RD Formula Manager - Season 5

[Aidan Keranen]

Maybe the races can be multi-classed. Running a seperate series scares me a lot, but having multi-class racing would also make sister teams more meaningful.

Sister teams would not have budgets, and their finishing results award the main teams? Many options.

The Formula Renault series was so interesting, and didn't have a bit impact overall on the main game which was a plus. Nothing to be scared about in those terms, but obviously a new setup to contend with behind the scenes and extra work etc. so fair enough.
And I'm not sure about multiclass, but yeah, an option. Looking back towards the 60s and you had F1s and F2s on the track at the same time, but I think even just a little something to say "hey well done" to those with sister teams that continue to use them.

 

[kedy89]

Please don't take it personally. I just wanted to make it less obvious, it can always be voted in the next set of proposals. There are others also calculate the setups.

Of course it's not because you did them.. No offense but that's very childish of you to think that. I calculated setups too and Omer knows about it, it's suprisingly easy and there's nothing special about it.

Don't see why it's childish. No way I could know that others/you calculated that as well, I just knew I did it, and that I told it. And that doing it gives an advantage.
Didn't take it personally, was just curious.

It is one of the changes to make the game less predictable. When a team wins the first races consecutively, they become extremely strong in the lead. I think a good middle-ground is the random failures only result in car wear increase. Games should have luck in order to make it fun/tense for everyone. Also there will be around %5-7 chances for a driver to be hit by a random failure for each race. There might be a system which prevents a driver to have a misfortune failure more than once each 3 races, or something like that.

Well, from the various GP4 games and other manager games I know that people just don't like random retirements. I might care less if surroundings were different, but if I were to retire from 1st due to that, I'd lose finish position income, sponsor reward and PR for fuel and podium (talking from this season, I know they'll change next). So instead of 2850cr I'd get 50...

Other than Rapidos, sister-team owners already got more than they invested to their sister teams. And there is still the fun of being first among the sister teams. I believe they are still entertaining and provide flavour to the series while also not preventing main teams to fight for the podium.

Hm, I consider my sister team a main team as well.

What?! High amounts of fuel burned per lap was the cause of many DNFs, and not only for me, but even for Aidan, and even for Alonso in Monaco! It will only mean the retirement list won't be full of "Out of fuel" retirements, which is really good for the game.

My bad, I was thinking of driver skill rather than driver ability (hence the fuel upgrade remark).

You mentioned many excuses here as to why others were uncompetitive. And this wasn't just one person, you mentioned 5 names here, taking care of 7 teams. There were 10 managers when we started (I don't know if @rubaru was there from the start?), which means 50% of managers just blew it. 50% is a high number, and it's not to say this is a bunch of noobs because it isn't: Sasha and Tapio both won championships, and I was a strong championship contender in season 3. With such a strong field of managers making mistakes, surely, surely there is something wrong with the game instead?
No? Well what about the other 50% then? Except for you, the rest were simply incompetitive too. Think about it: this many managers being so incompetitive can't be a coincidence. I spent too much time every day for the Canada race checking my options, checking my fuelloads and paces, trying not to **** up the strategy again, and many people (me included) simply don't have the time to do this every day even in exam periods. Therefore I look forward to any changes making the game simplier

Of course they're no noobs, but you can't deny that all (you included) made more mistakes than the previous seasons. Look at the results and you'll see that I didn't really dominate the first 2 rounds. But clever sponsor picks gave me loads of money, which I invested in countless useful upgrades -> domination.

 

[Milos]

but you can't deny that all (you included) made more mistakes than the previous seasons.

Indeed, but the game also got more complicated than the previous seasons.

-Car wear became a big issue this season, especially when drivers made mistakes. With 2 laps per update, two consecutive mistakes dropped car wear by a lot and caused some retirements. Car wear simply wasn't important in previous seasons but this season forced me to look at yet another column in the charts.
-Fuel became a problem too thanks to the %1 fuel sponsor. This was the only way to get both money and results, as the fuel weight effect is OP, and thanks to human error which is always going to happen, there were problems. Before I could always put some spare fuel in the tank and I was fine on fuel too. I even recall season 3 having first pitstops, then fuel updates, which I really miss.
Combine that with 2-lap updates and often I could simply watch my drivers burn too much fuel, and my race end.

So many great managers making rookie errors can't be a coincidence imo.

 

[kedy89]

Indeed, but the game also got more complicated than the previous seasons.

-Car wear became a big issue this season, especially when drivers made mistakes. With 2 laps per update, two consecutive mistakes dropped car wear by a lot and caused some retirements. Car wear simply wasn't important in previous seasons but this season forced me to look at yet another column in the charts.
-Fuel became a problem too thanks to the %1 fuel sponsor. This was the only way to get both money and results, as the fuel weight effect is OP, and thanks to human error which is always going to happen, there were problems. Before I could always put some spare fuel in the tank and I was fine on fuel too. I even recall season 3 having first pitstops, then fuel updates, which I really miss.
Combine that with 2-lap updates and often I could simply watch my drivers burn too much fuel, and my race end.

