Pit Stops are a Joke

[Danius Greumach]

Is there something that can be done about the pit stops? I've had 15 mistakes in the last 3 races, even though I have 2+ crews that swap out completely race to race (no one ever starts a race at less than 88 stamina). According to my pit screen during the races, on an "average" stop, there should be an 11% chance of a mistake. I've had 35 stops in the last 3 races, which means that odds are that I would have 4 mistakes, not 15. The only way for me to fix this is to go with the "safe" stop, but with an average of 5 pits per race per driver, I'm losing 20-30 seconds a race using it. Despite having the "best crew" in the series, my stops (without a mistake) average 53 seconds, while the AI averages 44, so adding another 4-6 seconds a stop so there are no mistakes would kill me.
The last three races aren't an anomoly either. In almost three seasons, I've had only one clean race, and most races, I have 2 or 3 mistakes. I've tried firing repeat offenders, but that doesn't help.
If this isn't going to be fixed, at least give us the option to turn it off (so it works like the other series). Otherwise, I am going to start looking for a mod to disable it, or stop playing the endurance series altogether.

[MrPalo75]

You have to consider also your head mechanics stats.

[CaptainRAVE]

A pit crew with better stats.

[Danius Greumach]

My mechanics aren't the broblem. Both of them are two of the best in the business, pit stops for them are 19 and 17. I'm aware of how the game works with the mechanics involved, as I'm only new to the endurance series (I have about 600 hours played on the other series). The percentages of risk at a pit stop are supposed to be based on a combination of the mechanics' ratings and the pit stop members' stamina. So 11% risk should be around 11% failure over time, not 25% or more, which is what I have been getting. Getting a better pit crew is impossible, as only 2-3 new pit men show up after every race, and I always go after the best ones available, and fire the members of my crew that aren't as good.

[L_E_G_I_O_N]

What you say is absolutely true, the numbers simply don't add up. But more to the point, how many serious mistakes do we see in real life at pitstops?! These guys are pretty damn good!

In the (last) refuelling era of 1994-2009, there must have been about 12,000 pitstops in F1. If there were 200 mistakes during that period (which is being harsh as there were likely fewer), that's still less than 2%.

Whoever made this game doesn't understand:

1) How rare mistakes in pit-stops actually are
2) How little it generally rains in F1 (I get rain about 33% of the time in this game and Codies games, whereas 5-10% seems more realistic). Yes I am aware of the rain we've had lately, but there was almost none in the first 10 races of the season.
3) Maths, and in particular, probability.

[shortshifted78]

Endurance series...indeed pitstop error percentage seems to be calculated differently. Are you running with semi sequential stops? I really think there is an error in the formula. If you try running it with sequential or simultaneous, see if the numbers change. If they do, then it is an error in the logic/equation for the semi sequential. If the percentage is still high, it's an error in the endurance series.
I ask that you do test and let me know as I am trying to rebuild the dll to be more endurance series appropriate.
As for how your team is currently doing, that seems like extremely high levels of mistakes. I can say that in all my testing it seems like I have 1 error per car per race minimum (clean races do seem very rare) and rarely do I see more than 4 in a race

[Danius Greumach]

Most of the time, I do pit stops about 2 laps apart, and therefore, there is normally 90 to 150 seconds (based on the length of the different tracks) between the time one driver is leaving the pit box, and the other enters. It depends on tire wear, tiredness of the drivers, and such, but I built my team of drivers so that they would pit around the same time. The numbers don't seem to change if you compare back to back pitstops with those 20 minutes apart (I even stacked my drivers to see if this would change anything). I will test a scenario where I stack my drivers during a race, and then run the race over and never pit drivers within 20 minutes of each other, and see how the stamina of the pit crew compares.
Maybe, even though the mistake/risk % isn't changing (it could simply be a pre-race calculation that doesn't change during the race regardless of what happens during it), the pit members are getting more fatigued with back-to-back stops, which lowers there stamina, and subsequently, raises their mistake % significantly. I have noticed that when drivers make mistakes during the race, they normally lose between 30-50% stamina, while most everyone else loses 10% maximum. I always assumed that the stamina lose was a result of the mistake, but maybe I'm wrong.
The one thing I can say is that mistakes often happen at the very first pitstop, and mistakes seem to be more frequent in the first half of the race compared to the last half. This would make me believe that stamina loss during the race has nothing to do with it.

