- 72
- MA USA
- GTP_gc700,goofycool700
Edit: When I wrote this I had all of the challenge and license golds and I THOUGHT that I had all of the B-spec event gold trophys (found out much later that I was missing a BEGINNER round gold!). This lead me to believe that the people stating that one only needed to get all A-spec OR B-spec gold to get platinum were incorrect. Well, as everybody knows, they were right, I was wrong
. I really, really thought that I needed to win the last three A-spec enduros if I wanted platinum. I am guessing that most people that have read this were thinking, "Why doesn't he just do the B-spec? He's an idiot!" <---They're right too. There is a thread called something like "Dumbest thing you've done in GT5". For most, including me, it was quiting the FGT challenge before starting the last round because we didn't need the points from that round to win the championship. Well I think this beats the hell out of that:
_________________ GT5 version 2.08 before tire wear was increased and PPs changed.
To Platinum or not to Platinum? That is the question. Wait, wait, wait; why is that a question? Of course we Platinum. Well, maybe. It depends on what allure Platinum has to people. It may be the Holy Grail to some, others it may be the holey pail and still to others it may be considered out of reach. That allure can be greatly influenced by the position in the game that one finds themselves in.
I had put myself in the latter two categories, the Platinum trophy does not mean anything to me (but I'd take one) and I never expected to try and get it for one Very Large Reason and another pretty big reason. The pretty big reason was the Vettle Challenge. I did it about a year ago with a bit of an effort, got bronze, got my Red Bull and said this car is nothing like the rest of the game so I'll stop here (part of me was saying was "There's no way that I can do this." and I'm a pretty confident guy. I think I had most of the other golds at that time). The Very Large Reason is The Last Three A-spec Endurance Races. I don't expect to be inclined to EVER do them. 24 hours at Le Mans? Where's the time? 24 hours at the 'ring? I get tired just thinking about it? 9 HOURS AT Tsukuba??? Are you freakin' kidding me. Sure, let's go race around in a goldfish bowl until we vomit then let's do it again! For another 8 and a half hours! No time change, no weather. What does that do to one's IQ? That "event" probably kills more brain cells than a weekend long binge of cheap tequila combined with even cheaper recreationals. It's just plain Tsupid.
About two months ago, I found myself bored and I decided to play around with the Vettle challenge again. I Went to Nurburgring first. I found myself with a silver pretty quickly and an hour later I had gold. WTH? Went to Suzuka, got silver, got obsessed and about a day later had gold. OK. After Nurburgring and Suzuka, Monza Gold was literally a 10 minute affair.
So now I find myself with the pretty big reason for not getting Platinum gone, leaving the Very Large Reason still there. No way I'm doing the enduros...NO WAY. I'm pretty sure that there is no way on earth that I have the time to do them. There is definitely NO WAY that I could afford to lose one and get the Platinum. Seeing that I really do not care about the Platinum, there's no way that I'm going to X1 them. That would be silly to me. Maybe. The allure of the Platinum might be gaining strength.
Lately I've been playing around with no ABS, tire wear, weather, time change and AIs set to 10 in arcade mode and I have found that THIS is how offline should be. NOT the stupid format of the seasonals, which is nothing more than platformmer gaming disguised as a race game. Well this revelation combined with the fact that the pretty big reason for not getting Platinum is gone has lead me to entertain the thought of MAYBE trying the 24 hour 'ring. I thought that I wouldn't mind it so much in a GT500 car because I like them and their speed is manageable. However, I figured that I would have to use an LMP car. I picked the R10(has one of the best cockpit views in the game) to do a test run of a few laps to determine if there is any way that I could convince myself to do the whole 24 hours and low and behold when I enter the race I find a lineup that I thought beatable in a GT500 car. I exit and get the '08 Xanavi Nismo GT-R because it is very easy to drive, pretty forgiving, the visibility out of the cockpit is good and I like the sound. After 20 minutes of trying, I find that line up again and set out to try a few laps. Here are the details of my test run.
Testing details:
No aids,no ABS, cockpit view, G27 FFB at 10 and H (gated) shifter on right. I should move the shifter to my left to emulate the Xanavi but since I've never done this before I figure that this would be a disaster.
The Car:
'08 Xanavi Nismo GT-R
Car is stock except for:
Aero 40 / 65
Ride Height: 0 / -5
Brake balance: 2 / 2
Can't post the transimition yet.
