F1 2010 Over-pitting?

[iammx]

Ok, I've been plagued by this problem from day one and still no closer to figuring out why. Does anyone know why in most races there will be cars that pit more than they need to? It throws up the most stupidly unrealistic results. Every race there will be between one and four drivers from the top teams (McLaren, Red Bull, Ferarri etc.) ending up between 15th and last just because they make more pitstops than they need to. Why the hell does this happen?

I've even edited the tyre distances in the database file by increasing the distance all compounds (except Inter and Monsoon) can run by 20 and it still happens. Say a 30% race of Bahrain is 15 laps, the Primes can go 12 laps distance and the Options 6 laps. Obviously they have to run each compound at least once but even the most simple minded person can see you don't need to make more than the one mandatory pitstop, so why does this happen every race? It completely ruins the game for me.

 

[iammx]

This can happen to me too, but its mostly because some drivers simply do not pit.

They were supposed to fix the whole issue, where some drivers would not pit during the race, meaning drivers like Kovalainen, Buemi, Sutil etc. would end up in high grid positions, and drivers like Alonso and Hamilton would be down in 15th 16th or worse.

I have not experienced drivers over pitting, however in some tracks the AI can be pretty stupid, specially when passing backmarkers, or in certain corners, Catalunya seems to be a culprit for this, and Monaco, so this may be the reason why some drivers make extra pit stops, and with some drivers not pitting at all, it makes for an odd race.

The patch fixed drivers not pitting at all, I'm pretty certain of that. The reason why drivers at the top few teams finish near the back is because they are the ones that pit more than once/more than needed. It's always one or two of the drivers from the top two or three teams, thus pushing drivers up the field that shouldn't finish that high.

I'm trying to think of a way around this issue. The only one I can think of is turning tyre sim/wear off and see if it still happens, but it'll be pointless playing the game with no tyre wear.

 

[iammx]

Hmm, think I may have made some progress. Managed to finish a 30% race with all the drivers from McLaren, Ferarri and Red Bull all in the points and no unrealistic finishing positions. Had to edit and bump up the two hardest compound tyres to 250 & 280 tyre distance in the database file. Seems to have done the trick and stopping not only the front runners but all cars from pitting twice from what I can tell. Will do a season with these settings and see how it goes.

 

[iammx]

Ok. This is still destroying my enjoyment of this game. I've spent months tweaking the game to get it perfectly how I want it and it's still happening every race. Bumped the tyre distances up way beyond the default values. 30% race Bahrain, 15 laps. Massa starts from pole on options that can go to lap 9-10, he pits once for primes around lap 6-7 which can go 20+laps yet the dumbass AI defys all logic and makes him pit again for tyres 3-4 laps from the end. I've tried everything to stop this happening. The last resort is the team pitting in the database file. So any experienced editors I could use some help here if you've got any thoughts. Basically I need to figure what the following code does...

<pitstop_highest_range type="float">1</pitstop_highest_range>
<pitstop_lowest_range type="float">0</pitstop_lowest_range>

That's Ferrari's data. Including all teams the highest range value goes from 1 up to 2 for HRT, Virgin and Lotus. All teams lowest range values are 0. What exactly are the numbers the range of? I tried editing all the teams highest value to 1 and it seems to make them pit more, whatever the default number. It makes no sense. Anyone know what the value of the range actually determines?

This stupid game is frustrating the hell out of me now. I can't believe this problem has barely been highlighted, it's easily the biggest bug in the game, pre and post patch.

 

[iammx]

They even pit more than they need to with tyre sim turned off. This game is a joke, god knows how they won a bloody BAFTA for it. Absolute shambles.

 

[Craig Whitmore]

It's really good fun online though

I have found that I play less and less offline and only do offline when I want some practice for what ever reason. Real people are much more fun to play against. Although having a buggy AI does make it somewhat difficult to gauge your performance and practice.

 

[iammx]

Not much of a fan of online mainly due to not trusting others to drive sportingly. Might look into joining a league and see how things go...

Just so frustrating when all I've spent months tweaking it to how I want it so I can do a 7yr career and it's ruined by an incompetent development team.

 

[Craig Whitmore]

It gives me impetus to drive faster to avoid the t@#s who can't handle someone being better and try to ram you off the road, however it is annoying when they take you out so completely that you're then in last place or worse still, with broken suspension.

If you join the custom races, they have generally a lot more fair players join. Some of my best races have been in that mode, doing 10 laps or so against someone who you are matching corner for corner does give a good sense of accomplishment, particularly if you make one less mistake than them in one those 10 laps and secure that single place, even though you end up 7/10 or something. Admittedly, if you are like 1 minute behind the nearest car, doing a 10 or 20 lap race etc is a bit soul destroying.

 

[Robert Sliwon]

Creating a perfect AI isnt as easy as walking on water
You will have to wait a few decades for the kind of AI you are looking for.
Online is the closest you'll get to competition since there are too many variables in F1.
I too feel its one of the flaws in the game that makes it less enjoyable but dont expect unreasonable things from a developer team made of humans