Who wants to organize a "Belli 500" street/road race?

[Devin Heartsong]

Okay so we have regular bicycle rides, regular horse rides, regular (on foot) parades, regular sailing regattas....

.... Now imagine a regular "Belli 500" race, styled loosely after the general theme of "It's a Wild, Wild, Wild World" kinda sorta.

The main idea behind any Formula 500 race is that everyone has to have essentially the same type of race car design, right? So imagine a "Belli 500" where everyone in the race must use one of these fantastic new TBF Caddie Golf Carts (see video below).  Then imagine the format of the race is essentially to start at point A and race to point B using any STREET/ROAD route you want to take.  The only rules being that you MUST stay on a street/road at all times (allowing for wide turns is okay), and that you must stay on the ground in the golf cart at all times.

Yes, it would be somewhat based on an "honor system" as racers diverge and take different routes to the destination, but the race could also employ airborne flying AVs as "race monitors" to help ensure that nobody cheats and takes an off-road shortcut.

I don't have the availability to organize such a thing, but I'd sure try to participate in as many as possible if someone else in Belli organized something like this!

Deets about this cool golf cart. (It's new at Cosmo right now.) I don't have ANY connection with The Black Forest. I'm just very much a fan of this cart. I love sailing/boating and trains in Belli, and I've been searching for the perfect road car for use in Belli. I've tried SO many cars and 95% of them suck because it's way too easy to oversteer and therefore you can never center yourself on a typical Belli street. And forget about the dirt paths in the Camper areas of Belli. Also, most cars don't have a "cruise" mode and you have to constantly ride the throttle and brake to maintain an even speed. Sight-seeing is impossible in most SL cars. 

But this cute little thang? WOW.  The size is right. The speeds are right. (From super slow to not-very-fast-and-just-right-for-Belli-street-trail-design.) The steering is RIGHT. And best of all, it simply "remembers" your speed you set with the up/down arrows and will cruise forever at that speed. All you have to do is tap A-D or the L-R arrows to occasionally steer. 

Here's a short 4-minute video showing how well it handles camper-area dirt/sand tracks and 90-degree turns. At the fastest speed you might go slightly wide on a really tight turn like these, but at medium and slow speeds you can stay perfectly in the track all the way through a 90-degree turn.  The steering wheel tap "bump 90" turns are pretty useful too!  Note that I start out at a really slow speed, and then eventually bump up to its fastest speed. And then after showing you how it can go slightly wide on these tight dirt roads at its fastest speed, I then slow it down a bump or two and show how it can take 90 degree turns perfectly even on these tight roads.  It's just the best ground vehicle for Belli I've found yet!

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Fushichou Mfume

[Kat Shadow]

So stinkin' cute.... Bellisseria is so gonna be full of these and the pedestrians are all  at high risk. Retirees are a menace, I tell ya.

 

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Kitten Kaos

[Eleanor Anderton]

Well, classic "Eleanor" driving...I'm always a menace when driving in SL. Looks like I'm not even able to pull out of the driveway before I backed up, couldn't find the brakes, plowed through a hedge and got stuck. Back to starting slow...slow..slow. Speaking of retirees, anyone watch Grace & Frankie? Remember their golf cart get-away? I think Bellisseria  should have that golf cart race. Back to driving practice!

Driving hint...the click on the steering wheel will flip you out of the hedges and brick fences...looks innocently back at her neighbor's smashed hedges...

Edited January 27, 2020 by Eleanor Anderton

[Alyona Su]

1 hour ago, Fushichou Mfume said:

The main idea behind any Formula 500 race is that everyone has to have essentially the same type of race car design, right?

Why the same type car. I get it, you're thinking of a race track type event.

Here's what would be really interesting to me: Use any type vehicle you want. Must wear a timer hud. Must cross specific waypoints, in order from the start point of the race to the finish line. If you miss a waypoint, you must go back to get it, OR perhaps receive a time-penalty (like a full 5 minutes added to your time or something).

That the race can be started at any time on any day (within a range of days). But that it must be completed in one run, logging out does not stop the timer. Perhaps the timer would recognize an offline situation and pauses, but after five minutes it resumes automatically, whether the person relogs or not - this way accidental log-offs would be covered as most can get back within five minutes. Perhaps the maximum time would be three times the time it takes for the longest route. So if the course takes a full hour to complete, then the timer runs out at three hours.

As a protection method: if the timer runs out and the finish line has not been crossed, then that person can start over from the start line and a new timer reset. But if they have crossed the finish line then their time is locked-in and cannot change, even if they rerun the course (just for fun, etc.).