Power is limited to 480 hp to get rid of the spike in the power band
600pp
Tires: Racing hard
Line up:
R10
2J
F1 Mclaren
Ford GT race car
Citroen race car
Oreca Viper
XJ13
Lister Storm
Some Corvette race car
Some Camaro race car
Nissan 390 race car
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The early part of my several lap test of the 24 hours of Nurburgring:
My test starts out in overcast weather with a dry track. Start is pretty easy as I late brake my way up to third going into the first turn. I find myself in 1st when I'm leaving the GP section. I get out to about a ten second lead. This is doable. On lap two I get passed by the R10 and everyone's favorite 2J on Dottinger-Hohe. Badly. This is not doable. Then they pit! Cool. I'm in 1st after 2 laps. If they are on a two lap cycle and I'm on a three lap, this is doable. The 2J and the R10 pass me while I'm in the pits on lap 3 then I pass them back while they pit on lap 4. On lap 6 we arrive in the pits together I don't take any fuel and I get out of the pits 1st. Don't know if this is doable or not but it is interesting. I pull out a small lead of 10 to 15 seconds over the course of the 1st 8 laps because I'm only taking minimum fuel in order to run as light as possible. I'm using 12L/lap. Lap 12 I need to take 40L of fuel and there goes 1st. The 2J and the R10 leave the pits 15 seconds ahead of me and I realize that I'm in a dogfight. With this 3 lap vs. 2 lap strategy and some inconsistent driving on my part I can't tell if I have any advantage anywhere. The gap goes from a worst of -30 seconds to +15 and my toughest opponent seems to be the 2J. He's always in the lead when he's not second to me. I can get the better part of them when we leave the pits together and we are on our second lap. Their tires seem to be going and my racing hards are feeling really good but I can't get enough of an advantage on my third lap to not get caught while I'm in the pits. This goes on for the entire daylight hours of my several lap test and I can't squeeze out any advantage. I have to be perfect and I'm not.
I'm liking the Nismo. It's working for me as planned. Good visibility, pretty easy to drive and pretty forgiving. It has a little bit of push to it but I find that a subtle lift of the throttle when entering fast corners gives me a smidgen of oversteer which can give me an extra 5mph through the 1st fast right hander of the Nordshleife portion, Flugplatz and Schwedenkreuz. With this lift, I can get WFO through these corners pretty quickly. I could have loosened up the LSD a bit and the setup might have been faster but this is just a test...
Dusk sets in on my several lap test of the 24 hours of Nurburgring:
As the sun gets really low in the hazy sky, the battle has simplified a little as the 2J has dropped of the pace a bit. On our converging pit laps the R10 and I are leaving the pits as he's getting jacked up. Simplified, yes. Easier, not a chance. After 4.5 hours we are glued together. I work my butt of to get any kind of gap before Dottering-Hohe only to get it obliterated there. He is 5 seconds faster than me from the penultimate time check to the start finish. In the 1st few laps I blocked them a couple of times there but quickly decided that I was going to race it clean. That WILL change if I find myself on the last lap in that situation. I'll wear out my back bumper for sure. Because I'm not using ABS and I have a break balance of 2/2 for tire wear considerations I have to be pretty careful with trail breaking. On one lap, the R10 is behind me on the start/finish straight. Entering turn one, he goes underneath me and outbreaks me but goes a little, tiny bit high and I feel like I have a little breaking left so I go underneath him and stay in 1st. No contact. Love it. Under-under. Why can't seasonals be like this? Soon after, my wipers come on. Oh-oh. A light rain sets in and I freak out a bit. It's getting pretty dark I've never been on the 'ring at night. Throw in rain and this could be bad. Well it's just a test anyway...??? The rain lasts for about 5 laps and ends just as It's getting really dark and I feel better.
__________________________
Dark part of my several lap test of the 24 hours of Nurburgring:
It is DARK. I switch to a 2 lap strategey using racing mediums because I'm twitchier in the dark with these lights. They don't illuminate far enough for me. I find myself driving on a little more on faith than precision. I used to race mountain bikes and most of my training rides were after work. We have some pretty decent woods with some pretty nice single track riding around here. As it got later in the year we ran out of daylight but the weather was too nice to do indoor training so we bought some kick your butt lighting systems. We found that providing we knew the trails, we could actually go faster at night than in the daylight. The lights narrowed your focus to where you were going. It was as if you were going through a tunnel. No peripheral distractions. Also rocks were much easier to see with their faces lit and a shadow behind them. BUT, if you're mind drifted and you forgot where you were and you were going really fast, disorientation and panic set in instantly. Here in my first night stint at the 'ring, I have had panic and disorientation set in numerous times as I'm getting tired and I can't stay focused for crap. Glad I switched to race mediums.
