I know this is last minute but, wouldn't it be a good idea to have at least one stationary troll bot on the track during testing rounds. Avoidance code is very important and testing that portion of code might be more helpful than just driving around an empty track.
I personally would love to have at least one stationary troll bot (perhaps in the center lane) to fine-tune avoidance settings.
The rules don't prohibit it.
What are your feelings?
Something like this was tried at the start of Winter 2017. Link: https://youtu.be/zeJOw0_dha8
I for one would welcome any increase in the amount of testing time available, especially pre-season. Other ideas might include running two or more cars in testing at the same time to simulate racing and also allow for longer test sessions.
Allowing teams to specify if they'd like to start flipped or from a particular lane might also help.
My opinion is that a non-points practice challenge and race round identical to the real thing would be the best way to train, but perhaps for rookies only.
I do appreciate this puts an extra burden on the organisers though. Another idea I have is that there could be special test sessions between seasons that teams could buy into, like maybe pay an extra €5 to be allowed 5 minutes on the track. This would help to fund the series and allow extra testing for those who desire it, but at a price.
I think we need to have a discussion as a group about what would be both practical and useful, maybe on discord :)
From memory the suggestions to date have included:
The last two are a bit problematic to setup. The troll bot driving backwards is likely to get spun around and I do not think the standard start light code would work properly for a flipped robot.
Either way doing all of these at once would just lead to confusion and make it likely that we run someone with the wrong setup. What might make more sense is having two choices (e.g. trolls or no trolls) and then running one day with the first option and the second day with the other option.
The special test sessions is a good idea for those that might need more complex testing or some kind of live AI training. We will need to think about how this could be done and how to insure things are kept fair for those that just buy the standard entry - nobody likes pay to win :)
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