I have been wondering lately what does the blue flag mean on multiclass server, because I've seen a lot of behavior that confuses me.

Example: faster car from top of the class comes to lap slower one from lower classes. The slow car sees "BLUE FLAG" message, but ignores it. They are coming to the corner, where obviously there is only one line to go through.
Does the slow car have to move off the racing line (thus respecting the blue flag) or not?

its up to them and their own decision if they respect the blue flag

of course it is a gentlemens agreement and well known racing standard to give way when blue flag is shown
but on the other side some gt2 people shouldnt tunnel drive and crash all there way through the slower classes drivers because they dont give way as fast as possible. sometimes its better to lift the throttle a bit and let the slower car in front give time to move away e.g when he steers out of a corner and comes to a straight, where easily passing is possible. if he still dont give way, push the horn, flash the frontlights and pass on straights, where enough space is given for sure

and if the slower car has to move from the racing line depens on the situation, sometimes if theres only racing line its better to wait for better place to overtake, sometimes slower cars just should hold their lines and let faster cars pass throught, sometimes its better they move away from racing line. but its up to the drivers and all about experience. and you can only hope that the guys you race around with are experienced enough to have a clear mind about the upcoming situations to know what they have to do in that moment or not

btw there is small difference between "Blue Flag" and "Waved Blue Flag" i learned from dave (thanks )
when Blue Flag is shown it means a faster guy comes from behind, and "Waved Blue Flag" means more than 1 faster cars coming from behind

Thank You, I didn't know it !

So the blue flag is more of a choice than it is a rule?

I had quite a few situation when I was coming with the faster class car when the slower one didn't bother to move off the racing line in the corner, even though the blue flag notification was shown way early for the slow racers to notify that, in this case, I was coming and was much faster than them.
It's not a problem on the straights, but it is in the corners.

The most extreme case happened about 10 days a go (I'm still looking for that replay) when I was chasing the wr on AS5 with FX2. I got all corners right and was approaching the very last chicane. The slower guy was there and I was expecting him to make a way. As he didn't, we both entered the chicane, I was trying to avoid the contact there, but was on the fast lap obviously, and took the far left part of the first corner in that chicane, but he didn't expect me to enter the corner with him, paid no attention to that. So we had a contact, he rolled over on the roof and I lost speed and the wr was gone.

He later called me an idiot and I was sort of angry on him for not yielding there.
I sow the replay afterwards. He got his "Blue flag" notification way on time, just after the hairpin, so he had plenty of time to choose to let me pass.

If I find the replay I'll post it here, I am so interested in what you guys will have to say.
As far as I know, whenever the blue flag was shown to me, I was looking for the safe place to move off the racing line and enable the faster guys to pass without loosing preferably any time. But I've seen too many slow classes racers complaining to me on being "too agresive", so I've wondered if I was doing the right thing.

There are those racers who respect the blue flag fully and I thank them for that. Namely, Mr. cc is the one who is very fair about it, in my opinion .

I'm also wondering what is the point of the blue flag shown if the faster car, which is to lap the slower one, has to slow down and let the slower one goes first, so the slower car, the one to be lapped, actually has advantage there?

Type !blue ...

Its coming directly from the LFS wiki.

In short; blue flag, move if possible on long straights and stuff. Do not do anything in other situations. Sometimes sudden movements of a slow car ahead only worsens the situation.

The main rule is that both racers have responsibility for the overtake. If he decides not to move for you in a corner there is nothing to blame to him when its causing a accident. They only thing he doesn't have the right to do is block you when you accelerate out of the corner.

Blue flag rules are for different types interpretations, and everybody wants the benefit of it Just have patient then my friend

Some racers just don't care about the blue flag, even when told what to do and what it means. Others will obey it til' their death. That's just how public multiclass is.

The worst part of the whole blue flag thing is slower cars ruining their own race trying to give way for the faster cars. I always feel bad when I see the slower car infront of me going off the track, often crashing badly, just to let me pass. And alot of GT drivers thinks the blue flag is at all cost for the slower cars. In real racing, you don't see slower cars totally wrecking themselves (or getting wrecked) just because a faster car cought up with them in a bad overtaking spot. Instead the faster car has to wait until it's safe to overtake. I sometimes wonder why these GT drivers race on multiclass servers if they absolutely do not want to wait for slower cars infront sometimes.

So... applied to the situation I described above, what should've been the right thing to do?
The slower car gets the "Blue flag" warning shortly after exiting the hairpin, leaving him at least 5-6 seconds to decide what to do. He decides to do absolutely nothing about it.

It's not a problem when I meet those cars in long corners where I know that they didn't have enough time to respond adequately to the warning, thus I don't expect them to move away. I slow down and try to find another way to pass them there, but the problem is when someone gets the warning on straight early enough and still decide not to move in the corner even an inch away from his racing line.