At the end of lap 51 (7.5 hours into my test) I have a +0.14 second lead. Start of lap 52 I'm in second going into turn one. I'm really loving this. Lap 62 I see largest lead of the race at +29 seconds. On lap 63 while going into the Mercedes section of the GP course I noticed that it is REALLY dark and I'm thinking that everyone in the stands went home. Entering Ford-Kurve, my lights light up the stands and I see people in them. What are they doing there? What am I doing in the sand? My biggest lead of +29 second is history. +15 now. Damn. Then I toss it again and my margin but not my lead is gone. Back to work. Lap 70 Is my best lap of the race at 8:18.96 and I gain 1, one, uno second and increase my lead to a whopping 8 seconds. The R10 is the Terminator. Freakin' relentless. I hit the JACKPOT on lap 71. I leave the pits with a 12 second margin (I'm 4-5 seconds a lap quicker in the pits thank God) behind three back markers all fighting each other. The XJ13, Lister Storm and Oreca Viper. I manage to get by them very easily before Nordshleife but the Terminator doesn't. He loses 8 seconds that lap (probably lost the time ripping each one apart and drinking there fuel). My lead is now +21 second. Yeah baby. On Lap 77, 11 hours into this and 2 hours after my 1st 29 second lead, I have a 30 second lead back halfway through the lap. I'm really tired and I relax for a second and I wind up tossing 10 seconds away spinning out exiting the Karousel. Damn. Lap 78 sees me toss away the rest of the 30 seconds and lap 79 sees my hit the suspend button and say hello to some good tequila.
So the conclusion of my little test to explore the possibility of doing the 24 hours of the 'ring seems to be pretty conclusive. I'm in
. I absolutely, positively lucked out with this combination of car, car setup and opposing line up. 11.5 hours of racing, lots of lead changes and a 2 second lead. Just awesome.
As far as getting the Platinum goes, If I lose this race, Platinum ain't gonna happen anytime soon. If I win it, well, maybe. There's that vomit inducing gold fish bowl to race around that is just a huge deterrent. Maybe I can bribe my friend with pizza, beer and cheap recreationals to come over and do it for me. He likes enduros and pizza.
______________________
I'm back at it and pysched up a bit. This has been the best offline race I've ever had.
It's still dark and dry. My 1st lap back feels fast but it's not but I maintain my lead. The old adage "If it feels like your going fast, you're probably not and if it feels like you are going slow, you're probably flying" pops into my head. I get focused and start to put in some good laps and I'm having a blast. I still cannot shake the Terminator because of little mistakes but I'm not stressing out over him. I set my fastest lap on consecutive stints and my lead is still only 5 second. There are 6 lead changes during this stretch.
Dawn on my race that was a test:
I start to see the outline of hills emerge from the darkness and it charges me up. Driving in the dark was really getting old and the change is welcome. I manage to put together three consecutive clean stints. That is the first time in the race that that has happened. In spite of that, my lead is still only 8 seconds. The sun has not risen yet but it should be rising soon.
The Terminator is the Terminator when he is behind me. Just relentless. But he seems to be some ordinary guy in a Terminator costume on Halloween when he is in the lead. He is still fast but when I get close enough to attempt a pass, he doesn't fight particularly hard and that lets me get the lead back.
__________________
Morning of my race that was a test (13.5-15.5 hours):
It's pretty misty; kinda neat. I put in some absolute dog meat laps for a while but I somehow manage to keep it close. The Terminator and I go back and forth for a while before I get straightened out a bit and start putting in some consecutive clean runs. The turning point for me was while I was in 2nd, he got held up by the Ford GT in the twisty bits between the Karousels and I managed to get by both of them in one move. That got me a 6 second gap, some focus and some confidence. I start smoothing out and going faster. I actually have a pit stop that I leave the pits before T arrives. First time that's happened since I went to two lap stints. On lap 112 (16 hrs. in) I am up to a whopping 59 second lead! I get a little to amped up by that info and toss it at the worst possible place; right before the final straight! Instead of going down the straight at 175mph, I'm just reaching 173 at the end of it. I lose 18 second because of that. So now I've got 8 hours to go and I have a 41 second lead.
_______________________
I'm back at it. Fog obscures the sun. I get going pretty well with a few mistakes over the next hour and a half. My lead is up to 1 minute and I feel like I got this in hand (what a putz!).
