[Snipped Alot of interesting stuff].
The problem is this can give conflicting results due to the random
attributes assigned to the AI.
If you adjust the AI cars to a small amount of randomness then this test
is should give a accurate answer.
mykey
: % If I lower the pitting window (hope that's the right word, I mean the
: % number of laps after which the CC cars go to the pits) in ICR2, what
: % do the AI cars do?
: I haven't done any "real hard" tests, but the few I did seem to indicate
: that they run as if they have a lighter fuel load from the start. If
: you set the pit window extremely small (say 10-12 laps), I think you
: will see that they do seem to run faster than with the normal fuel load
: the first few laps after the tires warm up.
This is a good way to find out what really happens. If you don't already
have a copy of the Crew Chief utility for ICR2 then go to a site such as
Michael's (http://www.teleport.com/~mcarver) or several other sites
(thanks guys) and get a copy.
Once you get it installed you can easily change the pit window for any
track.
Once the pit window is set, go to that track and get a replay of some AI
laps. The best way to do this is to set up a 100% race, then use
Accelerated time to let the AI turn some laps. Make a note of the top 6
drivers so you can plot them out (see later).
Save the replay. Make sure that the AI has gone at least 10 laps or it
won't do much. You can name it something easy to remember, like pit12
(for pit window of 12 laps) or pit45 (for pit window of 45 laps).
Go back into the Crew Chief utility and go into Edit Replay. Use Edit
Replay to get a Lap Report. Don't forget to use a .LAP extension. Save
it as the same name as the replay so you can remember where it came from
(like pit12.lap or pit45.lap).
Exit Edit Replay and then select Telemetry Data. Change the selection to
Lap Chart. Go to the track you saved the replay in and pick the file
(such as pit12.lap).
Using the top 6 drivers you wrote down earlier, select them to Graph.
Graph the drivers and check their lap times (min, avg, max).
Now do a longer or shorter pit window. Repeat these steps to see how the
lap times are effected.
Then choose a race of 50 laps. Set the pit window to 40 laps. Save the
replay as above and plot the graph. Look at the laps around laps 32-40.
Are the laps from 41 to 50 the same range. If so, they take less fuel to
get the job done. If they are like laps 1-10 then they take a full tank.
I personally have not done this test either (or I would have just told you
the answer since it is less typing ;). I am willing to bet that they take
just enough fuel for the short run to get the job done.
Also, I think you will find that they will NOT change the pit strategy
based on race length. For example, if the race is 50 laps and the pit
window is 40 laps, then they WILL pit on lap 40. However, they will NOT
usually pit on Lap 25 and split the race in two.
That's why if you do the stop at lap 25, you can easily win since you can
turn faster laps on the lighter fuel loads.
Again, this works best using Accelerated Time (for obvious reasons ;).
Sorry for the long post.
