I Am Tired of This

[RasmusP]

I'd love to have some options. Like full automatic, question-tree, suggestion and full manual.

To be fair I could write a basic if - > then for 90% of all my pitstops.
Issue is to solve the ifs and when's on the fly with the mini joystick while driving.

For ac for example I plan my pit stop beforehand but always give it a bit too much fuel both for the planned stop and for my start so I get myself a window to pit when I want.

Of course the game can't decide for me the starting fuel but something like an automatic race distance calculation wouldn't be too hard.
So I could just click around in the fuel setup and see at what percentage of the race I'll probably have to come in.

And when I'm out, I'd like the amount of refueling to get me to the end of the race. Make it selectable for safe, normal and risky amounts.

Do the calculation based on the race fuel usage and adjust it.

When I just got clean air in front and trying to push for an overcut, I really don't want to reduce the refueling liters!

Same for weather forecast.. Just please change it automatically to the best tyre...


Or if that's too much, just make a question menu that works with voice commands (and buttons of course) where you can just click on pit request and follow through it with "ok" for a recommendation.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

The amount of times I have run out of fuel with one lap to go the last couple of months is not even funny anymore. I really love to race as much and as fast as I can but I personally can't be bothered with strategy, tyres, fuel, setups and all other things that drivers don't have to worry about in real life. Call me in for a pitstop and i'll come do it. But let the genius at the pitwall make that call for me.

Yes I know, I can hear the elitists already say "simcade". That's fine, i'll be simcade then if that means I can do what I am supposed to be doing: racing a car

* And yes I drive in bonnetview on a superwide monitor too

 

[GeekyDeaks]

I have used Crew Chief's pitstop fuel calc feature a few times. Always added an additional lap in the options for safety. Not sure what sims it supports though as I have only ever used it on iRacing

 

[Loren Thomas]

I really don't race series with pitstops anymore, because none of the sims do them well.

In reality, not only do drivers not choose their strategy during the race, the team won't let them. The engineer says stop, you stop. Driver gets minimal input at most.

 

[RayGun]

Wholeheartedly agree with all of the sentiments expressing the need for an AI Race Engineer to step up and take over. Like AI drivers, the Race Engineers could have their own attributes regarding risk, situational assessment, strategy preferences, etc. That could be extended further with Race Engineers making demands on 'players' during practice and in a race while making suggestions to improve setups. Subsequently, the best Race Engineers will be with the best teams and they could be hired and fired in single player championships. An addition like this would improve player immersion and enjoyment immensely.

 

[Kevin Troschinski]

I mean the MotoGP Games has those nice feature- you drive then back in the Box you can tell your „race engeneer“ how the bike feels and what you would change and „he“ adjust it for you.

Would be a wondeful Feature in simracing if done properly.

I think Pcars2 had a very very basic option of it.

On the other side at least in Multiplayer simracing - setup building is something essencial and belonging to.

 

[fatal4you]

Well, you see, my assistant takes care of that, that's why I'm the CEO.

 

[mr_belowski]

CC supports pit menu navigation by voice command in R3E and AMS2 (and possibly other games, I don't play anything else at the moment). With that and the CC-supplied information like tyre wear estimates and fuel estimates it's simple enough to do some very basic strategy on the fly with voice commands - e.g.

"how long will the tyres last?" - CC: "we estimate another 22 laps on these tyres"
"Box, don't change tyres" - CC: "acknowledged, we're not changing tyres this time" [cc opens pit menu, goes to tyres, deselects them]
"Box, fuel to the end" - CC: "acknowledged, we'll fuel you to the end" [cc opens pit menu, goes to fuel, sets amount to what it thinks you need, enables fuelling, closes menu]

and so on.

It's pretty rudamentary but better than nowt

 

[Ricoow]

I enjoy doing it. Yeah it can be annoying pressing all the right buttons and outright distracting at times, however I do tend to run different fuel usage options (when enabled) and using AI to do the pitstop for me would not enable that kind of thing. Otherwise I would be configuring my AI to do the right pitstop, rather than selecting a preset and doing that tiny adjustment necessary.

Tyre pressures same thing, when I am cruising endurance style, I tend to have lower temps/pressures. If I let an AI base my pitstop on That data and I suddenly do need to push to fight, everything will be messed up.

 

[mr_belowski]

That's an important point, and tool doing strategy calls will inevitably screw up because it can't know all the details of your plan and approach to a race and how this changes

 

[Squared Circle]

I'm a lot into endurance racing so pitstops are part of the game. I wouldn't rely on AI to do decisions for me, I guess it's easier to practice the "art" of using the pitstop menu. This depends on
- track: A lot easier in LeMans than in Monaco (I guess, never tried the latter one)
- simulation: I hated the PC2-pitstop-menu going away after a few seconds of "inactivity". The rF2 solution is easier for me as I can fiddle around, negotiate the next corner, and continue "pitstop-planning-work" on the next long straight
- tool: The G29-cursor buttons were perfect, now I have a SC2 wheel without them so I'm in the planning stage for a simple button box to navigate the menu
- online/offline: Before actually having the box, I can "cheat" by pausing the game, plan the pitstop and resume then. I assume that won't work in online races

 

[RichardHessels]

Why this goes wrong, we don't practice it enough. We like to drive instead.
But when you spend a day long mastering the pitstops for sure it becomes much easier.
Make sure you have button box setup for it.
Some dials/buttons logically to go trough the menu.
Making sure the car has enough fuel by doing a quarter or half a stint and seeing how much laps you can do with it. Sure it takes time to do that.
But you end up having a valid strategy for the race.
In real life they do just the same, testing countless pitstops on the sim.
For a race usually it takes 2 full days of prepping on the simulator.
But we like to hop in and just do the laps.

