Airio LFS Tracker
Frequently Asked Questions

Personal Settings

First section of the FAQ tries to clarify some matters that may trouble Airio users concerning their personal setting.

There was talk about personal settings, but how can I access those?

Press Shift+i (or type !opt) which will call for Airio buttons to be displayed from the server. If there are currently other buttons shows, the first press of Shift+i just hides them. In that case press Shift+i once again and the screen should appear in a form similar to the one shown below:

The personal options screen is probably the most prominent of all Airio features, be it only for the eye. You can select user language there, items to show or hide, and you can choose other settings as well. All the options are saved into your profile and applied again the next time you connect. If one instance of Airio manages more servers, these settings are common to all, just like e.g. your nickname is.

Nice, but if I need to change some of these settings for a racing event and then back, do I really have to click on all those buttons again?

There are direct commands available to allow you to change your settings without the above shown graphical user interface (GUI). Take a look at the !show command; it includes most options. You may enter e.g. !show –SCDPWM which will turn off options specified by the capital letters.

Following abbreviations can be used: K = kick reasons, S = spectate reasons, C = entered commands, B = race best values, G = good/great times, D = distances travelled, T = timing info in splits, P = points, I =general info, W = LFSW data, N = button interface, M = (my) own data. FULL version of Airio allows also the following: F = soft splits, O = race progress, R = rank info.

To turn some of the options back you may call !show +PW and you may also combine options to turn on (+) and off (–) something into one command. Once you have the command line you need for the event racing, save it as a hot key (bind) so that you may easily choose the right settings at any Airio Powered server. To set language you may use !lang. Comparison base can be set by !comp.

There's too many data around, I'm lost. Can I simplify things, see less messages?

Airio allows you (personally) to turn off any/all messages you don't care about. Basically, if you have all options turned on, you'll be almost flooded with data – about you, about other people and generally about the current race and Airio actions (such as spectating or kicking people). This all will be no doubt overwhelming, at least from the start.

Solution is easy. Press Shift+i to open personal settings menu. By simple clicking you may turn off any info you (currently) don't need. This way you may "unsubscribe" from receiving kick and spectate reasons, showing LFSW stats of connecting people, showing race best times, showing points gained in race etc. Once you are able to comprehend the basic data, you may turn on more options.

The quick way to hide most of Airio output is the !silent command. Then you'll be receiving only system warnings and other essential data, such as why you were spectated or kicked, nothing else. Use the command again to return to standard mode, receiving selected types of messages. Admins may use !noisy command which for them turns on all messages, so that they can have better overview. Due to the sheer number of messages received then this is not a mode recommended for racing.

How come I don't see good split/sector times of other people displayed?

Good split/sector time reporting is running all the time and if you don't see any "Good split x" messages, it may be caused by two factors:

1) Under current settings the "good" values are lower than you would expect. Type !good to see the list of all good/great/top split and sector times for your current car (or track default car). Anything below the values shown will be reported as good. You cannot change these values for yourself. They are part of Airio configuration file and must be changed there, if necessary. In fact there is only one value for "good" values specified, and that is a good (total) lap time. Splits and sectors considered to be good are calculated from this single value by percentage distribution using current WR. This way it is ensured all "good" split and sector times have correct relations valid for the particular track. Configuration requires a single value, all the rest are calculated and are naturally the same for all racers in the same car.

2) You have turned off good times reporting. If you don't see good times messages and you know that someone is doing good times according to point 1), you have turned off good times reporting for yourself. Press Shift+i and turn it back on (the text Good/great times must appear in yellow).

Timing Data

Timing data are very important for many people and Airio tries to give you as much as possible. If you don't grasp the meaning of all the values seen when racing or hot-lapping, read below.

What are all these numbers I see in buttons at the top of the screen on each split? It does not make any sense to me!

To save space the numbers there have no labels, yet they give you most important timing data and are the primary source of information about how is your current lap going. The timing data are updated on each split and they are colour-coded. After five seconds the colours disappear, but the values remain for later inspection. Take a look at the following picture showing an example of timing data:

Here we have 7 buttons. The first one says where you are and what the timing data are compared to. L2S1P means you are in your Lap 2 on Split (or Sector) 1 with data compared to your Personal best (more on that later). Then we have a button with split time. It is the time reported by default on each split by LFS, there's nothing surprising in it, you all know similar values. 3rd button shows time difference between your current split time (2nd button) and time on this split you did in your best lap somewhere in the past. Positive values mean you are slower than you were and are shown in red. Negative values show your have improved on this split and are shown in green to give you clear visual clues. On the picture the red +0.25 means I'm this much slower on 1st split than I was when making my server PB.

