Pace Cars

I to am having the same problem with pace cars losing ID's. but mine only happens when I am running 4 pace cars and 2 cars are racing . I have change cars, changed ID's and still 2 cars will fail before 20 laps in the race. it will happen even faster if a pace car is rear ended or falls off the track once the race is restarted it will lose ID, Everyone tells me I have the old rev chip I don't I have rev "G" chips with the orange capacitor. I have checked the wiring in the cars and all is well. I too am running the latest software and firmware. this did not happen with the previous rev's I thing it's either a problem with the firmware or software don't know which yet. I am sure other people are having the same issue, if your are. let us know how you fixed it or when the problem happens. It was much better when I could run 4 pace cars !!!!

Been doing a lot of testing. The issue appears to be related to the Pace Car check box in the driver tab. When checked the program doesn't always apply the setting, in fact very rarely does it activate straight off. After checking Pace Driver I had to restart both the APB and the SSDC program to get it to activate.

In testing I checked the box, the car that was working as a pace car could not be run when a controller was plugged into the corresponding APB port (because it's a pace driver). The pace car that wasn't working could be run using a controller plugged in to the corresponding APB port (the pace driver check hadn't activated). I tested this a number of times with different firmware in the APB and different SSDC versions. The results were always the same. If the Pace Driver check box had activated and the car ran as a pace car, I couldn't run it with a controller plugged in. If the pace driver check hadn't activated. I could run the car with a controller plugged in.

The other thing I found was that even though the function had activated after restarting the APB and SSDC, the problem pace car wouldn't run unless I started a race. The Run Pace Car in Freeplay didn't activate the car. Only by setting up a race and starting it could I get it to run. After I had started a race and stopped it, both cars would run as pace cars by activating Run Pace Cars in Freeplay. ODD!!

So, I believe there is some issue with the Pace Driver check box in that it doesn't activate Pace Driver in the program consistantly. By restarting the APB and SSDC a couple of times after the check box is ticked the Pace Driver function usually activates but only by starting a race.

Ok. Now I have a different and/or additional problem...

I started off again tonight with a fresh race and the pace car was working... Kind of.

The car would do a lap or two quite nicely (variable throttle) before appearing to randomly speed up on some of the corners ...or maybe fail to slow down.
I had the target lap time set a half second slower than the recorded lap time to avoid it trying to speed up. I've also tried having the target lap speed at the same or faster... Same problem.

I cleared the data and rerecorded a few laps going very conservatively, and that worked great for a few laps but then it got (apparently) randomly faster and spun off in corners that I had deliberately slowed down a lot for in the recorded laps.

I can't work out how to make it stick to what I actually recorded. Which is really annoying because of rthe first few laps i can get it to do quite fast laps... And if it would just do what it was told, it would be brilliant.

Am I missing something?

Cheers

Andrew

Had to take my track down as we had visitors. When I put it back up I did a different layout and so the story begins.

I had SSDC v 5.4.2 and firmware v 1.09. I tried to re-record pace car data for the new track layout. After clearing the old data I could not record any new data. Tried numerous times with different cars, ID's and controllers, you name it. Read some more threads and went back to SSDC v 5.4.1 firmware v 1.07. I recorded pace car data successfully at this point but could not get the cars to run consistently. I did have to check and uncheck the boxes a number of times for dynamic and progressive braking and pace driver and variable throttle to get them to run at all.

The next issue was that one of the pace cars would do 4 or 5 laps then slow down to a crawl. After passing the track sensor for the end of the lap it would then go ballistic and deslot within a couple of seconds. This was not consistent to one car, it did it for both at different times.

I am now back to SSDC v 5.4.2 and firmware v 1.09 using the pace car data I recorded in SSDC v 5.4.1 with firmware v 1.07. I am not game to try re-recording the data. At first only one car ran, did 4 laps, slowed for a lap then went crazy. I concentrated on this car only and unchecked and re-checked all the flags in the driver window a number of times. Ran it in a race on it's own then ran it in free practice mode. It nows seems to run OK with variable throttle consistently.

Did the same with the second car, Check and un-check the flags in the driver window repeatedly. Ran it in a race on it's own. Then ran it in free practice.

Both cars ran OK with variable throttle with just the two pace cars on the track. Don't know what will happen when I next go to use the track (it's all powered down now).

The upshot is, the pace cars are really twitchy no matter what version of software/firmware I use. I can get them to settle down by repeatedly checking and un-checking boxes and running them in both race and free practice modes.

It seems that something is not registering properly within the software unless boxes are repeatedly checked and different modes are used to run the pace cars. After doing all this they seen to settle down.

Any thoughts????

Just powered up again and it seems I was wasting my time. Started a race with just the two pace cars. Pace 2 ran, pace 1 just sat there. Checked and un-checked the pace driver box and pace 1 started. After 4 laps pace 1 slowed to a crawl and then went to ridiculous speed after crossing the lap sensor.

Stopped the race and deleted the race results. Selected run in freeplay. Pace 1 ran pace 2 didn't. Checked and un-checked the boxes for the pace 2 driver. Nothing. Started a race - both cars ran but pace 1 slowed again after 4 laps.

Ran each pace car on it's own on the track in freeplay. Both ran fine individually. Tried a race again and got the stupid slowing down and speeding up but this time for pace 2.

I give up.