RD Formula Manager - Season 7

[Jimlaad43]

Nick ERS to the end, Low

 

[rubaru]

Ram F1
Lap 15
Clark Focus Low
Rosberg Focus Medium
Lap 16
Clark Focus Medium ERS
Rosberg Aggressive Medium ERS

 

[Azabadaza]

Lap 15
Hulk push low, "cool down" engine
Rossi focus high

Lap 16
Hulk focus medium
Rossi focus medium

 

[Slyfrequency]

Lap 15

Both Drivers, Steady Low. Pit, G Softs.

Lap 16

Give All, Low

 

[Aidan Keranen]

Lap 1
Mika ERS
Alonso ERS

Lap 2
both 2KF1 focus high, save fuel, ERS

 

[TTupsi]

Lap 1
Simona Push+low
Michele Push+low, pace up

Lap 2
Simona Focus+high+ERS, hunt them
Michele Push+low

 

[kedy89]

1st lap
PET focus high
MSC focus high
BEL focus medium
RIC focus high

2nd lap
PET focus high, ERS, pace up
MSC focus high, ERS, pace up
BEL focus medium, ERS, pace up
RIC focus high, ERS, pace up

no fighting between teammates, if one's faster than the other let him pass.

 

[Omer Said]

Pit Radio is Closed

 

[Omer Said]

Spoiler: The Final Lap

 

[Omer Said]

Your budgets will be posted in the next season's thread.

Championship Results:

@kedy89 - HUGE CONGRATULATIONS for achieving both titles again. The last race did not reflect the true competition you got in the whole season, I guess? Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?
@TTupsi - A victory and also finished as 2nd at the constructor's title, must be promising for the next season? Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?
@Azabadaza - You have been competitive whole season and from 7th to 3rd in the constructor's must be a big leap for the team, and also there is Hulkenberg's 3rd place in the drivers'. It must be a big achievement for the team. Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?
@Aidan Keranen - It is no secret that the team lacked motivation and passion in this season, especially in the final few races. What were the problems? Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?
@rubaru - Are you satisfied with the progress you made from the last season to this one, or a bigger one was planned? Also was that pit call mistake helpful for Clark's 5th place finish today? Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?
@Slyfrequency - Is it fair to say that you took a rather conservative approach to this season as we saw your drivers not pushing to the limits most of the time? Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?
@Jimlaad43 - Resurrection of DTK under a whole new brand and manufacturer sounds like a tough job against a field of strongly established bases. Did the positive progress you managed to establish from the first race till the final race in Japan satisfy you? Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?

HUGE THANKS to all managers, it was a great season for me and I enjoyed it a lot. I hope to see you all next season, ready to challenge even greater targets.

ROADMAP to the NEXT SEASON (May take some weeks to complete)

1. I will ask you for your opinion regarding dozens of topics about the game and how it should be updated before the next season.
2. I will post in the HOF/Discussion thread with tags to the players active in the other forum games/played this game before and quitted. I will ask their opinion in parallel to a suggestion made by Tobi earlier.
3. (Optional) I want to test a single update non-championship race with equal cars and drivers to see how it works or not.
4. The next season will be opened.

 

[Azabadaza]

@Azabadaza - You have been competitive whole season and from 7th to 3rd in the constructor's must be a big leap for the team, and also there is Hulkenberg's 3rd place in the drivers'. It must be a big achievement for the team. Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?

This season has certainly been a breakout for the team. In the off-season we decided to go hard and pick up some top drivers, successfully poaching Hulkenberg. We started the season with BMW engines, hoping that they could bring the speed they had promised over the previous seasons. Despite upgrades coming in each round, this speed was not forthcoming. I spoke with Aston Martin about attaining a competitive package following the opening race, and they were more than happy to have another competitive team to rival the rival Lamborghini package. With Aston Martin engines, a well developed chassis possessing good durability and great speed, we were always going to be strong. Aston Martin owner @Aidan Keranen was quoted midway through race 4 saying "why did we give these engines to such a strong car". Unfortunately through mid season I lost a bit of focus and threw a couple of races away due to not paying attention on the pit wall. If these mistakes hadn't appeared, I feel that we had the package and the drivers to rival BRT. In the races we were completely active, we made a good attempt at keeping pace.
Congratulations to @kedy89 on another championship, it is certainly well deserved and a testament to your hard work and dedication to the series and forum racing in general.
I hope that season 8 is well received by others outside the series, and that people inside the series continue to be active participants. Next season will be an interesting one for me. I will be starting a new job, moving from Ballarat (in Victoria) to Perth in Western Australia. My work roster will be 8 days of 12hr shifts in a row up in the Pilbara, away from home, before a 6 day break at home in Perth. I hope that I have acceptable access to the internet in the mining camp on site so I can do daily updates.
If I don't speak to anyone beforehand, Merry christmas and have a happy new year!

