Vanilla Balance Mod Beta - Testers Wanted

[TheFlamingRed]

http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/motorsport-manager-balance-mod-part-1.12965/

Make sure you down load all the parts!​

This mod has now been released. All the changes are listed in the above link. If a Forum Admin is reading this, if you could remove the "Testers Wanted" and change it to "Development Discussion" thread, it would be appreciated.

UPDATED TO WORK WITH 1.3​

Note: In attempts to fix the interviews and dilemmas, I have temporarily removed all non English languages from those two files. I hope to reinsert them into a later version (but when I do, they'll still be the vanilla text as I am unable to translate in any other language).

 

[MechWOLLIer]

TheFlamingRed, i want to say that it's really cool what you are doing with your mod!

I want to try it out...but too be honest i am even tu stupid to install your mod. You are downloading the three rar files, and you should just copy two single files (and for me it's not clear if you should copy the ressources.assets from the first or the second rar file) and don't do anything with the .txt files? What should i do? To be honest, i think your readme isn't really clear in that thing

 

[calvg]

TheFlamingRed, i want to say that it's really cool what you are doing with your mod!

I want to try it out...but too be honest i am even tu stupid to install your mod. You are downloading the three rar files, and you should just copy two single files (and for me it's not clear if you should copy the ressources.assets from the first or the second rar file) and don't do anything with the .txt files? What should i do? To be honest, i think your readme isn't really clear in that thing

You'll need all 3 parts

but the assets 1 + 2 need to be unrar'd at the same time, so highlight both files at same time and right click and extract together. they will then create only one file

And the assemble is just straight forward on its own.

Then move then to the locations in the read me

 

[Beynasuh]

Hi Everybody;
Okey FlamingRed got Fan Base report:



Also found a trait with no effect:



And an interview bug:

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Hi Everybody;
Okey FlamingRed got Fan Base report:

View attachment 178473 View attachment 178474

Also found a trait with no effect:

View attachment 178471

And an interview bug:

View attachment 178472

Thanks for this. Worryingly, Fanbase has only gone down for 3 teams (2 by 0.1 and Rossi who haven't fallen a bit more). Meanwhile everyone else has stayed static or risen. However, the player has managed to improve his fanbase by a % not matched by anyone. Stars have risen too, and not gone down unless a team has been demoted. Somgoing back to starts is just as bad for those poor GT teams.

The issue is, if I balance something on a stat which is forever rising, it's not really possible to define a 'top, bottom and middle - when defining how many sponsor stars a team should be having. E.g., ERS may start at 1, but in three years everyone will have two, etc etc. Also, WMC will stop needing any marketable drivers soon, as they'll all have high fanbase / stars.

It's why I think Championship position makes the most sense, as there's always going to be that 1st, a 5th and a 10th.

I was considering something like

D1 + D2 + TM / (Championship position * tier)

So that tier 3 teams don't get the top prizes. And I can refine that so that teams sponsors are a little closer too." But I think the issue is GTI will be considered Tier4, not a new Tier1.

I am sure there is a 'happy equation' somewhere. Just got to find it.

As for Broke Up With TeamMate, I don't know without looking maybe Brian can tell you or I'll have a look on Sunday evening.

As for that Interview,,,, I wonder if I broke it, I'll double check the tags with the new 1.31 interviews and see if I've knocked out a comma or something, thanks for keeping me apprised.
How is Interview Variability in general? Is there a set of questions being asked over and over and over again?

 

[TheFlamingRed]

A second note: a long term ago, I made Critical Parts the most Important aspect of the car performance - and is based purely on the rank of the part. I.e., you got 0.2s bonus if all your parts are 1 performance point abouve the next car, or 1000 performance points above the next car. It also results in, if you have the top piece in Front and a Rear Wing, but. Othing in Engine, gearbox, suspension or brakes, there are a couple of tracks you'll easily win (where front and rear wing only are critical) and others you'll come close to last (where the others are critical).

In vanilla, simply the performance part number was the most important (and it made the Average in the car report graph very important).

