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Ballast

Author Topic: Ballast  (Read 39078 times)

Rolz

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Ballast
« on: October 15, 2015, 06:08:36 PM »
I just wanted to start a discussion on how we do ballast as we are maturing with it as we get used to it...

The new season ballast design is great, but Marty then brought up a good point on if previous seasons quick drivers come on board late will then have a massive advantage...

Can we perhaps use the (most awesome BTW) all time driver and practice server stats somehow to work out a start of season or late starter ballast amount? http://www.xgn.com.au/index.php?topic=837.0

There are some pretty good stats in there to get a good baseline...

Why not just use that from the start of the next season.
80% of us are regulars and any newbies would just get the ballast added on if needed as we do it now?

Next Tuesday (Computer Hardware Depending) I'll start and be on Zero Ballast so I'll (and DA Racing) also have an advantage as well over the others...

Sorry if it's a ramble... just getting points out to feed a discussion...

 ;D

Offline Guybrush Threepwood

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2015, 06:18:15 PM »
I just wish there was a grip handicap that could be used instead.

I'm always up for trying something.  It could be trialed Thursday night.  I don't think the ballast system is going to get too much better though as I don't think the stats show what your times are and how much quicker you are relative to others.

Offline Wally

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2015, 06:57:29 PM »
I can ”guesstimate” a starting ballast, using the driver history stats we have so far. It might be fairer for late starters. Otherwise, yes, Monsieurs Marty and Guybrush will win the first race easily. It will also prevent other ballasts from being skewed by having times suddenly way faster than everyone else.
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Offline marty

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2015, 07:36:11 PM »
I think also if GB for example has no ballast round 1 and ballast for round 2 is determined by lap times vs others then its quite likely he will be ballasted like this for the next race with a full second car as ballast.  ;D



Here is how the cars ended up that way.
[youtube]E9rZ8hkDXIU[/youtube]

Offline Wally

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2015, 08:53:41 PM »
Must have warped.
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”

Offline Guybrush Threepwood

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #5 on: October 16, 2015, 06:20:19 PM »
That's normally how I try to end my race, not star tit.

Offline Guybrush Threepwood

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2015, 10:28:37 AM »
Just a thought Wally, if ballast will continue to be used is it worth having a week of "ballast testing" in the designated car with the lower track grip before a season starts - this way you will have an idea of how different amounts of ballast effect time.

Especially with some of the lighter cars that rely on downforce, ballast seems to have a major effect and is compounded by a decrease in track grip. 

Eventually we may even be able to calculate a "ballast weight x car weight = average lap time increase" formula if we can log our data. 

Offline Wally

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2015, 12:19:45 PM »
Just a thought Wally, if ballast will continue to be used is it worth having a week of "ballast testing" in the designated car with the lower track grip before a season starts - this way you will have an idea of how different amounts of ballast effect time.

Especially with some of the lighter cars that rely on downforce, ballast seems to have a major effect and is compounded by a decrease in track grip. 

Eventually we may even be able to calculate a "ballast weight x car weight = average lap time increase" formula if we can log our data.

That's already what I do. I do my own pre-season test to get an "x kg = y% decrease" baseline, and then after every round I look at how much the different amounts of ballast have slowed everyone down, average out the decreases per ballast (because everyone's slightly different) and refine the ballast figure. Every race gives me more data to refine the ballast amount.
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”

Offline marty

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #8 on: October 18, 2015, 01:00:37 PM »
A suggestion for another possible ballast season option, the week before the next round everyone tries to set a lap time with no ballast in the combo for the round. Points would be awarded from fastest to slowest towards the season for this and then going by the laptimes set, ballast would be used on race nite to try handicap all to within similar laptimes.

In order to stop people deliberatly underperforming in the weeks laptime setting there could be max ballast for any people not setting a laptime and also more points awarded for those running higher ballast on the race nite. This would still mean it would gain most points by trying to set the quickest practice lap and then also trying to finish as high as possible. Compared to someone that could tank a bit in practice then run very light on the nite and even if winning easily would likely not score as many points as the guy running the highest ballast for the round if they finished reasonably well.

I dont know if that would really work but could be worth experimenting in a between season practice run.

Offline Simone

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #9 on: October 18, 2015, 02:42:42 PM »
Ca we get rid of ballast? 

Offline Guybrush Threepwood

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #10 on: October 18, 2015, 02:57:05 PM »
Ballast is good, but any way to make it as effective as possible is worth a try.

Offline Wally

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #11 on: October 18, 2015, 04:18:21 PM »
The current method has been refined in practice over many years.

Simone, ate you scared of having more cars around you? ;)
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Offline Simone

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #12 on: October 18, 2015, 08:33:25 PM »
hheehheehehehehhehehehe

Offline marty

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #13 on: October 19, 2015, 09:32:26 PM »
The way the ballast is I think for example Jeremy will be screwed in race 1 with no hope of competing at that weight, he will then get the slowest lap times meaning he will get no ballast race 2. Then race 2 he will be the quickest by a bit and so get max ballast again for the start of the next race being stuck in a cycle unless he deliberately paces himself in race 2 in order to not go too quick. I really don't think ballast is ever good if it means some people have no chance of even competing due to the ballast where normally they are up the front.

The top weight should have the chance to get a win if ballast is done properly where all would be back to a certain laptime. But giving someone ballast of over 7 seconds per lap here is just too much. Looking at the laptimes from race 1 with no ballast round 1 last week excluding the 2 slowest who may have been damaged or something there was only 4 seconds between the field here so giving such extreme ballasts for this round seems rather odd. For me I can do 1:45.0 with no ballast and with 100kg 1:47.9 so 2.9 seconds there which is quite a large margin already. Jeremy with his weight could do 1:52.6 losing huge amounts of time already to me and GB who have 100 and 130kg already.

Looking at results from race 2 last week the 3 top weights were 2 to 3 seconds of the pace and shows they had zero chance of being in the top 5 or even competitive. And I think this will be the case for all unless everyone is getting ballast at a rate to try and get all to a certain mid time. For example going by the first race around 1:33.5 was the mid ground so these guys should get say 100kg of ballast, those quicker will get more to level it out and the slowest guy would get 0 or anyone that would be 3 seconds off the pace. You could also work it from 75kg being the mid lap time and if it works properly then all should be able to lap within 1 second of eachother. But getting ballast to be completely out of the next race makes it a bit silly I think.

Its a good way of levelling things out if done well but I cant see how the current system is doing anything other then letting everyone get a win by shear fact they have the least amount of weight. Guys getting large ballast may as well not bother in some races and I don't think that's very good for anyone. Last season BTCC ballast method I think was much fairer then this system, I thought that the ballast was going to even up the racing more but to me I think its not doing that at all for the next round.

Offline Wally

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Re: Ballast
« Reply #14 on: October 19, 2015, 10:35:32 PM »
You can't judge the ballast after one race. It takes a few races to settle to an appropriate value. One thing I used to do in the past is ”damp” the initial ballast swings for the first few races to reduce these big initial swings, so you only got 70% of the calculated ballast change (as the netKar guys may remember). After a number of races, you then get 100% of the calculated ballast change. I'll have to check if that's working correctly in the AC version. I have a suspicion that's not working properly. If I can have a look in time tomorrow, I might reduce the ballast ”swing” by 70% (I think that was the factor I used).

It's not done by gut feel Marty. It's all calculated, based on times that people actually do, and how much ballast actually slows people down, all things that are measurable from the race results.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2015, 10:38:57 PM by Wally »
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