Glad you managed to squeeze in an update for the beta patch last night. Is this compatible with the f1 mod? I see that the f1 mod has the resource file as well, which one do I use?
It's compatible with the F! mod if you're willing to import the files I have into that mod via the asset extractor. Enzoli seemed to express interest in making a combined version of our mods, but I think it's unlikely that we'll work on / release a version of that until the game stabalises, i.e., the devs stop active development.
Hi Flaming i had some question.
1) what Must i change that the car has more effect as the driver in the Race??
I think a good driver Can win with a worst car.
2) Can i change the Bonus from the chairman?? F.e. For the 10th Place i get 2.000.000 and Not 2.500.000??
1) Don't use the mod perhaps? Vnilla had the good driver winning in bad cars... It was that behaviour which made me question the developers design choice. Making the car the most important part is the core element of the mod - the rest of my changes are merely 'side orders'.
2) You can't really without Reflexi'ing up the dll. The values depend on placement,s and tiers and other things. It's a little messy.
I've been mulling over a couple of things in my head over the past few days since we started talking on Steam. And, seeing as the 1.2beta stuff has been put into the main branch, I currently can't play MM without it being easymode. It might be things I've already mentioned to you, and I'm unaware of the current limitations and overall scope of your mod.
Sponsors:
I think I mentioned to you how I was just raking in cash, which means that even with the +20 injector, I still seem to be able to overhaul the AI in development because I have no cash issues (and I can concentrate my development). I am also able to pour money into car development and dilemmas pre-season because I have been able to amass so much cash. And all this has come from me having access to 4-star sponsors with Predator (which is a whole other issue I mentioned to you on Steam), even after only managing 7th and 8th (x2) in the constructors over the past 3 seasons. I was even able to ditch one of my pay drivers and make the other a reserve, and I'm still pulling in 1m per race, without finishing bonuses. The easy solution to that is to take no sponsors, but that's essentially avoiding part of the game, and I can't limit my sponsor star choices because 1-stars don't even get offered to me anymore.
Therefore this idea has two components that rely on things that probably aren't possible. One, are you able to set sponsors to be selectable by only the AI, thus enabling you to create a mean set that can only be chosen by the player which yield less cash? This avoids the AI having money issues, and means you have less cash swirling around to easily overhal them. Two, maybe make sponsors a long term investment with the current per-race payments stretched out. So instead of 8 races at £200k, it's 20 races at £80k. I would even say cut the up-front payment amounts - if they get scaled to the new contract length, then you can afford HQ items instantly.
Part Development:
I'll admit, I'm a bit of a masochist when it comes to game difficulty wishes, maybe that comes from games being so easy over the past few years. I expected to spend 10-15 seasons with Predator fighting the ZRTs and Dragon for 8th place, but in 3 seasons I've left them in the dust through part development and can achieve 6th or better with the mod. Playing for 18th in the race was actually exciting, I had a rivalry, albeit shortlived, with ZRT and the last race to secure 8th in the constructors based on average finishing position was tense (ZRT, Dragon and I had 0 points). It seems to me that part development is the AI's biggest failing.
Therefore, is it possible to make part development percentage based rather than simple +10/+20 etc? This way starting as Predator it'd take a while to really get some worthwhile parts, while the better teams (with their better budgets) can create more potent parts more quickly due to the percentage bonuses being bigger on their 200 point parts, compared to your 10. As it stands, I can spend £3.5m in a season on making my base gearbox 60 times better (1 to 60 points) in a year and easily overhaul half the field. With the AI being incompetent in part development, it'll probably balance itself out, and smart investment will be key for the player closing the performance gap. If not, could the star rating/skills of your designer be tied to the flat point increase? So a designer with poor skills (level 2 in a part) only adds +2, and a highly skilled (level 20 in a part) designer adding +10 to +20?
Yes, I typed a lot, but I like to reason what I say. Overall, this mod has been *fantastic* and has really breathed new life into the game after vanilla became a walk in the park. It's exciting to see that pre-Workshop, modders are able to create things like this that do what the devs couldn't or wouldn't and bring excitement to ones who enjoy a tougher experience.
Sponsors:
We did talk about it and the problem was "What's good for goose is good for the gander". Meaning, if I was to change how sponsorts work to try and reduce the money to a player, I will inevitably also be reducing the money to the AI. Which is bad, very bad, as the AI handles cash far worse then the player. It makes fiddling around sponsors directly a near impossibility. The first suggestion you made is something I could do if I could modify the dll directly, but not with reflexi. The second will have horrible effects on the AI's ability to manage its cash flow - most likely they'll run into debt and cannot develop their car at all, which is the opposite of what we want.
In Vanilla, the player already has a good opportunity to spend/gather money better then the human. It's a core gameplay element I have yet to balance. Which is my biggest regret because my '+X Days' system makes the money side of things even more imbalanced, as you don't spend as much money as you cannot develop as many parts. I've kinda made money balanced worse then vanilla.
I once tried changing the 'player backstory finance' to have the opposite effect as to what it currently has (like I did with the -days to +days) but it didn't work. I could change the value to say -100% (so everything was free) but I couldn't change it to +10% (it acted like I hadn't changed the sign).
Its a problem I have not looked at in a while as I moved onto other techniques and looking at other changes. I'd like to come back and address the issue once I see a way around it which won't hurt the AI more then the player. It's number one on my wishlist - though the avenue I am looking at isn't the Sponsors, but rather other methods of getting / spending money.
Part Development:
I like your idea of say, doubling (or multiplying by any applicable number) the bonuses for the AI, rather then the player, when it comes to Performance/Max Performance on parts. If I could do this, I could basically get rid of the +x days - as it simply wouldn't be relevant with a large (but not too large) multiplier. Without that, it would mean that the player could then spend lots of their money on the car again (as they were supposed to).
Of course, making it so the bonus only effects the AI and not the player is the key issue which has prevented me from doing lots of different things. Currently, the only things the player has that the AI does not, is the Backstories of the Managers. Other then the Moral, Finance, Engineer and Political bonus, everything regarding 'non-race event game' play effects both the player and the AI.
I haven't found a way around that core issue yet. My 'Holy-Grail' is if I can manipulate the dll to use the following code in more ways then in the original files.
if (this.mTeam.IsPlayersTeam())
{
result = "Change the result in some way"
}
return result;
Now, If I could write my own code this wouldn't be a problem as I can IF statement anything. The problem is I have only just worked out the rough pattern on how reflexi system writes IF statements. I had to use custom IF's to change the 'fast forward' speeds, so trying to find a working method to use this to 'impede the player (and only the player)' was where I left off before I stopped modding for Christmas. Hopefully I can get some success out of this and it would allow me to do anything. e.g.,
- Reduce chairman payments to (only the) player.
- Reduce the Eng Of Year Prize money to (only the) player )as I believe the Chairman should get most of this... and his payments to me during the year 'comes out of the prizemoney'. This makes more sense to me personally as the Chairman appears to be making a rather large personal loss to his team - which may or maynot be reflective of the costs of running a motor racing team.
- Change the bonuses of your developed parts. The concept is sound if we can get this to impede only the player. I could probably increase these costs too at the same time for the player only.
- Impede the players car in the race. E.g., decrease our available tyre wear further, but leaving the AI unchanged - requiring us to use harder combos where we normally would not.
- There's probably a few other ways too. But yes, if I can make things "Player's team only" then I can really expand on how I make the game more difficult, rather then the single avenue which I have taken thus far.
However, I got this far (From
https://snag.gy/IwaDXb.jpg to
https://snag.gy/egnYfS.jpg) but get crashes. Can't see why and until I do, I'm quite stuck
