Black Flagged for failing to use both tire compounds?!

[Kim Chee]

I was racing at Spa w/ Haas and had set myself up a pretty slick (ha-hah!) strategy using Softs, then two stints on Supersofts to finish the race. On lap 42 I was warned that I would be black flagged if I did not use both tired compounds. What the ♥♥♥♥ Codemasters? I STARTED THE RACE on Soft tires and transitioned to Supersoft, so I should have met the requirements, and neither of my proposed race strategies required the use of the Medium tire compound (which is slow crap, by the way). Sure enough, crossed the line Lap 43 into 44 and I was disqualified instantly.

GOOD JOB, GUYS!

Did a flashblack and peeled into the pits and put on a set of Soft tires, and sure as ♥♥♥♥, I completed the race without being black flagged. Fortunately I was far enough ahead that it didn't cost me the podium, but what the ♥♥♥♥? This is a game breaking penalty that can seriously ♥♥♥♥ you over if you're playing at higher difficulies. I should not have been black-flagged to begin with.

EDIT: Upon further research, if the actual Formula 1 calendar is to be believed, Soft and Medium tires were the mandatory compounds for Spa, so my game decided to give me an illegal race strategy by RECOMMENDING Soft/SS/SS for the race? Fantastic!

[swiss_hutless05]

Feel free to search the forum for your answer to this it has come up and been explained many times. The problem isn't the "compound", you satisfied that, however you must use the mandatory "set" of tires. You are assigned 2 mandatory "sets" of tires you must use.

So for example you have 11 sets of tires over 3 different compounds. Sets 7 and 9 might be your mandatory ones, of different compounds, you must use for the race. If you don't do this, you will be told you haven't used your mandatory "set". It's not a bug or a flaw. Just a complicated section of the rules that code masters have accurately recreated.

Hope this helps.

[Kim Chee]

Originally posted by swiss_hutless05:

Feel free to search the forum for your answer to this it has come up and been explained many times. The problem isn't the "compound", you satisfied that, however you must use the mandatory "set" of tires. You are assigned 2 mandatory "sets" of tires you must use.

So for example you have 11 sets of tires over 3 different compounds. Sets 7 and 9 might be your mandatory ones, of different compounds, you must use for the race. If you don't do this, you will be told you haven't used your mandatory "set". It's not a bug or a flaw. Just a complicated section of the rules that code masters have accurately recreated.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, but if you noticed my EDIT I figured out the issue. So my complaint was that the game was offering me two race strategies that were both illegal (using Supersoft and Soft in both Conservative and Aggressive tire pitstop strategies) without warning me in the starting-grid screen that I needed to include the Medium tires. So it's still a problem that needs to be fixed.

As an avid F1 fan that watchers every race I understand the tire rules, but not why the game isn't considering them in certain situations.

[cloister56]

I've tried to setup a strategy at the start of the race that would break the rules but haven't been able to do it yet. If it's one stop then it will only let me pick from the 2 mandatory tyres. If I add a stop I can't remove the stint with the mandatory tyres unless I use a mandatory tyre in the other stint.

I just wanted to clarify when you said it was a recommended strategy do you mean Jeff (engineer) suggested a change or was soft/ss/ss one of the pre lap strategies?
I can see how you can manually overide the tyre change easily and the game won't stop you doing this (e.g start the race on soft/soft (mandatory)/ss then during the race change your first stop to SS and keep SS for the final stop).

I would hope Jeff wouldn't offer a change in strategy unless it would fit the rule (e.g he might suggest changing to SS on the first stop but your second stop would automatically be change to a mandatory tyre, unless you later override it).

Sorry to labour the point but it would be good to clarify where the problem is:
1) The pre race strategy will allow the mandatory tyre rule to be broken (this is either track specific, randomly occuring or user specific as I can't trigger it).
- This should be easy to fix by just forcing the mandatory tyres in the strategy

2) The engineer will offer strategies that will break the rules. This comes into 2 categories either: a) It flat out breaks the rules (changes your final stop to non mandatory when you haven't used them yet) or
b) causes a change that relies on the player correcting later (changes out your non-last stop to non mandatory but doesn't then change your last stop to mandatory)

- This could I assume be reduced with a engineer message prior to the final stop to say "Are you sure you want these tyres? we will need to pit again to meet tyre regulations)

3) The strategies are fine but players can override during the race and unknowingly break the rules.
- I wouldn't stop players having full choice of tyres on their next stop but again a pop up message from the engineer as above would at least warn you of the implications of the change.

[lolschrauber]

There should be a warning or error when you plan a strategy that does not include the tires that you absolutely have to use.

Simple feature, less confusion.

[cloister56]

Ok just tested on Spa 25% race:

- Couldn't pick a strategy before the race that did not include one of the mandatory tyres (Soft or Medium), I tried removing stints, adding stints but couldn't get rid of them
So strategy was SS/Soft/SS.

- After the race started changed my first stop to SS
After this the next tyre stop changed to Soft automatically
I changed it manually to SS again
Got 2 messages from Jeff suggesting a strategy change softs on my next stop, these occurred every other lap.

- Stopped for SS, as I left the pits got a message from Jeff "1 more stop to go"
Then as I entered the penultimate lap go the message on screen about using either the mandatory soft or medium

- Stopped for Softs, finished the race.

So it does seem the game does try and stop you breaking the rules at least on this test. Maybe cause I've become very aware of the rules these stick out.
It would be good if when I changed the second stop to SS there was an explicit warning from Jeff or when he suggests his other tyre strategies if it is due to the mandatory rules he says this "Ok the tyres for your next stop won't fufil the regulations and we'll have to stop again, do you want to change strategies?"
This message would only come up before you planned final stop.

[cloister56]

Oh there is one other possibility for disobeying tyre regs which others have said:
Mandatory tyres are for example Soft/Medium
Your strategy goes SS/Soft/Soft
You stop for soft but the game does not give you the mandatory set (as it plans to give you this for your next stop)
You change as you make the softs go long to SS, you miss your mandatory set and break the regs.
This would mean we need a little icon on the tyres to indicate they are our mandatory ones. A solid outline or a symbol over the tyre maybe. Perhaps just like they added the repair front wing option we could have compound type for next stop and then below it we can cycle between the various tyres available in that compound.
It would be nice to have black letter on tyre colour (fresh tyre), tyre colour letter on black (used tyre), Black letter with little icon to say mandatory next to it on tyre colour (mandatory tyre).

[TommyEV]

Originally posted by lolschrauber:

There should be a warning or error when you plan a strategy that does not include the tires that you absolutely have to use.

Simple feature, less confusion.

Absolutely.
I just don't bother changing anything for now, as a result

[Kim Chee]

Yeah, it's definitely a combination of user error on my part for not paying closer attention to the mandatory SET of tires (not just a single stint in this case), and the fact that the game doesn't make enough effort to let you know on no uncertain terms that you're breaking regs. Beyond gently suggestion "Hey maybe you should try this strategy instead."