My change was done because
1 - the 1st to 20th spread of critical part importance was 0.3s in long... so only tiny amounts between ranks (modded it's about 7s).
2 - to prevent a player who won WMC from running away - getting ever more time advantage by improving parts further

The thing is, the Tech decay system should not be preventing a player from running away with a championship. It renders point 2 much less of a factor. Point 1 is still valid - but doesn't need to be where ALL of the time gap comes from.

So - while I'm at work tomorrow, debate whether I should leave it as it is, and keep critical parts the most important thing in car performance and race pace.

Or should I find a happier medium, so Critical Parts are important, but so is the Average Points. This may take some variability away but it will make race performances a bit more consisistant - and bring a new purpose to the cars average points.

I kinda have a fondness of the the Critical Part trumps all - as it means you are focusing on how to improve parts of your car at the expense of another, to match with the tracks you have in a season. But I think there's probably someone who could find a counter argument.

Anyway, given how the mod has progresssed, it's a discussion worth having.

 

[Beynasuh]

The issue is, if I balance something on a stat which is forever rising, it's not really possible to define a 'top, bottom and middle - when defining how many sponsor stars a team should be having. E.g., ERS may start at 1, but in three years everyone will have two, etc etc. Also, WMC will stop needing any marketable drivers soon, as they'll all have high fanbase / stars.

Except that the Team star system is used in your new marketability calculation, we don't know that fanbase and team star have normally (unmodded) any effect on marketability or income (I mean the revenue buildings). So even if a team would have 100 mil fanbase (as an example) that doesn't show it will get 5 star sponsors. As for the stars system a team with 5 stars would need a least 200 total marketability (D1+D2+T) to get a 5 star sponsor pro quote your formula (D1+D2+T/7-TS / if I am not wrong). So even if the team marketability has 5 stars, the 2 drivers still needed to bring in 100 marketability point together for a 5 star sponsor.

It's why I think Championship position makes the most sense, as there's always going to be that 1st, a 5th and a 10th.

I was considering something like

D1 + D2 + TM / (Championship position * tier)

So that tier 3 teams don't get the top prizes. And I can refine that so that teams sponsors are a little closer too." But I think the issue is GTI will be considered Tier4, not a new Tier1.

That system looks harsh. Let's say a ERS team who is in 5th place with 100 marketability for each driver and team;
100+100+100 / (5*3) = 20
An the gap just between the 1st team (100+100+100 / (1*3) = 100) and the 2nd team (100+100+100 / (2*3) = 50) is to high. The 1st team gets 5 Star sponsor and the 2nd team gets 2 Star Sponsor. That is unfair.

Also with all the changes in your mod, I thing money became almost the most important factor (Because costs in improvement, driver and chassis dilemma choises, gaining money is much more harder then Vanilla). I play with a Finance Background;
- Have Level 2 Factory and Design Center / Level 1 Satff / Scouting / Forecast buildings
- Develop new parts for all non-spec parts every year (2 in each category and sometimes even 3)
- Try to build best chassis in pre-season (1-1.1 Stars without dilemmas)
- Try hire drivers and staff with low cost and high skill (and marketability for drivers)
and I am still near the bottom in Part and Car categories in my 4th season. Yes I finished 5-7 in previous seasons but that was because almost half the season half of the cars in racing got retired. Even after half the season they were cars who would still retire. In this situation I got only one 2 Star sponsor after 3 seasons. With the Championship position it would slow down the progress even further. Also since the devs made the car more important then the driver with the last version (bad driver with good car beats good driver with average car) if I can't get better sponsor, I don't get money and that leads to no improvement (or very small). So the player will most likely stuck in the end for a long (and with a slow progression) time. I think in the long run it will kill the fun and excitement in the game.

How is Interview Variability in general? Is there a set of questions being asked over and over and over again?

Except where I finished in a podium position (1 time, with lots retirement and literally half the race behind safety car) I had the first and second questions to be about how my drivers were at that race. If there was a crash involving my drivers the 3th question was almost always who's fault it was. And again almost every time the 4th question was which of my drivers was better.