Perhaps the race could run for seven days, this gives people the opportunity to adjust their in-world time to begin the race and be able to finish it. Then at the end of the week, a leaderboard of times is presented.

THIS would be an amazingly fun event. I imagine there already are enough gadgets and tools in SL where something like this could be set-up. But having such an encompassing system that does these things as a bundle would be the way to go.

Just some feedback on the idea.

In other words, it would be more of a rally than a race.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Alyona Su

[animats]

2 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

I imagine there already are enough gadgets and tools in SL where something like this could be set-up. But having such an encompassing system that does these things as a bundle would be the way to go.

Yes. There's the Drivers of SL system. There are several race timers. There's even an in-world store that sells nothing but race timers, including a rally version that allows crossing multiple sims and has checkpoints, leader boards, HUDs, and accessories.

Collapsible checkpoint sign. It's just a street light until the owner turns the sign on. Then the checkpoint sign comes out. Has a script which detects when a rally driver's HUD passes through. You have to pass all the checkpoints in order to get credit for the trip. Left over from a road rally I was planning but never held. I'd almost forgotten this was still in place on a friend's parcel. Technically it's an encroachment when on, so you only turn it on for special events.

So, yes, all the gear for a rally is available.

 

[Alyona Su]

30 minutes ago, animats said:

Yes. There's the Drivers of SL system. There are several race timers. There's even an in-world store that sells nothing but race timers, including a rally version that allows crossing multiple sims and has checkpoints, leader boards, HUDs, and accessories.

Collapsible checkpoint sign. It's just a street light until the owner turns the sign on. Then the checkpoint sign comes out. Has a script which detects when a rally driver's HUD passes through. You have to pass all the checkpoints in order to get credit for the trip. Left over from a road rally I was planning but never held. I'd almost forgotten this was still in place on a friend's parcel. Technically it's an encroachment when on, so you only turn it on for special events.

So, yes, all the gear for a rally is available.

 

Whoa... I'm not good at event planning, but if anyone ever decides to do something like this, please let me know as I would love to help out! hahaha! I love Drivers of SL weekly drive (though this week was... I'll just say I didn't like it LOL)

Edited January 27, 2020 by Alyona Su

[Mollymews]

some thoughts on SL racing based on my experience of this

the first thing for the race organiser to recognise is cheaters

the main cheat is cruise control. A scripted device worn by the agent/driver to effectively drive the vehicle. The complete example of cruise control is the classic mainland pod vehicle. The pod drives itself

to mitigate this then the contestants must drive the vehicle provided by the race organiser. A vehicle which is rezzed by a rezzer owned by the race organiser

the second mitigation is that race drivers may not wear any scripts. The race vehicle periodically checks for worn scripts and will stop and not move when it detects them

the second thing to recognise

in a race against others, or against time then all other things being equal, including driver skillsets, the person with the lowest ping time will always win. When time/fastest plays a factor in who is considered a winner, this eventually discourages people from turning up to race at further events. (about here we want Linden to give us llGetAvatarOnSitTargetPing() so to be able to divide our racers into classes, but we don't have)

for people to keep turning up then like Alyona suggests, the race can be a rally. Like orienteering. Where every person who completes gets a ribbon

where we can rank the ribbons is thru the use of penalties. Each driver starts with say 1000 points. Every time a driver comes off the LDPW pathway (race course) deduct 10 points say.  Reach a way station out of order then deduct 100 points and so on.  Optionally added points can be earned also with tests/quizzes at each way station

a driver's race is over, before the finish line, when they have 0 points

the use of penalties, and not time, means that turtles (high ping) can compete with hares (low ping) and beat them. Hares (regardless of ping) tend to come off the road a lot

the third thing to recognise

people's viewers do crash. The race vehicle should not immediately delete itself when the driver is dismounted. The vehicle should remain rezzed until either the driver relogs within say 5 minutes ( llDie() ) or the parcel returns the vehicle, whichever comes first

this can result in vehicle littering when a parcel, on which the vehicle has stopped, and has no driver, and the parcel is scripts OFF and autoreturn OFF. Is incumbent on the race organiser to fetch in these abandoned vehicles

a way this can be made easier for the race organiser to manage is a http server vehicle reporting system, which tracks where each vehicle is as it travels. When a vehicle stops reporting its inworld position then is on a scripts OFF parcel near to its last reported location

a cool thing about this kind of reporting system is that when the position of the vehicle is publicly viewable on a web page then people (both contestants and observers) can see who is where on the race course, and in this case how many penalties have been incurred to date. Is quite interesting to watch how people are going in these kinds of races when they do have a go

Edited January 27, 2020 by Mollymews
(regardless)

[Devin Heartsong]

This is all great discussion....

