Topics

1

RCSO2 oXigen / RCSO2 Primer/Quick Start Guide?

« on: February 23, 2021, 09:32:48 PM »

As surprising as it may be, I'm only now digging into RCSO2, now that I have more than a couple controllers and chips.
I find that my brain is not wired in the same way for RCSO2 as it was for RCS64. I'm flummoxed by a variety of things, particularly pit lane use.
Is there a manual, or tutorial, or video, or anything? Like, if you had a guy coming over to race, what would you tell them in order for them to race?
Are Teams mandatory? Can I race just drivers, or do I have to make one-man teams?
The differences between this and RCS64 are many and great. Any help is appreciated.

2

Future Development / Track Call Safe Speed option

« on: June 21, 2016, 10:13:45 PM »

In an effort to reduce the total stoppage while racing the we often experience due to crashes and the subsequent track calls, I'd like for RCS64 to have an option whereby an auto track call puts all cars to their programmed safe speed, if not a specific track call or "Virtual Safety Car" (VSC) speed. In this mode, pit activity would be able to continue (and be started, even), and cars will continue to drive at a slower pace until the VSC "returns to the pit lane" after a predictable and audible countdown prior to the restoration of full power. We tried this with SSDC, but the totally random nature of returning to full power only caused MORE crashes. Such a feature could also play into the future addition of a REAL "safety car" feature that sends out an actual car during track calls that other cars may not pass, and full power returns after the actual safety car re-enters the pit lane (or special area). If I were to make a wish list for this, it would be as follows:

1) Auto Track Call (ATC) now has two options. Full Stop, or Virtual Safety Car (VSC)
2) Car and/or driver settings have a new power option for VSC power level. Being able to just hold the trigger and know your car won't come off, while not having pit lane to the same restriction, can't be a bad thing.
3) When ATC is set to VSC, full stop track call can still be initiated by a race marshal/manager at the computer with space bar, or even allow the controller button use to trigger full stop if VSC is not sufficient to manage the incident.
4) VSC activation allows full pit stop functions. It does not stop active functions, and does not prevent new pit menu functions from starting. Effectively, it is still "in race"
5) VSC can be set to manually cancel when the race marshal presses a special key on the computer keyboard, or once all active cars have crossed the S/F line at least once since the VSC was triggered (not including cars in the pit lane or pit menu)
6) When VSC is canceled, there is a predictable and audible countdown prior to restoration of full race power levels as per other restrictions (fuel/tires/weather/etc). There should be no doubt about when to lift the trigger to avoid crashing due to full power gain.
7) triggering the VSC via ATC will still deduct a damage point from the offending car. Damage points should still be able to be changed up or down as needed during the race by a race marshal.

I'd love to see this get some input from others. I'm sure I'm missing something that would enhance the feature, or make it more reliable and easy for racers to use.

3

Issues with version 4 / Feature Request: Number of Rotations

« on: February 09, 2016, 07:55:37 PM »

In the series racing, it would be nice to be able to set a number of rotations to go through. Currently, it runs through the rotation one time. Fortunately, running additional rotations does add the points to the series, rather than overwrite them. But, it would be nice to be able to set a number of rotations that are automatically run through.

4

Issues with version 4 / forced drop from series heat/race/event when controller unplugged

« on: February 09, 2016, 07:45:37 PM »

Had a race last night.
a controller was acting up.
I replaced the controller just as the heat ended, and the next one generated.
Since the controller was unplugged at that time, RCS64 automatically disabled that controller for the heat, forcing the racer in that position to be kicked out of that heat.
After the race started, with the controller plugged in, I paused the race, and it now showed the missing controller, but "NA" as the name. The person was still kicked out of the heat. There was no way to get that person back into the heat, all because the controller happened to be unplugged when the previous race ended and the new one generated.

While this might be rare, I can think of a half dozen ways this can happen on a regular basis. It's necessary for RCS64 to NOT kick out a racer from a heat just because the heat generated while a controller was not plugged in.

