Sadistic task setting in competitions

Moderator: BOD1

Post Reply
Stephen Szikora
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2020 6:17 pm

Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by Stephen Szikora » Sun Jan 16, 2022 7:35 pm

I started to become involved in some of the big competitions being set up on Condor Club and I think there is a fundamental problem. The tasks are almost always in the mountains and the people setting the tasks are sadistic. They are using turnpoint placement and weather settings to make it very difficult to finish. It is not uncommon for 1/3 to 1/2 of the field to crash. This is ridiculous. It is not fun for the competitors, it is not helpful for bringing along less experienced pilots and it trains bad/dangerous habits. Competitions should be about speed, not survival. Let's use Condor to simulate real life tasks, not as some bloodlust video game.

User avatar
Bre901
Posts: 1790
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2016 8:57 pm
Location: Annecy (France)
Contact:

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by Bre901 » Sun Jan 16, 2022 10:22 pm

As far as I can see, most crashes in online flights happen because people do not adjust their behaviour to the task difficulty. It's usually always the same low/fast flyers who crash.
In such tasks it usually helps taking time to climb and flying rather conservatively, you may not win the race, but at least you will finish.

If you don't like the tasks in such competitions, vote with your feet, fly the ones you like
CN: MPT — CondorUTill webpage: https://condorutill.fr/

User avatar
Paul_UK
Posts: 828
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2009 1:05 pm
Location: Southampton, UK

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by Paul_UK » Mon Jan 17, 2022 9:36 pm

Bloodlust video game is a little extreme, unless n the next update we get 'gore effect' included?! As Bre states there is only one reason pilots fail a task and that is because of how they choose to fly. Granted for beginners some of the tasks may be a little daunting but my advice to all beginners is simply fly to complete a task, not fly it to be the fastest as that'll only end one way. What many don't do is a little pre task planning, that helps a fair bit in tasks in the mountains. It'll help pilots to think about where they need to slow to climb, where the better lift may be etc.

I'm not the fastest Condor pilot, i'm not the slowest either but I doubt I'd ever be much faster as I always fly a task to complete it. I've noticed certain pilots do not care if they finish a task or not. They go all in and just push push push and hope it works. They take max risk. When it pays off they win, when it doesn't they crash or land out. Personally I may not come 1st but I'll always complete a task.

Instead of flying comps maybe fly with a group of people in Condor where being the winner of a task isn't a big deal, that way the pressure is off and hopefully you'll see less land-outs. You will always see some for the reason I state above.
Image
2018 - Silver Badge complete - Forgot I could claim for the 100km diploma flying an out and return :oops:
2019 - Get up to speed and aim for a 300km task?! maybe.....

Kestrel_BY
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2021 4:15 pm

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by Kestrel_BY » Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:36 pm

Hey there,

I happen to be a regular task setter, may it be for myself of the "Riders du Far Wave" server, and I have to say that I often find myself quite amazed by the ammount of people that end up outlanding/crashing while I considered the task to be quite easy, so why is that ?

- The first thing I noticed is that people, and especially people who like to fly fast don't handle rythm changes too well. I do like to put these (rythm changes) in my tasks because where I fly they do happen a lot. I often find it curious when people leave a ridge where they were able to fly at 220 km/h without even slowing down, ending up too low only 10/15 km later with modern gliders, and either crashing trying to go over a pass, or outlanding. These changes in the rythm of the task don't even need to be that complicated : lots of people don't notice difficulties in flights and just try to go through the whole task without adapting their speed and behavior, which leads them to poor performances and/or outlandings/crashes.

- The second reason which is much rarer and quite random is that sometimes Condor works in misterious ways. I remember of a task I made from Saint-Remy (on AA2) to Vinon, then Sisteron, and then along Lure and the Ventoux before the final glide back towards Saint-Remy. The clouds were about 1500 to 1700m AGL at Saint-Remy with some decent 2 to 3 m/s thermals, and for some reasons about 25km after the start, the thermals became quite unexploitable all the way to Vinon and north in the Durance Valley until Lure. I remember that we lost half of the server there, and I, myself, got on the ridge of Lure very, very low. We went through the same area during other tasks without meeting the same problem, with some very similar weather settings.

