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View Full Version : Lack of prioritisation in the calls



MatteAce
23-05-2018, 00:41
Hello, I don't know if it's a bug or actually a feature request, however here it is.

I'm on PC, iRacing, actually using the Italian language pack (just because voice-recognition is a nightmare, my pronunciation must be really off :( )

If CC has a call going, it will have to finish it before passing onto the next one in a queue-like system.

Example: I'm on the finish line, and right after the finish line a car gets side by side with me.

In the current state, CC will say, in order:

- "Your last lap time was 1:xx:xx"
- "You're on ?th place"
- "Your sector 3 is 3 tenths off the pace"

and just then

- "car on the left"

I've avoided several crashes because I was relying on CC to spot for me, just to find out that if he's talking, he won't switch priority until he's done.

The ideal behaviour, IMHO, would be:

- "Your lap time wa-- CAR ON THE LEFT -- STILL THERE -- CLEAR. Your lap time was one, fifty five, etcetc" and then back to the queue.

Same with the flags, I've had important yellow flags called while CC was talking, and it called them only when I was three corners after them.

The Iron Wolf
23-05-2018, 16:15
Hello,

Good feedback :) We do have message prioritization internally, but currently one message cannot interrupt another.

We have a mechanism where we interrupt messages if user holds button to talk to Chief (if option is enabled). Your post made me wonder if we could modify it to allow Spotter to interrupt Chief's messages. It won't be instant, and it won't be in the middle of a word, but it might be an improvement. Chief interrupting Chief is less interesting scenario in my opinion (although I'd really like to get Chief misspeak once in a while), but since Chief and Spotter are different people IRL this might be worth a shot. I'll take a note of this and look into it when I get time.

Tnadz
23-05-2018, 19:41
Is it possible to simply play the spotter and CC simultaneously? I could see that being annoying if there's a lot of action and both talking at once (especially if your spotter and chief are the same person, lol). Maybe worth testing as a settings option. I do like the interrupt idea. How do they manage it in real autoracing? I would think tighter tracks/bigger fields (NASCAR or IMSA w/ multi-class racing) would get the busiest.

MatteAce
24-05-2018, 01:35
thank you! :) surely the spotter is a higher priority than the flags. you need to react quickly to the spotter, while the yellow flags can wait a little bit sometimes.

The Iron Wolf
24-05-2018, 21:50
thank you! :) surely the spotter is a higher priority than the flags. you need to react quickly to the spotter, while the yellow flags can wait a little bit sometimes.

Please, do not thank me yet, I've no idea if it will actually fly, but will have a look into this in 2-3 months, as I have some things I'd like to finish before that :) And, if someone releases VR headset with higher FOV chances are I won't ever get to it :) Just kidding, thanks for the feedback.

MatteAce
25-05-2018, 13:59
don’t tell me, since I have gone past motion sickness I’ve been racing an average of 6 hours per day in the last 6 months... :P

mr_belowski
23-06-2018, 19:05
Guys,

We've done some work on this in the latest release. We're not quite there yet but we've added a first cut of a more aggressive interruption mechanism. We're limited by the behaviour of the built in sound player object - it's not possible for the app to stop a sound part way through. However, we can prevent it playing any other sounds if the spotter wants to talk. This means the app can abandon messages part way through if they contain more than one sound file and the spotter wants to talk.

It can sound a little odd at times but it certainly raises the priority of the spotter. We have a couple more related improvements to make here over the next couple of releases.

Enable this behaviour with the "spotter and responses block other messages"

MatteAce
23-06-2018, 22:47
this is amazing!! thank you so much!!

Tnadz
05-07-2018, 13:05
Yeah this is smashing. I've played around with it on more packed races and it's definitely come in handy. As you said, not perfect and can be odd at times "That lap was a, Car Right!...lol" but it saved me from wrecking in heavier action when I didn't realize who was around me. And that's the spotter's job. I can't wait to see what else you tweak but to me this is a huge success.

MatteAce
05-07-2018, 15:01
I gotta report a bug! Sometimes when it interrupts the message, the first spotter message gets lost.

It goes like:

"Your lap time was - SILENCE - still right"
I presume instead of SILENCE I was supposed to get a "car left".

I'm on the italian translation pack.

mr_belowski
05-07-2018, 16:15
this is caused by the spotter message expiring. There's a message with 2 or more parts being played, and a spotter message is queued. The spotter message blocks the remaining parts of the existing queued message, but the part that is currently playing is allowed to complete. This means that it might be a second or two before the spotter message that interrupted the other message actually plays. By which time, it might be too old.

I've encountered this myself - the app is behaving as intended, but it sounds rubbish. So today's release includes a little hack to add 2 seconds to the spotter message expiry time if that message interrupts a regular message.

tl/dr; it's fixed. Probably.



Edit...

Aww bugger, I didn't include the change in today's release. I'll update it when I've had me tea

MatteAce
05-07-2018, 16:39
this is caused by the spotter message expiring. There's a message with 2 or more parts being played, and a spotter message is queued. The spotter message blocks the remaining parts of the existing queued message, but the part that is currently playing is allowed to complete. This means that it might be a second or two before the spotter message that interrupted the other message actually plays. By which time, it might be too old.

I've encountered this myself - the app is behaving as intended, but it sounds rubbish. So today's release includes a little hack to add 2 seconds to the spotter message expiry time if that message interrupts a regular message.

tl/dr; it's fixed. Probably.



Edit...

Aww bugger, I didn't include the change in today's release. I'll update it when I've had me tea

enjoy your tea, because your work is AMAZING! definitely well deserved tea

thank you again! I have a couple more ideas, I'll write them around in the forum!

mr_belowski
05-07-2018, 16:44
ok, that change has now been hastily added to the app and another update should be available. Sorry about that :)

Tnadz
05-07-2018, 17:14
I didn't see the donation option for "giant crate of tea". They should really put that in. I suppose you're fine with regular, boring money?

mr_belowski
05-07-2018, 17:41
regular money? Like, every twenty minutes or so? Yes, please :P