And to be perfectly clear, I'm not trying to get this guy I described a penalty or what so ever, just trying to clear the things in my mind on how the rules apply on your servers.
I also don't expect the slow drivers to crash out just to let me pass, but I do expect though that drivers who are able to make the safe move off the line to do so. And that is what I've seen too many times not to happen.

Many don't agree but the restrictor makes it harder to overtake a slower car, this is not the case many times but it has happened to me that I overtook an FZ50 and on the straight he caught me up then trying to stay in front he did some "brave" braking and crashed in to the sand.
Also I noticed that some don't give way bcz after the faster car has passed they get Yellow Flag from the player in his class, which has happened to me as well.

It's always overtakers responibility to make a clean pass. Blue flag is a warning for the slower car to not make anything sudden so that lapper can pass safely.
You can't just plow through even if you were on a WR lap. The other driver has his race to drive.
Why don't you go to GTR server if slower classes give you a headache?

Blue flag doesn't mean you need to teleport off the track to make space for faster one.

However, there seems to be some misunderstandings, or actually abusing on both sides.
Comments like 'I'm going for WR and blue flagged messed it up'? Sorry.. it's track. There's other cars on it. Want to make WR's? Go play single player.

But, often blue flagged also give a rat's ass about it. Yesterday I was driving LX4 and caught up to some other TBO, who was blue flagged. He goes wide on corner I take inside line, just to see him move all way to inside and cut me off. Due to trying to avoid him I soon lost control and crashed. When I mention that to him, his comment was 'you're faster, so wait to pass'.
Sorry, but that doesn't fly either. If you see someone overtaking you, especially blue flagged and YOU HAVE SPACE, you let him pass, NOT block him on purpose.

My point is, if you're faster one, look for places where you can pass. Forcing to pass in middle of chicane is really pushing it and often ends up in slower car ending in a wall.
But, if you're slower car, pay attention. If possible try to make a space, if you see some GTR close to you, and enter of chicane - if you'll lose just fraction of second, slow down and let him pass. Less chance he'll knock you off the track.
If you're on straight, there's often no need to move all way to side - keep your line, and it's already fine.
Unpredictable movements also often result in crash when getting overtaken.

But, biggest issue seems people forget what's it like to be on both sides of blue flag, and just look at things from their own selfish perspective.

You can only make WR's with the hotlap feature anyway.

Except for the custom cars like UFB, FJR and GT2/3.

But yes. You, primarily want to do that on a less occupied server like the GTR/OW or on the .la server.

You got it all wrong here. I never said they should clear off any time the faster car meets them.
But this explains it much better of what I was thinking about:


In my case, I got a blue flagged car in the last sector of AS5. He got his Blue Flag notification just after the hairpin, so really plenty of time to think what to do. I was catching him up and expecting him to make a way, because it was 100% safe to do it on that spot. However, he decides to ignore it and enters the chicane with me coming right behind him.

So it was not that he got the notification too late to react, but he had all the time in the world to think about it and move off, but probably just said "fu*k it!"

But I've learned from this thread how you guys look at the blue flag on your servers and it's somehow different to how I usually race.

Well, would be nice to have official post here how to act regarding blue flag on this servers (and have it as a sticky)

it still wont change anything, because mostly people racing on our server just come here to report crashers or apologize/discuss on topics if they've been reported and besides that, its a rule that many people are used to know from racing series in reallife, but there are also a plenty of racers who dont care

its like making a sticky on a steam forum to not kill your own teammate in counter strike,
they're still a bunch of ***** left who'll teamkill and dont give a flying f***

I don't like it when I approach and they move suddenly. Just let them hold there line so the faster cars can get around them. The most accident I've seen on the server are caused by slower cars move of the line.




Its maybe little bit confusing with other servers. Most of the blue flagrules are quite simple. Move of the racing line if you have a blue flag. Doesn't work either, you get moves of the slower cars so suddenly that a crash isn't to avoid. The lapping car has right of way and doesn't have to take responsibility for overtaking. Thats not racing. So we made the main rule, be predictable for the slower cars. and for the lapping cars the responsibility for overtaking.

Well, the main difference to other servers where I race is that the blue flagged car knows he has to make a way, so he plans to do so and the faster car expects him to do so. Blue flag is usually given early enough to warn him, so he plans his actions according to that.
If he gets caught in the curvy section of the track, he'll continue on the racing line as fast as he can (the faster car drives behind him), but as soon as he gets to the straight, he moves away, maybe releases throttle a bit and faster car goes through. And the fact is that he has to move just a car width off the racing line, that's all, so no "teleporting", going off the track or crashing into barriers is needed . It's done safely even on SO tracks like this

However, having different classes, such as you do, makes the thing a bit more complicated because of significant difference in speed, but blue flag here, as much as I realize it, is more of the choice than it is a rule.

But I respect it and will try to drive according to that.

Means to us don't make a unexpected move.