So - while I'm at work tomorrow, debate whether I should leave it as it is, and keep critical parts the most important thing in car performance and race pace.

Or should I find a happier medium, so Critical Parts are important, but so is the Average Points. This may take some variability away but it will make race performances a bit more consisistant - and bring a new purpose to the cars average points.

As I like the idea of having Critical Parts impact on races, the Average also should consider. On races with one critical part where the others parts could be be spec part, it doesn't sound fair. Getting a big advantage only you have the best part in one category while your average is at bottom hardly seems fair. A system that would consider both (but giving the Critical Parts an edge) seems better in my opinion.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

if I can't get better sponsor, I don't get money and that leads to no improvement (or very small).

I hear what you're saying. Well with the current system (stars) in ERS you're only going to have 2* Max, so 7-2=5... meaning even with 300 marketability from team andndrivers, this becomes a maximum of 60. When you started out with 1 star, you were the 7-1=6 so a maximum of 50%...

So the issue is, if you're 6th or worse, using the championship positions, you're going to have a worse time.

So... what if it became D1 + D2 + TM / (Championship Position * 0.75)

That way, in tenth yo have only a max of 40% (2 star sponsors) - so those bottom few teams is a real struggle for sponsors.
But that rises to 60% at 6th. And 80% at 5th and 100% at 4th - so the midfield war is actually really important to get better sponsors.
And then the top three don't even needed the 300 for D1+D2+TM. (225 for 3rd, 150 for 2nd, 75 for first).

I really need to come and play a season in each tier to see how everything is balanced. Maybe I'll win the lottery and give up my day job

Note that the devs change to make the car performance more important is probably still less then my change, as m change overwrites their one,

xcept where I finished in a podium position (1 time, with lots retirement and literally half the race behind safety car) I had the first and second questions to be about how my drivers were at that race. If there was a crash involving my drivers the 3th question was almost always who's fault it was. And again almost every time the 4th question was which of my drivers was better.

Hmmm, so the first two questions are always the same? It seems maybe the changes to ExpectationvsRacePosition may not be fixed properly let. There should be some variation (though they should be asking about the drivers as that's what's in the Set). Is there any difference in interview if you did really badly in a race vs really well (excludeimg a podium).

Question 3 set sounds like it's working well.
Question 4 set sounds like only my default question works. There should be talk of roumours and stuff. I guess I'll add more 'custom. Questions to set 4 first.

It's interesting just how many of their questions are broken.

As the threads chief Intel gatherer, do you want to make a 'screenshot archive' of every (unique) interview question you get? this way I can see which ones work and which ones have bugs - so that I can either make more of the working ones, fix or alter the not working ones to use 'tags' from the working ones

Feel free to say at no. It's a lot of work and you've done so much data gathering work already

As I like the idea of having Critical Parts impact on races, the Average also should consider. On races with one critical part where the others parts could be be spec part, it doesn't sound fair. Getting a big advantage only you have the best part in one category while your average is at bottom hardly seems fair. A system that would consider both (but giving the Critical Parts an edge) seems better in my opinio

Thanks for that.

In vanilla, there's a 30s difference between a 600pt average car, and a 3000pt (WMC) average car. But only a 0.4s difference between having the best critical parts and the worse (which makes them meaningless as 0.4s is negligible)

In my mod, there's 1-3s between the 600-3000pt average. But a full 7s between top and bottom critical parts.

ATM all the strategy is in 'making the best parts to raise my critical rank' - and there's a lot of strategy in that. But maybe a compromise between these two methods (where Vanilla is extreme in the points system, and I'm extreme in the critical parts sections) where an even deeper level of strategy exists. It's certain,y food for thought going forwards.

 

[Beynasuh]

I hear what you're saying. Well with the current system (stars) in ERS you're only going to have 2* Max, so 7-2=5... meaning even with 300 marketability from team andndrivers, this becomes a maximum of 60. When you started out with 1 star, you were the 7-1=6 so a maximum of 50%...

