Silkswift

LFS-Marshal
This is a little program I wrote using the Insim system to implement flags in LFS. Flags are sent through coloured messages by the server.

Current Features:
- standalone program for Windows platforms (no need to install Python anymore)
- blue flags (when someone is being lapped)
- yellow flags (currently only at spins, and very low speeds)
- green flags (when yellow flag is removed)
- White flags (final lap)
- typing "flags on" or "flags off" turns on and off the flagging system for your car (on a car by car basis)

Problems resolved:
- Yellow flag spamming does not occur anymore
- Spin detection is less sensitive to allow for more drifting
- Should now work with non-dedi and dedi servers
- Hopefully it now works with more than 8 racers
- Does not require an empty server to be started anymore

I have set up a test server for testing purposes. If you want to have a look at it, and give me some feedback, please join in. Please post your comments in this thread or PM me.
The server name is now North American League #3.

It has now been merged into a RaceManager Toolset. This toolset can be downloaded here (this is useful only for server admins, or for programmers):
http://lfs.marcoz.org
New version uploaded 09/06/2004
There is a short README file which explains how to use it.
You need python 2.2 or more recent to be able to use it.

illegal

The idea is very nice, but there's quite some spamming by the program . I hope you get everything working

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Kamel

it's working really nice!

Silkswift

Thanks to all who came

The spamming is now fixed, you get only 1 message every 5 seconds (instead of 0.5 second )

Krane

:speechless:

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Fonnybone

 

I was gonna try but noticed i need python..anyways... Just one note,
i personally don't like the idea of a yellow flag for a spin. If you really spin
out and are a danger, the 'low speed' should be enough. If you don't
seem to go slow, maybe the driver 'drifted' out of the spin and can still go on.
Use the grass, sand and low speed instead to define a spin. Then yellow
flag that Of course the grass/sand 'trigger' might not be possible with InSim,
but i'm sure there's a way. Sound for example, grass and sand have distinct
sounds that are triggered. I'm just throwing ideas here


EDIT: Ok, just raced a bit on your server and what i feared came true
As soon as i started drifting those turns, 'yellow flag'. This could be used
to make another app, DriftJudge Seriously though, it does a pretty good
job at deciding what's a drift and what's not (yellow flag=drift). After a few
laps i made it a goal to drift every turn as to have a yellow flag Fun, but
not the intended purpose i believe.

Kamel

yeah we discussed it yeaterday on the server.
as it says in the code "# Check if direction and heading are more than approx 25 deg apart". so this just has to be set to a larger amount to allow driftig

Silkswift

Yes, I am planning on an off-the-track detection, but I fear this would need knowledge of the track, and would require quite a bit of work.
As opposed to you, I do like the yellow flag for all kind of spins, just so you can slow down to try to get a chance to avoid the high speed rotating car...



I am not a drifter at all, so my settings are for "non-drifting" races, which was the main purpose. As mentioned by GeForz, it is very easy to increase the threshold to allow for some drifting. The program is a script and can thus be modified/customized completely by server admins.
I will experiment with drifting a bit more though, and see what kind of settings would be needed.
I also like the DriftJudge idea
The code is a bit messy, but someone with a purpose should be able to use it to make other Insim addons fairly easily.

xtremepsionic

Yeah, that yellowflag is a bit too sensitve. And I think it needs to be location or car specific so for a real race, people would know where to look for the yellow/blue flag

great job tho! exactly what we need in LFS!

I'm hoping to use this in the North American League tonight, but the yellow might come up too often and get annoying.

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[GURU]XPsionic Grown Up Racing Union Msg Board -- LFS North America Racing League -- LFS Racing Rules Video

North American League admin

Momo Force (red), Act Labs shifter, Act Labs clutch

Silkswift

I can decrease the sensitivity as much as you want. I can't do any testing right now (hmm, at work...) as to how much to decrease it though. If you have your own server, and are able to set it up with my prog, and have some timeto test, I can tell you where to modify the values.



Thanks! Always appreciated



I'll be available this afternoon after 3pm PST if you would like to do some testing and see if it would be possible to set it up for your race tonight.

Li0n

I didn't went to test the flags on your server but i read that there are only 3 flags available. Will there be more flags to come?
Red flag (needs a restart)
White flag (last lap)
Black flag (driver is disqualified or has stop&go penalty)

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GP4Flo

Really nice, I just did some test laps on the server.

You could also add a white flag if a car is going slowly on the track (e.g. less than 30 km/h).

