Currently, when you run out of fuel, your car eventually dies and you can’t do anything but quit. That means getting no credits or XP for the portion of the race you have run, and it also means you’d have to start all over again which is particularly frustrating on an endurance race.
Players should be able to call mulligan, get back to the pits, refuel, and finish their race. I can see two complementary ways of achieving this:
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“Return to pits” menu option. When players hit start/escape to show the race menu, an option allows them to get to the pits immediately. Players would be brought back to pits and would have to start their lap again (as opposed to being moved forward and skipping to the next lap, which would require calculating some penalty).
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Limp mode. When out of fuel, cars run on limp mode that limits either their speed or power output. Players should have enough power/speed to be able to reach the pits in a reasonable amount of time on longer tracks, without being unreasonably fast. Players should be ghosted while limping, to avoid being a nuisance.
Both of these options should incur enough of a time loss that there would be no need to add extra penalties, or that there shouldn’t be any concern that players would somehow abuse it.