BRC 1966 - Gentleman Brobots Club [RACE 6 P&Q]

[07CobaltGirl]

I have a pretty good car this season, or at least I think I do. It isn't the fastest, or the slowest. It's near the top of the middle of the pack. For some reason, however, I have a high number of driver errors and they ALL seem to result in MAJOR damage to my car. When I escape those errors, somebody hits me causing MAJOR damage. If I don't get hit, the damn thing blows an engine. Luckily, so far, the engine thing only happened in the pre-season training, but don't rule it out as a race result just yet! I just really don't understand why I get so much damage constantly. Sportiness to drivability isn't bad. It's a fairly heavy car, but not absurdly so. It's got great overall reliability and engine reliability. It isn't the highest safety, but it is more than 3x a third of the field, pretty average, and not really all that many higher. I just have really, really, REALLY bad luck! In the luck departnment, I'm ranked right after Norman and Leo.......for worst score. I guess, at least I do keep scoring points each race...except for the one I crashed out on in the last lap.

[BobLoblaw]

I'm not sure whether I'd rate my car as the bottom of the middle, or the best of the worst for that race. I'll say this much, I'm looking forward to the next season. Hopefully I can put some of the lessons I learned to good use.

[RobtheFiend]

Strange, for some reason my car seemed to use less fuel on this track. Mine wasn't the second thirstiest car.
Less highspeed straights?

[mer_at]

If the next Brobot Version for BRC76 stays that crashy, i'll just build a car with 2000kg and 100 safety.
Because speed is secondary in crash lotteries.

[Leonardo9613]

I think the system should be less random, instead being more linear. Right now it feels as if drivability and sportiness, or their ratio, don't change the likelyhood of crashing or driver errors at all, and when one happens, car safety and overall reliability don't matter one bit. For example, me and normanvauxhall, we both have made cars that have high engine and car reliability, high safety and with over 1 on the drive/sport ratios, yet on 3 out of 4 races our cars have made a single driver error that put us out of the race instantly. It feels as if those things don't matter, so as people are saying, I should either make a shit 0 safety, low reliability car, like many of the leaders have, and which don't suffer as much in crashes or driver errors (they happen, yes, but none cause as much damage as they do in my heavy, safe car), apparently, or I'll make a 3 ton tank.

[Packbat]

A smattering of random thoughts (typos likely - poking this out on my phone on the train):

• What if BRC implemented towing to the pits for repairs on wrecked cars? Maybe define 200% as the DNF threshold, and cars less damaged than that will be carted to the pits and allowed to be repaired.
• Partial engine failures. Instead of there being something like a 20% chance of explosion, have a 10% chance of losing power and a 1% chance of explosion. Speaking of which:
• Make it straightforward to essentially eliminate race-ending incidents, but difficult to eliminate race-affecting incidents. So a car with 20 crashworthiness might get knocked out in 20% of crashes and damaged in 70%, but a car with 40 crashworthiness might get knocked out in 0.1% of crashes and damaged in 40%. If someone like me wants to throw the dice in exchange for a little extra speed, they can, but if someone like 07CobaltGirl or Leo wants to play it safe, they can. Right now there's no play-it-safe option, though, and that's enormously frustrating for the people who are trying to.

[squidhead]

A smattering of random thoughts (typos likely - poking this out on my phone on the train):

• What if BRC implemented towing to the pits for repairs on wrecked cars? Maybe define 200% as the DNF threshold, and cars less damaged than that will be carted to the pits and allowed to be repaired.
• Partial engine failures. Instead of there being something like a 20% chance of explosion, have a 10% chance of losing power and a 1% chance of explosion. Speaking of which:
• Make it straightforward to essentially eliminate race-ending incidents, but difficult to eliminate race-affecting incidents. So a car with 20 crashworthiness might get knocked out in 20% of crashes and damaged in 70%, but a car with 40 crashworthiness might get knocked out in 0.1% of crashes and damaged in 40%. If someone like me wants to throw the dice in exchange for a little extra speed, they can, but if someone like 07CobaltGirl or Leo wants to play it safe, they can. Right now there's no play-it-safe option, though, and that's enormously frustrating for the people who are trying to.