...and I certainly don’t want to discourage any brainstorming.....

But I think it’s helpful to remember the constraints and limitations of Bellisseria terrain. For example, how exactly would you get all those checkpoint devices set up where they’d need to be? You can’t exactly rez them out on public land in Belli.

Also, most Belli events like I named above in the OP are “purely fun and social”. That’s why I suggested a “mad mad mad world” type of idea. And also specified “honor system” with at most some loose monitoring from the air.

Seems much easier to have some really basic “honor rules” and enforce simple things like everyone using the same car with the same features and speed, etc., but otherwise just let the Belli community have fun and giggles with a a very simple race format/theme.

There’s a reason I don’t sail competitively in Blake and have no desire to. But I LOVE sailing all around Belli and taking along random citizens. ^.^

[Evangeline Arcadia]

6 hours ago, Fushichou Mfume said:

 I've tried SO many cars and 95% of them suck because it's way too easy to oversteer and therefore you can never center yourself on a typical Belli street. And forget about the dirt paths in the Camper areas of Belli. Also, most cars don't have a "cruise" mode and you have to constantly ride the throttle and brake to maintain an even speed. Sight-seeing is impossible in most SL cars.

Yes, exactly! My experience with a variety of vehicles too. Do you have a link to where to find this cart please? I'd like to check it out.

[Mollymews]

23 minutes ago, Fushichou Mfume said:

But I think it’s helpful to remember the constraints and limitations of Bellisseria terrain. For example, how exactly would you get all those checkpoint devices set up where they’d need to be? You can’t exactly rez them out on public land in Belli.

the way the Starchild Rally does its checkpoint (it only has one - the finish line) is by using a grid location reference.  When the race vehicle detects that is within some close range of the location then it signals we have arrived

[LittleMe Jewell]

9 minutes ago, Evangeline Arcadia said:

Yes, exactly! My experience with a variety of vehicles too. Do you have a link to where to find this cart please? I'd like to check it out.

Current Cosmopolitan event, by The Black Forest, I believe.

[Nika Talaj]

Black Forest??  Wait a minute, isn't that the partner brand to Warbug?  By Arduenn Schwartzman?  He's a crazed genius, lol

[Devin Heartsong]

1 hour ago, Evangeline Arcadia said:

Yes, exactly! My experience with a variety of vehicles too. Do you have a link to where to find this cart please? I'd like to check it out.

I think it's only available at Cosmo right now. Later, I'm sure it will end up on the SL Marketplace in the The Black Forest shop. BTW if you can catch me in-world, I'd be happy to take you for a short spin in mine. There are quite a few access modes so you can even drive

 

48 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Black Forest??  Wait a minute, isn't that the partner brand to Warbug?  By Arduenn Schwartzman?  He's a crazed genius, lol

Yes! The golf cart is created by that person!

Edited January 27, 2020 by Fushichou Mfume

[Devin Heartsong]

So..... 

There's a dirt road that leads to Campwich Lodge....
....and the roads through the campground areas are among the most confusing and challenging because of so many intersections and branching paths....
....And your main map and mini-map are pretty useless at letting you see the roadways from a map....

So imagine a monthly "Belli 500" event where we start at some random roadway rez point in Bellisseria that's moderately far away from Campwich Lodge. Everyone's driving the same car model (the TBF Caddy Golf Cart mentioned above (DON'T FREAK OUT on this point--keep reading!). Each cart hold a driver and up to 3 passengers (as a "team"). Everyone takes off at the same time and while they're driving they have to decide which route to take in the general direction of their red map pin showing the location of Campwich Lodge. Some teams stick with other teams and play follow the leader (or would it be the blind leading the blind?). Other teams try their luck striking out on their own.  Teams in each cart are chatting with each other. Everyone in the race is chatting in the group channel too and wisecracking and talking about how they got lost or ran into a rock and it took forever to get going again, or how they're completely lost and seem to be moving in the wrong direction away from Campwich, etc.

Then, as the first teams find their way to Campwich Lodge, there's one big party going one. With a live DJ. Everybody still cheering on the teams that are still trying to find their way to the Lodge.  The point being, it's just a "fun race". Like a "fun run" or a typical "century" bicycle race. The point is to help EVERYONE finally get to the destination without mishap. It's not really about *being first over the finish line* so much as just *participating and having fun*.