So the issue is, if you're 6th or worse, using the championship positions, you're going to have a worse time.

So... what if it became D1 + D2 + TM / (Championship Position * 0.75)

That way, in tenth yo have only a max of 40% (2 star sponsors) - so those bottom few teams is a real struggle for sponsors.
But that rises to 60% at 6th. And 80% at 5th and 100% at 4th - so the midfield war is actually really important to get better sponsors.
And then the top three don't even needed the 300 for D1+D2+TM. (225 for 3rd, 150 for 2nd, 75 for first)

I made some quick number test (for 50+50+50 / 75+75+75 / 100+100+100). That system looks fine, of course need testing for more detail. But I thing that a *0.70 multiplier would a little better. That would give the 8th team in average marketability (75+75+75) a chance for 2 star sponsors (you need at least 40 marketability for 2 star sponsor and at least 90 for 5 star sponsor) and still only the first 4 teams would be able to get 5 star sponsors on max marketability.

/ /

Note that the devs change to make the car performance more important is probably still less then my change, as m change overwrites their one.

That's good to know that their changes don't effect my game. But how much effective are their changes?

Is there any difference in interview if you did really badly in a race vs really well (excludeimg a podium).

Since I am still on the lower half of the league I guess; my drivers still have low expected positions. Booth drivers usually have middle race results. But even when one gets 17-18 place and I get the how was your diver question, I answer with the happiest (or best) choice about the driver and he/she gets a morale boost (is different for different finishing place), but again when I have a bad result for the driver rarely choosing the middle one gets me a bigger morale boost then upper one.

Question 3 set sounds like it's working well.
Question 4 set sounds like only my default question works. There should be talk of roumours and stuff. I guess I'll add more 'custom. Questions to set 4 first.

It's interesting just how many of their questions are broken.

As the threads chief Intel gatherer, do you want to make a 'screenshot archive' of every (unique) interview question you get? this way I can see which ones work and which ones have bugs - so that I can either make more of the working ones, fix or alter the not working ones to use 'tags' from the working ones

Feel free to say at no. It's a lot of work and you've done so much data gathering work already

About Q3 (the one with crashing), when I blame the other driver he/she gets a +40 marketability trait (Sponsor Ad or something like that can't remember now). I don't know, sounds not quite right to me. I mean the driver also could get a morale decrease or not consider an offer from me or something like that. And some answers don't give anything, like nothing changes on the side line bar.

By unique you mean the ones that come rarely I guess. I love too help. It will take me only to push a button. (which button was it again )

In vanilla, there's a 30s difference between a 600pt average car, and a 3000pt (WMC) average car. But only a 0.4s difference between having the best critical parts and the worse (which makes them meaningless as 0.4s is negligible)

In my mod, there's 1-3s between the 600-3000pt average. But a full 7s between top and bottom critical parts.

ATM all the strategy is in 'making the best parts to raise my critical rank' - and there's a lot of strategy in that. But maybe a compromise between these two methods (where Vanilla is extreme in the points system, and I'm extreme in the critical parts sections) where an even deeper level of strategy exists. It's certain,y food for thought going forwards.

I am sure I will like that. How about like 5-10s between 600-3000 and 5s for Critical Parts.

 

[BrianUK]

Remember though, ERS is bottom tier. They should never get 5-star sponsors even if they are the best in class, because they are the bottom rung of the ladder. Their costs are easily covered by 1 and 2 star sponsors, so they don't really need much more. Getting 5-star sponsors as an ERS team is a part of the broken progression of the vanilla game.If you have 5-star sponsors in ERS, you could sit there until you build all the HQ up and then largely cheese everything else because you can spam the best everything.

If you put them all in the same rankings table, 1st in ERS is 21st of all SS teams.

I'd also find wild swings in marketability a bit jarring. One minute I have 10%, the next I have 100%. I'd prefer if it was staggered between tiers.

 

[weegeebored]

As I like the idea of having Critical Parts impact on races, the Average also should consider. On races with one critical part where the others parts could be be spec part, it doesn't sound fair. Getting a big advantage only you have the best part in one category while your average is at bottom hardly seems fair. A system that would consider both (but giving the Critical Parts an edge) seems better in my opinion.