 

[kedy89]

@kedy89 - HUGE CONGRATULATIONS for achieving both titles again. The last race did not reflect the true competition you got in the whole season, I guess? Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?

Thank you! No, not really. While there was someone to give us a fight in pretty much each race, it hasn't always been the same team. It changed between Girl Power, Reed Road Racing and 2KF1. Our consistency with both cars then allowed us to build a gap to those 3. By no means it was a walk in the park though to win both titles, as it had been in season 5. One slip-up could've been costly, especially in the drivers' championship.
All in all happy with how the season turned out for us with BRT. We had some good fights with Girl Power, RRR, and 2KF1, producing exciting races. The Lamborghini engine still lacks a pit in pace compared to the Aston Martin, but we could pass them in some other areas. And the upcoming regulation changes might play in our favour.
As for Silver Soul, 6th place is a big success for sure, it doesn't reflect the actual ranking though. Despite working on the Ferrari engine non-stop for the last 2 seasons, we've only fallen further behind, rendering us chanceless in the races. We sincerely hope that something will change in that regard for next season, else it doesn't make any sense to continue running the team.
For season 8 we expect the competition to be even closer than it was, the new engine regulations should take care of that. Hopefully it'll allow other suppliers apart from Lambo and Aston to fight for wins. Also we hope to see some new teams, the current grid size isn't exactly healthy.

Once again top job moderating @Omer Said, enjoyed the season a lot (apart from the unexpected issues ). Look forward to what you have in store for the next one

 

[rubaru]

@rubaru - Are you satisfied with the progress you made from the last season to this one, or a bigger one was planned? Also was that pit call mistake helpful for Clark's 5th place finish today? Please summarize your feelings with the season, and your insights on the next one?

First of all, big thanks to @Omer Said for moderating another excellent season. Although I had a few issues with the way certain things were handled, that's all just my own problem and not his.
Thanks go to @Aidan Keranen for providing the excellent Aston Martin engine again this season. Our switch in Season 6 marked the beginning of a new era for Ram F1. I think having some great cars up front like Reed and Girl Power really help boost his development. I certainly feel like fourth place of the four A-M runners, so we'll be looking to continually improve the chassis to keep up.
Also thanks to my close competition in this game, mainly my fellow mid-fielders like Silver Soul and Elysium. They kept me on my game and I honestly feel lucky to have taken P5 in the Constructors.

Back to the race in Japan, the mistake for Clark actually really screwed up the entire strategy on both sides of the garage. My race engineer had the wrong frequency set when he called in Clark, and it was Rosberg who actually heard the message. He was confused but never questioned the order, so that might be something we need to work into next season's race protocols. Luckily, we were able to scramble to calculations in time to conserve Clark's pace just enough to give him a one-stop race, so it accidentally worked out just fine. As for Rosberg, he actually ran quite well. His issue on Lap 10 proved to be relatively minor. We just had a sensor issue about a coolant leak, but it all appeared to be just fine, so we sent him back out right away. He managed to pull back up to around 12 seconds behind Clark, which is a pretty amazing recovery considering he ended up on a three-stopper. Unfortunate his issue didn't arise earlier, or we might have taken care of it on a planned stop.

 

[Omer Said]

No more ambigious descriptions to show engine stats:

 

[rubaru]

The graph is really nice, but I think numbers would help me more. That's just me.

 

[Omer Said]

The graph is really nice, but I think numbers would help me more. That's just me.

Indeed, direct numbers would make it easier. But no need for easier.

 

[Omer Said]

SISTER TEAM REGULATION CHANGE PROPOSAL
Sister Teams should be about developing drivers for the main teams. For this reason, I propose the changes below:
- Sister Teams cannot do engine/tyre/risky tests.
- Sister Teams cannot have more than 10 level of chassis and 3 level of qualifying.
- Sister Teams can do 2 driver tests in a single marketplace period.
- Sister Teams can buy 4 skills per driver at each marketplace period.

A REGULATION CHANGE PROPOSAL to AVOID AWOL-DISASTERS
- Make the "engineer" available to all teams by default. Let it also be useful for preventing "chassis failure" retirements by dropping to %0 HP.
- Engineer can be triggered for once each race. (No change here)

REALISTIC DRIVER CONTRACTS (Will be effective at Season 9)
- Discard the bidding and relationship systems.
- Let managers approach to drivers like in real life. Offer them money and try to win them over the other interested parties.
- Drivers will prefer their previous teams. They will require 500 more credits from the other teams compared to their previous team.
- No randomness.

ANOTHER DRIVER CONTRACT PROPOSAL (Will be effective at Season 9)
- Discard the relationship system.
- Let managers to retain one of their drivers with 1000 credits.
- The 2nd drivers are decided with the current bidding wars system. No relationship bonuses are applied.

