Endurance Championship - Season 3, Round 4, Anderstorp - 16th July

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Clearly GTR is responsible for enforcing the pit lane speed limit, there is no other practical solution. The cat is now out of the bag, much like when I surprised the rest of the Division 2 NGT field at the start of season 1 by showing that you could do 60 minutes without stopping for tyres, and I expect everyone will now raise their level of preparation before an event and find out exactly where the real speed limit points are.

[Rich_A]

Hmm, yes....i guess one of those pitstop,ahem, 'skills' is somehow knowing that you can floor it once past the signboard rather than the traffic lights where i (and presume others) thought you had to wait until ? (i checked the replay)....thats got to be worth nearly 5 seconds straight away !

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing 


not taking anything away from your very fast race pace of course sharky boy 

No way, there's been a few times where I couldn't figure out how I was leap frogged now I know - in some case I bet it's worth 15 - 20 seocnds!! So when the pit board comes up you can release limiter and go? That's rediculous, why can't Simbin do things right?? Mind you that is quite an obscure one for a beta tester to discover..

So will there be any new rules made or do we all go when the pit board appears?

[popabawa]

I too assumed the limit was at the lights but there's some saying about assumptions and asses or something.

Fair play to Sharky for putting the effort in to find out the where the limiter can be switched off

Related, but ever-so-sightly OT, I'd assume (there we go again...) that the game would have the same points on the track as in real world racing for the limiters to be turned on/off? Not knowing anything about these things I've no idea whether that's the case or not

EDIT: Either way, no need for a rule change surely, the game manages the stop-and-go penalties as Dave said.

[Simon Gymer]

Actually that's not true Rich. Most of the time it's cause people are faster on in and out laps and/or take on less fuel and/or don't hang around on the pit board and/or don't hang around on the go-go-go bit and practice the pit lane in and out track sections to drive it as fast as possible. Taking on less fuel is the biggest saver, and if like TrueTom you manage to not take on any fuel at all you can save having to stop and start the engine. It's about getting the most out of your package.

You could say that because some cars are worse on fuel consumption they are at a disadvantage, but it's all in the game and part of the competition.

Anderstorp is the only one I know of that has the speed limit policing not enforced at the traffic lights. I will of course check next time an Endurance race comes round to find out if there is any give but I think it's more of an oversight in the Anderstorp track build than anything else. Although to be fair it's ridiculous having the limiter applied right to the end of the tyres as that's well past the end of the pits.

[Simon Gymer]

So when the pit board comes up you can release limiter and go? That's rediculous, why can't Simbin do things right?? Mind you that is quite an obscure one for a beta tester to discover..

Pit board? No in the case of Anderstorp the speed limit is policed only up to a certain point in the pit lane after which you can take off the limiter. That point is not the traffic light at the end of the tyres like it is for most tracks, you'll have to find out for yourself where exactly it is. Took me ages to work out the precise place.

Don't be so quick to blame Simbin, they haven't done anything wrong. It doesn't say anywhere that pit lane speed limits are enforced at traffic lights. Personally I would prefer it to be very clearly marked line on the floor and traffic lighted, maybe it will be in GTR2.

[Mark J]

Well in real world racing Pops, there is a white line and/or traffic light at the pitlane end with a timing beam/marshal, so they can tell who turned off the pit speed limiter early or broke the pit lane speed limit.

So hence i assumed (like an ass ) that the traffic light at pit end in GTR is also where the pit-speed limit ends.

I must admit that at Anderstorp i often wondered why the traffic light is placed so far around the corner of the pitlane exit, it makes sense to be where the TV crew & signboard are shown (ie where Shark dis-engaged his in the replay!) as you are way passed all the pit garages etc by then.

RichA...i dont think you can floor it as soon as the pitboard goes down, can you ? That would make a huge difference to time in pits.

Shark....just how did you discover such a quirk in the game?  Did you test different points along the pitlane turning off the limiter or was it by fluke? Its a bit games-manship, hope you dont mind me saying, exploiting weaknesses in the game. Not blaming you. Simbin should fix bugs like this with patches...something that seems to have eluded them We want a racing sim not arcade flaws.

[popabawa]

It's nice & easy for lazy bums like me to use the traffic lights at the end of the pit lane as a marker to turn off my pit limiter to make sure I don't get a stop & go though  

So... where's the point at 'real' Anderstorp where you can turn your limiter off? Anyone know? And is it the same point in the game?

