Disconnection during a Race - and consequences.

[havet865]

Another topic for you today, following the previous post about cheating.

Max Vertsappen was competing in the 'Le Mans Virtual' race this weekend in eSports, and he has made a very commented declaration about the rFactor racing game, saying that he would never play the game again, inviting fans to do the same and uninstall the game.

What happened?
'Le Mans Virtual' is replicating the 24h of Le Mans race and several teams are competing online to win the race... and the 250k$ cashprize!
Max Verstappen was leading the race and got disconnected - and then reconnected 3 times in a row.

In the end, he ended up driving at the 10th position instead of the 1st position after the 3 sim crashes because the sim game was not able to put him back in front of the pack. He was just coming back at present position (of crash/freeze) everytime and lost some places every time.

He was so pissed at the end that he just said that he would never compete in this game again and invited organizers to move from this unreliable game to another one.

Why did he said this, was he right, is he allowed to say it?
- He said this because he was unhappy (obviously) and because he prepared for the race for 5 months with his team... and they lost that famous 250k$ cash prize.
- There have been several disconnections for all teams and even red flags because of huge server issues. When reconnecting, other pilots were disconnected etc...
- He was able to criticize the Le Mans race and the game because... he is an F1 driver, working for an F1 company promoting F1.
If the same issue had happened with a race on the F1 eSports races, it's easy to bet that he would not have been allowed to emit such public criticisms. And if so, he would probably have received a big penalty/fine from RedBull or the F1 company.


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Now onto Condor!

So what is Condor doing now?
When disconnected, Condor does not allow you to reconnect in-flight to continue flying with the others.
You must continue the flight offline (alone) and forward us your .ftr file via our scoring partner Condor.Club. You will still be scored and it will work!!

Would it be better if you could reconnect several times at present position instead of continuing on your own?
Well, if it causes other pilots to be disconnected because you are trying to reconnect, it's probably not a good idea, is it?
There are pros and cons for both. Difficult to state if it would be better for you the competitors. It is obviously better for us the organizers to have everyone in-game during the live streamings, but if it allows you to safely continue your flight, it is a good point for us.

What are we doing, as an organization to cope with this issue (and the blue screen issue):
When competing in the VSGP, only 6 out of 7 races in total are taken into account in the overall results. It's not to allow you a day off mid-week: it is to cover any potential issue that may arise for any pilot involved. Technical issues can happen, and we need to be realistic about it.
For the World Series, only 14 out of 16 races will be taken into account as well in the overall results. We believe it is a fair trade.

Not willing to open a debate here, just communicating around this issue and reminding you that you can/may/must continue flying when being disconnected

The discussion is available on our Discord as well: https://discord.gg/5qr9V9dBYS

Have a nice week,
Antoine

[CristianoConrado]

Hi,

What we have now is fair for the results, but bad for the experience and transmission of e-sport events.

There is no big harm for the disconected pilot, but he will loose the reference of the other pilots in the thermals and the live stream will loose the complete race context / picture.

It is not that bad, pilots are still able to upload the result.

For the reconection protocol as sugested in the Features Request topic, the pilot continues to fly with no pause, and as soon as the automatic reconection protocol sucessfully reconects, the server wiill be atualized with the client (pilot) data (position, altitude, speed, heading).

He will respawn with offline client last position. In fact client (pilot) Condor never stops to update the client data, only looses the connection with server.

The server should not use the pilot position at disconection moment, but need to accept the actualized client position/data.

For this reason, pause need to be disabled for clients of a multiplayer session during disconection, when reconection protocol is enabled.

The reconection should be automatic and respect a protocol only for disconected pilots of that same session.
Condor client has the session data, what can be used for the Client/Server match.

That is my idea for future improvement.

[CON]

[Bre901]

I see a rather severe issue with reconnections during online flights : there is a non-zero risk of collision when the disconnected glider reconnects as neither the disconnected pilot nor the ones who remained online will be aware of their respective positions.
The simplest way to handle this would be to disable collision detection for the reconnecting glider, but that may be a bit complicated, and then, for how long ?

[wickid]

I see a rather severe issue with reconnections during online flights : there is a non-zero risk of collision when the disconnected glider reconnects as neither the disconnected pilot nor the ones who remained online will be aware of their respective positions.
The simplest way to handle this would be to disable collision detection for the reconnecting glider, but that may be a bit complicated, and then, for how long ?

Collision detection is now also disabled when on tow or in the start line. So I guess the tools are there. About 5 to 10 seconds is probably enough. Just have a look at how racing games like Assetto Corsa or Rfactor handle this. Maybe even have the glider that respawns semi transparent for a few seconds so you have time to avoid.

[6266]

What do you get, when you disconnect IRL? Means f.x. no logger, or in old times no barogram or no pictures? I guess nothing.