And you don't need to BUY the TBF Caddy Golf Cart to participate in the race as a driver!  Any owner of the cart can rez out a copy, set its access to "Everybody can drive" (it's super easy!), and then anyone who wants to be a driver can hop in. Literally only ONE person who owns the cart needs to be there at the start of the race. For that matter, it doesn't have to be the TBF cart each month either!  As long as someone owns a car/cart model that can be rezzed out many times by one owner and permissions granted for ANYONE to drive the rezzed copies, then we could certainly have any one month's race feature such car/cart models! 

Once a month, on a weekend sometime during the overlap between North America and Europe.  Sound like fun?

So yeah.... Who wants to help organize something like this? Let's get a group started?

Edited January 28, 2020 by Fushichou Mfume

[Alyona Su]

I think people are overthinking this.

As for cheaters, that only matters if there is some first-place prize or whatever. If it's nothing but a leaderboard of recorded times, then who cares? As for the checkpoints, this is where organization comes in: As in @animats example: a coordination with a few LL Home owners along the route who would be willing to allow these waypoint markers to be rezzed on their parcels.

Based on his description the timers, etc., are already in-built so no need for HUDS, etc.

Set the start point at some north coast vehicle rez point and the finish line at some south coast vehicle rez zone. Then maybe only five waypoints; divide Bellisseria proper into five sections and place a waypoint anywhere within each one. The first and last waypoints being the start and finish lines.

That's all there is to it. Some place where a leaderboard of time scores can be reviewed by participants.

As for scripted "cruise control", etc., I'm not so sure that would be all that beneficial as route-navigation to hit each waypoint would also be a huge part of the time score.

As before, I'm just thinking aloud, more or less.

[Raspberry Crystal]

Maybe leave the stuff out for a while so those who can't attend at the time of the event can still have a go just for fun?

[Alyona Su]

34 minutes ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

Maybe leave the stuff out for a while so those who can't attend at the time of the event can still have a go just for fun?

I agree. Something like a week-long event, "Starts at Noon Sunday SL Time and Ends Noon Sunday SL Time the following week.

[Raspberry Crystal]

Getting some practice in!

See me actually drive a non wearable vehicle, even on bendy roads, amazing :))

[Kat Shadow]

I'm not in it to win it, I just want the hilarity that ensues when physics meet residents without learners permits.  I'm down for a casual weekend afternoon followed by a dance party at the lodge.

[sceneris]

sounds fun, at least the road will be more utilize

[Alyona Su]

10 minutes ago, Kitten Kaos said:

I'm not in it to win it, I just want the hilarity that ensues when physics meet residents without learners permits.  I'm down for a casual weekend afternoon followed by a dance party at the lodge.

Absolutely! 

For anyone who wants to try driving a Manji car in Bellisseria (best-handling car in SL) - feel free to grab one of mine (cars access are set top anyone):

for paved roads: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/ASHTON VILLAGE/232/188/0
for Dirt roads: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/TAWAKONI/184/64/0

And for kicks in https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Spini/234/189

[Kat Shadow]

But it doesn't have to be an either /or...  there can be a casual just for giggles golf carts a Belligogo and a more competitive rally too, more events the better

[Beth Macbain]

There should also be a Death Race 2000 version of this... extra points if you run over a Mole and extra extra points if you run over a Linden. 

[Devin Heartsong]

Is there enough interest in the “casual, simple, social” format idea I’ve outlined above? If even a handful of people are interested in that format and think they could make a once-per-month weekend event like that (somewhere around the noon SLT time block), I can certainly get the ball rolling on the first few events and we can see if we gain traction to make it a regular thing. I can easily arrange for DJ friends/associates to throw the finish line party at the Campwich Lodge.

If instead the prevailing wind here leans in favor of a more technical format with waypoint scripts and solo-oriented “ghost runs” against some week-long leaderboard site, that’s fine too, but I’d leave organizing such a thing to peeps who are more experienced in that sort of thing.

Maybe there’s even room in Belli for TWO (or more) road race event formats? It’s a big continent and nothing wrong with choices.  

So.... I dunno. If at least 4 other people comment here that they’d be interested in a format like I described above, I’ll get the ball rolling. And if you want to help in any capacity, say so and we’ll put heads together and get something going in February. ❤️ 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Fushichou Mfume

[Kat Shadow]

Is there a point system for moles? Like how deer are rated by how many points on their antlers?  I bet Charlie would know, "Dere's a Mole." :

 

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Kitten Kaos