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).

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Hell of a start for the 4th season.
View attachment 183462 View attachment 183463
Love rainy qualifications
View attachment 183465
After race everything is green
View attachment 183464

Also with the Qualification Grid Rule applied this year the mysterious 1 lap less tire bug is gone.

Three wins! How good is your car? Or has everyone else retired?

 

[Beynasuh]

Actually 2 wins didn't do the 3th race yet. Also half the grid did retired in the first 2 races. Including some of my rivals too. But the biggest factor is qualifying I guess.

 

[BrianUK]

Technically... does the game care if the trait numbers are not sequantial? In other words, would it break everything if all the modded ones started from 1000, for example? That way it would be relatively easy to make sure the original ones stay the same. Would require some tweaking of the dilemmas and interviews, but at this point it would still be pretty easy thing to do.

I hadn't thought of that myself, I had just started messing about with stuff when I was adding my traits. It'd be more of a pain than you realise to do now though, as I've added about 50 traits, with many having links to others, which is a couple of hours of mind destroying work to sort, Dilemmas and Interviews notwithstanding.

The increased magnitude of the traits was actually done by Red, I requested permission from him to use his Personality Traits as a base for mine as everything I was doing was originally going to be private and just to compliment his mod. I eventually took the decision to make it a public release as an optional component to Red's mod at the time just in case other people wanted it. Therefore all I've added is new traits with some adjustments to ones he'd already done. I was, and still am, only using Red's mod, so everything I did and will do is to tie in with his mod and nothing else. The same is applicable to the tyre tweaks, race distance adjustments and my eventaul overhaul of the part upgrade choices.

My plan for Personality Traits was something that Red had already partly done, hence me taking them forward with some personal adjustments. My ethos has been to ensure that traits have punch and force some split-second decision making that just isn't at all present in vanilla, with some thought to the realism of some effects, but realism has not been my guiding aspect. I remember telling Red of a driver I had that crashed, and got Broken Rib for weeks on end, and I had to decide there and then whether to keep him in the car so he wouldn't lose too much morale and get poached, but suffer poor results until some way into pre-season, or stick him in as reserve, risk him getting poached and losing my best driver but maintaining decent results with the reserve. Things like that never, or rarely, happen in vanilla.

In the end, changing most things in the assets is incredibly straight-forward and if I can do it, anyone can.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

I hadn't thought of that myself, I had just started messing about with stuff when I was adding my traits. It'd be more of a pain than you realise to do now though, as I've added about 50 traits, with many having links to others, which is a couple of hours of mind destroying work to sort, Dilemmas and Interviews notwithstanding.

The increased magnitude of the traits was actually done by Red, I requested permission from him to use his Personality Traits as a base for mine as everything I was doing was originally going to be private and just to compliment his mod. I eventually took the decision to make it a public release as an optional component to Red's mod at the time just in case other people wanted it. Therefore all I've added is new traits with some adjustments to ones he'd already done. I was, and still am, only using Red's mod, so everything I did and will do is to tie in with his mod and nothing else. The same is applicable to the tyre tweaks, race distance adjustments and my eventaul overhaul of the part upgrade choices.

My plan for Personality Traits was something that Red had already partly done, hence me taking them forward with some personal adjustments. My ethos has been to ensure that traits have punch and force some split-second decision making that just isn't at all present in vanilla, with some thought to the realism of some effects, but realism has not been my guiding aspect. I remember telling Red of a driver I had that crashed, and got Broken Rib for weeks on end, and I had to decide there and then whether to keep him in the car so he wouldn't lose too much morale and get poached, but suffer poor results until some way into pre-season, or stick him in as reserve, risk him getting poached and losing my best driver but maintaining decent results with the reserve. Things like that never, or rarely, happen in vanilla.

In the end, changing most things in the assets is incredibly straight-forward and if I can do it, anyone can.

We should one day make a 'big crash, had to amputate arm' trait, with a -20 overall...









Edit.. and -8 Morale.

Edit 2: I feel like Bey would appreciate this change.

 

[Beynasuh]

Just -8...? (You are definitively getting softer )

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Just -8...? (You are definitively getting softer )

Well he'll probably be happy when you buy him out of his contract. And I am sure theninsurance money is sizeable.