RichA...i dont think you can floor it as soon as the pitboard goes down, can you ? That would make a huge difference to time in pits.

Abso-diddly-lutely not! Try it and see, you'll get a stop & go.

[whitham69]

Any where pops but you get a big fine $$$$

[popabawa]

Simbin should fix bugs like this with patches...something that seems to have eluded them We want a racing sim not arcade flaws.

IF this is a bug, and not a genuine representation of Anderstorp, it's taken us (as a community) the best part of 18 months to discover it so I think you might be being a tad harsh!

[Mark J]

Its taken us all this time to discover it.........i wonder when Team shark discovered it 

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Don't forget that at some tracks there are two sets of lights - one at the limit line and one where the pit exit merges back into the circuit proper.

[mo]

Way back in season 1 enduro I heard mention on the forums that the Anderstorp pit lane limit point was early, and I assumed that everyone knew.

During practice sessions there is a marshel in the pit lane with a green flag and this represents the point at which to accelerate. He's not there during the race tho AFAIK.
This is the point at which the AI push the button too.
Maybe in real life they have a different pit lane endpoint on practice days than on race days, and because of a bug gtr doesn't give a penalty during race...... I dunno

I'm not aware of any other track that this happens at either so probably not much to see here.

[Simon Gymer]

RichA...i dont think you can floor it as soon as the pitboard goes down, can you ? That would make a huge difference to time in pits.

No, it's at a point in the pit lane, nothing to do with the pitboard.

Shark....just how did you discover such a quirk in the game?  Did you test different points along the pitlane turning off the limiter or was it by fluke? Its a bit games-manship, hope you dont mind me saying, exploiting weaknesses in the game. Not blaming you. Simbin should fix bugs like this with patches...something that seems to have eluded them We want a racing sim not arcade flaws.

I was informed by someone else about it a while ago, but didn't know exactly where the point was until I tested it on Sunday.

I worked it out by testing it offline a lot at different points in the pitlane. Takes a lap in an AI race to get back round to the pits so it's a tedious process. After a while I eventually discovered exactly where it was. The place I turned off the limter in the race was actually after the policed line as I wanted to be 100% sure not to be penalised by the game.

As I said, not sure you can actually class this is a bug as the manual does not mention where pit lane speed limits are policed. I think that it would be nice for it to do so though.

As Mo says, I don't know of any other circuit it's not the traffic lights and single white line at both ends of the pits, but I've never tried it at the others either.

[Simon Gymer]

If you've ever watched F1, you will see just how much time Michael Schumacher makes not only on the in/out laps but also in the pit lane road just by practicing the fastest way through the pit road (excluding speed limited zone). You can often visibily see he is going a lot quicker than other drivers up to the white line. That's how I view the pit stops, they're not just about fuel and tyres, they're about making up as much time as possible on entry/exit, selecting the tyres/fuel in the pit board as fast as humanly possible and not losing a single split second in the whole process, down to turning the engine back on and having the right revs to get out of the pit box quickly.

There have been the odd occasion where I've come in the pits behind somebody and been really held up in the pit road just because they have no idea how fast they can drive on it. Where I've had the practice time before hand I practice pit entry and exit as much as possible as it can be vital to your track position.

Being good at the execution is about practice. I don't always manage a good entry / exit and just like everyone else I have been known to overcook it and hit the barriers.

[Paul968]

Since I dredged all this up, I'll add my 2p to the subject.

I have no problem at all with optimising your pitstop time by practicing, working out how fast you can enter and exit, perfecting your pit board handling, etc. While Simon did nothing technically wrong, where I think it becomes slightly questionable is exploiting what appears to be a loophole/anomoly/inconsistency (delete as you see fit) in the track implementation, because it sort of encourages the attitude of searching for such loopholes. I think this is different to practising because it would never happen in real racing - there is always a clear line to show you where to accelerate. We stop people exploiting the rather loose track cutting code, and I can see parallels in the anders pit lane issue.

Maybe this is an isolated case, in which case there is no point worrying too much about it - everyone will know from now on. If it's not then I don't think its in the league's interests to have people appear to win races because they have more time to search for anomolies. Perhaps the rules need to be more precise on what the pitlane really is - I bet we all assumed it was deliniated the lights at each end (and I expect so did Dave when the rules were drafted?).

Paul