In fact, I'd like for RCS64 to not automatically enable/disable controllers all the time. It's pretty annoying to have to tell people to plug in their controllers before I can go set their car or driver name up for the next race. Controllers are personal, and are often unplugged/removed between races/heats of a race meeting.

I'd show you video of what happened, but the screen cannot be seen clearly, so you'd only see us looking at the screen and talking about the issue.

5

Future Development / More control of when/if sounds play

« on: August 10, 2015, 04:57:08 PM »

I  love how many sounds there are in RCS64. It's literally awesome when scrolling through the list and choosing from available sounds.

However, in some cases, I would like there to be NO sound for some things. Specifically, I would like to be able to disable sound for being in the pit menu. The available choices are distracting and can be really annoying, especially when people are unfamiliar with pit functions and taking a long time... or worse, the track call happens while people are in the pit lane. Which brings me to my other request... disabling all sounds (or at least ones that repeat) while in the track call. So, here are the features I would very much like added:

1) option to mute/disable/silence specific sounds.
2) option to have sounds only played once, rather than repeated (e.g. pit sounds)
3) option to have repeating sounds, or any sound currently playing to stop when a track call occurs.

I had a hard time talking to people at an event last night, trying to explain things about the pit menu system, while the droning engine noises were playing, and other people were talking more loudly than necessary to be heard over those noises. Stopping those sounds during track calls, at the VERY LEAST, would be very much appreciated. Start them back up when track call ends.

6

Future Development / Progressive/variable/anti-lock brake support

« on: February 21, 2015, 10:12:40 PM »

Even if InCar-Pro support is added to facilitate "proper" variable brakes on ICP cars, it would be nice to have a progressive/variable braking option available for non ICP cars.

Essentially, the RMS pulses the brakes more often and longer for stronger brakes. A low brake setting would pulse the brakes for a short time, and not as often. Look at how SSDC does "Progressive" brakes (only works with Brake button), and how the slot.it SCP controller (with SSD compatible cartridge) does it. They each have 5 settings. Coast at one end, full brakes at the other, and 3 different pulse rates for variable brakes.

Ideally, this could be an option for both button and dynamic brakes, rather than just the button as SSDC does.

For RCS64 tire wear, there would need to be some consideration made for this function so that it takes the pulses into account rather than each pulse as an individual brake press.

7

Future Development / Throttle-Pro support

« on: February 21, 2015, 07:43:07 PM »

SSDC is the only RMS that supports the Andy Wallace bluetooth Throttle-Pro wireless controller boxes. This might not even be possible if he isn't willing to provide the needed technical information to support his product in other programs, but it could hurt to ask him. I think it would be pretty cool to have the ability to run a race with wired controllers, Scorpius controllers, Throttle-Pro, and even oXigen controllers some time soon (hopefully in 2015).

8

Future Development / InCar-Pro support

« on: February 21, 2015, 07:41:14 PM »

With Scorpius Wireless controller support, and recent updates to the controller firmware, it would be nice if RCS64 could include support for the extended features of InCar-Pro firmware, specifically the variable braking and light control. Variable braking is something that analog racers have been able to appreciate for many years, and having that in digital is fantastic.

9

Future Development / Change to Series sequence

« on: December 23, 2014, 12:45:41 AM »

I mentioned previously that it seems strange to me for a series to just repeatedly run whatever is in a single race set up. Specifically, if a race has practice time, then qualify, then a race, a series will run Practice, Qualify, Race, Practice, Qualify, Race, and so on. The answer in the past was to run Practice separately. That makes perfect sense... but I was also told to run qualify separately... yet that defeats the purpose of a computer running qualify and then move into a race.

The entire point of qualify is to determine an order for the racers, either on the grid, or when they race. Why can't the computer help with this, rather than make us split up into 6 person chunks FIRST and THEN qualify and race? It seems to me that it would make a lot more sense to have practice time, then qualify ALL your racers, and then run the races based on the qualification.

