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Board » General Discussion » Stealth Mode

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Posted by ita10267 Posts 88 Registered at 2008-12-29 10:33:09	2012-01-03 20:55:46 - Stealth Mode
	I think we should start thinking of a "Stealth Mode" operation. Especially in ocean races (but also on shorter ones) this could avoid blind "follow the leader" operation... I don't think it should be a hard coding effort and probably it can increase the thrill...
Posted by Rod Posts 392 Registered at 2010-06-24 22:30:48	2012-01-04 17:35:15 - Re: Stealth Mode
	Only for the first 100 sailors. It would be pointless to apply it to everybody..... If it breaks, it's not strong enough--if it doesn't, it's too heavy.
Posted by ita10267 Posts 88 Registered at 2008-12-29 10:33:09	2012-01-04 18:21:06 - Re: Stealth Mode
	Actually I was more inclined toward "stealth-on-demand" mode, maybe time limited
Posted by NZL_PaulR Posts 311 Registered at 2008-07-22 12:21:30	2012-01-04 20:15:51 - Re: Stealth Mode
	Stealth "Hiding on demand" seems strange and although the current races allow this, as well as jumping on and off ships, I don't think it will help SoL that much. As an alternative consideration, perhaps limiting the boats visible on the screen to those that one could see IRL could work. Therefore in daylight, one could see the top of the masts of boats within a 10nm circle, but at night when only navigation lights are visible, the circle could reduce to 5nm. Perhaps only the RED if you could see the port light, GREEN or WHITE if one only sees the other sector, rather than ALL or BOTH lights. This would only happen when one zooms in and the 5nm circle fills say 80% of the screen. I do agree, with Rod's suggestion, with applying this ONLY to the top 100 yachts would avoid "follow the leader" syndrome. At the same time, there should be a standard "boat list" to see all the boats of the same nationality that can be ticked and this will show those boats within the top 100 as DOTS only, without showing which way they are going. Effectively it will be a sort of handicapping the top 100 boats, possibly allowing more alternative strategies to be considered, and flyers with risk levels taken. So if one wants to go into stealth mode, then you need to be more than 10nm away from the fleet of the Top 100 followers, or should that be the other 99 followers???? or Top sailors???? --- Last Edited by NZL_PaulR at 2012-01-04 20:20:48 --- If it breaks, it's not strong enough!
Posted by sol Posts 296 Registered at 2008-08-14 11:08:14	2012-01-05 06:37:52 - Re: Stealth Mode
	'Follow the leader' happens IRL, and it happens on SOL - both now and in the past. I don't quite think it is fair to impose racing conditions on sailors who are either not following, or are doing so in the true spirit of sailing - ie covering or minimising separation, for tactical or strategic reasons. There are many variables to consider with something like this. Time-limited? What times? How long for? The choice of time(s) will significantly favour some timezones and disadvantage others. Limit it to the top 100/top N boats? How? By overall ranking or ranking in that particular race? Non-SYC members are not ranked overall, but certainly occupy top 100 rankings during a race. I know it was not your suggestion Ita, but to illustrate the shortcomings- how many times have you been ranked mid-fleet or worse in a long ocean race, due to the SOL method of ranking by DTG? But in reality you are probably in the top 10 - because the best route takes us off the rhumbline. I know I have been many times - just consider the early SW bound section of SWR Leg 1....?? IIRC the boats leading for days, sailing close to the NW African coast, ended up rounding Noronha no less than 150th. And besides, anyone can login as the SOL boat or guest account - which, to the server, are boats sitting on the start line all race. Or perhaps, even worse (as we could in theory impose stealth on sol/guest also) - they happen to know the login of a friend - from legitimate boatsitting, and that friend is not having such stealth imposed upon it? It could even lead to boats being entered in races purely as 'spy boats'... And we all know it would happen - as pathetic as it sounds. Deciding what boats are shown in the client by distance (again, I assume, only at certain times - with all the problems mentioned above). In a nutshell - it won't work as there will always be ways around it. There is also the issue of priority in development. This would certainly require some server-side support, as minimal as it may be - and I can think of a few matters more pressing than this. (If one doubts server coding will be needed - consider brainaid's NMEA proxy in an AIS application - or even the GE feed of the race?) Not only development priorities, but just 'return on effort'. Ita - I actually think in principle you are right, it should not take too much coding, but making it difficult to circumvent will be impossible - therefore we should not even try to. IMHO - too much effort for just the few engaging in this behaviour. Perhaps there are other alternatives to this 'problem'? Dare I say peer pressure usually works - so-called 'name and shame' is certainly a lot easier (and fairer) than implementing some stealth mode. It also spreads the work load Fairer as it specifically targets those who are abusing the racing in this way, while not limiting the possibility when it is indeed required to see the fleet. I could state here times most of us have sailed, requiring knowledge of the fleet surrounding us - or close competitors in a series, for one reason or another. It is my hope that those who blindly follow will tire of it soon, and/or realise they are only cheating themselves- not only of the satisfaction that comes with a well-earned high result, but also the immensely rewarding challenge of determining your own route to the finish line.