1 would still mean the race for the guy is completely screwed, with no chances at points anyway.
2 is a cool idea of losing power actually
3 IF playing it safe was an on/off option everybody would just click it. A lot of us are playing it as safe as possible, but the race never goes the way you plan it. You can get crashed out etc etc

[07CobaltGirl]

A smattering of random thoughts (typos likely - poking this out on my phone on the train):

• What if BRC implemented towing to the pits for repairs on wrecked cars? Maybe define 200% as the DNF threshold, and cars less damaged than that will be carted to the pits and allowed to be repaired.
• Partial engine failures. Instead of there being something like a 20% chance of explosion, have a 10% chance of losing power and a 1% chance of explosion. Speaking of which:
• Make it straightforward to essentially eliminate race-ending incidents, but difficult to eliminate race-affecting incidents. So a car with 20 crashworthiness might get knocked out in 20% of crashes and damaged in 70%, but a car with 40 crashworthiness might get knocked out in 0.1% of crashes and damaged in 40%. If someone like me wants to throw the dice in exchange for a little extra speed, they can, but if someone like 07CobaltGirl or Leo wants to play it safe, they can. Right now there's no play-it-safe option, though, and that's enormously frustrating for the people who are trying to.

1 would still mean the race for the guy is completely screwed, with no chances at points anyway.
2 is a cool idea of losing power actually
3 IF playing it safe was an on/off option everybody would just click it. A lot of us are playing it as safe as possible, but the race never goes the way you plan it. You can get crashed out etc etc

Actually, there are 18 cars with absolutely no safety, 1 car with .1 safety, and 10 other cars with less than 15 safety. In case you're bad at math, that is 29 of 69 cars with lower safety than was recommended, or roughly 2/5 of the entire field. One of the cars with zero safety is yours. I wouldn't call that "playing it as safe as possible." My safety, on the other hand, is 26.6. There are only 8 cars on the track with a higher safety than mine. Norman's car is comparable to mine, and Leo's car is 19.1 safety. All three of us have above average reliability. Leo has one of the highest drivability scores on the track. It just seems like the ones who risked no safety at all are coming through unscathed, while those who bothered with safety are getting the most damage from accidents and errors. I know, if you look at my car cross-eyed I will take at least 35% damage and lose at least 1 second per lap until it is fixed. If your car has zero safety and my car has 26 safety, you should take at least as much damage as I did (you should actually probably take more damage). Additionally, my car is heavier than 74% of the cars on the track. I should not be getting destroyed by a 700kg cardboard box with no safety. I get that crashes are a gamble, but shouldn't hedging against it with safety count for something? Or is safety just a complete waste of time and money?

[Killrob]

I think the system should be less random, instead being more linear. Right now it feels as if drivability and sportiness, or their ratio, don't change the likelyhood of crashing or driver errors at all, and when one happens, car safety and overall reliability don't matter one bit. For example, me and normanvauxhall, we both have made cars that have high engine and car reliability, high safety and with over 1 on the drive/sport ratios, yet on 3 out of 4 races our cars have made a single driver error that put us out of the race instantly. It feels as if those things don't matter, so as people are saying, I should either make a shit 0 safety, low reliability car, like many of the leaders have, and which don't suffer as much in crashes or driver errors (they happen, yes, but none cause as much damage as they do in my heavy, safe car), apparently, or I'll make a 3 ton tank.

Yes, you say that it "feels" that way, but I think you know better than this considering your background. 4 races are hardly anything statistically significant and calling for more determinism because of something statistically insignificant is not a productive thing to do. Yes, it "feels" like some people always crash or have bad luck - does that mean anything? Well, only that there is some amount of randomness in the simulation. How do you determine if the supposed issues you point out hold any water?

I would suggest running the whole season in a parallel universe once a day a week or so and note down the final season results to see how much they deviate from one another and to compare those placement averages to the stats of the cars. Only then would you get close to having enough data to justify such claims.