 

[paracletus]

Some good drivers (e.g. MV, LH in F1, but other series too) at times they argue with the pitstop strategy, and they turn out to make the right decision to go against it. Maybe it is a skill that drivers should at least have a basic knowledge of.
But yes - it is more entertaining to just drive the game most of the time. Sometimes I've even turned off tyre wear in AC

 

[jvermeulen87]

I play acc and the amount of concentration while driving is really high, even if my gf shouts something at me its so difficult to keep the same rithm, sometimes i need 1-2 laps to get back up to speed, so for me the AI calculator please! I love the longer races (40-60mins) so i hope this is a possibility in the future.

 

[Iko Rein]

Here is one solution.

I have been writing my Telemetry tool for quite some time, originally for the F1 series, but it now works also with PC2/AMS2 and AC/ACC. One of the things I have tried to tackle is the race/pitstop strategy part in a way, which is easy for the driver to see when racing.

Here on the tool you see (after indy 500 in PC2) in RaceInfo two sections:

Fuel

• Fuel in tank: how much fuel you have left
• Average fuel used during the whole race
• Per lap fuel use for this lap
• Excess fuel. In F1/ACC this uses the current fuelmix/ECU mode. if you don't have enough, this will be negative (and red). So for a 70 liter tank, if it shows -130, you know you need to do at least 2 refuels. I could actually add there extra field with "refuel amount", if you need more than one tankful of fuel.

Race info

• Info about temps and rain levels
• For tires the current condition + estimate, how many laps you can still run until the tires will be below the "tyre condition target" set on the sidebar.

With this info deciding the fuel amounts + deciding when to pit is much easier. On the real-time map I also have what I call 'Pit window', i.e. you can see the map, where you will land after successful typical pitstop. So with that map you can also see, if you need to still push few laps or take the pitstop now.

You can see the tool at https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/telemetry-application-v10.34318/

Cheers.

 

[Mikec87]

I enjoy doing it. Years ago, NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, I did a lot of online racing in a league. We had fixed setups, but fuel and tyres were something like x3 so we had to pit and manage fuel etc.

I enjoyed doing that.....2 or 4 tyres, just enough fuel to make it.....it made the races really interesting.

 

[mantasisg]

I want my engineer to set up my car for me, and plan and manage the pit-stops/race strategy.

Im pretending to be a god damn race driver ffs, Do your jobs,

Simracing should be like RPG:

:Simracer comes into pits, and climbs out of the car. Briefly looks at virtual grid girls, and talks to engineer::

Driver says:
option A - The car is great I love how it handles, lets examine telemetry what we could improve still.
option B - The car is terrible, I can't drift it and it keeps on snaping back on to me, and my weak little slow hands can't do the job they should be able to do.

NPC ENGINEER, answer to option A and suggestion:
- Very well, the car seems perfect, lets win the race.
A suggestion - Would you like to just take some time to focus and relax and not bother about setup anymore ?
B suggestion - Or would you like to tell me if car is oversteering or understeering so we could make some random scripted setup changes that game developers set out of five different scenarios ?

NPC ENGINEER, answer to option B and suggestion:
-I agree with you, you shouldn't be struggling with this car as much as that as you are certified proffessional 9 times F1 champion, 3times NotanymoreParis-NotanymoreDakar rally winner and WW2 hero veteran when you are going to play next game after this.
- option A - We knew these tires are terrible, should we switch to different model of tire ? (if "YES", switches to different tire model that is a lot easier to handle and also turns on driver helps like yaw control and other stuff), if "NO" then it continues to: next option (B)
option B - Would you like us to check out what we could improve in the setup, the only available option is "ABSOLUTELY", then NPC asks if car understeer or oversteer, bla bla bla, makes little scripted adjustment for anti roll bars and tire pressures and allignment, shows a raport and in reality it switches to different tire model that is a lot easier to handle and also turns on driver helps like yaw control and other stuff.

GREAT GAME ! EA do this, you will make a hit racing game. No sarcasm.

 

[Cote Dazur]

I personally can't be bothered with strategy, tyres, fuel, setups and all other things that drivers don't have to worry about in real life. Call me in for a pitstop and i'll come do it. But let the genius at the pitwall make that call for me.

That is exactly how I feel about it. Yes pit stop are part of racing, but beside discussing with team before the start of the race, then it is the team job to call the pit stops and manage them. That, to me, would be better simulating of real racing.
For those who like to play all roles: team manager, race engineer and driver, the option to do all while driving should remain, even if it is unrealistic. Some people enjoy juggling.
I enjoy the driving part of the simulation.

 

[ArkanHell]

Races must be figth in the track, pitstops are pure bullshit ( in real races and in simracing ), if the fuel tires or whatever wont last long enough for race, make shorter races but get rid of the "my team can swap wheels and put fuel in the tank faster than yours" or "im gonna pass this guy when he go to the pit..." no, no way, if you wanna pass someone, do it on the track not outside!!!

So nope, i dont enjoy pit stop strategy, i really hate pit stops with all my heart and put me out of my nerves, since allways i think the driving sports gonna be so much better without it and when the "most interesting" thing in a race and what can decide if someone win or lose is outside of the track, cut from the hands of the driver and put on a bunch of other guys... next time you watch a F1 race as example think about it.... 2 hours or boredom and everybody focused in the pit stop cos is when more "overpass" happen ( LOL ), if this is how they keep a race interesting... hey maybe they need to make a new sport where the winner of a "race" is the team who change the tires and refill the gas tank more times . Mmmmm but this sounds really boring and useless, maybe is not a good idea this kind of "sport" why the hell if you put into a race gonna sound better?

Regards.

 

[DND]

@Bram Hengeveld
For post of the year. You nailed it!