Re-Fueling

[Paul Nadon]

After V1.15 we still can not re-fuel with the Classic's, Formula Reiza and the Retro's. I'm not sure why this restriction is in place, still? I know that with the amount of fuel given I could do a 1 hour race at Montreal with the Classic's and Formula Reiza and Retro's almost 2 hr race. And I would assume that with the Classic's a 1 hr race you would need to pit for tires???

 

[morsify]

Haven't had time to look at these classes since the update but I Agree 100%.
Reiza PLEASE, this has been asked before, there is no reason to restrict the ability to edit fuelling of these cars, it does spoil aspects of offline play.
Fuel is an essential way to get cars to pit consistently on longer races & change tyres at the same time, and keep the racing close.
Several of us want to do full length GPs, and I am still having to use a doctored hdv file from an early version of GSC to allow me to fuel the Classics.
Turning fuel use off is a very poor alternative. Firstly, fuel affects the weight of the car, so lap times reduce properly during the race. Secondly and more importantly, and I have tested this beyond doubt for myself - I can use fuel to determine pit strategies, but I cannot use worn tyres.
PLEASE @Reiza Studios put fuelling back in as a choice for these cars.

 

[Renato Simioni]

This is simply part and parcel of simulating the nature of the races with these cars - with the F-Classic for example, fuel management is supposed to be a paramount strategic element in full distance races. The same thing will be the case with the F-Extreme, and even the F-Retro and the F-Reiza - even though these generally don´t have fuel economy issues, it should still require you to balance your setup for handling with full tanks early on a race vs the light car at the end. Once you lift the refuelling restriction you get races broken into flat-out stints with lighteish cars as it is nearly always the faster strategy, and the simulation is compromised.

The restriction was in turn lifted for other series that likewise do not allow refuelling (like the StockV8, Mini or the Formula 3), because the real races are short enough for this not to become a factor, thus allowing refuelling had no inevitable side effects to the simulation of their respective full distance races.

We´re willing to listen to more feedback on this matter and we have shown we´re up to keeping options open for the players, but hopefully you understand why this one is still set as it is.

 

[morsify]

Well, I'm sorry but the detrimental effect of tyre wear in a 1.5 hr F1 race far outweighs the fuel weight discrepancy that you mention.
You see, if I run a full F1 race on a single tank, yes you are correct, the fuel amount does play a part. BUT meanwhile the tyres gradually wear out to a point where the AI performance is poor.
You surely know that AI cars do not pit due to worn tyres, they are only triggered to pit if they are running out of fuel, so what was a good race and a good challenge in the first third of a race, becomes a walkover at the end because they are losing grip and spinning on worn tyres. The cure is to use fuel to determine pit stops. By doing this, AI cars are forced to pit and at the same time they change tyres which cures the issue. This is so important and without refuelling, I am unable to realistically run some of your brilliant cars in full races.
OK I know I could turn off tyre wear but come on, when did an F1 race last have NO pit stops? I really like to have tyre wear and fuel use, AND pit stops, it all adds to the simulation of the race.

I imagine most people will accept your answer, mainly because the majority do not run full length F1 races. It is still a really great game, but I am a bit disappointed, I can genuinely see no reason why fuel options should not be allowed and re-inserted.

 

[Renato Simioni]

Well, I'm sorry but the detrimental effect of tyre wear in a 1.5 hr F1 race far outweighs the fuel weight discrepancy that you mention.
You see, if I run a full F1 race on a single tank, yes you are correct, the fuel amount does play a part. BUT meanwhile the tyres gradually wear out to a point where the AI performance is poor.
You surely know that AI cars do not pit due to worn tyres, they are only triggered to pit if they are running out of fuel, so what was a good race and a good challenge in the first third of a race, becomes a walkover at the end because they are losing grip and spinning on worn tyres. The cure is to use fuel to determine pit stops. By doing this, AI cars are forced to pit and at the same time they change tyres which cures the issue. This is so important and without refuelling, I am unable to realistically run some of your brilliant cars in full races.
OK I know I could turn off tyre wear but come on, when did an F1 race last have NO pit stops? I really like to have tyre wear and fuel use, AND pit stops, it all adds to the simulation of the race.