[Leonardo9613]

I am fully aware that the statistical sampling isn't big enough to provide an accurate analysis, but it is the only we've got. And on the limited data available, me and several others have concluded that something is wrong. In my mind, 20 safety should suffer, if not 20, at least 5 times less damage than something with 1 safety. However, we keep getting screwed over and over again. As Kristina said, our cars are safe, reliable and drivable, yet they crash out of races or just have outright engine failures, whereas many others which should be more prone to those things go out unscathed.

[07CobaltGirl]

I think the system should be less random, instead being more linear. Right now it feels as if drivability and sportiness, or their ratio, don't change the likelyhood of crashing or driver errors at all, and when one happens, car safety and overall reliability don't matter one bit. For example, me and normanvauxhall, we both have made cars that have high engine and car reliability, high safety and with over 1 on the drive/sport ratios, yet on 3 out of 4 races our cars have made a single driver error that put us out of the race instantly. It feels as if those things don't matter, so as people are saying, I should either make a shit 0 safety, low reliability car, like many of the leaders have, and which don't suffer as much in crashes or driver errors (they happen, yes, but none cause as much damage as they do in my heavy, safe car), apparently, or I'll make a 3 ton tank.

Yes, you say that it "feels" that way, but I think you know better than this considering your background. 4 races are hardly anything statistically significant and calling for more determinism because of something statistically insignificant is not a productive thing to do. Yes, it "feels" like some people always crash or have bad luck - does that mean anything? Well, only that there is some amount of randomness in the simulation. How do you determine if the supposed issues you point out hold any water?

I would suggest running the whole season in a parallel universe once a day a week or so and note down the final season results to see how much they deviate from one another and to compare those placement averages to the stats of the cars. Only then would you get close to having enough data to justify such claims.

This is all well and good, Killrob, however we cannot do this. Der Bayer is not going to do this, as I'm sure he has other things to take care of in his life. I'm not trashing BRC or anything Der Bayer is doing or has done. It's awesome, but has some issues. Whether the issue is a misunderstanding by us, the users, or a problem with the "randomness" in the programming, it is an issue, and we are trying to address it.

We only have this go to by, and it seems like the same cars, which have the stats which were supposed to enhance survivability, are being repeatedly negatively effected, while those who disregarded those stats completely, or at least partially, never have those incidents. We cannot calculate the "track drivability" or "track sportiness" as we don't have that algorithm, so we work with what is in front of us. The engine reliability seems straight forward, but even in the 1945 season, it was sort of the running joke that Norman was going to blow an engine in every race despite a high reliability. This continued into 1955 and now again in 1966 (significantly less in 1966 though).

We all want the BRC, but the randomness seems anti-productive, as it seems to rarely interfere with zero stats and often interfere with what were deemed "good" stats. The 10 kids who play marbles on the railroad tracks every day for 20 years should have eventually been hit by a train but weren't, while the person who only crossed them once in his life when he was 25 got hit by a train. That's too random! Odds are meant to be beat, but when the 1,000,000,000:1 chance has typically better outcomes than the 10:1 chance...the odds are backwards!

[squidhead]

I wouldn't call that "playing it as safe as possible."
snip
if you look at my car cross-eyed I will take at least 35% damage and lose at least 1 second per lap until it is fixed. If your car has zero safety and my car has 26 safety, you should take at least as much damage as I did (you should actually probably take more damage)

First of all, I AM playing it as safe as possible with my limited talent. I can not afford extra weight or actual budget for the safety, so my only bet is to have a good drivability rating. Which I do. So yeah, "as safe as possible with our limited talent". Also you may feel free to go and rewatch the beginning of the last race where I got sneezed on twice and limped with 95 damage to the pits on the first lap costing me the race completely if you feel that I've come through "unscathed". OR the races where Pyrlix has used brakes near me costing me both 40+ damage and the lead. So, what is the nature of your complaint again? That I'm not getting damaged? I lost a podium in one race and actually did not get any points in another and you're complaining that I'm having it too good?