I agree with this. While there may be critical parts, I like to think that everything interacts to make the car perform. So if it's possible to give the critical parts a slight edge over average because they are "critical" to the specific situation then I would like to see how that works in the game.

 

[Beynasuh]

Remember though, ERS is bottom tier. They should never get 5-star sponsors even if they are the best in class, because they are the bottom rung of the ladder. Their costs are easily covered by 1 and 2 star sponsors, so they don't really need much more. Getting 5-star sponsors as an ERS team is a part of the broken progression of the vanilla game.If you have 5-star sponsors in ERS, you could sit there until you build all the HQ up and then largely cheese everything else because you can spam the best everything.

If you put them all in the same rankings table, 1st in ERS is 21st of all SS teams.

I'd also find wild swings in marketability a bit jarring. One minute I have 10%, the next I have 100%. I'd prefer if it was staggered between tiers.

But the cost in FlamingRed's Blance mod are heavily altered. I agree ERS teams shouldn't have 5 star sponsors, but in consideration of the changes in this mod, low star sponsor incomes are really low to keep going in the current situation.(AI gets money and development boost, where player as a backmarker team can't catch up for a very longtime). Also consider the raised costs that comes with dilemma's (driver, chassis, parts). The mod raises the difficulty (slower and more expensive part development then AI, more realistic races and results as a backmarker), while income was not altered for the situation (even lowered with slower marketability change). At the moment I only get midfield race result because half the season half the AI cars retire. Or else I would stuck at the bottom with 1 star sponsor (Got only 2 star sponsor in my 4th season) witch won't give me a change to catch up to the AI teams. And while I can't make money, I also can't hire staff or driver (that would give me a boost in development and race) and continue development parts and build HQ.

A simple solution would be raising the build cost of the Helipad Building since it opens the way for 5 star sponsors. Maybe change it's condition that it can't be build in ERS (Don't know if that's even possible).

Not: I don't know if its your or FlamingRed changes, but I get the feeling that every dilemma now ends up with a permanent trait. Not letting a driver on a practice run shouldn't give a permanent skill decrease (I thing it was around -5). Also the other choices have 5 and 3 million cost (As mentioned above this number are high for a backmarker team with 1 star sponsor) and permanent traits too. Just he did one practice run shouldn't give the expert trait for the track. So my choices are either high cost or permanent skill decrease. If I would have a dilemma every year a young talent driver (which you want to keep) could end up with too many permanent traits. In most of the situations a temporary trait would be better and more realistic as for my opinion.

 

[BrianUK]

But the cost in FlamingRed's Blance mod are heavily altered. I agree ERS teams shouldn't have 5 star sponsors, but in consideration of the changes in this mod, low star sponsor incomes are really low to keep going in the current situation.(AI gets money and development boost, where player as a backmarker team can't catch up for a very longtime). Also consider the raised costs that comes with dilemma's (driver, chassis, parts). The mod raises the difficulty (slower and more expensive part development then AI, more realistic races and results as a backmarker), while income was not altered for the situation (even lowered with slower marketability change). At the moment I only get midfield race result because half the season half the AI cars retire. Or else I would stuck at the bottom with 1 star sponsor (Got only 2 star sponsor in my 4th season) witch won't give me a change to catch up to the AI teams. And while I can't make money, I also can't hire staff or driver (that would give me a boost in development and race) and continue development parts and build HQ.

A simple solution would be raising the build cost of the Helipad Building since it opens the way for 5 star sponsors. Maybe change it's condition that it can't be build in ERS (Don't know if that's even possible).

Not: I don't know if its your or FlamingRed changes, but I get the feeling that every dilemma now ends up with a permanent trait. Not letting a driver on a practice run shouldn't give a permanent skill decrease (I thing it was around -5). Also the other choices have 5 and 3 million cost (As mentioned above this number are high for a backmarker team with 1 star sponsor) and permanent traits too. Just he did one practice run shouldn't give the expert trait for the track. So my choices are either high cost or permanent skill decrease. If I would have a dilemma every year a young talent driver (which you want to keep) could end up with too many permanent traits. In most of the situations a temporary trait would be better and more realistic as for my opinion.

