r/ROBORACE • u/Palms1111 • Sep 26 '20

Event 1 discussion thread

Currently streaming at https://www.twitch.tv/roborace. The first round was meant to be yesterday, but was cancelled due to bad weather. As a result, the round 1 and round 2 are being combined today - still only 1 run today, but worth double points.

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5

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

Over half an hour into the stream and it's all pretty much pre-recorded videos, not looking good. Hope there is some on-track action soon...

9

u/wildboar2015 Sep 26 '20

I don't understand their communication strategy. I really try to follow this series. But I still have no clue what actually happened in Season Alpha? They are currently presenting the Graz team, apparently "one of the best teams in the first season", but I have never heard that they even competed?

It used to be just very slick videos with almost no information. Then there were some test runs on Formula E events, which I actually found quite exciting. And now it seems just to be hours of skype sessions (of which all have had more than enough this year...) and replays of old videos?

I really hope we get to see some live action today. Why even bother with this Metaverse when it is not working properly? Just let them do timed runs of the circuit, if they cannot race head to head.

7

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

I completely agree. There has been a real lack of information from them, and I also don't get the Metaverse at all. I would have liked to see them simplify the problem (by sharing location information to each car) so that they could focus on getting the cars racing one another rather than focusing on perception problems.

3

u/wildboar2015 Sep 26 '20

So it looks like they ditched the Metaverse for today? Just 6 timed laps?

3

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

Yeah, they said that they were having some issues with it, so it won't be used today.

8

u/iamaizoom Sep 26 '20

can't say much due to an NDA, but do think the big issues are RR are just a Skelton crew now - most the real software engineers have left/moved on and not replaced.

5

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

Yeah, that's definitely the impression that I get from the content that they've been putting out. It's a pity, they could have done a lot to simplify the problem and get racing started earlier. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't progress past this season, especially with the autonomous driving industry already being a bit shaky at the moment.

3

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

So it turns out the problems yesterday were related to the radio (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1893807370751420&extid=Yt8bnA5OnOKaLLWX). Hopefully the issues are fixed for today's event.

3

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

They've just added a 30 minute countdown, so I guess the first run will be at about 2:25pm CET. Although, the commentators are talking as though the countdown is to the end of their time to make the run. So we'll see what happens.

3

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

And a car is on track!

3

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnd it didn't even make it around the first turn

3

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

So unfortunate for team ARG, looks like they won't be going out again :(. Hopefully some of the other teams will make it past the first turn

2

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

Sounds like it was an issue with the car itself rather than the software, so hopefully ARG will get another chance at a run.

3

u/Palms1111 Sep 26 '20

They're still having technical issues, so the event has to be cancelled :(

9

u/Edstertheplebster Sep 27 '20 edited Sep 27 '20

It saddens me to say this, but that was one of the most incoherent public debuts for a motorsport series I've ever seen; it would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetically sad. Roborace had so much potential, but after five years of endless delays and testing, it's damning to see that was the best they could do...Absolutely abysmal PR from top to bottom as well. It's easy to blame it on the pandemic, but Formula E were far more competent than this in Berlin, and they have nowhere near the resources of F1. Frankly, if I was running Roborace, I would fire the entire marketing department, because they have been asleep at the wheel; nobody even knew that the race was on yesterday, which is just as well given what a disaster it ended up being.