17 hours in:
The rain starts and I get distracted by it and I miss a pit stop. Fortunately I've been carrying an extra lap of feul for just this reason but I have to llimp around on toasted tires. My lead is down to 25 seconds. When I get back to the pits, the track is at 6% and I assume it's going to keep rising so I switch to RS tires. With the track at 23% wet at my next pit stop, The crew chief tries to put inters on my car but I want RSs again. The ensuing arguement with him causes confusion and I wind up getting 96 liters of feul instead of 39 and I get an RS on the rear and an inter on the front. I loose my lead and I'm 50 seconds down leaving the pits, the car feels like a brick with all of this feul and tire combination, I can't see sh** because of the rain (cockpit view) AND I have to stop at the next lap to get my tires sorted out! This is bad. I drove so hard to get a 1 minute lead over the previous hour and a half and after this I'm down 1:20! Race calculater says: "You're SCREWED!"
I'm annoyed with myself, dejected because I think that I just tossed the race away. I plug away. The track gets up to 38% wet at 18.5 hours (lap129) then starts to dry. I get a 5 lap stint and a 3 lap stint and in this time I retake a temporary lead but I'm down a pit stop. My mood gets better, and as the rain stops, I get my lead back.
It's 20.5 hours with overcast skies and, as usual, I have a 2 second lead.
__________________
Final hours of my race that was a test:
3.5 hours to go. Sky is overcast, it's dry and my lead is miniscule. 2 seconds. Out on the course, I must have a 3 to 8 second advantage over the Terminator during an average dry two lap cycle because I wind up with about a 2-8 second lead. He's got a 5 second advantage throught the last straight to turn one (3 second on the last straight alone) and I've got 5 seconds on him in the pits. So that's :08 to him, :05 to me leaves me at deficit of :03. When I am perfect for several stints I can increase my lead ever so slightly.
With 3 hours left the rain starts. I pit and the track is at 6%. I switch to RSs and I can maintain a good pace. Unfortunately, so can the T. It's hard for me to go fast, traction is good but I can't see. There are sections that I'm almost completely blind (not switching to bumper cam). The T does not have this problem with his high tech super secret vision system. Also we are not pitting as often and I lose my 5 second pit advantage. I'm working and sweating my arse off and I am in trouble. With one hour left, the pouring rain finally gets the track to about 70% and the Terminator's nuclear fuel cell must have go wet and he falls off of the pace DRAMATICALLY. At first this is a relief but than it's a bummer. All I have to do is stay on the track and I'll have an easy win.
For 23 hours, this has been an intense, exciting, emotionally ringing race. The end saw me sitting just before start/finish line at 23:55 with a 12 minute lead. When the timer hit 24:00:01, I drove over the finish line and won.
Sitting and staring at the finish line for 5 minutes before I could finish left me with a total feeling of amivalence. I didn't feel happy, sad or anything for that matter. I just got up and did some dishes.
_______________________
Epilogue:
This experience perfectly sums up a lot of criticisms and frustrations that players of this game have had. The game can be so stunningly amazing with it's detail to the driving/racing experience and yet be flawed enough to ruin that feeling of amazement. It teases us with it's brilliance and shocks us with it's shortcomings. The fact that the AIs can't keep a decent pace in very wet conditions is a bad flaw. If the track had stayed below 65%(roughly, not exactly sure) wet, I would have had to cross the finish line with my hair on fire to get the win. I would have been incredibly satisfied, sitting back and drinking good tequilla, not doing dishes while thinking about mundane stuff. I got unlucky.
As far as going for the Platinum trophy goes, now I need Tsukuba 9hrs. and Le Mans. ???????? dunno.
_______________________
Miscellaneous notes:
I used 12.5 liters/lap. I kept 15 in reserve. During two lap pit cycles, I left the pits with 42 liters.
There is no time penalty for taking around 15 liters. That's about how much fuel goes in the car during tire changing. If you take 15l instead of 0l at the begining, you will get more 0 time penalty pit stops.
I had 3 periods of rain. 1st - 0% wet track, 2nd - 38% wet track, 3rd - 100% wet.
Suspended the race 4 times and saved the data twice at around 13 hours and 16 hours. I was tempted (but conflicted) to stop at 23 hours and do a save as a safety precaution but I kept forgetting. 5-6 lap stints outlasted my memory
With the track up to about 60-70 percent wet, the AI can keep a good pace. Wetter than that, the anchors come out for them.
__________________
Worth nothing -
Fastes laps: RH 8:21, RM 8:18, RS 8:14 in the dry. 100% wet - RS, 9:25ish. RM and RS dry laps were the "in" lap of a two lap pit cycle.
