Hi all, So been running a fictional "All-American GT" set in the early 2010s. GT1 is the Ford GT, GT2 is the Corvette and Cadillac, and the GT3 is Mustang and Camaro. Each race is 30 minutes + 1 lap, mandatory pit stop, with tyre/fuel burn set to x4. Starting with Indianapolis, the AI tends to pit outside of its window, even on the last lap. The result was that I ended up winning while the AI was pitting on the final lap. I figured that it was because they were doing fuel and tyre separately, so turned fuel burn off. On Mid Ohio, I made my way up to 3rd with 1 pit stop, and towards the last 5 minutes the AI was pitting. I decided to be a good sport and join them, only to learn that only some did and I ended up finishing in 10th! Argh! I enjoy the pit mechanics and simulating endurance races, however I tend to race no longer than 30 minutes. With that in mind, what is the BEST tyre/fuel burn to set (and other settings such as mandatory pit stop or plus one lap) that can accommodate an "endurance experience" in 15-30 minute races?
AI pit strategy is under review at the moment, the issues come from a discrepancy between how much fuel they think they will need and how much they actually need. Same with tyre wear. Basically some numbers need to be tweaked for certain tracks and cars.
I just looked at one of my races, GT3 at Chang. 3 hours long, 2x tire/fuel. And this is what AI did on their first pitstop: 15 drivers only changed tires; 1 driver only refueled; Only 2 drivers had both refuel and tire change; There were also several cases when drivers pitted again after only a lap or two to do what they didn't on their first stop. Sure it won't hurt to fix some numbers but from what I see I have some doubts if it'll fix the AI pitting issues. They don't seem to have any strategy at all. You don't want to separate your tire change and refuelling in this class on this track, but almost all of them did, even when their tire change and refuelling were only a couple of laps away from each other. BTW, are there any tracks and cars/classes which should work as intended? I would try to test them and see.
I also looked at their pit times and contrary to what I thought they weren't wrong. 28 seconds for a tire change and around 25 for a refuelling.
It's all about numbers. Remember there's no such thing as AI, not in a computer game anyway. They just perform actions based on if this > then that. So getting the numbers right is crucial. That said the logic behind what they do at any given stop does need work.
And algorithms When you said their pit strategy is under review I was hoping for that too, but oh well.