A rule or a choice, the accidents happen. If there is one to driving careless or something else you got a accident, nothing to do about it.




No complains about your driving skills mate

Hi,

Just a quick word in addition to what's been said.

I make a difference between :
- a guy who's driving a "slower class" but racing from the global start of racing (in orange on the map) -> he musn't crash to let me pass, as he's also racing as fast as he can
- a guy who joined the race further to the start, usually displayed in brown on the map -> he must let me pass

And usually, people are fair enough (as I try to be) to leave the line clear when they joined the racer later than the start.

Race you soon,

Joe

Hi, first of all sorry for bumping the thread.

After repeated accidents on South City (what else is new? ) I asked the drivers about what the "Blue flag" meant for them. Some knew the answer from LFS Manual (which I believe the cargame.nl servers have adopted) whilst others expected the [about-to-be] lapped car to jump out of the way or move out of the racing line. Obviously its our word against their's and they don't believe us when we say that is not the server policy.

Having look here in the forum I came arcross this thread; but the following command "!blue" dont seem to work anymore. Is it outdated or ...?

Please kindly reactivate that command with the blue flag "rules" so that the cargame.nl's blue flag policy can be easily pointed out to fellow racers [who insist that lapped cars should jump off the racing line].

Many thanks and keep up the good work with the servers.

Ehrm no it's still there.. Hmm

Hmm... I tried typing "!blue" on the S2 and S1 server and didn't get anything. Both whilst driving and in spec. Can someone else please confirm? Maybe only those who joined in with admin pass or LimAds can see this (for some reason?).

Thanks!

Doesn't work for me anymore but it did a couple of months ago. Nothing appears on the screen and in the chat.

Thank you for checking if it works.

Dav please re-enable this command/info if it has been disabled by mistake.

i.e. reports-f8/morx-t5308.html I've seen him barge past XRGs in the past when they've not jumped out of his way; when confronted it seemed like they were not aware of the blue-flag policy in the cargame.nl servers and expected the slower cars to give way immidiately. So please, bring !blue back so drivers can be quickly and easily reffered to them.

Thanks!

uhm.. so its a different based rule on this blueflag thingy in Cargames servers and a different one in the league racing ?? i thought it was the SAME all over nomather where u was racing - in a league or a publicserver.

The reason this whole thread was raised is because it isn't the same. In league or other mainly same-class events a lapped car is obliged to safely move away from the racing line, while here it is mostly responsibility of the faster car to make the pass safely.

I don't think the rules differ much compared to multi-class racing. The only deficit is that most people never saw multi-class racing with the appropriate rules. But !blue is a good idea.

My mistake; I didn't mean it as an distinction between other league/public servers and the cargame servers. Although now having looked at it NDR's blue flag policy is quite the same as Dave stated here.



From NDR (http://newdimensionracing.com/index.php ... icle&id=21 Page 7)



From LFSManual (http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Rules_of_C ... ng#Lapping)



However the rules in F1 can be interpretted differently (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_On ... ions#Flags)
i.e. that can be understood as the car being lapped having to give way, where as others quoted above stating that it should hold its own line.

And in general flag rules found in wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_flags#The_blue_flag)


So as you can see there are various rules depending on the type of the race(s) so a clear distinction must be made which are the rules adopted here. The blue flag might (or might not) be a big issue, but I certainly believe that having easy access to what the blue flag mean would be quite helpful for all drivers.

The clear distinction is multi-class. Therefore Formula 1 rules make not much sense here. There is no need to interpret single-class Formula 1 rules when talking about multi-class.

I know this, but ask the average LFS-pickup racing driver to define what he/she should do when the blue flag is shown. I've randomly asked and some people think the [slower class] car being lapped should give way, which is not the case.

I've brought up the F1 rules since some people might be thinking the F1's blue flag rules are the standard for all types of racing...

I know what you mean. I was also once one of these guys. Let's hope Dave will include it someday again so we can refer to them.
Just wanted to make clear that cargame.nl S2 is a multi-class server with multi-class rules and they always use these rules. And as far as I know every multi-class league sticks to this basic concept of being predictable.

Hi guys,

Kudos on the most popular and the only MCR(I think) server in LFS.

Sometimes the server in-sim or admin flashes 3 lines of text about blue flag. If I remember right, it only talks about responsibility of slower car. Can you please add the responsibility of faster car to it? Better still, when you join the server, can you show the blue flag responsibilities for lapping and lapped cars as pop up? Especially about blue flag in multiclass and how lapped cars need not concede in a chicane etc. The other day I was racing UFB in SO, I was winning, but a GT2 tried to overtake me at the bus stop chicane, which is almost impossible, so we crashed and so I scolded him saying I was winning, and this is MCR and he should not pass me in chicane. Next race he waited behind me during the chicane, and only then he passed me and he said "hey I waited this time". I was really impressed by his sportsman spirit and understanding.