[BobLoblaw]

Hard to say whether safety is a worthy investment in this race or not. Going through the list my car rates the highest in both safety and reliability (The only things really going for it). However in all the races I've only had one crash so it's not easy to have concrete info on whether my efforts paid off. Since I've only had one crash overall, I doubt the compromise in performance was a wise decision.

[Killrob]

Maybe I am underestimating how difficult this concept is to understand. What I am saying is twofold:
1) There is not enough statistical significant evidence to prove if the random effects are too strong or not, if the dependencies are good or bad. What I advocate against is jumping to conclusions without any evidence.
2) This is by far the most exciting BRC so far, and I would argue that this is to a large degree because of the randomness, not despite it.

Saying "this is all we have for now" while acknowledging that there is no statistically significant evidence is intellectually dishonest.
If you take a dice and roll a 4, a 6 and a 6 and then a 5. Do you stop to say that the dice is poorly balanced and should be changed? I would guess not. I get that being the one screwed over by RNGesus sucks if you are emotionally invested in an outcome. The danger of reacting to it like you do on the other hand could be very destructive. The BRC can't be a feel-good experience for everyone, because if it was, it would be boring to the extreme as there is no tension in it.

Also I find the argument of "my car has a lot of safety, yet I got destroyed 3 times" to require a lot of suspension of disbelieve. If you hit a wall at 100 km/h, what does safety matter? Do you really think that car is drivable afterwards? (the "you" is not directed at any specific person but rather those who think that). Even a "tank" would be broken after that. If your tank gets hit by another car, spins and hits a wall hard, no reliability or safety in the world will help you have a drivable car afterwards. Overall the rate of destruction / engines blown and other mishaps seems good: 50 out of 70 cars finishing is about what you'd expect in a tight field like this.

Another thing people do not seem to consider is that your pace matters, a lot! There is plenty of traffic in the mid-field and that naturally enhances how many crashes happen to you as opposed to the safety 0 guy speeding at the front. Take my car for example, slow in qualifying, decent in races means that I have to advance from the mid field to the front, risking a lot of crashes during the race. This was the first race where I got through without having an accident. While this is just as insignificant as other data points, I think it illustrates an important concept. If the Vikus would not blow up his engine in the first lap, it would be a car that sees a lot less accidents and driver errors than the rest because driving alone in the front is pretty simple, there would be no reason to be punished for 0 safety if you don't crash.

[07CobaltGirl]

I wouldn't call that "playing it as safe as possible."
snip
if you look at my car cross-eyed I will take at least 35% damage and lose at least 1 second per lap until it is fixed. If your car has zero safety and my car has 26 safety, you should take at least as much damage as I did (you should actually probably take more damage)

First of all, I AM playing it as safe as possible with my limited talent. I can not afford extra weight or actual budget for the safety, so my only bet is to have a good drivability rating. Which I do. So yeah, "as safe as possible with our limited talent". Also you may feel free to go and rewatch the beginning of the last race where I got sneezed on twice and limped with 95 damage to the pits on the first lap costing me the race completely if you feel that I've come through "unscathed". OR the races where Pyrlix has used brakes near me costing me both 40+ damage and the lead. So, what is the nature of your complaint again? That I'm not getting damaged? I lost a podium in one race and actually did not get any points in another and you're complaining that I'm having it too good?

I didn't make this argument about you, your car, or your ability, but simply pointed out that you have a car with no safety. You said you're "playing it as safe as possible" and now you have modified it to "as safe as possible with our limited talent." Your ability to build a car is not my concern. Your safety is. I didn't say you had it good, and nothing personal but I'm glad to see somebody who took that gamble isn't prospering by it. Of course, this also isn't my concern. I've lost a top 10 finish due to an accident and had a DNF on the final lap due to a spinout with nobody else near me. The random dice just hate me, and nothing I can do about that. But I am finished discussing this. Killrob says there isn't a problem, so there must not be any problem no matter what hints some of us think we might see.