Key Concepts

There are some key concepts you need to understand in order to manage races. How the race starts, when it finishes and who wins the race are easy matters that ZRound manage and here you will learn about them.

Index

Start Modes

There are two different way to start a race:

Staggered

Every car has its own clock.

  Usually, staggered start is used in heats. It doesn't matter if the racer is the first or the
  last in the starting grid as their clock begins to count when the car is detected by the first time.
  
  Everybody fights against himself!

Le Mans

All the cars share the same clock.

There is an option which controls when the clock starts. There are two possibilities:

  1. Time starts when you click on “Start race” button and the countdown goes.
  2. Time starts when the first car is detected (but the clock start for everybody).
  "Le Mans" start is used in mains.

Minimum lap time

It is an important setting. It depends on the track length and should determine the the minimun time to complete a lap. If a detection is fired under this time the lap will be considered an error and won't be counted.

For example, if you have a track layout where the best of the racers can run in 13seconds you could define a min. lap time of 12 seconds (as it should be an “impossible” time).

The min lap time helps to ignore laps due lapcounter errors, “phantom” laps, driving mistakes, crashes, etc.

Race Duration

You can define how to measure the race duration in two ways:

  1. Time: Race finishes when the given amount of time goes (hours, minutes and seconds).
  2. Laps: Race finishes when the amount of laps is completed.

Time to finish

:!: However, it can be defined an extra time to complete the last lap. It is the time the racers have to complete their last lap once the have passed before the race duration. Even if the race duration is reached while a racer is completing a lap the clock is not stopped but it continues counting until the car passes the line or the time to finish goes. It is recommended a value of twice the min. lap time.

For example, if the race duration is 5 minutes and the time to complete the last lap 
is 30 seconds. A racer who passes on 4:56 can still complete their lap (max will be 5:30).

If he passes the line on 5:12 he will have a total time of 5:12 and that lap will be counted as well.

Qualifying Modes

The qualifying mode decides who wins the race. These are the available modes:

Lap Count

It wins the racer with more laps in the given time to run. If two cars have the same lap count, the lower total time invested will break the tie. If both of them have the same total time also (hard to see as lapcounter resolution uses to be milliseconds) the best lap time will break the tie.

Every car run during the race duration (time or number of laps to go) to complete the race. When race is over duration the drivers has en extra time to complete the last lap configured in the “Time to finish (sec.)” setting.

Example:

Race Duration 00:05:00
Time to finish 10 sec
Car Time LAPS
1 4:51 19
2 4:58 19
1 5:11 19 car finishing 10s after the duration., this lap is ignored and his result will be 19L/4:51
2 5:08 20 car finishing on time, lap counted. Result 20L/5:08

Best Lap

It wins the racer who drives fastest. It doesn't matter the total time, just the best lap completed is used to sort the results. If two racers have the same best lap time, the racer who get it first will win.

manuals/keyconcepts.txt · Last modified: 2019/10/06 16:52 by zround
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