My friends and i all watch the race at work and due to firewalls, we can only spectate. So we rely on the Advanced strategy to handle changing conditions. But we are having trouble understanding it's choices. For the last 2 wet races, i have seen this:
The race started in the rain and stopped during lap 11. I planned w/w/w with 14/13/12 laps of fuel (Monaco). "If it rains" was wets/0 laps, "If it stops", inters/0 laps, and "unscheduled pit stop" to 39 (i haven;t seen this do anything, so i try to null it out).
At the end of lap 11, it switched me to inters and put in 13 laps of fuel. At the end of lap 24, it kept me on inters and put 13 laps of fuel in. At the end of lap 37, it put me on wets and put in 12 laps of fuel.
Another race (Singapore), between qualifying and the race, it started to rain, during lap 4, it stopped raining. I planned h/h/h 10/10/10 laps of fuel. "If it rains" was wets/1 laps, "If it stops", softs/1 laps, and "unscheduled pit stop" to 30.
At the end of lap 2, it put me on wets, and put in 10 laps of fuel. At the end of lap 5, it put me on softs and piut 10 laps of fuel in. At the end of lap 15, if put me on softs and put in 10 laps of fuel. At the end of lap 25, it put me on hards and put in 10 laps of fuel.
When weather changes, i.e. dry to wet, wet to dry, the Advanced strategy makes some sense. The timing of the change works as expected. During the pit stop for this reaction to the change in weather, it puts in the next stints fuel. That seems reasonable.
What is confusing is the 3rd stint tire and fuel choice. It seems to maintain the same tire choice and fuel load from the prior pit stop, and then for the last stop it sems to revert back to the plan. Or since i only planned 3 stints, it defaults to the last stints values because i did not plan for a 4th stint?
The real problem for us is the 3rd stint. What i am requesting is a change where if a pit stop occurs because of using up the fuel and not a change in weather:
- If it is raining, use the "if it rains" tire choice.
- If it isn't raining, use the planned strategy tire choice.
- The fuel to use should be the next planned stint's fuel load, i.e. if the next stint would start about lap 20, and the car is pitting on lap 18, use the next stints fuel load. or always use the last stint's fuel load, which may be easier and at least predictable.
Another option is to add a new value to Advanced strategy of "if it remains dry use tire". This would allow us to say:
- "if it rains" - wet
- "If it stops" - inters
- "If it remains dry" - softs (or hards)
User like me who are not interactive because of work firewalls, are at a disadvantage to interactive users, and improving the Advanced strategy would alleviate some fustration. Like noted in the above, my car plummeted in the running order towards the end of the race because i could not get onto softs.
If the "unscheduled pit stop" feature does nothing, remove it.
Thanks.
