Finally completed this 2 days ago & thought I'd share some insights. I did this together with 2 friends spread over about 36 hours.
First, on cars, we didn't want to use the X1, but still had a large selection to choose from. In the end I did a fair bit of testing and found the best overall compromise to be the Bentley Speed 8. It was very close on lap times to a Sauber C9 or Minolta Toyota, but I could still eke out 10 laps without changing tires or refuelling as opposed to about 8 with the Sauber. This actually improved as we got smoother over time to 11 laps between changes, but that was an absolute limit due to fuel. I changed some settings on the diff and suspension slightly, with the end result of a very slightly understeery, but also very stable car. In fact all of us really liked the car.
I also tested the 787B, Audi R10 TDi and Peugeot Fap, but couldn't really get any of them close to the same lap times, despite possibly better economy.
In all, I probably did about 12 hours, while my friends split the other 12. Best lap was a 3:10.098, which I did with a G27 wheel. Initially we all struggled on the last lap before a change due to very worn tires. The cool thing is though, as you get smoother, you actually go faster and wear your tires less. On the first day, we were getting pretty tired though, so we switched to the controller. This made consistent lap times somewhat harder (best I managed was just under 3:14) and made the last lap a real pain due to increased tire wear. Fortunately, it does pay off in that it is physically considerably less exhausting than the wheel.
In the end, we did 418 laps. This is with someone continually racing, but also includes some pretty bad laps. Also, we didn't have a drop of rain. Started the race with nearly no clouds in the sky, maybe that's a good indicator.
The fastest AI car was a Pescarola Hybride, which did 387 laps, meaning the top limit for them is probably 390 or so. It seemed to pit every 9 laps or so and was running around 3:30's. I also saw a fair few AI cars having really bad laps on occasion, nice to know we're not the only ones suffering from tire wear.
Final credits & exp are 890.000 cr. and just shy of 4.6 million exp.
Fun to do once, especially with a bunch of friends, but it is seriously exhausting. Both my friends now seriously doubt they want to do it themselves, even though they're very close to lvl 35.
I'm guessing an X1 could maybe average a 2:30 lap time including stops? In that case 17 hours is probably sufficient, but I doubt I'll be grinding this race.
First, on cars, we didn't want to use the X1, but still had a large selection to choose from. In the end I did a fair bit of testing and found the best overall compromise to be the Bentley Speed 8. It was very close on lap times to a Sauber C9 or Minolta Toyota, but I could still eke out 10 laps without changing tires or refuelling as opposed to about 8 with the Sauber. This actually improved as we got smoother over time to 11 laps between changes, but that was an absolute limit due to fuel. I changed some settings on the diff and suspension slightly, with the end result of a very slightly understeery, but also very stable car. In fact all of us really liked the car.
I also tested the 787B, Audi R10 TDi and Peugeot Fap, but couldn't really get any of them close to the same lap times, despite possibly better economy.
In all, I probably did about 12 hours, while my friends split the other 12. Best lap was a 3:10.098, which I did with a G27 wheel. Initially we all struggled on the last lap before a change due to very worn tires. The cool thing is though, as you get smoother, you actually go faster and wear your tires less. On the first day, we were getting pretty tired though, so we switched to the controller. This made consistent lap times somewhat harder (best I managed was just under 3:14) and made the last lap a real pain due to increased tire wear. Fortunately, it does pay off in that it is physically considerably less exhausting than the wheel.
In the end, we did 418 laps. This is with someone continually racing, but also includes some pretty bad laps. Also, we didn't have a drop of rain. Started the race with nearly no clouds in the sky, maybe that's a good indicator.
The fastest AI car was a Pescarola Hybride, which did 387 laps, meaning the top limit for them is probably 390 or so. It seemed to pit every 9 laps or so and was running around 3:30's. I also saw a fair few AI cars having really bad laps on occasion, nice to know we're not the only ones suffering from tire wear.
Final credits & exp are 890.000 cr. and just shy of 4.6 million exp.
Fun to do once, especially with a bunch of friends, but it is seriously exhausting. Both my friends now seriously doubt they want to do it themselves, even though they're very close to lvl 35.
I'm guessing an X1 could maybe average a 2:30 lap time including stops? In that case 17 hours is probably sufficient, but I doubt I'll be grinding this race.