One question, are the messages sent to all players or only the players who are e.g. near a "yellow flag-zone"?

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xtremepsionic

Just players near the incident zone, for all flags.

__________________
[GURU]XPsionic Grown Up Racing Union Msg Board -- LFS North America Racing League -- LFS Racing Rules Video

North American League admin

Momo Force (red), Act Labs shifter, Act Labs clutch

Silkswift

Li0n: Yes, other flags should be coming in the future. I'm planning on an out of track detection (for yellow flags and black flags). Red flags would probably be a lot trickier to make as it's hard to know when a race should be stopped or not, but i'll think about it.

GP4Flo: As XP said, it is car specific. You only see the messages that are relevant to your own car. At the moment, people who are spectating your car do not even see the messages (but I want to change that). Also, I just added a new feature, which allows you to turn off the flags on a car by ar basis (meaning you won't see the messages, but other cars are not affected).

Fonnybone

 

Tried server again and it seems you corrected the over-sensitive spin
detection In fact, 5 minutes with an AI, and i never managed to make
ANY flags come up.

Agent248

For a reason or for another, I don't seem to be able to make this thing work. I've made many test with it, and whatever I do, I never see a single flag... Can someone help me set this up, please !

I'm using 0.3G, I start the game with the command line "lfs /insim=29999" and then start python et run the module, is this what we're suposed to do ?

Silkswift

Agent, I sent you a PM with a bit more detail. What you might have forgotten is to set the Admin password inside the file. Open the .py file with a text editor, and enter the admin password of your server in the Configuration section.
One side note is that I haven't tested it with a non-dedicated server. I have some doubts as to wether or not it would work. I'd have to try...

Messiah

Some people don't getting it to run so I've tried it myself. I followed the steps in the readme file and everything went well, it ran after approx. 1 Minute.

I started playing on the server, got in my RB4 and started to drive around the track, drifting like hell *g*, an exception was thrown then.. one time it was thrown very early, without being in race (when connecting, I guess.. at least, a packet was received by lfs marshal).



I am running Windows 2000, latest Service pack,
Phython version 2.3.3 (python.exe -V),
LFS Dedicated (Patch G).

I don't know how to fix that.. prolly an syntax error for phyton 2.3.3 :/

Furthermore.. does LFS Marshal let LFS InSim time out or sends it packets (ie ACK packets) to keep InSim connection alive?

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Silkswift

Thanks for trying my program! This sounds like a big bug though... I guess it is crashing when receiving a specific packet
In the directory where you placed the .py file, you should have a pynsim.log fle. Is there anything in that file?Could you maybe PM me the last 10 lines or so?
It should keep the connection alive. I know there was a problem when people were actually chatting without doing anything else, and it could time out, but that's been fixed, even though I'm not 100% sure the fix is in the downloadable version, I haven't updated it for a while, been busy this week...I'll try to do that tonight, and investigate the problem you mentioned.

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Author of:
pynSim
LFS-Marshal

Silkswift

Thanks for reporting it. I do believe it is now fixed. I have uploaded a new version fixing this and a few other things. If you've got any more problems, please let me know
The new version also includes White flags for last lap in a race.

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Author of:
pynSim
LFS-Marshal

Bardy

Does it already suport non-dedicated? Because it's not working on my
non-dedicated. I get no errors, but I don't get flags to

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Check my system ;)

Silkswift

Yes, it should work. Make sure that you have started your multiplayer host before starting LFS-Marshal with insim enabled (type: "/insim 29999" once the host is started). If you're not getting error message, either from LFS-Marshal or from LFS, then the connection wasn't made between the 2. Check the admin password inside the file, and that Insim is enabled in your host.
I hope that helps. If it still doesn't work, could you let me know what are the steps you're taking? Thanks.

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Author of:
pynSim
LFS-Marshal

Bardy

jup doing it like that but I don't know about this one what do I have to fill in here?

# IP address to listen to recieve UDP packets
serverAddress = " "

[EDIT] I think I know what it is, I'm behind a router and nobody can enter my server so I think LFS-Marshal can't connect to.

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Check my system ;)

Silkswift

That's the IP address of the computer where LFS-Marshal is running on. If you are running it on the same computer as the LFS server, it should be 127.0.0.1 (localhost IP address). That would be useful only if you run LFS-Marshal on a different computer.
Do you get any message "InsimInit 29997" in LFS? Anything in pynsim.log?

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Author of:
pynSim
LFS-Marshal