 

[calvg]

Your races need to be on TV. They're better then F1.

I'm trying to do that, I record all my play sessions but i also listen to music at same time (or streams) and it records both audio. And youtube hates this

So (off topic) if anyone knows a way to split chrome audio to the non default audio device that would be awesome

 

[Beynasuh]

Well he'll probably be happy when you buy him out of his contract. And I am sure then insurance money is sizeable.

But still he has one arm, two feets and one head. So get in the car, start the engine and stop whining...

 

[UglyPsycho]

I hadn't thought of that myself, I had just started messing about with stuff when I was adding my traits. It'd be more of a pain than you realise to do now though, as I've added about 50 traits, with many having links to others, which is a couple of hours of mind destroying work to sort, Dilemmas and Interviews notwithstanding.

Shouldn't that be still doable somewhat easily with search & replace? Just adding 1000 to everything.

 

[UglyPsycho]

I've been fooling around, trying to make myself more balanced real sponsors and stuff, and while experimenting, I realized that there a bit of an problem with the current sponsor star calculation formula: In the beginning of the season, the sponsors you get depend on the alphabetical order, since that dictates the standings order.

So, with a crap team you get this:



...and a supposed frontline team gets this:



Also, 4* sponsor in the beginning for 2nd tier team is IMO too high anyways, so now that the lev 3 of modding is unlocked, mayhap this could be changed a bit?

I guess logical order for the standings table would be the expected standings, if that is possible to do.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Wish list consolidated, if you have any more features to suggest, do please keep positing. A lot of overlap is in some of these 'avenues' and depending what I find, limitations may stop me doing things or allow me to have great ideas for others.

• Needless to say, driver and mechanic stat impact is going first. It's a lot of small insertions but an eastpy set to manage and maintain now. Wanna get this done for an experimental build this week.
• In another thread we're taking about getting 12 teams working. If we can get it working a tiny bit better, I'd like to add it to the mod (so long as the game is still okay running ten teams formworkshop mods).

• Adding new rules is going to be another experiment I wish to add soon.
• Edit the teams livery to renaming and rebranding is something I'll do slowly, as I expect it'll be a lot of work to get doing.
• More Designer components is something which me and Brian have began some work on in components.txt. And has joined Dilemmas, interviews, and personality traits in the ongoing improvement section. More over, interviews and dilemmas can probably have their 'pool of outcomes' expanded to include any stat change, and a mass of other features,
• More Engineer Perks is something I'd love to work on in the short term too! Suggestions anyone!
• More tracks and scouting options are probably not within the scope of the dll (one obviously, and the other because it would need a brand new UI element, a adjustments to the sorting feature and other many awkward things. Liveries can be gotten by the workshop, and I am surprised there are not more of them!
• I do wonder if we can get mechanic and engineering scouting to be a thing, another ongoing thing to slowly build.
• Pre season testing having more effect seems like a nice choice! Wonder what exactly I could add here though. Suggestions.
• Adding in Changes to car appearance (by changing the model) is also something I wish to include and Chris has agreed to set me up with some models ) thanks Chris. i don't know how I may best implement these, maybe a rule change, maybe based on player age and a defined path, maybe based on some sort of statistic. Several options but also limitations to consider here.
• Adding in livery/team branding changes for existing teamscontrolled by the AI - another long term project. I don't think I can get teams to 'fold' or brand new teams added, but a takeover, rebranding might be on the cards. Nor do I know if we can create a full team when joining a team. Anything is possible I guess, I dont know where the ceiling is. I may start this part of the project and find a really simple method.
• Car setup affecting race performance (as in, more downforce, slower in straight line, more corner speed) is an interesting idea, with elements in the frontend.txt that it was planned by the devs once upon a time. Will have to see if it's at all feasible.
• Supplier stats variations, an quick edit which will hopefully work well.
• More keybindings should hopefully be doable, even easy as we had that in the injectors. Alas, it will probably not the the first thing I try to do in my excited phase but I am sure I'll be able to do this.
• I don't know about additional pre season test days, I mean, at the moment the tests don't do much in themselves, so having more then one doesn't seem worth while in its current state.
• In terms of time before first race increased. There is remnants of a mechanic about 'time to develop next years car' starting earlier is better.... it was removed but maybe I can see what it was about and maybe reintroduce it as it might serve a similar purpose to whstnyore thinking
• Plan on making the result of collisions more dynamic, as stated in the 'dnSpy' post, including punctures, and multiparty failures, and maybe more sever effects of collision with spun cars such as retirements (making first laps pile ups devistating!) (maybe).
• As this was just said - maybe re-do sponsor for,ultra to include an expected standings element. (Or some other stats).
• Add some dynamics to the Part Suppliers, such as changes in willingness to supply teams and discount amounts, and will not sell to. Possibly further adjust what these stats do
• Building level decay if certain conditions are not met! ( to prevent max buildings built by the player!)
• Maybe an overhaul on how Part numbers are carried over from one season to another, for example, maybe an ENGINE stat is reset each season depending on your engine supplier! (And maybe only 10% of last seasons stats carry over) And you have to rebuild from there.
• Add to the commentary section to keep you apprised of race events (such as slow AI pitstops, etc). Useful to keep an eye on in case it's a rival
• Adding additional ties to the system!
• A,tearing sponsors and bringing in a Main sponsor!
• Tonnes more and frequent dilemmas