Posted by AGage Posts 411 Registered at 2008-12-27 10:31:57	2012-01-05 06:40:46 - Re: Stealth Mode
	Apologies that last post was me - still logged in as 'sol' to check the latest race prior to opening registration... I help develop the client interface for the best online ocean racing sim there is... __/)/)_/)__
Posted by ita10267 Posts 88 Registered at 2008-12-29 10:33:09	2012-01-05 07:09:38 - Re: Stealth Mode
	Aaron, I totally see your point... Nevertheless, let's say a 6h "stealth" operation in an Ocean Race would be a nice card to play. It's done also IRL. It would also help tactical decision. Now we have a kind of stealth mode when our opponents in different part of the world are sleeping and navigating on DCs. I usually make my moves against you UC and the others from the antipodes during this time and I guess you do the same It has to be done on the server side, I was thinking just to remove the boat from the xml data files sent to the client and the kml to GE. But maybe I am making it too simple. I understand that development has priorities but I would like this topic to be discussed in depth. ciao a.
Posted by Jawz Posts 154 Registered at 2009-07-21 09:51:19	2012-01-05 08:10:03 - Re: Stealth Mode
	Hi Folks!! I agree with the statements made here both for and against. I personally feel that some form of "stealth" should be applied to limit the cheating taking place. My feelings are rooted in my results from leg 2. I refused to follow 76 blindly and applied my SOTP sailing to the leg and finished 87th. The fact that the weather played games with me was frustrating indeed and I steadily lost ground to the leading pack. And then I looked at the blatent sheep following and the good result it gave and I was becoming very angry indeed! As SOL develops further and as prizes are put up for places even more so we will need to limit the possibilities of blatent following while still retaining the integrity of competition that we have. So. Something should be done to keep our game fair.......... ....Then again what a damn fine marathon following act the Spanish lads did. I can only imagine the extreme diligence that these folks had to apply for a solid 3 weeks!!!!...... Even so, two wins out of two legs for 76. Maybe I will glue my boat to his transom in leg 3! Nah!!! I enjoy the challenge too much. I will do my own thing. Maybe 76 can design a badge for "Integrity"!!!! Fair Winds and Happy Sailing in 2012 George
Posted by NZL_Scotsman Posts 251 Registered at 2008-10-04 07:59:40	2012-01-05 08:25:06 - Re: Stealth Mode
	I think you all make very good points. Whilst the idea of a stealth mode is appealling, I think this is lower priority than other developments. Whilst following others happens IRL, this is only where you can actually see them. Some races have tried stealth mode before, I think one was even a recent VOR, however I don't think it has caught on. An alternative we have here is to better define what following means, i.e. cheating, and what is more like keeping an eye on the competition. We all cover other boats IRL, and often do that on SOL as well (well I see you at the front do it, I'm usually too far behind to bother). What is different is a deliberate attempt to follow a top ranked boat as much as possible to achieve a high finish. I think we know this happened in the last leg of the SWR with several of the top 10 probably only there because of this. I presume we have some means of recording either the track of boats or their commands. If there is a way of easily comparing a suspect boat (possibly under protest?) of following another, say that the track or changes in direction within 1% of the boat being chased, then a warning could be made against the follower. The warning could simply be a friendly reminder of the spirit of SOL racing. Another issue might be the fact that several boats shared tactics so much that they followed each other identically, and probably we in control of each others boats. This is a bit different from following others, and probably transgresses the policy of only logging into one boat. Whilst occasionally correctly a major mistake of a mate might be tolerated, controlling someone elses boat 95% of the time does not seem right to me.
Posted by AGage Posts 411 Registered at 2008-12-27 10:31:57	2012-01-05 11:43:47 - Re: Stealth Mode
	Ita - yes you are right, that should be easy - I was thinking of the idea of not applying it to all boats as per Rod's suggestion - because on the face of it, it seemed a reasonable suggestion. While I definitely think the issue needs serious attention, I just think imposing something like stealth on the whole fleet to stop the infringement of only a few seems overkill. This has been happening to (off and on) for some time, with the same boats. On the other hand - specific, scheduled races that are run in stealth mode could well be a good thing for SOL. Say, the Server only sends fleet updates for the 60 or 90 minutes after each wx update? Of course it still requires the server to do the work so that it is not possible to get the information another way. I help develop the client interface for the best online ocean racing sim there is... __/)/)_/)__

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