So what are my advices ?
- Firstly, take 5 minutes before joining the flight to analyse the weather setting in condor, check the map for obstacles and expectable difficulties (higher passes, misoriented valleys, ...).
- Secondly, try to remember that you don't win because you fly faster, you win because you fly better. It's often much more time-effective to fly at 180 km/h on the ridge line allowing you to keep the vario at 0 m/s (and therefore stay high) than to rush at 220, getting low, and then having to climb in difficults and weak thermals (even if, sometimes, a thermodynamic might have you win the day this way. If... you don't crash later).
- Thirdly (and this might be the most important point) : Try to be a bit conservative. You might not win the race but on the long run, ending 5 times at the 5th place will put you much closer to the podium than winning 1 race, outlanding twice and having 2 midly-well-handled tasks. If you're talking about a competition, you need to take into account the bigger scheme : manage the competition and not only your flight. Try to be regular and consistent, you don't need to win every races.
- And finally : Keep in mind that task setters are humans, they make mistakes, and sometimes the randomness of Condor gets in the way (see my second example aforementionned).

Having flown few Condor Competitions, I do however have to agree on two points :
- Task setters sometimes get their competitions quite boring by setting repeatedly the exact same type of weak-ish weather through the competition, which isn't very fun to fly.
- Some task setters tend to try to set their tasks so the average speeds is comparable to real flights. That's problematic because in condor, the transitions are perfect : No bugs on the wings, no "random" sinks/lifts, no cracks in the paint, etc... So these tasks end up to be generally very slow and boring (I mean, one of these is fine. Flying a whole competition like that is actually boring).

That was just my two cents on the topic.
Image

User avatar
Paul_UK
Posts: 828
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2009 1:05 pm
Location: Southampton, UK

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by Paul_UK » Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:33 pm

For UK thermal tasks I set thermal strength to weak quite a bit however along with high variation minimum. Setting to weak with that variation and normal thermal width will see average speeds just above what is common in the UK. The high variation is what makes the task IMO. Without variation it's boring, regardless of thermal strength and overall average speed.

Add in variation on thermal width along with streeting / inversion height changes thermal tasks can be quite fun.

I will say that these types of tasks usually don't end up going so well for people who push hard and let themselves get low.

Maybe I am just a secret sadist when it comes to thermal tasks :mrgreen:

It's always nice to have a mix in comps. From fast ridge to challenging ridge to fast thermal and more tricky thermal tasks. I'm not a massive fan of AAT tasks in Condor. Blue thermal tasks with plane icon vis down at 1nm / 1km is entertaining. Gets you carrying out a proper lookout whilst flying the task :mrgreen: Funnily in the Cirrus Cup comp ran with the group I fly with the task with the least landouts was the blue thermal task. The weather conditions alone made pilots fly more conservatively it seems. I was nervous when I set that task as I wasn't sure how it'd be received, it was the fist blue task we'd all flown, it all went well though in the end.

You make some very good points Kestrel. For sure knowing when to slow is as critical as knowing when to push on. Biggest one for me is fly your own task, try not to let your decisions be altered by others. I get caught out by this far too often. I should just turn off plane icons so I can't see others really :lol:
Image
2018 - Silver Badge complete - Forgot I could claim for the 100km diploma flying an out and return :oops:
2019 - Get up to speed and aim for a 300km task?! maybe.....