I have altered that for myself, I will give you the txt's to modified version soon.

Could we not give levels to the Helipad to make it required for 3, 4 and 5 star sponsors?

 

[TheFlamingRed]

That's good to know that their changes don't effect my game. But how much effective are their changes?

Their change is pretty good. It dropped the 5* driver to 0* driver from 8s to 3s. With that, drivers such as Lord Rodrigues are no longer overpowered in the lower tiers. Also, with the addition of 20GT teams, the market of free agents is smaller (a free agent will sign for a team one league below where they really want to drive - hence it's not possible to resign Rodrigues if you're still in ERS once his contract is up for renewal.)

About Q3 (the one with crashing), when I blame the other driver he/she gets a +40 marketability trait (Sponsor Ad or something like that can't remember now). I don't know, sou

Ah yes, that's fixed for the next version. Brian used the 281 and 282 traits (which the interview uses) for his new traits. So when the Devs added in Resentful and Buttered Up, they've had their ideas moved to 317/ 318. I've corrected this in the interviews,txt but haven't updated the asset with it yet, that +40 marketability is Brains trait

By unique you mean the ones that come rarely I guess

I actually mean that there's no need to screenshot the same question more then once. Having different names used within it doesn't matter if the rest of the question is identical,



As for the Dilemmas - perminant traits were introduced in Vanilla at 1.3. There was about three new ones that did this,

However, I expanded one 'track dilemma' to 16 track dilemmas (why only Tondola expert as there's many different tracks). This probably wasn't wise because
1- I didn't really balance those very well, cost wise.
2- dilemmas are basically equally random! So suddenly you're 16/42 chance of getting a dilemma about tracks which involve perminant traits - a lot higher then intended,

I was thinking a 'expert' vs 'struggled at' would be good perminant traits for these 16 track dilemmas. Because it adds some complexity to driver choices depending on the series you're in. But Struggles at x track isn't a trait.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

I have altered that for myself, I will give you the txt's to modified version soon.

Could we not give levels to the Helipad to make it required for 3, 4 and 5 star sponsors?

That might be possible. PsycoUgly already added levels to RCF so the Helipad could be similar. Even if I have to make some dll changes to work it.

 

[Beynasuh]

Their change is pretty good. It dropped the 5* driver to 0* driver from 8s to 3s. With that, drivers such as Lord Rodrigues are no longer overpowered in the lower tiers. Also, with the addition of 20GT teams, the market of free agents is smaller (a free agent will sign for a team one league below where they really want to drive - hence it's not possible to resign Rodrigues if you're still in ERS once his contract is up for renewal.)

Good to now that the era of Rod ended. But I hope that a good driver still gives you an edge over the bad ones.

I actually mean that there's no need to screenshot the same question more then once. Having different names used within it doesn't matter if the rest of the question is identical.

So make an archive for every different interview question (names doesn't matter just the question).
Should I post them one by one or all together?

As for the Dilemmas - perminant traits were introduced in Vanilla at 1.3. There was about three new ones that did this,

However, I expanded one 'track dilemma' to 16 track dilemmas (why only Tondola expert as there's many different tracks). This probably wasn't wise because
1- I didn't really balance those very well, cost wise.
2- dilemmas are basically equally random! So suddenly you're 16/42 chance of getting a dilemma about tracks which involve perminant traits - a lot higher then intended,

I was thinking a 'expert' vs 'struggled at' would be good perminant traits for these 16 track dilemmas. Because it adds some complexity to driver choices depending on the series you're in. But Struggles at x track isn't a trait.

I love the idea of 'expert' vs 'struggled at', but with this games randomness player could end up in one gameplay with nothing and in another game with all track expertise at once. And to be fair just because the driver did a test run he/she shouldn't get a permanent trait.

