Slow Pit Stops...Grrr!

Gary Bieber · Sep 4, 2011

Hello all! First I want to say thank you to all those who made this wonderful website and to all those who have been so helpful on the forums, oh, and another big thank you to all those who create mods and share them here!!!

I've only had the Race series for a few months, and I'm constantly learning new things about it and for the most part, the more I learn, the more I love it! One of the things I really love is that the AI skill is adjustable by a percentage instead of just easy/medium/hard/expert. I think this makes it much easier to find a challenging level of play, however, I just started an STCC championship and found a big problem. I qualified 5th for the first race and I was up to 3rd when I had to do my mandatory pit (tyres only). It took 16.3 seconds, meanwhile I'm watching all the cars who pitted when I did pull in and leave while I'm still waiting. I came back out in 11th and finished 9th! I went to the replay and timed the AI's stops, which were 9-10 seconds, a good 6 to 7 seconds faster, a huge difference in racing! I've tried it on several tracks with several cars and it's always the same. Does anyone else have the same problem, is this normal? Is there a fix for this?

Like I said, I'm pretty new to the game and I love it, but as it stands this makes it impossible for me to do pit-stop races against AI of the same level, i.e. same lap times. Any help or insight is much appreciated, good racing to all

UMC 22 · Sep 4, 2011

When are you requesting a pit stop? I think I read somewhere that you should do it near the beginning of the lap which gives your crew time to prepare for your arrival. Doing it too late means they are still 'getting the tyres' or whatever, resulting in a delay. Don't quote me on that though, as I don't race the AI with pit stops very often.

Eric Estes · Sep 4, 2011

Did you take 4 tires? A 2 tire stop should only take 7-8 seconds.

^^^ and what Ross said.

Gary Bieber · Sep 4, 2011

Thanks Ross, I did consider when I was requesting the stop and I had the same times regardless if I request at the beginning of the lap or in sector 3 ( I did notice that diving into the pit without request is slower, but only about 1 second). "Don't quote me on that though, as I don't race the AI with pit stops very often." That does seem to be the easiest fix, to not do races that require them, however STCC rules do

@Eric, I took 4 tires. I don't know how pit stops run in touring car races (I watch F1), but assuming they only change two at a time (or one?), then it would take 14-16 seconds to do all 4? That is the time it's taking, and that's fine, my problem is that the AI is in and out in about half that time.

Ivo Simons · Sep 4, 2011

Also make sure you you dont use Auto Pit.
But manual pit. So that you drive yourself in the pit.

Gary Bieber · Sep 4, 2011

Thanks Ivo, I was on auto-pit and I plan on learning how to do the manual pit before I try again. I definitely think that will shave time off my total pit time and will help some, but it's mainly the time the car is up on the jacks. I'm on the jacks for 16+ seconds and the AI is on the jacks for about half that.

Something else weird I noticed, which does help the time difference a little bit, is that when the AI cars come off the jacks they back up a few feet and then leave the pit stall, strange.

Kennett Ylitalo · Sep 5, 2011

l take 16.5-17.2 seconds on average. 2 tires will only take about 7-8 seconds, if the race is shorter than 30 minutes, normally there's no need for all tires.. Just a hint: you don't need to change front/rear tires, you can change the two left (or right) side wheels.. Or left front/right rear... Oh no, now i revealed my pitstrategy :frown: (actually don't use it often..) Monza and simlar tracks round tracks can benefit a lot from mixed tire changes but it can easily destroy setup balance, use at own caution... Better to change symmetrically if in doubt.

You need to call the pitcrew around 30 seconds before pitting (i do it on the back straight). Not sure but i think that the pitcrew is marginally slower if you call them too early and let them wait..

That would be easy to test, put autopit on to remove human factor, choose a track where AI doesn't reverse from the pitbox ( AI pitline too close to pitbox most likely that causes that short reverse, Nurnburgring GP has wide pits) and conduct tests like:
no warning before entering pits, then 10s warning, 20s etc to a complete lap and then full two laps and compare times, stopwatch is mandatory to measure the time it takes to make from pit entry to pit exit line. If there's enough will to do additional tests then try to find the threshold when no delay happens and does it depend on the lap length. One possibility is that the final warning point is not based on time but distance but it can't be resolved before the threshold is found on one particular track.

UMC 22 · Sep 5, 2011

Kennett Ylitalo said:
... stopwatch is mandatory to measure the time it takes to make from pit entry to pit exit line.

But if you're using auto-pit for the tests then surely the drive in / drive out part is meaningless. The time you send your pit request has no bearing on how long that part takes. It's the amount of time the crew are actually working on the car that we're trying to optimise.

Also, did I also read somewhere that positioning had some kind of affect? (ie, stopping just before/after the arrow adds time as the crew reposition themselves.)

Gary Bieber · Sep 5, 2011

Thanks guys, and I'll definitely run some tests. It sounds like my pit times are on average for changing all 4 tires, good to know, but that's not the issue I have. My problem is that the AI is in and out in half the time that I am, and it's because they're tire changes are much, much faster. This is all under STCC rules which has you do a forced pit stop no matter the race length, and I'm assuming you have to change all 4 tires, but maybe you only have to change 2 and that's what the AI is doing. I really don't know, I'll try only changing 2 tires, but I'm guessing I'll be DSQ'd.

Gary Bieber · Sep 5, 2011

Thank you Kennett!!! You did answer my question, problem solved! You only have to change 2 tires. I tried only changing one and got DSQ'd, but I also noticed it took just as long to change 1 as it does 2, so looks like they change them two at a time. Awesome, STCC, here I come!

Thank you all very much for your input and advice!

Gary Bieber · Sep 5, 2011

Another quick question. Is there any way to go past the 50 lap limit for a race?
I'd like to do some full length GP races, but most are more than 50 laps. Same question with the time limit, is it possible to do 24hours of Le Mans?

Jim Cole · Sep 5, 2011

Unless someone has created a mod that would allow it, I don't believe there is a way past those marks. This game was produced to replicate the touring car series that usually runs a pair of sprint races instead of endurance races. If you want to get into more of an endurance race try either GTR2 or rFactor. It is even possible that iRacing has setups for that, but iRacing costs a monthly fee to race.