|
|||
Basic Roamer Internet Table-Top Rally Championship 2017 |
|||
Information:
Introduction |
Entry List |
Regulations |
Bulletins |
Standings |
MND
Rallies: Marking a Route | Q&A | The Nearest FarAway Place | Panglossian | Schoolfrenz | Thalamorph |
|||
This is a list of common questions I have extracted from the forums amd your submission comments. Do I have to register for the TT Forums? If you want to view and create your own postings, yes! Do it. Can I contact the organisers directly? NO! Unless it is an administrative or private issue, in which
case send a PM (Private Message) via the forums to "Crow". How many and where should I mark points on the map? The least possible to define your required route. Normally a point between each (significant, normally coloured road) junction is sufficient. You will need more if AutoP(i)lot chooses a different/shorter route that you don't want or extra points to force, say, a LWR at round a loop or to use a white road. I can't get AR to follow the shortest route I want. What's an "off-router"? When you mark your route, clicking on, or even just close to a
road, will position your point at the nearest Google geocoded point
- most of the time on the road you want to use. You might notice
your point jump a small distance to be at the nearest point.
Normally the geocoded points are pretty close together. Sometimes AP draws a straight line between marked points rather than following the road! When you mark a point, in the background the new point and
previous point are sent to Google's route planning system and it
returns with the shortest (viable) route between the two points. I
say viable because one-way streets, private roads, and unsuitable
(for driving) tracks are ignored. Very occasionally, the request to
Google won't come back in a timely fashion (or maybe you have
an Internet outage) and all my software can
do is draw a straight-line between the points. This should only be a
temporary hic-cup; wait a few seconds and drag your new marker
slightly along the road and a correct route will appear. I'm pretty sure I've marked the correct route, but on a ReDo I see I'm a few seconds adrift at a TC! It's probably one of two errors. On a ReDo, study the results feedback to see where your cumulative distance drifts from the ideal. It will give you clues where your problem(s) might be. I've just finished marking my route. Shall I submit it for marking? Not yet. See above. Have you checked your route for
"off-routers"? Have you checked your route for "straight-liners"?
Have you looked at the forums recently in case there's anything
relevant? All done? ... Shall I complete the route cards as quickly as possible? Isn't time important? No and Yes/No. I've no idea how to solve a particular route card. Can I move on and come back later? Think of being on a real rally. You get a plot & bash route
card thrust through your window and can't get it to plot; you have
to cut to the next known control. Same here, BUT if it's a ReDo
route card, you can go back and re-try multiple times. Normally put
in for you to gain confidence in marking a route before you move on
to the more testing stuff. How do you calculate distances?
When you mark a couple of (major) points on the map, the start
and end are sent to Google's Directions Service, which sends back a
series of geocoded (minor, hidden) points linking the start and end
via a driving route. These points are in the centre of narow roads,
but left/right in the driving direction of wide/dual carriageway
roads. Something odd! I've just had penalties in the results feedback from one of my submitted route cards and one of the cumulative distances has gone backwards? That is feasible. The marking works by checking how close your
route is to the hidden PCs. If your route is significantly wrong
then, your closest proximity to a certain PC may occur too early in
the ideal route. I don't understand the results table. All those 100s? By default, everyone starts with 100 points, the maximum on
any route card. Bracketed scores are the one/two highest which will be
dropped. Should I save my route regularly? My browser crashed and I lost
my route. Can I only play on a PC? The route marking system has been designed on a PC and for a PC. The interface is browser-based so in theory it should work on something like an iPad or a Mac. However, some of the special keys and operations don't seem to work or be supported on some machines and operating systems. I've provded alternatives on the main marking tools, which has helped, and some competitors are making good use of these. I've noticed that sometimes there are variations in the course of the roads between the OS and Street Level views, particularly on some of the white roads. That's right. You should plot the route card at OS level and check your route on highest zoom Street level. When your route is unzoomed to OS view the tramlines may appear to be slightly out. Don't worry about this, your marked route will be compared with the master route at the highest zoom level. Can I use my own OS maps for solving the Route Cards? Yes, but only at the scale of 1:50000 - BUT BEWARE ... the maps I am making available to you are streamed in real-time directly from the OS map database; therefore there is the possibility that they may be more up-to-date than your paper maps. Can I refer to other maps to plot my route? Some mapping sites use, for example, OS 1:25000 scale maps. That's OK, BUT you should plot your route ONLY via the maps supplied for the Route Cards - unless otherwise stated. |
|||
|