So many great managers making rookie errors can't be a coincidence imo.

I too was affected by fuel and wear issues. I reacted and bought the fuel upgrade, durability ugrades, and later on technical skill for drivers. Now let's have a look at others: only DTK and Girl Power got the fuel upgrade, only Ram, DTK and Red Night maxed out durability. Technical skill, not that many with high values either.
Sure, the fuel upgrade doesn't prevent running out of it, but it sure gave more room to play. And the out of fuel retirements didn't happen at the end most of the time. Noone forces you to do your pitstops with 1%. I seem to recall that the early races I always had some extra, since I wasn't sure then about the exact consumption values.

 

[TTupsi]

Honestly speaking, you guys simply screwed up on way too many occasions. I'm about 90% sure that Apex would've taken at least one win if Milos didn't miscalculate fuel for R6&7. Or you, 3 races with 0 points, then stopped engine development. Sasha often missed updates. Aidan could've been in podium position if he wasn't doing things a bit half-assed. Aaron might have had a shot at winning round 1 if he had more exprience at that point, I think at that time Ferrari was still superior.
As for setups, I didn't notice anyone using an optimized one until Milos R6. Jawz had a quite decent one for R9 and got 4th. Was just unlucky that at that point I also started making use of it, after seeing what effect it had for Apex in R6. Apart from that they seemed to be rather conservative most of the time.

I know I screwed up, that's no news for me, and it was most times thanks to the 2-laps per update change. On previous seasons I was able to miss updates from time to time but now the misses became more serious. Thankfully others screwed up more so, I really didn't deserve P3 in constructors.

My team will suffer from these changes too, all top teams will but I think that's only good for the game. More randomness and more even grid is only good thing. Right now there is no point in running the races like @Jimlaad43 said if human error is the only possibility for anything interesting happening.

 

[Milos]

I too was affected by fuel and wear issues. I reacted and bought the fuel upgrade, durability ugrades, and later on technical skill for drivers. Now let's have a look at others: only DTK and Girl Power got the fuel upgrade, only Ram, DTK and Red Night maxed out durability. Technical skill, not that many with high values either.

I remember during this time I was struggling to even keep up with Aston on engine upgrades, the Blackcat squad was putting all weight into the engine because it's so effective.

 

[rubaru]

I certainly have an opinion on all of this, but I'm just a rookie.

- Pitstops will allow for a complete car repair, but it will take extremely longer. You will choose between "usual pitstop" and "long pitstop."

I think it would be better to choose a specific % to repair. Long pitstop could mean repair all, but it would be different depending on how much repair is needed. Are you going to account for this in the time spent in the box?

- Some tyre brands will have better performance on some tracks.

This should only apply if certain tracks have a different surface to them. Tarmac and Asphalt are not the same thing, so it would follow that some tyres would do better.

- Special engineers can be hired to prevent "out of fuel" and "chassis fail" problems as they will call the car into the pits in the last minute and refuel the tank to maximum/repair the car to maximum with an unusually long pitstop.

This should not be an automatic call. What if I planned to change tyres or refuel to a specific value the next lap? Could result in screwing up the calculations we have made.

- Track setup numbers will be hidden. Instead, there will be track descriptions such as "this track is very downforce related" or "top speed is highly effective on this track" etc etc...

That's a big NOPE. Knowing specific track-related values help us set our cars up.

- A new driver ability which will allow less fuel consumption for a lap. Credit to Rubaru for the idea

@kedy89 the purpose of this was similar to "care for tyres" in that you will give yourself a better chance of reaching the pits if you calculated incorrectly and need a little extra to make it.

- Pitstop lengths will slightly longer.

Pit Lane Delta in a typical F1 race (which I thought this was supposed to simulate) is around 20-24 seconds.

TOPICS:
1) #2. RBR and STR don't talk to each other in a race.
2) #2. Don't treat them differently.
3) #3. RBR has Renault, STR has Ferrari, they are considered "sister teams"
4) Combine 1 and 2. Some failures are catastrophic, like engine or tyre failure, versus wing damage.
5) #1. Drivers do tend to like teams that they keep winning with.

 

[Milos]

What if I planned to change tyres or refuel to a specific value the next lap? Could result in screwing up the calculations we have made.

at least you're still in the race you could have been completely out, or you could still be in the race and have your calculations screwed by a full refuel. Pretty obvious which one is better.

Pit Lane Delta in a typical F1 race (which I thought this was supposed to simulate) is around 20-24 seconds.

A typical F1 race doesn't last 20 laps.

 

[rubaru]

Change fuel percent to actual litres.

...let us change the setup for every round instead. Having one setup for the whole season was boring.

I agree with Jim 1000% percent on both of these.

 

[Milos]

nah, setups for each round are just going to lower the chance of a midfield team doing well. As we have it now, someone could set up the car to be really fast at certain tracks where the top teams may not be fast, like I did at Spa, Monza and Canada.

 

[kedy89]

Change fuel percent to actual litres.

