What's up with Bob's endurance???

[sanmusa]

Today I put four of my Bobs on an endurance race, Suzuka 100 km, all Bobs are remote-racing raised, all from level 21 to 25. I guided the first Bob through the first 20 laps on a Nissan Calsonic Impul GT-R, using Racing Hard tires.

At first he dropped from 7th to 10th place but by lap 12 he started making it to the front of the pack. On lap 18th he was in first place when both NSX ARTA and RAYBRIG pitted. On lap 20 Bob went to the pit for a driver and tire change, and I added a minimum of fuel. When he came out of the pits he was still in first place, with a good 20 second lead over the second place.

I watched the race until about lap 30, with the second Bob still on the lead. Then real life kicked in and I had to go out for groceries with the wife. I come back now and they are on lap 132 on 12th place, lapped 5 times by the NSX ARTA. I am a bit disappointed but not pissed... until I watch it for a few laps...

Damn Bobs are going into the pits EVERY SINGLE LAP and changing drivers!! WTF!! I had to intervene and take over control of this Bob Mob and started pushing these B-Spec Basterds, telling them to pace up over and over again. Damn, the first Bob pitted at 20 laps, and that was 10 laps after his Strength and Mental Sterngth were depleted!

What the heck is going on? Has anyone ever observed this? Why were they pitting so much? How do the Pit Strategy settings work? What should I set my Pit Stop Strength Level? I had it set at 50% when I was away.

Now that I started slave driving my Bobs they are picking up. They are constantly posting the third fastest lap times every lap, only slower than the NSXs. They should be in third place, but as it is right now I am still strying to catch up with the 11th place, which seems to be half a lap ahead on a Lexus BANDAI DIREZZA.

So frustrating...

 

[sanmusa]

I just read up on Pit Strategy Strength Level... ooops! They were pitting at 50% strength... now I know!! My fault. Next time I'll set it to 10% as for the AI.

 

[GTP-Marv]

I use 20 percent and it seems to work well

 

[andrewyhy]

Me too. I use around 20-30% of strength level for the pit-stop strategy.

And when talking about bob's strength, I think it's better to train them up to the required B-Spec entry level, in order to compete against other AI drivers in that endurance race. That means, take this Suzuka 1000km race as an example, its entry level is 30, so in my opinion, it's best to train your drivers up to level 30 or 1-2 level below that before entering the race. It's safer this way, not to risk not having enough strength to complete the remaining laps. I hope you understand what I wanted to say.

 

[ovy27]

I find that NOT touching the PIT STRATEGY is the best way to go on this. You can use ONE BOB for the whole of ANY race. By default, pitting doesn't take into account the strength, so if you give BOB a powerful enough car, he will win the race by a country mile even with zero strength. My BOB had zero strength after about 30 laps of 178 on Suzuka and he still won it on his own at level 30.

 

[sanmusa]

Well, after I took control of the race and lowered the Pit Strategy Strength Level my Bobs were racing great, posting faster lap times than all cars, including the NSXs. As long as I controlled them and never let them get relaxed at the wheel they performed.

I started pushing them around lap 142, on 12th place and five laps behind first, almost a half lap behind 11th. By lap 165 they were on 8th place and only 1 lap behind the leader. The 7th place was too far ahead, I would need another ten laps to catch up to him, but I still pushed my Bob until the last lap.

On lap 160, two laps from the end, I came up on a gaggle of cars that were moving like a train, one behind the other, leisurely pacing themselves around the track. Once Bob started weaving through them it was as if the AI woke up, all of a sudden all the other cars around started responding, the drivers were tired, however, and you could see they were skittish, braking late, oversteering, etc. One GT-R spun off the track. I passed the five cars within two laps and left them behind. It was beautiful.

I was proud of my Bobs, despite the 8th place, because it was my fault. They might have own the race had I not set the pit strategy strength level to 50%...

 

[calico]

a very amusing read a lesson i shall learn from lol

 

[Snakebitten]

I think the strength is poorly implemented. In real racing a driver can double and triple stint without losing all his strength. Also stints can last 2 hours + so I don't like that in just 20 laps or about a half hour the Bobs run out of strength etc. My Bobs are all lvl 40 and run out quick in less than 30 mins track dependent a lot of the times. I think it should be modeled a bit more like real life racecar drivers. Look at NASCAR for instance. Same driver for 5 hours straight sometimes.

I dont use pit strategy for anything more than tire change. I set the pit strength to off. Bobs are just as fast depleted as they are full strength. They do tend to spin tires more when depleted though which is understandable as they are fatigued.

 

[taylor192]

I just had the same issue on the Indy 500 (lvl 28). I have 3 drivers (lvl 22, 24, 26) and was out in front by 5 laps by lap 130... so I went to bed. Woke up to find out I finished 12th. Same issue, my drivers started pitting every lap due to low strength.

I had changed pit strategy to 10% hoping to avoid pitfalls of other races where my single driver pitted on the last lap for no good reason.

I restarted the race with 4 drivers (lvl 23, 25, 26, 27) this time so lets see how well that goes when I get home today. This is really frustrating that multiple drivers actually hinder me, vs leaving one driver out there the entire time with no strength.

 

[odyss3y]

I just had the same issue on the Indy 500 (lvl 28). I have 3 drivers (lvl 22, 24, 26) and was out in front by 5 laps by lap 130... so I went to bed. Woke up to find out I finished 12th. Same issue, my drivers started pitting every lap due to low strength.

I had changed pit strategy to 10% hoping to avoid pitfalls of other races where my single driver pitted on the last lap for no good reason.

I restarted the race with 4 drivers (lvl 23, 25, 26, 27) this time so lets see how well that goes when I get home today. This is really frustrating that multiple drivers actually hinder me, vs leaving one driver out there the entire time with no strength.

After getting burned by pit strength once, I stopped using it all together. I don't care how tired the bob's get, they can swap when they swap tires or gas. For the endurance races, they will all be tired by the time you're done so using a 10% strategy will still make them pit every lap, even at high levels.

 

[sanmusa]

Last night I did the Laguna Seca endurance race, set pit strength to OFF and my Bobs came through, arriving in first place on a Mazda RX-7 Bathurst.

 

[Vlaitor]

They had the flu

 

[Basilea]

Never touch pit strategy! After a certain point all bobs are under the limit and then bob pits every lap... without a strength limit bob drives until no fuel is left or tyres fully wore off!

 

[sanmusa]

Yeah, I figured that out the hard way...