You get about 19,600,000 XP with 200% login bonus. That's funny right there.
If you don't want to, you cannot lose an endurance race.
. I really, really thought that I needed to win the last three A-spec enduros if I wanted platinum. I am guessing that most people that have read this were thinking, "Why doesn't he just do the B-spec? He's an idiot!" <---They're right too. There is a thread called something like "Dumbest thing you've done in GT5". For most, including me, it was quiting the FGT challenge before starting the last round because we didn't need the points from that round to win the championship. Well I think this beats the hell out of that:_________________ GT5 version 2.08 before tire wear was increased and PPs changed.
To Platinum or not to Platinum? That is the question. Wait, wait, wait; why is that a question? Of course we Platinum. Well, maybe. It depends on what allure Platinum has to people. It may be the Holy Grail to some, others it may be the holey pail and still to others it may be considered out of reach. That allure can be greatly influenced by the position in the game that one finds themselves in.
I had put myself in the latter two categories, the Platinum trophy does not mean anything to me (but I'd take one) and I never expected to try and get it for one Very Large Reason and another pretty big reason. The pretty big reason was the Vettle Challenge. I did it about a year ago with a bit of an effort, got bronze, got my Red Bull and said this car is nothing like the rest of the game so I'll stop here (part of me was saying was "There's no way that I can do this." and I'm a pretty confident guy. I think I had most of the other golds at that time). The Very Large Reason is The Last Three A-spec Endurance Races. I don't expect to be inclined to EVER do them. 24 hours at Le Mans? Where's the time? 24 hours at the 'ring? I get tired just thinking about it? 9 HOURS AT Tsukuba??? Are you freakin' kidding me. Sure, let's go race around in a goldfish bowl until we vomit then let's do it again! For another 8 and a half hours! No time change, no weather. What does that do to one's IQ? That "event" probably kills more brain cells than a weekend long binge of cheap tequila combined with even cheaper recreationals. It's just plain Tsupid.
About two months ago, I found myself bored and I decided to play around with the Vettle challenge again. I Went to Nurburgring first. I found myself with a silver pretty quickly and an hour later I had gold. WTH? Went to Suzuka, got silver, got obsessed and about a day later had gold. OK. After Nurburgring and Suzuka, Monza Gold was literally a 10 minute affair.
So now I find myself with the pretty big reason for not getting Platinum gone, leaving the Very Large Reason still there. No way I'm doing the enduros...NO WAY. I'm pretty sure that there is no way on earth that I have the time to do them. There is definitely NO WAY that I could afford to lose one and get the Platinum. Seeing that I really do not care about the Platinum, there's no way that I'm going to X1 them. That would be silly to me. Maybe. The allure of the Platinum might be gaining strength.
Lately I've been playing around with no ABS, tire wear, weather, time change and AIs set to 10 in arcade mode and I have found that THIS is how offline should be. NOT the stupid format of the seasonals, which is nothing more than platformmer gaming disguised as a race game. Well this revelation combined with the fact that the pretty big reason for not getting Platinum is gone has lead me to entertain the thought of MAYBE trying the 24 hour 'ring. I thought that I wouldn't mind it so much in a GT500 car because I like them and their speed is manageable. However, I figured that I would have to use an LMP car. I picked the R10(has one of the best cockpit views in the game) to do a test run of a few laps to determine if there is any way that I could convince myself to do the whole 24 hours and low and behold when I enter the race I find a lineup that I thought beatable in a GT500 car. I exit and get the '08 Xanavi Nismo GT-R because it is very easy to drive, pretty forgiving, the visibility out of the cockpit is good and I like the sound. After 20 minutes of trying, I find that line up again and set out to try a few laps. Here are the details of my test run.
Testing details:
No aids,no ABS, cockpit view, G27 FFB at 10 and H (gated) shifter on right. I should move the shifter to my left to emulate the Xanavi but since I've never done this before I figure that this would be a disaster.
The Car:
'08 Xanavi Nismo GT-R
Car is stock except for:
Aero 40 / 65
Ride Height: 0 / -5
Brake balance: 2 / 2
Can't post the transimition yet.
