I understand this event is mainly for charity and for fun, and is running on the honor system, but it would make many of us feel better if there was a method for simair.io to verify the integrity of the config files for each plane while its tracking you. MSFS reads configuration files while the game is booting up. Parsing a text file in any application is very basic programming, and having the app check the parsed data against a known “untouched” configuration should be easy as well.
I personally want to complete this challenge without any modifications whatsoever, and would feel better knowing that all other participants are doing the same. I’m sure a good majority will be honorable and honest, but to expect there to be no cheaters when a $500+ prize is at stake is just naive, especially when it’s so easy to do so. Sadly, the data currently displayed by simair.io is not enough, in my opinion, to verify whether or not someone tweaked their files to benefit them.
While I agree with your statement about peoples honesty, if someone is determined to cheat, they will, and if they are technical enough, it would be near impossible to detect, apart from looking at their overall performance.
Config files, the sandbox, all “could” be hacked and altered, and it would be impossible for an outside program to detect it .. that’s the whole point of the sandbox. !!
Maybe the less said about detecting cheaters the better, except it should be pretty obvious, so anyone who does will have to live with that, and the scorn of the flight sim community.
All will be fine … till when your 12 hours into your flight and you just flew
somewhere between Witchita and Amarillo, the sun has set, and your now heading up into elevation … without sleep … and no AUTO-PILOT.
I used to be young once, but at 65, I am not going to try it. I don’t plan on virtual death before it’s time …
If the weather forecast holds, going to be a large low pressure system over the midwest with some strong headwinds at 5000 ft above Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.
I think it was very obvious! The registration form only allows you to pick one aircraft. I don’t know how anyone would think that if they bailed on their registered plane, that doing any portion of the flight in another plane would be in-line with the intent of the rule? But I guess that’s what “interpretation” is all about.
I noticed this a while ago while I was getting familiar with the app, but if you reference the screenshot you will notice that two flights are with downloaded mods/liveries and it shows very clearly on simair.
The flights I did with default aircraft just says the aircraft type while the ones with addons show the add on as well. I’m not sure if anyone else has tested and/or just noticed this or if it does the same for performance mods, but I do however think that simair.io is a great software and perfectly up to the task of tracking this event.
I didn’t mention it anywhere because I thought it was patently obvious that you have to fly the entire route from beginning to end with a single aircraft. I’m not “amending” anything.
It’s not a new rule addition. I merely added a clarifying comment for anyone who needed this explicitly spelled out for them. It was always the intent that you couldn’t change aircraft types. This is why you had to select one single plane on the registration form, not select multiple different aircraft.
Testing and trying again. What sometimes is very frustrating is that suddenly the live weather is changing very rapidly. I just had a headwind of about 30 knots in South Dakota, suddenly the C172 gets a very rough kick and the wind completely changed to a tailwind of 31 knots. Whilst looking at Windy the headwind is correct at this part of SD.
Hopefully this will not happen too much during the Cannonball Run. Although, a tailwind would be preferred of course
This is addressed by the prize drawing format. Even if someone does cheat their way to first place, there’s little benefit to their chances of winning the prize drawing.
Thank you for your time and effort. I think 95% of the participants (hopefully I’m one of them if I can get out of bed) understand that this is like a 10K race for charity in your hometown. Come out and have fun - if you learn something that’s great.
Could you possibly take a shortcut - Sure you can! Trick the whole system. And be proud of that for the rest of your life.
I just think it’s a great idea and a really cool one. So thanks again and on Saturday, while you’ll likely feel stressed out, just enjoy it. Cheaters are gonna cheat. Most “runners” will really have a nice time and accomplish something cool.
Hey Seedy, there is no more signing up? If so, could I please request that you reopen the registration? I’m really sorry - I didn’t know there was a deadline. My fault but if there isn’t a problem could you extend it in the Christmas Spirit? Thank you,
You’re still more than welcome to participate in the run unofficially, but I’m not re-opening the registration for people who missed the deadline. I’ve already been generous with registrations, giving everyone three weeks to sign up, posting a reminder message about the deadline in this thread a few days ago, and I even extended the cut-off by about 12 hours for anyone who was late.