NEW ENGINE DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM
- Total of Durability, Speed and Reliability stat numbers of an engine dictates its level.
- Too much levels means slower development with each upgrade.
- Manufacturers can degrade some of their engine stats to gain faster development speed. (For example, decrease durability to make speed ugprades faster)
- Discard test failure chances.

KEEP THE 7-RACE CALENDAR for FASTER PROGRESSION

What are your opinions on these proposals?

 

[kedy89]

SISTER TEAM REGULATION CHANGE PROPOSAL
Sister Teams should be about developing drivers for the main teams. For this reason, I propose the changes below:
- Sister Teams cannot do engine/tyre/risky tests.
- Sister Teams cannot have more than 10 level of chassis and 3 level of qualifying.
- Sister Teams can do 2 driver tests in a single marketplace period.
- Sister Teams can buy 4 skills per driver at each marketplace period.

Not sure what to think of it, sounds like sister teams will be even less competitive than before. Also I have no interest in developping drivers for other teams than my own. Why should I want to create a top driver, just to lose him to a rival team of BRT the next season, wihout any compensation at all?

A REGULATION CHANGE PROPOSAL to AVOID AWOL-DISASTERS
- Make the "engineer" available to all teams by default. Let it also be useful for preventing "chassis failure" retirements by dropping to %0 HP.
- Engineer can be triggered for once each race. (No change here)

Is it once per race for each driver? Don't know how it is now since I never saw the need for an engineer myself.

REALISTIC DRIVER CONTRACTS (Will be effective at Season 9)
- Discard the bidding and relationship systems.
- Let managers approach to drivers like in real life. Offer them money and try to win them over the other interested parties.
- Drivers will prefer their previous teams. They will require 500 more credits from the other teams compared to their previous team.
- No randomness.

ANOTHER DRIVER CONTRACT PROPOSAL (Will be effective at Season 9)
- Discard the relationship system.
- Let managers to retain one of their drivers with 1000 credits.
- The 2nd drivers are decided with the current bidding wars system. No relationship bonuses are applied.

The first one sounds a bit better. Have you thought about implementing a system similar to Tapio's in CGPM? Imo that was very well thought out, might work here as well?

NEW ENGINE DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM
- Total of Durability, Speed and Reliability stat numbers of an engine dictates its level.
- Too much levels means slower development with each upgrade.
- Manufacturers can degrade some of their engine stats to gain faster development speed. (For example, decrease durability to make speed ugprades faster)
- Discard test failure chances.

Sounds quite good, though I still think player manufactured engines will keep the upper hand, since they can dictate the direction of development. Does the third point only apply to player engines, or all? If it's the former, they'll have a huge advantage.

KEEP THE 7-RACE CALENDAR for FASTER PROGRESSION

I'd rather say keep it because of few teams. Longer calendar with few teams will probably only make the gaps in the standings bigger. If there are a couple of new teams, it might be worth considering an extension.

 

[Audi]

Obviously being new to this, those proposals sound fine imo

 

[Omer Said]

Not sure what to think of it, sounds like sister teams will be even less competitive than before. Also I have no interest in developping drivers for other teams than my own. Why should I want to create a top driver, just to lose him to a rival team of BRT the next season, wihout any compensation at all?

Update on the proposal:
- Previous sister team drivers will have the same 500 cr bidding advantage for the main team as well.
- One of the sister team drivers can be signed up by the main team before the bidding wars directly for 1000 cr.
- Sister Teams can't use the same engine/tyre as their main team. (It was actually a part of my earlier draft, forgot to include)

Is it once per race for each driver? Don't know how it is now since I never saw the need for an engineer myself.

Per once for each driver. After engineer saves a driver from running out of fuel or chassis failure, he is disabled for the rest of the race for that driver.

The first one sounds a bit better. Have you thought about implementing a system similar to Tapio's in CGPM? Imo that was very well thought out, might work here as well?

Tapio's system was really nice. I would not want to bring multiple year contracts, but drivers costing more according to their skills/stats might come. However, keeping things simple at some areas is also a good idea, giving most teams a close chance on driver biddings is a way to spice things up.

Sounds quite good, though I still think player manufactured engines will keep the upper hand, since they can dictate the direction of development. Does the third point only apply to player engines, or all? If it's the former, they'll have a huge advantage.

Manufacturer teams should have an advantage imo. They paid for their investments. Deducting stats will still cost extra money by the way. They won't be able to decrease their stats for free. Also, the test failure chance still exists only for manufacturer engines.

To give customer teams a bit more, a new item will be added to the marketplace which is a bit more expensive engine test, but allows you to pick only two outcomes to decrease luck factor.

-----

Formula BMW invites managers to participate at their show race. Managers will sit on the driver seat and fight against each other with %100 equal machines. This 16 laps race will be a single update. There will be a single lap qualifying as well. I will post the race details and take your strategies after discussing the rule changes a bit more.