Power is limited to 480 hp to get rid of the spike in the power band
600pp
Tires: Racing hard
Line up:
R10
2J
F1 Mclaren
Ford GT race car
Citroen race car
Oreca Viper
XJ13
Lister Storm
Some Corvette race car
Some Camaro race car
Nissan 390 race car
___________________________
The early part of my several lap test of the 24 hours of Nurburgring:
My test starts out in overcast weather with a dry track. Start is pretty easy as I late brake my way up to third going into the first turn. I find myself in 1st when I'm leaving the GP section. I get out to about a ten second lead. This is doable. On lap two I get passed by the R10 and everyone's favorite 2J on Dottinger-Hohe. Badly. This is not doable. Then they pit! Cool. I'm in 1st after 2 laps. If they are on a two lap cycle and I'm on a three lap, this is doable. The 2J and the R10 pass me while I'm in the pits on lap 3 then I pass them back while they pit on lap 4. On lap 6 we arrive in the pits together I don't take any fuel and I get out of the pits 1st. Don't know if this is doable or not but it is interesting. I pull out a small lead of 10 to 15 seconds over the course of the 1st 8 laps because I'm only taking minimum fuel in order to run as light as possible. I'm using 12L/lap. Lap 12 I need to take 40L of fuel and there goes 1st. The 2J and the R10 leave the pits 15 seconds ahead of me and I realize that I'm in a dogfight. With this 3 lap vs. 2 lap strategy and some inconsistent driving on my part I can't tell if I have any advantage anywhere. The gap goes from a worst of -30 seconds to +15 and my toughest opponent seems to be the 2J. He's always in the lead when he's not second to me. I can get the better part of them when we leave the pits together and we are on our second lap. Their tires seem to be going and my racing hards are feeling really good but I can't get enough of an advantage on my third lap to not get caught while I'm in the pits. This goes on for the entire daylight hours of my several lap test and I can't squeeze out any advantage. I have to be perfect and I'm not.
I'm liking the Nismo. It's working for me as planned. Good visibility, pretty easy to drive and pretty forgiving. It has a little bit of push to it but I find that a subtle lift of the throttle when entering fast corners gives me a smidgen of oversteer which can give me an extra 5mph through the 1st fast right hander of the Nordshleife portion, Flugplatz and Schwedenkreuz. With this lift, I can get WFO through these corners pretty quickly. I could have loosened up the LSD a bit and the setup might have been faster but this is just a test...
Dusk sets in on my several lap test of the 24 hours of Nurburgring:
As the sun gets really low in the hazy sky, the battle has simplified a little as the 2J has dropped of the pace a bit. On our converging pit laps the R10 and I are leaving the pits as he's getting jacked up. Simplified, yes. Easier, not a chance. After 4.5 hours we are glued together. I work my butt of to get any kind of gap before Dottering-Hohe only to get it obliterated there. He is 5 seconds faster than me from the penultimate time check to the start finish. In the 1st few laps I blocked them a couple of times there but quickly decided that I was going to race it clean. That WILL change if I find myself on the last lap in that situation. I'll wear out my back bumper for sure. Because I'm not using ABS and I have a break balance of 2/2 for tire wear considerations I have to be pretty careful with trail breaking. On one lap, the R10 is behind me on the start/finish straight. Entering turn one, he goes underneath me and outbreaks me but goes a little, tiny bit high and I feel like I have a little breaking left so I go underneath him and stay in 1st. No contact. Love it. Under-under. Why can't seasonals be like this? Soon after, my wipers come on. Oh-oh. A light rain sets in and I freak out a bit. It's getting pretty dark I've never been on the 'ring at night. Throw in rain and this could be bad. Well it's just a test anyway...??? The rain lasts for about 5 laps and ends just as It's getting really dark and I feel better.
__________________________
Dark part of my several lap test of the 24 hours of Nurburgring:
It is DARK. I switch to a 2 lap strategey using racing mediums because I'm twitchier in the dark with these lights. They don't illuminate far enough for me. I find myself driving on a little more on faith than precision. I used to race mountain bikes and most of my training rides were after work. We have some pretty decent woods with some pretty nice single track riding around here. As it got later in the year we ran out of daylight but the weather was too nice to do indoor training so we bought some kick your butt lighting systems. We found that providing we knew the trails, we could actually go faster at night than in the daylight. The lights narrowed your focus to where you were going. It was as if you were going through a tunnel. No peripheral distractions. Also rocks were much easier to see with their faces lit and a shadow behind them. BUT, if you're mind drifted and you forgot where you were and you were going really fast, disorientation and panic set in instantly. Here in my first night stint at the 'ring, I have had panic and disorientation set in numerous times as I'm getting tired and I can't stay focused for crap. Glad I switched to race mediums.
