Career Planning Spreadsheet(s)

[Blooze]

The FM.Net time is two hours long, to the second.  That smells seriously like they are one race too long in table - 315 instead of the actual 314 races.

I would almost bet where it is at...

In the Pro Series races, the R4 event is 6 races long, as is every event after that, except the R3 races which has 5 races in it.  Each division has 10 events in it, and across the board, as the events increase in class and level, they increase in the race count.  The Professional Series R3 event is the lone exception.  It would be quite easy for a DBA to have made an assumption there and thereby, have increased the the race count by one - a 7200 second error in the rollup.

$

[GBO Possum]

Good questions, Bear

On the Xbox, I can see the individual times of the Career races, and I'm not talking about the "local" times which the main server does not know about.  But the Xbox doesn't show the rollup time.  Conversely the web interface doesn't give any details of the events, just the rollup.

So what I did was to go to the Xbox, and enter the times from the "Top Players" into the spreadsheet which totals it up, adding 2 hours for missing numbers.

Before I finished Career, I could see that there was a difference between the total I calculated and the web rollup, but I guessed, at that time, that the difference was because of some weird time they put in in addition to the 2 hours per un-raced event, so I conveniently ignored the discrepancy.

When I finished the final race there was no longer room for doubt, then I went and checked that the 2 hour rule was the only rule, and that was confirmed in Dan Weisman's (aka Mindcrime) post at http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/permalink/218286/213365/ShowThread.aspx#213365.

(Dan is one of the FM2 developers)

The Overall Career leaderboard is an aggregation of all the total times for all career events. If you have yet to race a career event, the time attributed to that event is 2 hours. The rankings go from *smallest* amount of time to largest. So the fewer events you've raced, the larger your overall time wouild be and the worse your rank would be. As you complete career events, the 2 hour placeholder is replaced with a real amount of time until eventually if you are good enough, you'll have completed all career events and your overall time will be as small as possible.
Hope that makes more sense.

It sure doesn't sound like rocket science to be able to add up 314 numbers and get a total 

[GBO Possum]

The FM.Net time is two hours long, to the second.  That smells seriously like they are one race too long in table - 315 instead of the actual 314 races.

I would almost bet where it is at...

In the Pro Series races, the R4 event is 6 races long, as is every event after that, except the R3 races which has 5 races in it.  Each division has 10 events in it, and across the board, as the events increase in class and level, they increase in the race count.  The Professional Series R3 event is the lone exception.  It would be quite easy for a DBA to have made an assumption there and thereby, have increased the the race count by one - a 7200 second error in the rollup.

$

Blooze, I reckon you might have the answer.  It's a heck of good theory.  I'll send a link of your post to Landin.

[GBO Possum]

Had an email from Landin.  The web-based Career scoreboard has been fixed.  Your times are now 2 hours less than they were yesterday, and should match the total of the times off the Xbox scoreboards.

[Blooze]

Cool!  Did he say what the problem was?

$

[GBO Possum]

Blooze, I gave him your theory about 315 vs 314 races, but he did not confirm or deny that.  Just said thanks, and it was fixed.  I'd guess you were on the money.

The T10 attitude is that since it affected everyone, it was no real problem.  I wrote back to point out that the data misled me into a state of complacency as I planned my way along career using the planning spreadsheet.  For ages I could see that I was "definitely" going to land in the #3 spot, not realizing that I had to shoot for a 2 hour lower target.  So when I finished, I was ticked off to find myself at #36.

To remedy that I would have to go back and shave time off a whole bunch of events which would take forever.  Essentially, I would have to go through Career for the THIRD time to do it.  First was last year, second when I got wiped for driving an Elan one day, and now this.

It has severely dampened my enthusiasm.  Silly, I know, but that's the psychology of it.

I'll hold off setting new goals until the new "filtering" scoreboards are out long enough for me to digest the impact.

[Blooze]

So did you get over this disgust of it all?   

Personally, I was so glad to find that I didn't have a one off error in my spreadsheets and calculations and that I could stop searching for it, that it offset any offense I might have taken at their error.

I see in the recent Pit Pass that Che has acknowledged that the filters are rather trivial in that they only address the top 1000 and don't include inclusive and exclusive sets.  A change to the filters that makes them a viable tool will also require additional trips to the database and it is that that I don't know if they are prepared to undertake.

$

[GBO Possum]

No, Blooze, I have dumped Career for now.  Got to position 35 and now letting it slide.  Exhibition has held my attention for a while, but even that enthusiasm is waning as I get tired of just choosing leaderboard cars.

I'm thinking I need a car focus, a focus on a short list of favorites.

I have started to experiment with the modern equivalent of the car of my youth - the Mini.  In the sixties I had two Minis, a Morris Mini 850 and a Morris Mini Cooper (the short stroke 998 cc version).  They were incredible cars to drive.  So I'm playing with a Mini built up to A850 (seems like an appropriate PI  ), and if the result delights then I'll add B, C and D versions.

The Minis became the giant killers on the tracks in Australia back then, making up in the corners the annihilation they suffered on the straights at the hands of their bigger brothers.  Ahhh, I feel a reminiscence coming on, but later, not now......