So I have an initial attempt at a F1 style count down in the program. The way it currently works is there is a popup menu on the race config screen where you can choose either a standard or F1 style count down. The F1 style count down has the following differences:
Count down beeps instead of saying numbers
Displays 0 as count down time instead of actual time
The final count down horn and start of the race is a random amount of time between 4 and 14 seconds
The program will beep 1 less than what is defined by the count down time before the random delay for the start. For example if the count down time is set to 5 then the program will beep 4 times at 1 second intervals and then wait a random amount of time between 4 and 14 seconds
Is this what people are looking for? Is the random time between 4 and 14 seconds too long?
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Power Is Nothing Without Control
I think 4 - 14 sec is alot.
I would say something like 1 to 3 sec but not on the second. Like 2.43 sec could be possible.
I think so too but I am having trouble finding any good definitive source of information about what it should be. 4 to 14 seconds was the first information I could find. Even now as I dig into it further I can not find any good info. I have found references such as up to 3 seconds, or 4 to 7 seconds. On formula1.com it just says it can be any time. It says the same thing on fia.com for the current technical regulations. Does anyone know what it officially is?
I think 1 to 3 seconds would be too short though. People could still pretty easily guess that after a couple of seconds they can start going. We will want sufficient variance so that people have to depend entirely on reaction time.
The random time is in milliseconds, so it could be randomly 4.321 seconds.
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Power Is Nothing Without Control
I would say that is could be between 2-10 seconds. that would be a good variance. I'd also be fine with the 4-14 seconds as well. it's all about making it a reaction instead of a timing.
I guess I brought up the topic of 4-14 seconds seeming long. There is 10 beeps, first 9 are normal and the 10th is 4-14 seconds. I tried it out a couple of times at our race this weekend. The first time I did it, it was closer to 14 seconds. I guess I didn't know what to expect as I'm not too familiar to F1 timing.
I was thinking closer to 3-7 seconds would be good, but this may not be similar to F1. Maybe this could be adjustable in the future or just wait and see what people think who will use it.
I guess I brought up the topic of 4-14 seconds seeming long. There is 10 beeps, first 9 are normal and the 10th is 4-14 seconds. I tried it out a couple of times at our race this weekend. The first time I did it, it was closer to 14 seconds. I guess I didn't know what to expect as I'm not too familiar to F1 timing.
I was thinking closer to 3-7 seconds would be good, but this may not be similar to F1. Maybe this could be adjustable in the future or just wait and see what people think who will use it.
Yeah, you brought it up reminding me that I wanted to get input from people about this since I do not know anything about F1.
One thing to remember though is that you control some of the countdown time still. The countdown time value is still used, it just randomizes the final count. So in your case the countdown time was set to 10, so the program counted down the first 9 seconds normally (uses beeps though instead of numbers) and then chose a random time for the final horn. I expect that most people will want to shorten the countdown time to something like 5 instead of the default 10. So then the countdown would end up being 4 seconds plus the random time.
If the random time range is set to 1 to 10 seconds then the length of the countdown when set to 5 would be somewhere between 5 and 14 seconds with 4 beeps at 1 second each and then a random pause of 1 to 10 seconds.
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