At the end of lap 51 (7.5 hours into my test) I have a +0.14 second lead. Start of lap 52 I'm in second going into turn one. I'm really loving this. Lap 62 I see largest lead of the race at +29 seconds. On lap 63 while going into the Mercedes section of the GP course I noticed that it is REALLY dark and I'm thinking that everyone in the stands went home. Entering Ford-Kurve, my lights light up the stands and I see people in them. What are they doing there? What am I doing in the sand? My biggest lead of +29 second is history. +15 now. Damn. Then I toss it again and my margin but not my lead is gone. Back to work. Lap 70 Is my best lap of the race at 8:18.96 and I gain 1, one, uno second and increase my lead to a whopping 8 seconds. The R10 is the Terminator. Freakin' relentless. I hit the JACKPOT on lap 71. I leave the pits with a 12 second margin (I'm 4-5 seconds a lap quicker in the pits thank God) behind three back markers all fighting each other. The XJ13, Lister Storm and Oreca Viper. I manage to get by them very easily before Nordshleife but the Terminator doesn't. He loses 8 seconds that lap (probably lost the time ripping each one apart and drinking there fuel). My lead is now +21 second. Yeah baby. On Lap 77, 11 hours into this and 2 hours after my 1st 29 second lead, I have a 30 second lead back halfway through the lap. I'm really tired and I relax for a second and I wind up tossing 10 seconds away spinning out exiting the Karousel. Damn. Lap 78 sees me toss away the rest of the 30 seconds and lap 79 sees my hit the suspend button and say hello to some good tequila.
So the conclusion of my little test to explore the possibility of doing the 24 hours of the 'ring seems to be pretty conclusive. I'm in
. I absolutely, positively lucked out with this combination of car, car setup and opposing line up. 11.5 hours of racing, lots of lead changes and a 2 second lead. Just awesome.As far as getting the Platinum goes, If I lose this race, Platinum ain't gonna happen anytime soon. If I win it, well, maybe. There's that vomit inducing gold fish bowl to race around that is just a huge deterrent. Maybe I can bribe my friend with pizza, beer and cheap recreationals to come over and do it for me. He likes enduros and pizza.
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I'm back at it and pysched up a bit. This has been the best offline race I've ever had.
It's still dark and dry. My 1st lap back feels fast but it's not but I maintain my lead. The old adage "If it feels like your going fast, you're probably not and if it feels like you are going slow, you're probably flying" pops into my head. I get focused and start to put in some good laps and I'm having a blast. I still cannot shake the Terminator because of little mistakes but I'm not stressing out over him. I set my fastest lap on consecutive stints and my lead is still only 5 second. There are 6 lead changes during this stretch.
Dawn on my race that was a test:
I start to see the outline of hills emerge from the darkness and it charges me up. Driving in the dark was really getting old and the change is welcome. I manage to put together three consecutive clean stints. That is the first time in the race that that has happened. In spite of that, my lead is still only 8 seconds. The sun has not risen yet but it should be rising soon.
The Terminator is the Terminator when he is behind me. Just relentless. But he seems to be some ordinary guy in a Terminator costume on Halloween when he is in the lead. He is still fast but when I get close enough to attempt a pass, he doesn't fight particularly hard and that lets me get the lead back.
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Morning of my race that was a test (13.5-15.5 hours):
It's pretty misty; kinda neat. I put in some absolute dog meat laps for a while but I somehow manage to keep it close. The Terminator and I go back and forth for a while before I get straightened out a bit and start putting in some consecutive clean runs. The turning point for me was while I was in 2nd, he got held up by the Ford GT in the twisty bits between the Karousels and I managed to get by both of them in one move. That got me a 6 second gap, some focus and some confidence. I start smoothing out and going faster. I actually have a pit stop that I leave the pits before T arrives. First time that's happened since I went to two lap stints. On lap 112 (16 hrs. in) I am up to a whopping 59 second lead! I get a little to amped up by that info and toss it at the worst possible place; right before the final straight! Instead of going down the straight at 175mph, I'm just reaching 173 at the end of it. I lose 18 second because of that. So now I've got 8 hours to go and I have a 41 second lead.
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I'm back at it. Fog obscures the sun. I get going pretty well with a few mistakes over the next hour and a half. My lead is up to 1 minute and I feel like I got this in hand (what a putz!).