 

[Beynasuh]

More Engineer Perks is something I'd love to work on in the short term too! Suggestions anyone!

- Boost for driver skills
- Tyre heat improvement
- Giving +x % performance to critical parts (or normal parts) during race (or quali).

Pre season testing having more effect seems like a nice choice! Wonder what exactly I could add here though. Suggestions.

- You could add the problems shown in the Pre-Season Testing as performance or reliability drops for the reported parts.
- Besides driver morale, could also effect chairman happiness, team marketability, mechanic relations.
- Temporary Trait for best 3 drivers and worse 3 drivers at Pre-Season Test.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

- Boost for driver skills
- Tyre heat improvement
- Giving +x % performance to critical parts (or normal parts) during race (or quali).


- You could add the problems shown in the Pre-Season Testing as performance or reliability drops for the reported parts.
- Besides driver morale, could also effect chairman happiness, team marketability, mechanic relations.
- Temporary Trait for best 3 drivers at Pre-Season Test.

Some nice ideas.... I'd like to overthrow the "Knowledge Perks" as well from practice. Given that its a choice between those perks and the mechanic ones, I am sure the "effects" are somewhat tied to similar areas of the dll. Maybe we can get more "trims" going too.

Also, nice pre season testing ideas.... its such an element I ignored (+5 morale is nothing!) that I have never even considered "how good it could be"

 

[Beynasuh]

Pretty sure that they are a lot of more good ideas out there.

 

[UglyPsycho]

Adding in Changes to car appearance (by changing the model) is also something I wish to include and Chris has agreed to set me up with some models ) thanks Chris. i don't know how I may best implement these, maybe a rule change, maybe based on player age and a defined path, maybe based on some sort of statistic. Several options but also limitations to consider here.

Now clearly, there's only one right answer for this, namely the chassis creation

I hope this includes the GT car model from Chris, wouldn't want to play without 'em!

More Engineer Perks is something I'd love to work on in the short term too! Suggestions anyone!

MacGyver -perk, which allows using a part in different place! V8 makes a perfect suspension! Or not.

I do wonder if we can get mechanic and engineering scouting to be a thing, another ongoing thing to slowly build.

This definitely is near the top of my wishlist.

In terms of time before first race increased. There is remnants of a mechanic about 'time to develop next years car' starting earlier is better.... it was removed but maybe I can see what it was about and maybe reintroduce it as it might serve a similar purpose to whstnyore thinking

Hmm, I guess the question is what would be the drawback? Blocking creation of new parts? Something like that would be required, otherwise it's a nobrainer to start is as early as possible.

Building level decay if certain conditions are not met! ( to prevent max buildings built by the player!)

My solution for this would be purely financial... just make it so damn expensive to maintain a fully upgraded HQ, that it's basically impossible. Then again, that would still ask for downgrade possibility, in order to avoid ruining everything with that mistake.