The next two buttons show sector data (sectors are parts of track between splits). First you can see your current sector time, that is 4th button from the left. (Note that split 1 = sector 1, so the sector 1 time is always the same as split 1 time.) 5th button shows difference of this sector time and your best sector time done earlier. It uses the same colour codes and principles as split difference button – positive values are red and mean your are slower then you can be, negative values are green and show you have improved in that sector. Lapper users may not be used to sector times, but they really give you very important and interesting data. In a very short time you'll know what a good sector time is, just like you know what split/lap time can be considered as good.

Two buttons remain. The values there have different colour and they are informative only. 6th button from the left (one before last from the right) shows what lap time you may achieve, if you drive the remaining parts of the lap the best way you ever did. It is simply a possible lap time. On lap finish this number shows total race time. The last button shows your current speed on the split point, in miles per hour or kilometres per hour according to your personal settings. That is also a very interesting value giving you an indication of how fast you can be in the sector you have just entered. Very soon you will know that if your speed at lap end is below 175 kmph on BL1 in FBM, you basically have no chance to get good 1st split, because you did not go through the last chicane in the best possible manner.

Lets look at another example:

Here we are on lap 4, split (sector) 2, times compared to personal best. Split time is 53.76. Reasonable value, still +0.15 over what my 2nd split was when I did my personal best. Sector 2 time is 29.65. Once you'll know the sector times better, you'll be able to say that even this is a nice value. Still, it is +0.12 over my best ever 2nd sector on this server. If I'm able to do the remaining 3rd sector in my best recorded way, my lap time would be 1.13.89. Maybe I still have a chance to really make this fine time, because my speed at split 2 was 155.21 kmph. Once again, in a short time you'll know what speeds in splits give you a possibility for improvement in the upcoming sector.

There was a mention above about comparing my split/sector times to something. What are the options?

By default the split/sector times are compared to your personal best (PB in short). These are the values you see after typing !pb, !sb or !tb, the best split/sector times you (or other people) ever did on the server. If you make a new lap PB, your personal best split times will update to show the splits on that particular lap. If you improve in some sector, the time will be updated in your stats and you'll have a new theoretical best (TB in short), which is the sum of best sector times you ever did.

Now, if there's P as last letter in 1st button of split timing data (see above), it means your times are compared to your personal best on the server, as was just explained – split times are compared to splits of your personal best (real) lap, sector times are compared to your personal best (theoretical) lap.

But you may choose other comparison base. The easy and obvious one is WR (world record). It will show as W in the splitting data and your times will be compared to current world record. Most people can expect to see there huge positive (red) numbers as time differences. Still, for some this comparison may be interesting.

Timing data may also be compared to session best (shown as S). When you connect to server, you start without best split/sector times in this case. As you are racing, the timing data are gathered and updated on every improvement according to the same principles that are used for PB data. Times are compared to your best splits/sectors you were able to make during that one session (connection). When you reconnect, you start again with empty data. If you want to delete the so far gathered session best data without reconnecting (e.g. on every race start), type !clsb or just !cs. Session timing data will be erased and you may start to gather new ones.

Another selectable comparison base is your LFSW best (shown as L). If Airio is configured to download your own PB data from LFS World and you have such data available, you may compare your split/sector times to the best values you did on any existing server. If you improve, Airio will download your data again and new values would be used as the comparison base.

FULL version of Airio also offers comparison to custom time, called Target (and displayed as T). First you select the lap time you want to achieve by typing e.g. !target 1:14.00 and then you choose comparing split/sector times to the value.

How do I change the comparison base?

It is part of your personal preferences. Press Shift+i and select one of the four above mentioned options. Notice on the following picture that the last letter in 1st button has changed, just as the comparison base has changed.

Here we are on lap 3, split 3 (which is lap finish on BL1), timing data compared to Session best. The lap (split 3) time is 1:14.35 and it is an improvement of –0.16 over my previous best lap time in this session or since the last session data erasure. I was able to do 3rd sector in 20.22 seconds, good value for me. Comparing to my previous best in this session I improved by –0.34. Because we are at the lap end there can't be displayed possible lap time. The 3.56.50 represents in this case total race time. Current speed at lap end is 174.22 kmph. It is a speed sufficient for good, but not great split 1.

General

When I type a command and someone tries to copy the command using T and up arrow, not only the command but also my name is copied, meaning nothing happens.

This is something of a compromise, and (unfortunately) it may not be changed and keep the other core functionality. Airio hides all commands, which are messages starting with exclamation point, !. All such messages are always hidden. You can use admin commands or use commands in server console, without anyone seeing what you are doing, which is a very good thing.