17 hours in:
The rain starts and I get distracted by it and I miss a pit stop. Fortunately I've been carrying an extra lap of feul for just this reason but I have to llimp around on toasted tires. My lead is down to 25 seconds. When I get back to the pits, the track is at 6% and I assume it's going to keep rising so I switch to RS tires. With the track at 23% wet at my next pit stop, The crew chief tries to put inters on my car but I want RSs again. The ensuing arguement with him causes confusion and I wind up getting 96 liters of feul instead of 39 and I get an RS on the rear and an inter on the front. I loose my lead and I'm 50 seconds down leaving the pits, the car feels like a brick with all of this feul and tire combination, I can't see sh** because of the rain (cockpit view) AND I have to stop at the next lap to get my tires sorted out! This is bad. I drove so hard to get a 1 minute lead over the previous hour and a half and after this I'm down 1:20! Race calculater says: "You're SCREWED!"
I'm annoyed with myself, dejected because I think that I just tossed the race away. I plug away. The track gets up to 38% wet at 18.5 hours (lap129) then starts to dry. I get a 5 lap stint and a 3 lap stint and in this time I retake a temporary lead but I'm down a pit stop. My mood gets better, and as the rain stops, I get my lead back.
It's 20.5 hours with overcast skies and, as usual, I have a 2 second lead.
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Final hours of my race that was a test:
3.5 hours to go. Sky is overcast, it's dry and my lead is miniscule. 2 seconds. Out on the course, I must have a 3 to 8 second advantage over the Terminator during an average dry two lap cycle because I wind up with about a 2-8 second lead. He's got a 5 second advantage throught the last straight to turn one (3 second on the last straight alone) and I've got 5 seconds on him in the pits. So that's :08 to him, :05 to me leaves me at deficit of :03. When I am perfect for several stints I can increase my lead ever so slightly.
With 3 hours left the rain starts. I pit and the track is at 6%. I switch to RSs and I can maintain a good pace. Unfortunately, so can the T. It's hard for me to go fast, traction is good but I can't see. There are sections that I'm almost completely blind (not switching to bumper cam). The T does not have this problem with his high tech super secret vision system. Also we are not pitting as often and I lose my 5 second pit advantage. I'm working and sweating my arse off and I am in trouble. With one hour left, the pouring rain finally gets the track to about 70% and the Terminator's nuclear fuel cell must have go wet and he falls off of the pace DRAMATICALLY. At first this is a relief but than it's a bummer. All I have to do is stay on the track and I'll have an easy win.
For 23 hours, this has been an intense, exciting, emotionally ringing race. The end saw me sitting just before start/finish line at 23:55 with a 12 minute lead. When the timer hit 24:00:01, I drove over the finish line and won.
Sitting and staring at the finish line for 5 minutes before I could finish left me with a total feeling of amivalence. I didn't feel happy, sad or anything for that matter. I just got up and did some dishes.
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Epilogue:
This experience perfectly sums up a lot of criticisms and frustrations that players of this game have had. The game can be so stunningly amazing with it's detail to the driving/racing experience and yet be flawed enough to ruin that feeling of amazement. It teases us with it's brilliance and shocks us with it's shortcomings. The fact that the AIs can't keep a decent pace in very wet conditions is a bad flaw. If the track had stayed below 65%(roughly, not exactly sure) wet, I would have had to cross the finish line with my hair on fire to get the win. I would have been incredibly satisfied, sitting back and drinking good tequilla, not doing dishes while thinking about mundane stuff. I got unlucky.
As far as going for the Platinum trophy goes, now I need Tsukuba 9hrs. and Le Mans. ???????? dunno.
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Miscellaneous notes:
I used 12.5 liters/lap. I kept 15 in reserve. During two lap pit cycles, I left the pits with 42 liters.
There is no time penalty for taking around 15 liters. That's about how much fuel goes in the car during tire changing. If you take 15l instead of 0l at the begining, you will get more 0 time penalty pit stops.
I had 3 periods of rain. 1st - 0% wet track, 2nd - 38% wet track, 3rd - 100% wet.
Suspended the race 4 times and saved the data twice at around 13 hours and 16 hours. I was tempted (but conflicted) to stop at 23 hours and do a save as a safety precaution but I kept forgetting. 5-6 lap stints outlasted my memory
With the track up to about 60-70 percent wet, the AI can keep a good pace. Wetter than that, the anchors come out for them.
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Worth nothing -
Fastes laps: RH 8:21, RM 8:18, RS 8:14 in the dry. 100% wet - RS, 9:25ish. RM and RS dry laps were the "in" lap of a two lap pit cycle.
You get about 19,600,000 XP with 200% login bonus. That's funny right there.
If you don't want to, you cannot lose an endurance race.
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. As far as the rain goes, I just wish that the last bit of rain didn't slow down my competition because it made the last hour too easy. 