[Danius Greumach]

Originally posted by arcadefire07:

What you say is absolutely true, the numbers simply don't add up. But more to the point, how many serious mistakes do we see in real life at pitstops?! These guys are pretty damn good!

In the (last) refuelling era of 1994-2009, there must have been about 12,000 pitstops in F1. If there were 200 mistakes during that period (which is being harsh as there were likely fewer), that's still less than 2%.

Whoever made this game doesn't understand:

1) How rare mistakes in pit-stops actually are
2) How little it generally rains in F1 (I get rain about 33% of the time in this game and Codies games, whereas 5-10% seems more realistic). Yes I am aware of the rain we've had lately, but there was almost none in the first 10 races of the season.
3) Maths, and in particular, probability.

I think pit mistakes are actually a bit higher than you believe, although most of them are 2-5 second mistakes, and 2-5 second mistakes don't seem to exist in MM. My guess would be about 10%, but then I'm a Raikkonen fan, and Ferrari always screws up his pit stops, so maybe I'm jaded.
As for rain, I'm not getting enough of it. In my last season (11 races), I never had rain during the race. I had it in three or four qualifying sessions, but none during a race or practice. I'm hoping I get a lot this next season, as I've finally moved up to the top tier, and I could use every advantage I can get against the AI in my first season at the top.

[Hikyu]

I don’t know in endurance, but in single seater my experience is only little errors (1 - 3 seconds)... In old versions errors was very long (always more then 5 seconds) but from 1.53 it doesn’t happen any more...

[Danius Greumach]

Originally posted by Hikyu:

I don’t know in endurance, but in single seater my experience is only little errors (1 - 3 seconds)... In old versions errors was very long (always more then 5 seconds) but from 1.53 it doesn’t happen any more...

In endurance, it's normally 15-30 seconds. Sometimes, if a jacksman is the culprit, it might be less than 10.

[Danius Greumach]

Originally posted by shortshifted78:

Endurance series...indeed pitstop error percentage seems to be calculated differently. Are you running with semi sequential stops? I really think there is an error in the formula. If you try running it with sequential or simultaneous, see if the numbers change. If they do, then it is an error in the logic/equation for the semi sequential. If the percentage is still high, it's an error in the endurance series.
I ask that you do test and let me know as I am trying to rebuild the dll to be more endurance series appropriate.
As for how your team is currently doing, that seems like extremely high levels of mistakes. I can say that in all my testing it seems like I have 1 error per car per race minimum (clean races do seem very rare) and rarely do I see more than 4 in a race

I completed my testing, and found absolutely no difference in errors when stacking cars, or when separating their pit stops by 10+ minutes. I completed 3 races with both scenarios. In the first race, I started with stacking, and wouldn't you know it, there were no pit mistakes (there were only 6 pits between my two cars). I went ahead and completed it with a 10+ minute gap, and I had 2 errors in 7 stops. I did notice from a combination of both races that an errorless jacksman loses 5 stamina, and those on the tyres lose stamina. My 2 men with errors lost 37 stamina (27 more than "normal") and 42 stamina (32 more than "normal"); both were on tyres.

In race 2, I had 10 pits and 2 errors in my stacking scenario. In my separation scenario, I had 1 error in 10 stops.

In race 3, I once again had 10 pits in my stacking scenario, and 4 errors (2 on one stop). My separation scenario had 11 pits, and 2 errors.

So, with a combination three races for each scenario, I had 6 errors in 26 pits while "stacking", and 5 in 28 with my "separation" scenario. In my view, that doesn't seem to be much, if any, difference, especially considering that the "stacking" scenario included a clean race and a pitstop with 2 errors, something that can't be said for the "separation" scenario.

I also verified that the risk percentages never changed during the race, regardless of errors made or how much of the race had already been completed.

[shortshifted78]

Thanks for that detailed info Danius. My dll is getting close to being ready, so I will compare error percentage between the 3 types of stops to see what is going on.
As for the stamina drop. That is right for the original game. And is far too high in my opinion, it's also not exactly stamina, but like morale. I have the races taking 2 points of health off and every mistake taking 8, except for 2 mistakes, which are tires and fuel. Those are 13. I think I also need to dial back the chance of a mistake in the dll as well. I would like to have you be one of the first to test it out and let me know what you think