I imagine most people will accept your answer, mainly because the majority do not run full length F1 races. It is still a really great game, but I am a bit disappointed, I can genuinely see no reason why fuel options should not be allowed and re-inserted.

But what you´re pointing at is another, altogether different issue - AI tire wear and how they react to it. We´re on it

 

[morsify]

Ah, now that would be a different matter & I was not expecting you to say that
Yes I do use the fuel to compensate for AI tyre wear problems. But if you really can improve the tyre wear or even trigger the AI to have the ability to pit when they lose grip then yes, it would certainly change the situation, it would be great to have a whole race worth of fuel, no refuelling, and still have the cars pitting for tyres.
Thanks for taking the time to read & understand my reasoning, I continue to look forward to any developments in this area.
But anyway, as I said, this game is excellent, and I would not want to appear to be complaining about it. I love the Classics & will be returning to my offline season, if I can just tear myself away from the V12s.

 

[stefaandk]

This is interesting, I haven't ran a long enough a race in GSC just yet to deal with pitstops and tbh given it's based on rFactor I always had this concern that pitstops in single player are still fundamentally broken.

In rFactor I all but gave up on using pitstops against AI, even if I implemented them as part of my strategy I just never saw the AI pit other than when they had some accident.
I didn't know they didn't pit for tyres, but I would make a strategy based on both fuel and tyres while the AI just seems to always start with a full tank and just kept going so just the fact that I pitted meant I might as well have thrown in the towel.

Based on Reiza's response it seems that they may be improving this but for argument's sake and in the mean time let's say you disable tyre wear all together so the AI would have to pit for Fuel still?

How do you get them to do so, I assume they will still start on a full tank anyway and unless increasing the ratio of fuel usage that can't really be forced either until they totally run dry?

Bottom line how do you force AI to pit?

Thanks

 

[morsify]

There are two main ways to force the AI to pit. I have experimented many times over the years with rF and GSC - I sometimes seem to spend more time trying to create my perfect offline season than actually racing it LOL..

The first way is through fuel. You can use the fuel multiplier to increase their consumption. This method works very well, and is a reasonably 'realistic' method, in so much as they start with a full tank, and gradually go faster till they need to pit and refuel again.
But this is no good if the player cannot also choose some refuelling options to put them on a similar strategy. Pit strategy is part of F1, even if it was a bit random in some years.

Or (still on the fuel method) you can manually edit the fuel the AI use. With access to the fuel data, you can do several things - change the initial amount of fuel in the tank, or even change the size of the tank - this works well because we know that the AI will pit when they are running out of fuel, so I like to edit the tank size to control their pitting.

The hdv file that contains this info is not visible in GSC, so these changes can not be made this way, and again the player must also be able to choose a strategy, hence I was asking for fuel options to be made available.
(it is still possible to make changes through upgrades but any of this editing does need patience & some knowledge, hence my reason for asking for some convenient fuel options to be reinstated).

The only trouble with these methods, as Reiza point out, is that in F1 eras where there was no refuelling, the full weight of fuel was important as it made a bigger difference at the start of a race and gradually affected speed, handling & lap times through the race.

The second method is much easier and guaranteed to work, but is maybe not as attractive in a simulation because it is already written in stone - in other words, you can tell each AI driver how many times to pit and on what lap(s).
To do this, see my previous post:
http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/mandatory-pit-stops.78173/

But again, the player must also have the ability to choose some pit strategy, or the AI will still be behaving differently.

So your assumption is right, the AI pitting is certainly a bit flawed, but it CAN be forced to work using fuel to control when they pit.

I hope that is of some help.

 

[stefaandk]

Yes it does help, I'll be trying out the gdb file solution for sure, in good PC gaming tradition if the orginal product can't deliver what people want someone will find a way to hack/mod/tweak it in there, well maybe not when it comes to a decent frame rate in rfactor 2 but tweaks are one thing, asking for a miracle another one all together.

Sure it's not the most elegant solution but hey I run over 100 mods in Skyrim all aimed at increasing realism so I'm certainly determined to get this working.

Thanks for the tip.