I realize that I can do this by running things separately, writing things down, and then running the final races... but if I wanted to use paper I'd just be using the tower rather than a computer, am I right? ;-) Ideally, practice time could also be included in this scenario, but I'll leave it out for now, since we can just set a single race with a long-ass practice time and leave it at that.

Here's what I would like:
Set up a Series with Qualify, and then a "No Rotation" race, with 10 people racing (for example).
When the session begins, RCS64 randomly, or by alphabetical order, selects half of the racers (or 6, whichever is less) to run a qualifying race. This race is run according to whatever the single race parameters are for the Qualify session. At the end, RCS64 stores the best times for each of those people.
The next race is ANOTHER qualification session with the rest of the group. It doesn't matter how the group is split, as we're only going for best lap time to qualify everyone.
If I have 60 racers, I expect to run 10 qualifying sessions in a row. Get it? That way, I have the qualification order of all 10 (or 60) people.
When ALL the qualifying is done, RCS64 then divides the group as evenly as possible into multiple races BASED on their qualification order, starting at the bottom. I'd also like the option of a "bump up" for each heat, so the winner gets added to the group in the next race. Using my example of 10 racers, the bottom 5 would race, and then the top 5 plus the winner of the bottom 5 would race next. This gives even the lowest qualifying racer a chance at top podium. We could even provide this option to the top 2 or 3 winners of each race, until there is a final race where only the top qualifiers and the winner(s) of the previous race are racing for the final podium of the night.
At the VERY LEAST, I would like to be able to run qualify for more than 6 people (e.g. two qually races in a row), then have RCS64 split up the group according to qually placing, and run two RACES (GP, endurance) in a row.

We can talk about points and things until we're blue in the face, but the point is that running Practice-Qualify-Race-Practice-Qualify-Race-Practice-Qualify-Race-Practice-Qualify-Race-Practice-Qualify-Race- is just plain silly. It's clear that racing SSD with more than 6 people is pretty uncommon over there. ;-)

Also, qualifying doesn't really go along with rotation racing in the first place, so this doesn't need to apply to the three rotation types. IF it can, that would be good, I just don't see a need, as I don't think anyone running rotation would waste time qualifying.

10

Future Development / Season needed

« on: December 21, 2014, 01:19:44 AM »

RCS64 needs a "Season" in the racing series option, or a new tab for it.
A season would be what I normally call a series. It is the entirety of a group of races that a club may race over many meetings.

To make a comparison to SSDC, this is what SSDC calls a Series. What you call a Series, SSDC calls an Event. And what you call an Event, SSDC calls a Race. I'm used to what SSDC calls these things, which also matches up to what other clubs call these things, so I'd rather your naming convention changes to match what I believe is the norm.

Whether you change your naming convention, or add "Season" or something different entirely, there needs to be something that allows us to track a number of meetings that take place on different dates as one larger "thing".

Just like F1 and other real racing series/seasons/whatevers.

11

Issues with version 4 / Preview of "No Rotation"

« on: December 21, 2014, 01:13:32 AM »

I don't see any reason not to preview the "No Rotation" series option. Being able to see which racers are placed in which heat would help the race marshal determine if that's the best set up or not, prior to getting people ready to race. For example, I had one set up with 9 people and running 6 cars. If I had seen the rotation, I would have disabled a car or two, so that the races were more evenly populated.

12

Issues with version 4 / Euro rotation sit-out wrong

« on: December 21, 2014, 01:11:32 AM »

I reported this awhile ago, and it got back burnered. I wanted to make sure it is addressed at some point.

The problem: in the Euro rotation of Series, the racer currently sits out between racing on 5, and then coming back in on 6 and finishing on 2.  This is incorrect.

The racer who starts in ID1 should rotate through all IDs with no break. Racers who start in other slots would "come out" after racing in ID2, take a break, then return in ID1.

For example, Greg starts in ID5. He would then race in 6, then 4, then 2, then he would SIT OUT until other racers have rotated in. When he comes back, he will race in 1 and then 3, and that will be the last race.