Don't dumb it down, if you ever calculated percentages it's not that difficult to get the values, you've got all the info you need.

Basically, Give All and Push need to be a lot faster with less damage, while Safe Low needs to be even slower.

I haven't been around in S2, but from what I've read it was way too op, with everyone just going give all all the time.

Maybe, hide the values and let us change the setup for every round instead. Having one setup for the whole season was boring.

I think that'll only increase gaps between teams.

@kedy89 the purpose of this was similar to "care for tyres" in that you will give yourself a better chance of reaching the pits if you calculated incorrectly and need a little extra to make it.

Yes yes, I got that now . I first thought of it as a new driver skill, reducing the per lap usage, which, as I said, would've been pretty much the same as the fuel upgrade.

 

[Milos]

Don't dumb it down, if you ever calculated percentages it's not that difficult to get the values, you've got all the info you need.

but you don't. Sometimes 10l is 5% sometimes 6%. While 11l can be 6% or 7% (this is with a Blackcat fuel tank, 170l). Obviously I was able to extract the exact values eventually, only after wasted 1-2's, wins, podiums..
It's just pointless doing this work when it can easily be avoided. You said it yourself managers this season made lots of errors. We should work on reducing it, and having fuel in % is only going to increase errors thanks to this %1+/- difference. While having fuel in litres always gives exact, integer values.

 

[Jimlaad43]

Safe low is too OP now though. Currently if you pit and drive hard, all it does is wear your tyres and you don't actually go faster. Put it this way, fastest lap shouldn't really be set by someone doing Aggressive Lows, Give All Highs should do that. Obviously lockups and mistakes happen more often which increases the risk, but it's just not worth trying anything different.

 

[kedy89]

With a tank capacity of 170l, 6% is either 10l (rounded up) or 11l (rounded down). With 2 drivers it's a piece of cake to figure out how much fuel certain pace-rev combination use. Run the same pace with different fuel loads, that way you get the litre usage. You can then do your whole race calculation using litre values, at the same time also calculating the % values, to compare with the updates. And as previously stated, with the V sponsor you only needed the 1% for the final lap. Most out of fuel retirements happened before the last lap

 

[Jimlaad43]

but you don't. Sometimes 10l is 5% sometimes 6%. While 11l can be 6% or 7% (this is with a Blackcat fuel tank, 170l). Obviously I was able to extract the exact values eventually, only after wasted 1-2's, wins, podiums..
It's just pointless doing this work when it can easily be avoided. You said it yourself managers this season made lots of errors. We should work on reducing it, and having fuel in % is only going to increase errors thanks to this %1+/- difference. While having fuel in litres always gives exact, integer values.

The first post does have your engine's fuel tank amount...

 

[Milos]

The first post does have your engine's fuel tank amount...

I think you're missing the point..

With a tank capacity of 170l, 6% is either 10l (rounded up) or 11l (rounded down). With 2 drivers it's a piece of cake to figure out how much fuel certain pace-rev combination use. Run the same pace with different fuel loads, that way you get the litre usage. You can then do your whole race calculation using litre values, at the same time also calculating the % values, to compare with the updates. And as previously stated, with the V sponsor you only needed the 1% for the final lap. Most out of fuel retirements happened before the last lap

exactly, unnecessary work

 

[kedy89]

exactly, unnecessary work

Or rather, dumbing it down. Best reveal everything, so that no work/skill at all is required any longer

 

[TTupsi]

Or rather, dumbing it down. Best reveal everything, so that no work/skill at all is required any longer

Calculating fuel consumption doesn't really require skill. It's just unnecessary work that doesn't add anything to the gameplay.

 

[Milos]

Or rather, dumbing it down. Best reveal everything, so that no work/skill at all is required any longer

Not "no work", but "unnecessary work". There is too much stuff to do as it is, and many simply don't have the time to extract this information through the difficult method you posted above (I didn't even use that btw. I simply got it from my DNFs )

1) #2. RBR and STR don't talk to each other in a race.

Just read this again and had a thought.
While this is true, teammates don't exactly let each other through when battling for the race lead (BRT ), or even for other positions like I did it (tbf I just copied the line from Tobi and expanded it to Blackcat ). I've never seen Hamilton let Rosberg through (even when he was asked..), and Rosberg only let Hamilton through when the team's win situation was at risk. And Hamilton won this race (Monaco 2016). Obviously there were other examples when the lead swapped on team orders but that's when one driver was in a title fight and the other wasn't.
Otherwise there were no team orders most of the time, and it caused some entertaining lead battles (Bahrain 2014), and crashes (Belgium 2014).

But it made me think of another option for Topic #1 @Omer Said
How about.. instead of banning all team orders, allow only one single team order per race, on a team level (so one order can be given to one driver and that's it), while using the #2 format that team orders can only happen between teammates since people desperately want that.

 

[kedy89]

Calculating fuel consumption doesn't really require skill. It's just unnecessary work that doesn't add anything to the gameplay.

Well apparently it does, else there wouldn't have been people calculating with percentages the last 3 seasons, then wondering why their calculations didn't work out.