Maybe an overhaul on how Part numbers are carried over from one season to another, for example, maybe an ENGINE stat is reset each season depending on your engine supplier! (And maybe only 10% of last seasons stats carry over) And you have to rebuild from there.

Vote for this. I'm not a biggest fan of the current logic of ever-increasing stats, even if it works OK. I'd much rather see the chassis as more important part of the whole thing.

---

As a non-listed item I sort of brushed on before: I think some sort of permanent wear mechanism would add a little something to the game. As in red zone increasing over time (or performance / reliability / both decresing, or all three being affected). This could be limited to player only, since AI probably would have problems with it, but we are looking for more ways to make players life hard, right?

 

[Warnek]

Stupid question and sorry if this has been answered before. Does this work on Mac?

I tried installing it, but upon opening the game I only see a magenta screen. Did I do something wrong or the mac version is not supported?

 

[UglyPsycho]

Hmm... Engineer/Mechanic skills... how about adding some driver aids and other kinds of fancy stuff through these? Like active suspension, traction control, adjustable wings and whatnot? Mechanicswise they could be tied e.g. to crucial part -mechanics.

Edit: And if you ask me, the tyre compound -specific bonuses for mechanics are idiotic and should be at least somehow clumped together.

Edit2: Obviously, same goes for the engineer part components...

 

[UglyPsycho]

Oh yeah, one more old problem to reconsider if there could be now an easyish solution for: Can for example dilemma costs be scaled by tier?

 

[BrianUK]

Cam anything be done for carrying over risky parts through pre-season? Making a super risky parts unable to be abused removes an avenue for the player to abuse the system.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Stupid question and sorry if this has been answered before. Does this work on Mac?

I tried installing it, but upon opening the game I only see a magenta screen. Did I do something wrong or the mac version is not supported?

Never tested it on a mac. I don't have a mac

....

...
If you want to buy me a mac to test it, I will accept sizable donations!

Hmm... Engineer/Mechanic skills... how about adding some driver aids and other kinds of fancy stuff through these? Like active suspension, traction control, adjustable wings and whatnot? Mechanicswise they could be tied e.g. to crucial part -mechanics.

Edit: And if you ask me, the tyre compound -specific bonuses for mechanics are idiotic and should be at least somehow clumped together.

Edit2: Obviously, same goes for the engineer part components...

Big post was big again so will come back to it!

Point 1: The game has some references to "Driver AIds" but in a generic term as a Rule Change, lessning Driver impact. To seperate them and make them important.... This depends how well I can get one mechanic to talk to another. "Critical Part Only Point Performance" (which is how I interperated it) may not translate intelligently (in that... its a performance booster for the mechanic which ranks the best performance of said part). Designer this could work on.... You can "define" a part in the partcompontns.txt to only spawn with say, the suspension.... i wonder what happens if you have that condition on a designer!?

Mechanics are a wierd cookie. These race bonuses are a little stange and all over the place. I really have to work out whats easy and what would take too much work for little reward

In terms of naming things Active Suspension and such.... I did once have the idea that instead of saying "This slot has +10 performance and +10 redzone" I would make it so that it would say "curve the wing edge by 4 degrees resulting in some performance gain"... flavour texting the copmponent slots. More work for flavor text though (everything is work!)

Point 2: Yes! Compered to three specific mechanic bonuses, the rest are throw away.

Point 3: They have some nice ones but again, some are really in the never to be used pile.

Oh yeah, one more old problem to reconsider if there could be now an easyish solution for: Can for example dilemma costs be scaled by tier?

... Potentially This issue is... Does GT1 call itself Tier 1.... or Tier 4? Because that will cause problems

Edit: Admittedly, I am not thinking BIG yet.... I assume I could IF statement between SS and GT and it would be fine and balanced for each.... I am not yet fully realising my power

Cam anything be done for carrying over risky parts through pre-season? Making a super risky parts unable to be abused removes an avenue for the player to abuse the system.

That would be an interesting mechanic to introduce. On a side note: I wonder if I can tell the game to keep 3 parts from last season... That would be goalpost 1.... then I can extend it to KEEP the risk on the risky part... and still have 2 not risky parts + the best part from last season (even if it's risky - but not lose that risk)... Now that would be cool...