User avatar
Bre901
Posts: 1790
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2016 8:57 pm
Location: Annecy (France)
Contact:

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by Bre901 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:58 pm

I have the same experience : I'm currently setting tasks for Tchin-tchin on the Bulgaria landscape, where the ridges are not that good, especially when one is low. Last week's task was clearly too difficult, sorry about that, but it was feasible, even with the tin can :wink:

On today's task about half of the pilots did not finish, mostly because they weren't conservative enough, one had to start and stay rather high and slow all the way to TP2.
https://www.condor.club/ftrrank/0/?fpl= ... 1a80d20bd6
CN: MPT — CondorUTill webpage: https://condorutill.fr/

Stephen Szikora
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2020 6:17 pm

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by Stephen Szikora » Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:51 am

I started the thread so now I will respond. The bulk of the comments were things involving planning and flying more conservatively with the implication that I held my concerns because I did neither. In fact, I plan my route in advance (as much in advance as we can with the route map 1hr prior and weather and turn point details 15 minutes prior.) I almost always finish the task and might typically finish 17th out of around 50-90 starters. My concerns were raised because I often see 40 people failing to finish and more particularly, I see task setting with things like turn points intentionally placed downwind of ranges and weather settings that are marginal for the task. Tasks are advertised as typically finished in 1:45 hrs yet it is taking 2:30 to 3 hours to finish, and these are tasks that the setter is labeling as "easy." Give us a break ... these conditions are just unnecessary. If it is a competition you want, any task will do and the best/fastest pilots will still win. There is no need to make the task so difficult and in fact far more difficult that would occur in a real contest. Another example of silly tasking is the use of regatta starts when there are 100 entries. That would never happen in real life. All I am asking is that people set tasks that we would typically see being set at a real world contest. Treat the simulator as just that, a simulation of real life, not as just another video game.

Lost
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2022 6:27 pm

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by Lost » Wed Apr 26, 2023 3:49 pm

I am relatively 4years new and somewhat experienced with Condor Flight Sim. I've found that the difficulty rating given to any task is arbitrary only by the builder; If easy for an expert, very difficult for new pilots. I suggest that those highly experienced pilots in building their tasks should consider all other pilots and skill levels and designate "World Competition Tasks" as "For expert only". Also, long, boring, tedium is not fun and discourages new pilots.

BC1...Not an Expert

User avatar
wickid
Posts: 2429
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 7:32 pm
Location: Venlo, NL
Contact:

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by wickid » Wed Apr 26, 2023 9:04 pm

I must say, this years CWC had pretty good tasks. All but 2 or 3 were challenging but not unsafe or impossible. There was one i remember where the cloudbase was way too low and the tops way too high to safely turn.

I also have no complains about the World Series and the SGP tasks.

Tchin Tchin is more hit and miss, but I wouldn't expect otherwise when you have to have a different task every day.

Task setting is not easy. It is hard to find the right ballance between making it hard enough for the good guys not to race around with Vne, but easy enough for the beginners to get round without too much trouble. We have pilots that compete at a very high level, flying against people doing their first crosscountry. It is like having a Formula 1 driver competing against somebody who just got their drivers license. Pleasing both groupes in one task is a big challenge.

Hopefully Condor 3 will give us more tools to tweak the difficulty level of tasks and present new challenges. Perhaps AAT style tasks may be the solution as everybody can pick their own route and fly at an average their comfortable with while keeping the tasks at a certain lenght time wise.
PH-1504, KOE

clark
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu May 02, 2019 11:51 am
Location: Albany WA

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by clark » Wed Apr 26, 2023 10:42 pm

HI Stephen, as a newbei to the whole sim thing, i could not agree with you more. i get stumped just on the simple things. If it was not automatic i could not in the glider. Just keep at it i guess Regards Clark

6266
Posts: 925
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2020 7:07 am

Re: Sadistic task setting in competitions

Post by 6266 » Thu Apr 27, 2023 6:37 am

All organizers of competitions and tasks do it for free. We should acknowledge their work. If you like it, join in, if not, let it be. Everyone has the possibility to organize something themselves, so if you don't find what you like, make it yourself.
Visit https://www.baleit.no

Vintage Series 24, The Journey
25 landscapes with free available textures, newest: Maine

Discord https://discord.gg/bAXJaRT6ZC

Post Reply