regards,

_________________
Uros Bergant,

Eating balls off the tail of a glider...what the **** is that all about? Are these in most comps?

4 Are the Notams in most comps similar to those in the Free Flight tab defaults?

All the best,

[Tima (TSD)]

... A few supplementaries. What's an IP?

IP address is the address which uniquely identifies computer in the Internet.

1 Is Slovenia 1.03 the standard scenery used in the Condor software that you buy? I couldn't find it in the sceneries list.

Yes. It is standard and only scenery delivered with Condor. If you can't find it in sceneries list then something wrong either with Condor installation or with permissions on the hard disk.

3 I puzzled by knuckles. I did a seach in the forum ...
Eating balls off the tail of a glider...what the **** is that all about? Are these in most comps?

This is used for dogfight multiplayer flights. Such flights organized very rarely. "Eating balls" means that you should fly through this line of the knackles which is attached to the tail of your "enemy". When you did this the knackles line of the "enemy" becomes shorter and he gets penalty points. The winner is those who has less penalties at the end of the flight.

4 Are the Notams in most comps similar to those in the Free Flight tab defaults?

Notam parameters defined by task setter and can be very different in different comps.

[Geoff L]

Thanks.