Setting up task '60km race to anywhere'.

[Kevin Taylor]

<p>Hello all, Kevin here.</p>
<p>I am new to the forum and very new to scoring hang gliding comps!! However I am keen to learn the ‘ins and outs’ of this system that has clearly had so much time and thought invested in it over the years.</p>
<p>I was assisting Dave Bluett at the BOS Round 2 in Yorkshire at the weekend and we had a problem setting up a task. We were using the latest version of FSComp.</p>
<p>Due to the poor conditions of the day the task was set as ’60km to anywhere’. The task was activated by only one pilot who flew approximately 11km. When his track log was downloaded FSComp gave his distance 59.41km!! The settings we used were these….</p>
<p>We used just the starting waypoint for the task. Turnpoint 1 was a 400m cylinder. Turnpoint 2 was a 5,000m cylinder. Turnpoint 3 was a 60,000m.</p>
<p>We also set up the task with Turnpoint 1 as 0m. Turnpoint 2 5,000m. Turnpoint 3 60,000m. This made no difference to the distance given to the pilot which remained at 59.41km.</p>
<p>On FS Flight the tracklog for the pilot looked correct so we knew that the problem was within the FSComp settings not the tracklog provided by the pilot.</p>
<p>We got the right distance for the pilot when the task was set up as an Open Distance task but this did not allow us to input a start cylinder for the task or, clearly, a distance for the task.</p>
<p>I may have left some holes in the information required to help us with this situation but feel free to re-post with requests for more info and I will sort it out asap.</p>
<p>Here’s hoping you can help.<br />
Kevin Taylor.
</p>

[Oyvind Ellefsen]

Kevin,

Sounds like you did set it up correctly, but have a look at the demodata at http://fs.fai.org/wiki/DemoData

There is one comp with a race to nowhere task there.

If you still have problems please make a new ticket at http://fs.fai.org and attach a zip with your competition files and tracklogs, and we can have a look at it.

Best regards
Oyvind Ellefsen

[Kevin Taylor]

Hi Oyvind,

Thanks for your response.

To be honest I can’t see the ‘race to nowhere’ example in the link you gave me but it’s probably academic as all the examples are previous to this year i.e. 2010 and the current software.

To try and resolve the problem last weekend we went into the info for the BOS (British Open Series) 2009 where a ‘race to anywhere’ had been set up and scored sucessfully. We cross referenced the settings we were using this year with the task set last year to ensure they were the same. So it would seem that the error may be arrising from this years software??

I wil try and get hold of the relevant files and post them on the FAI site in the near future as you suggest. This maybe only of limited use however as Dave Bluett managed to score the task using a ‘bodge’ (that I didn’t fully understand as I am so new to the whole thing) because we needed to get final results out for the following morning.

Perhaps what I will have to do is mock up a task with the appropriate data so that I can upload it to the site with the relevant problems still intact.

There was another issue within the task that I didn’t previously mention. Namely that we couldn’t select a pilot, right click and set his status to ‘did fly’ and then enter min distance.

I will work on getting something posted for you to have a look at as we are keen to resolve this situation as a ‘race to anyhere with distance’ seems to be the fall back position here in the UK when conditions aren’t great.

Sorry for long winded reply!!
Thanks again.

Kevin.

[Cappiuk]

Kevin,

Steve Penfold here. Pete brough Dave’s scoring computer to Wales and I had a look at it and re-scored the task – it all seemed to work out fine and the complete task and scores are now saved on the computer.

Oyvind,

On the race to anywhere task, the goal cylinder is the radius of the distance required (60 km in this case) but the programme always works out the shortest possible distance required to complete it. In this case it gave a distance as 59.8 km. The first TP was given a radius of 1 m, and all TPs were centred on the same WP. Therefore, how does the programme loose 200 m from the 60km?

Would is not be 1m less than the 60km?

Steve

[Oyvind Ellefsen]

Hi,

Kevin – It’s the last comp in the list, http://fs.tracklog.org/test_data/0727-0730%20NC%20V%C3%A5g%C3%A5%20PG.zip

It’s relatively old, the Race to nowhere has not been changed in itself since then, but there can be new bugs creeping into the code when making other changes.

Since the scoring worked fine on second try – Can we use this comp for updated demodata?

Steve – Good observation on the task distance, I do not know why it displays the distance that way. Can you please make a new ticket, and attach your data to it!

– Oyvind

[Oyvind Ellefsen]

“There was another issue within the task that I didn’t previously mention. Namely that we couldn’t select a pilot, right click and set his status to ‘did fly’ and then enter min distance.”

You do not need to enter anything other than DF, DF and no tracklog or distance = min distance.

– Oyvind

[danielvelez]

Hello There.
Looking forward to test this kind of task. Looks promissing.
Nevertheless, I`m having trouble while testing the feature with the Vaga competition.
First, the Vaga uses Gap 2007 that isn`t on FS 1.2.13.
Now, when I open the competition on FSComp, I can see that the distances look right on the pilot list on the task 1, with only 2 pilots completing the 49.6 km distance.
Now if I click any of those 2 pilots, the FSFlight window pops up and shows on the statics that the pilot made goal and flew for 49.434 km (200 mts less than reported by fscomp table).

Now the really weird part if when I click on any other pilot that did not make it all the way… I get that the pilot flew for 96 – 97 km, but did not made goal. There is no statics info on any tracklog view (on FSFlight popup) that reflects the distance stated on FSComp table.

So I did the “acid test”… I selected all pilots on FSComp, and then I hit check tracklogs…
Guess what? – Everybody gets the whole task distance of 49.434 km (so the 200 mts difference between FSflight and FSComp seems to go away), but only two pilots get the “GOAL” and the finish time.

If I hit reports, score task, everybody get scored with 910 points or so, except the two guys who got to goal than get a few more points.

So there seems to be something weird about 1.2.13 that is not working as it is supposed to.

Verify please, and send me an e-mail if you find what`s wrong (maybe the user is doing something wrong too ;)).

Thanks.

[danielvelez]

Ok.
Found a Workaround to make this kind of tasks on FS 1.2.13

You can test it with any competition that you want. Ive tested it with the Vaga competition on the DemoData (fs.fai.org/wiki/DemoData) and with two local competitions that Ive scored long tasks, converting those tasks with goal to a Race to Anywhere format of X distance.

The workaround:

Let`s say that everything is tied to the takeoff place, and we are setting a 50 km task:

1. Takeoff 1 mts radius (yes, only 1 meter, to avoid loosing too much flying distance on the scoring).
2. SS Takeoff 5.000 mts (The startgate is going to be 5 km around takeoff).
3. ES Takeoff 50.000 mts
4. Takeoff 50.001 mts (Must tell everyone that they must land at least 1 meter inside the goal ;).

This way the distances get all rectified and accounted for.

The variation to the task, that could make a really nice kind of task if you are taking off a mountain, is to put the start on a different spot than the Takeoff, on an open valley, so the pilots really can choose any direction to fly to.

I`ll guess that you also can design an interest task with a few pre-defined turnpoints on a route, then a “distance to anywhere goal so the pilots could decide if they want to push on or if they want to go back.

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