The same should be in virtual flying. Disconnected, no result (or maybe until the disconnection, but in a competition where an outlanding gives nothing, it's the same). I see some problems with reconnection and offline finishing

Reconnection

F1 was mentioned as an example. Your driving behind a slower car but can't pass it. Go offline, drive a fast round and go online again, problem solved. Could be the reason why they don't allow it. Same with flying. Regattastart with lots of planes, no space, go offline fly the start where you want and come back online. Or in a lift full of planes, where you have to take care of others. Go offline, climb better and come back. Only two examples showing that this is not a good idea.

Offline finishing

Here are the same advantages like on reconnection, only without the possibility to come back. And maybe there is another possibility to get an advantage. You get the fpl, fly it as often you can offline, connect to your flight, start it, go offline and upload the best of your results. If there is only one online flight it's nevertheless possible, you only need some friends. All flying offline the same task with the same CN, uploading the best result. Nobody will do that? For 250k maybe (we are asked to think bigger)

Bluescreen

If reconnection and offline flying should be the solution for disconnection, it's not a solution for a bluescreen. No reconnection or uploading possible.


Of course the chance of a disconnection / bluescreen is bigger than IRL, so I would change the rules a little bit, to be as close to reality as possible, but to take care of the disconnection possibilties of the virtual life. 6 out of 7 is the right way. I would add a rule, if someone disconnect and wish a reflight (before the results are published), there will be a second chance to fly that task again for all (next day or after the competition) with a little bit changed weather conditions (f.x. randomized weather or 10 minutes difference in the start time). All flying the second flight will only get the result of that second flight. So you can't try twice and get the best out of it. If you have a bad but counting flight and you fly again, getting disconnected then, you get nothing. It's your own risk. If you get disconnected twice, you have to live with it.

Of course you can get the right to a reflight by disconnect intentionally, but I would accept that.

My 5 cent, I'm not involved but I like to think about competitions and rules

[CristianoConrado]

Hi,

Let's go back to the time when Condor was just a diversion for some lunatics in love with flying.
All some wanted was the chance to experience flying when they couldn't really be flying, and some using the Condor as a training tool to improve actual flying.

Now with this possibility of competitions with prizes it seems that we are becoming paranoid with cheats and unfair advantages.

Before going into a new subject, I want to remind you that the pilot who disconnected cannot close Condor and open another server to restart the race and try to correct his mistakes.
The IP and the opening time of the server is recorded and is explicitly revealed in Condor Club.
If anyone attempts this without permission from the competition committee, he must be banned from the competition.

Many pilots like me, we live in another country and on another continent, internet data passes through dozens of routers / backbones / hubs until it leaves our country, then travels through oceanic cables until it enters the continent of the server, passing again through several backbones /routers and hubs until finally reaching the server. Any power surge for a fraction of a second in any equipment in the path can interrupt the data flow and interrupt the connection with the server. The restoration of equipment normality or the redirection of the data stream is usually fast, allowing the pilot to reconnect with the server in minutes or even seconds.

You can try to stipulate a maximum reconnection period (5 - 10 minutes?) for the disconnected pilot.

I don't think that a disconnection wouldn't be an advantage in the virtual gliding scenario, as it really would be on a car racing track.

The biggest advantage in sailing is actually staying a little behind and higher than the groups in front, being able to enter the thermal fully centered and even choose which group to go to.

There is no advantage to flying alone / disconnected from the server.

If the pilot suffers a BSOD (blue screen of death) he must accept the total loss of the race that day.

A possible artifice to make intentional disconnections difficult would be to require all pilots (at least in the final) to perform live streams of their piloting, showing the entire table / cockpit.

This would also put an end to the possibility of other devices such as using powered USB signal duplicators or professional COM emulators (Joystick / keyboard / IR track and mouse) sending usb/com signals to a second PC / Notebook, which would run the same task offline, recorded from the server, but with thermal help enabled.

The fact is that it is very difficult to control an ill-intentioned person, but that would be so embarrassing that I can't imagine one of the top pilots using such tricks.

The only definitive solution would be face-to-face races with everyone sitting in the same room and using the organization's computers, but it is unrealistic for most of us.

I'm horrified to think that this would be necessary to prevent cheating, but with prizes this high, there will always be "smart" ones who will try.

To conclude: I am in favor of reconnecting the disconnected pilot.

Just remembering that I write here with the help of Google Translator, forgive any sentence with a harsher meaning.
I also make edits to the post when I identify errors and the possibility of improving understanding.

[CON]

[6266]

... forgive any sentence with a harsher meaning.

Thanks for your answer.

I don't see any harsher meaning and I agree with you while thinking on competitions for fun, like they are today. My post was meant for competitions in a bigger scale with high prices, professionell competitors a.s.o., like it was discussed.

I also don't think cheating is a big problem today, but it will if you can make a living from it.


BTW: I also use google to translate some sentences