What you see displayed when someone uses user command, is a replication. It is artificially output text looking like normal message, but it is not a normal message. If you try co copy it, it will be copied including the name. On the other hand you may for yourself turn off display of all other people's user commands, which helps to keep the chat area clear of countless messages and info.

I know it is not exactly an expected behaviour, but the advantages are in my view much larger that this one inconvenience. It hides limad/admin commands and allows people to choose to display/hide other people's commands. In case you want to issue commands that will be seen by everyone and that can be copied in the usual fashion, just replace the starting ! with $. Note that by this you (sort of) force your will and actions on other people, which is a thing generally not natural to Airio.

Administration

Even administrators may have their questions about running Airio.

Can I run Airio on my LFS servers?

Yes, you probably can. Airio is a console application running under .NET Framework 2.0, so newer Windows systems and also Linux computers may be used. In case of Windows you need to install .NET Framework 2.0 (or higher) distributable. On Linux and other Un*x systems the Mono 2.0 runtime is required. For instance, in a Debian-based distribution (such as Ubuntu), you need to install at minimum these packages: mono-runtime, libmono-corlib2.0-cil, and libmono-system2.0-cil.

You also need to use dedicated LFS servers. Airio has no special hardware requirements, even older computers may run it with ease. It requires reliable and stable TCP communication line to server(s) though, it is best when they are local, running at the same computer as Airio. Running Airio remotely (on another PC, connected to LFS server using IP) is good for testing, but due to unreliability of such connections it is not suitable for extensive use on heavily loaded servers, because communication errors may occur leading to bad packets being received and Airio disconnects.

Could I get some Airio configuration primer? Something I really must do to get the system going as fast as possible?

Sure, no problem. First download the latest Airio distribution file and unzip its contents to some folder. If you want to connect Airio only to one LFS server, there's just one thing you really must do: To define data necessary for connecting to the server. Open Airio.con.1.txt and fill in all three available items. Save the file, run Airio.exe and everything should work. (Well, assuming the LFS server is started, and the entered connection data are correct.) In case you want to start 2nd server, just create a copy of Airio.con.1.txt file renaming it to Airio.con.2.txt. Inside the file update connection data so that they point to the 2nd server. Save the file and if Airio is already running, just wait a while, it should connect within 5 minutes.

Are the stats between servers synchronized? If so, how often?

Well, the stats between servers connected to one Airio instance are not in fact synchronized for a simple reason: They are one and the same. It means that when you improve your time or change some personal setting (e.g. nickname) on one server, it is immediately visible and applied also on the remaining servers, no time delay. One Airio instance can be theoretically connected to any number of servers. All these servers then use one common data repository. Synchronizing such data repositories between two or more Airio instances is not supported though.

Does Airio support Web statistics?

Not directly and not by itself – it is rather a matter of some (PHP, ASP) scripts reading data from statistics files, picking the required information, sorting it and displaying on a Web page. You may get Web statistics from Airio using one of two approaches:

1) You may create custom script using data from Airio STA files. If you'd like to do this, read the appropriate section of the Admin Manual (or look inside and guess, if you're looking for names and split/lap times, you'll need Airio.sta.un.txt and Airio.sta.cr.txt). These files are updated every 5 minutes.

2) If you have a script reading LFS Lapper's PB.txt file, you may set up Airio so that it exports its data into the file at specified intervals. You then just redirect your existing script into Airio folder and it is done. Default update interval is 60 minutes, but you may change that.

Can I export/use statistics of just one of the connected servers?

No. All servers connected to one Airio instance use common statistics, it is not possible to separate the data. That is a major feature of Airio. If you need separate stats, you need to use separate Airio instance connected only to the particular server.

If I decide to switch to Airio, do I lose all gathered LFS Lapper data?

Just as Airio supports exporting its stats into LFS Lapper's PB.txt file it supports importing contents of the file. When setting up Airio copy the latest PB.txt (or PB.elp) file into its folder, run Airio and type !imp. Note that the import overwrites existing Airio data and you should therefore call it just once, early in the setting stages. Try using !sb and similar commands and see if the data were imported correctly. You may then delete the PB.txt file and let Airio start to accumulate its own data. Note that while import from Lapper uses all available information, during export into PB.txt you lose many data that are specific to Airio (settings, points, race times, etc.).

Can I run Airio together with LFS Lapper?

Oh, well, it will work, but soon you'll see this mode really isn't possible to maintain. There would be clashes in output both to chat and buttons, clashes in commands as well, and generally it will create very unfriendly environment, especially with LFS Lapper version 5.8 and newer. The simpler Lapper 5.7 can coexist with Airio more reasonably, still due to overlapping features and messages it is better to test both tools separately and stick with just one in the end.

© EQ Worry, 2010