But maybe at the start of each season we could get a test run dilemma for tracks and would let us choose one and get a temporary track expert trait for the whole season.

Could we not give levels to the Helipad to make it required for 3, 4 and 5 star sponsors?

If possible that would nice.

Would these Sponsor status okey for each league?
ERS=1-3 Star Sponsor / APSC=1-4 Star Sponsor / WMC= 1-5 Star Sponsor

 

[calvg]

I know I've hovered in this thread for a while now with the odd idea and that but today finally got round playing it out.

3 quick observations
Not seen any spins yet after like 6 races are they that rare or am i just not seeing them.
and is it just me that find the race speeds not quite right 1 is too slow, 2 would be a good high speed and something in middle would be good (I know this might just be personal preference)
Not being to see at least one future block of weather if you have no forecasting centre feels a bit harsh to me, as surely you could just look at local news station if you don't have a fancy satellite

4 Issues (hopefully all in screenshots attached)
1. The interview asked a question as if he was the driver going for a fast pitstop.


2.An AI driver starts the race with a part in the red zone. screen cap is from like third race but even happened in first race of season.


3. my driver got a dodgey neck in race. so straight away i promoted my reserve in their place.
But when i took after race interview, the question thought my reserve driver had won the whole race he wasn't in.

4. Also several occurrences where the 5 allotted crashes per race had already happened so early on in race. any chance of spreading this out a bit more.


Overall thou is a bigger challenge - would have been more so if i had picked the right investment at the start, as having a Road car factory giving me 1.5 million a race feels OP.

 

[BrianUK]

Been playing with the experimental dll. None of my cars have suffered random failures, although I'm only 4 races into S1 currently. Spins (and lockups) are far too frequent, I got 3 laps into a wet race at Ardennes before I gave up because there were so many spins both my drivers took and/or gave damage, one of them twice in 2 laps.

 

[raja1234]

Can someone help me with the error I get just after I finish a race interview? I could not proceed.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Can someone help me with the error I get just after I finish a race interview? I could not proceed.

Good news is that you can skip post-race interviews. So the save game isn't damaged.
Could you please see what interview question(s) you got before the crash? Did the crash occur when you hit a particular answer? Please provide as much detail as possible.

I'll probably update this mod to the beta branch over the next couple of days

 

[Schortnagel]

I’ve been playing with the updated mod since you released it and completed about 5 seasons in total. So far I’ve enjoyed all the changes. Especially those to marketability.

I think you’ve already started down the right path with the way you calculate marketability now and I don’t think tweaking the calculation is going to make too much of a difference. I think you can perfect it simply by reshuffling the sponsors a little.

I say that because I feel there’s only one problem with marketability, as it stands right now, that makes it feel like we’re being unfairly punished by the new calculations. Namely, that level 2 and level 3 sponsors often aren’t an upgrade over many of the common level 1 sponsors like Carne (200K a race) or Peach Plum (350K a race, that’s on par with many level 4 sponsors!), or the three-year Rusjet deal (In ERS and APS that works out to around 200K a race, not counting the placement bonus).

Although I know there are some very powerful sponsors to be found at level 2 and 3 (Ravelli at 400K a race for instance) these appear to be rare. Maybe the Random Number Generator Gods just hate me, but I always seem to get the crappy 150K - 175K offers. Because of that, I’m now in the crazy situation where I employ a 0% marketability reserve whom I sub in to suppress my marketability whenever a good 1-star contract is about to run out.

Finally, I think there should be high-level variants of placement sponsors like Rusjet. At level 4 or 5 there should be a sponsor with a placement bonus of something like 100K for finishing 16th or above. Nothing extravagant, just something that’s achievable, even for a newly promoted team. Because another problem I’ve run into is that high-level sponsors also have much higher placement requirements. I believe that once you’re at level 4 marketability the lowest possible placement sponsor is at 7th or better and even the upfront cash you get from them can be disappointing compared to that of low-level sponsors like Rusjet or Wan Chai.

Oh, and I also enjoy the critical parts the way they are implemented right now.