Talk:Front-Runner (v5.5.0)/@comment-122.178.67.76-20171010202506/@comment-108.171.129.163-20171011145907

Congratulation!

I didn't manage it! Just another gold drain...

I got through Day 6 with just 1111001 and not too much retries (had to skip 6.5) but then day 7 and day 8 were a killer for me.

6.5 you have to do 4 laps in average ~44s each. First one I did in 47s and then some in 39s in best case, But then each time the steering jumped until I was down to another 47s-lap. Thus failing by ,8 to 3s. Decent upgrading didn't help was always something like that 47+42+39+48  = 2:56 no matter what I tried. So I skipped.

7.1 I finished with 1111111 and pause-resume and unexpectedly divine shifting in 8.991s second.

7.2 seemed easy enough but I just couldn't win. My best was 1:58 but 1st and sometimes even the third bot were doing 1:55 and 1:56. Looked up some videos to see where I failed and guess what guys with FU cars won in 2:20 to to even 2:28! So much for FM choose the opponents matching your skill/level/PR whatsoever... After maybe a 100 runs and several upgrade-restore variants I skipped.

7.3 with upgrade to 2122212 I did okay here although I had a lot of retries because spinning the leader off the track and overtaking in consequence.

7.4 same as 7.2 the first 3 bots were so fast, that I didn't get close even without skidding. While other had PropellerFactory or Sparx as top bot I had HoodooVoodoo, Keed07 and SpeedyParkins every single time! => skipped

7.5 was okay after I changed my strategy. First I tried to skid a bit or a lot in the first two corners, but that costed me to much speed and the gap got too small to stay first in the second lap. Then I began to avoid skidding on the first lap and thus had still 700 to 800m lead at begin of lap 2. While skidding "perfectly" through the last two corners I came up to ~16s drift time and around 120m lead left. Then throwing the car around and sliding perpendicular to the track across the finishing line to get up to 20s. Sometime the second car even pushing me. It took some practice to hit 20s and still be first, but then it was done.

7.6 was hard in the beginning, but then I found out. After failing the first or second time after service I didn't start as 10th but 9th car and the 10th car was right in front of cars 1, 2 and 3 slowing them down. Thus doing the first round without skidding I was 4th or 3rd after half a round and 2nd at the end of lap 1 sometimes even with 5 of 5 drifts then. Now all I had to do was get close enough to the leader and following him for a lap without to much gap and not pushing him off track or overtaking. That took maybe 50 retries since the first car sometimes got that slow at the end of lap 3 that both of them spun off track or I hit the leader off track or he got alongside the slow car and was way ahead in mere seconds while I was braking to avoid spinning him off track again... Finally I managed when day 8 had already begun.

8.1 was relatively easy. You had to push Norm to 7th place through the first 3 corners and then to the 5th place at the end of the long straight. Then he would finished 4th of 3rd on his own and all you would have to do is get 5th yourself. Unfortunately, Norm obviously didn't want to be pushed to a better place and kept braking and pushing me off-track a lot or I didn't make it to 5th place after I finally succeeded. But eventually I did it.

8.2 and 8.3 were out of reach for me. Even with 2242213 or 4222213 I failed each time. Sometimes I managed to pass Norm 6 times missed a corner or touched a wall and he was off and away. Or I got passed him and he didn't overtake but stayed behind me and finally turned me around and went off. When I skipped 8.2 I had not enough gold for engine updates left and thus I ran out of time still trying to do 8.3 with 2242213 (PR 89).

So I wasted 355GC on updates and 140GC on skips, but hey I got rewarded with 35GC! => net lost 460GC.

What frustrates me most is guys with FU could win most of those challenges unserviced hands down due to much lower targets and I didn't get even close although my times would have beaten theirs by far and on the other hand guys like you managed to win with a lower PR and I don't  know where I went wrong... Please don't think I am jealous. I am not! I am really happy for you and everybody who won, but I keep thinking targets should be higher for better player and managable for not so skilled once not vice versa. And as it is it is more a pay-to-win and killing the fun.

I had lot's of fun till day 6. Driving a car which is as fast and has as little grip in corners as the Venom without assists and a PR much lower than recommented was really challenging and fun. (speed trap 435.63 kph were other had 407!!! But finally I did 436.21. Man, I was happy that day. Or winning 6.4 with 0.084s to spare.)

But then my level of frustration kept growing. Bot management didn't work for me, repairs took sooo long and commercials kept repeating the same non-sense over and over (with every second commercial requiring a ID reset). I won the Koenigsegg One:1 (1100 GC car) with 195CG but 400 weren't enough for a 900GC car... In former challenges I found the last day easier than the day before, but here it looks like they don't want people to win.

So again congrats to all and thank you for the great support again!!! Your hints and videos helped a lot! But now I will crawl into my cave and lick my wounds and will not come back till I got my GC back doing nothing but logging in or looking a few commercials... ;D