Something about strategy and pitstops:

If we look at all the endu races and other races that are long enough to force a pitstop (forced by the limits of the gasoline tank, with some cars limited due to tyre wear) it shows up that pitting as late as possible is the way to go (i talk about LFS not about RL, as there are indeed differences). So talking about strategy in LFS is a bit of non-sense. And with forced pit stops it's the same, pitting as late as possible is the way, so even forced pitstops are non-sense. I think the main prob is that the tyres wear down in an "optimal" way and there are nosuch problems as graining etc, etc... . So you're faster with a worn tyre then with a new one (expecting that you have the same fuel amount in your belly).

A bit of a bump if you don´t mind about mandatory pit stops. I agree with mrodgers and others who don´t like the mandatory pit stops. There really isn´t any real strategy involved. All it does is it spreads the field apart and kills the action. If you want to succeed in these races you have to time your pitstops in order to avoid other cars and drive alone. It turns races into an online hotlapping contest.

The reason why I´m posting this now is that I had such a race today. In 16 laps the only point when any car was closer to me than 3 seconds was on the first lap. It wasn´t much fun. See this spr if you like.

This is in no way a post to flame you guys. I think the servers are great and you´ve done a great job setting it up. I´m just expressing my opinion.

Maybe set up a poll to either this forum or CTRA license page to see what the majority of people feel...

I have to agree about pitstops being a bit of a spoiler, even though I thought they might be a good idea initially as I thought they might add some interest.

In the FXO I often find myself being mugged by a couple of RB4s at the start of the race due to their quicker acceleration off the line. If an XRT is leading, I really have no option but to pit on lap 1 in order to leap-frog them later and give myself a reasonable chance of staying up, otherwise I fall too far behind. This scenario is typical for me in many short compulsory pitstop races and I have 2 options as far as strategy is concerned. 1. Pit early for a good result (boring race though) 2. Enjoy a race with the RB4s for a while as the XRT romps off into the distance

Quote from Swiss_Tony :

... 2. Enjoy a race with the RB4s for a while as the XRT romps off into the distance

at least you enjoy driving with me

Quote from LordBlaster :

at least you enjoy driving with me

Ach, I was trying to be evasive and vague, but you rumbled me

On the pitstop matter, I think we'll make this either a configuration option where we can turn it on or off (at the moment, I believe it's hard-coded) or possibly make it random.

I appreciate that not everybody likes the pitstop being compulsory, but we've had positive feedback on the same topic too. When the new patch is out I think the issues that Tony's highlighted will likely fade away. The TBO balancing will definitely reduce that issue to a minimum at least. The whole idea of compulsory pitstops is to introduce some strategy.

I've never properly got on top of the strategy game, so I have to take it on advice. It does make sense, even to me, that if you're stuck behind a pack of people fighting for position and can't get past them, then it's worth pitting at that point to get some clear track. If they continue to fight for a couple more laps before pitting, you've gained an advantage. It all seems good to me. As I say, positives and negatives in roughly equal proportion, a poll sounds viable. I'll make it public though, because I want genuine CTRA racers rather than people who casually vote in polls because they're there

It is just one day a week and you can always go to the other tier 2 server, endurance day should not be the same day on two servers.

The thing is, endurance day isnt really endurance day anymore, at only x2 length races it's not exactly a challenge. I've always felt that putting pit stops on short races destroys the action - you pit when you are stuck behind somebody: aka - you ignored a fight that you could have enjoyed.

Take a look at round 7 video of the STCC and you can see the effect of a narrower pit window - stopping after lap 10 the field was more spread out - it was possible to get stuck in traffic AFTER you pitted too, in fact some drivers made the mistake of not testing to find out how much track time was lost in a typical stop: Compare the post pit stop races of Szabo and Green...

A narrower window would provide some genuine strategy, but LFS supports pitting after lap 1 and that's the tool we have to work with.

I think think therefor, on the new software, compulsory pit stops will be off initially until a new system can be introduced which has our own rules on it - between 33% and 67% distance most likely.

Dont worry about the poll Sam, polling now would make the system judged on what it is now. I think it should let run until patch X, drop for a while, and when we are ready come back as a 33-67% window.