Another example, Alex starts in ID2. He would then sit out until the other racers rotated into the series, and come back in on 1 to complete his rotation.

As I said, the current rotation is working almost perfectly, except at what point the racers sit out from the racing until they come back in. They should sit out between 2 and then 1, not between 5 and 6.

Even when only running 3 or 4 IDs, the racer would still come out on 2, rather than 3, or 4.

13

Future Development / Car ID/programming during track call

« on: December 15, 2014, 07:59:31 PM »

It's not uncommon for a car to fail for some reason. Sometimes it's mechanical or chip-related, but being able to program a car during a track call would be SUPER handy. Not all of us have spare power bases to program cars on when a race is already running, so being able to program a car on the track, during a track call, would be a valuable feature to add, I think.

14

Future Development / Quick controller calibration on Pre-Race screen

« on: December 15, 2014, 07:55:17 PM »

I would like to see controller calibration, in general, be streamlined a bit. The current method is a bit tedious, especially if it needs to be done multiple times per event.

What I would especially like is for this streamlined calibration to be available, or automatic, while the Pre-Race window is on screen.

The reasoning behind this is that my club often changes driver positions more than once per event/meeting. We each have our own controller that we have set up to our preferences (TruSpeed with trigger legnth and spring tension adjustment), and so even if we calibrated our controllers before the races begin, we would have to do it again after we rotate or change driver position for whatever reason. We've found over the years that poorly calibrated controllers can be a serious issue for racing. It's the main reason we got TruSpeed controllers in the first place. Still, even TruSpeed controllers can benefit from calibration, but due to the complicated nature of controller calibration in RCS64, and non-existent (at least, not reliable or trustworthy) calibration in SSDC, we never use it, and must simply shrug and move on when a controller calibration issue arises.

I would like controller calibration to work like the C7030 PB-Pro did, or like the C7042 base does when using the tower, or something like those. When I press "calibrate" somewhere, I want all 6 controllers to be able to be calibrated at the same time, simply by pulling the trigger a few times, or holding and releasing it a couple times, or something.

Ideally, and this is why my post is titled "Quick controller calibration on Pre-Race screen", I would like RCS64 to automatically detect trigger motion when waiting in the Pre-Race screen. There should not need to be an additional button, though having this be an option that is enabled/disabled on the main screen might be good if such a feature would be a processor hog. When a controller trigger is pulled, the Car ID number next to that driver should flash red or yellow to indicate that the controller is being calibrated, or that it will be if the user continues pulling and/or holding the trigger. When the calibration is complete, the number should light up green and remain lit. Calibration should not be required, but it should be indicated that it has happened for any driver that did it. The race would still be started by the marshal clicking start, or by all the drivers pressing their Brake button to indicate readiness.

This way, a race event, especially a series with rotation, can be automated, and every driver can ensure proper calibration of their controller prior to a race. I imagine that when a race starts, drivers will pull their trigger a few times, see their number light up green (calibrated), and the press Brake to start the race.

I'm hoping this is possible. If not, then at least we should be able to get back to the throttle tab and re-calibrate our controllers between race heats/rotations during a series event. Also, hopefully the current calibration can be streamlined as above so that we're not so reluctant to do it in the first place.

15

Future Development / more visual change in fuel level

« on: December 08, 2014, 07:01:58 PM »

We would like more options for quick visual cues for fuel level. It can be hard to read the number in the gauge, and the color doesn't change until it gets pretty low. At the very least, we'd like more color changes during the fuel consumption, if not the ability to choose which colors and when they change.

Ideally, I'd like a gauge of some kind, even just a sectioned bar graph, that indicated fuel level in at least 10 sections, if not 20. This could be done the same way the throttle level is shown, but horizontally, and with either color that changes along the graph, or where the whole graph changes colors as the level changes. It could also be done with images, like some other programs do. Just set it up so that a set of 10 or 20 images are used, and then we can even have user selectable fuel gauge sets in different styles.