Alright Boyz, here we go!! Motorsport Manager

[bhlloy]

Just me or does the caliber of drivers change wildly between seasons? Signed a 3.5 star driver halfway through the first season and had the fourth best drivers on the grid, at the start of the second season now have the worst (and Santa Ana has improved to boot)

Probably going to start a new game as I spent a ton of money on the new car, all the dilemmas and now am back to having an awful car with no money to spend on parts. Chalk that one up to learning as I go

[Brian Swartz]

I wouldn't say wildly, but they do change and there are small differences between them at least in the ERS, so the swings can be big. Right now almost all of them in my game or 2.5 or 3 stars with a couple 2 stars thrown in. And that's without accounting for the relegated guys.

[Ajaxab]

Although I'm not sure, I also think that driver development is somewhat random as well. I had a 2.5/5 guy who just didn't develop at all during the season only to stumble upon a 2.5/4.5 female who has grown into a 4/4.5 in year 3. I'm wondering if I'll actually be able to resign her once the year is up.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I'm curious about this, because it appears that the game factors in differences in the drivers and cars. So even assuming the track layouts stay the same, often what's near-perfect for one main driver will be 'meh' or worse for another ... I've learned to do them separately. It would seem this would be of minimal use.

Not gonna click on since I don't really want to know details if there's a shortcut or something, just sayin'.

It isn't a cheat. It just gives a starting point better than guessing. It usually takes at least one series of tweaks to get the set up right, and sometimes even two.

[PilotMan]

In the ERS since there's no qualification I generally send my cars out and pull them back in on each lap so I can tweak the setup until I'm 95%+. The goal is that by the end I can get one timed lap out of them, but that's not always the case.

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by Ajaxab

Although I'm not sure, I also think that driver development is somewhat random as well. I had a 2.5/5 guy who just didn't develop at all during the season only to stumble upon a 2.5/4.5 female who has grown into a 4/4.5 in year 3. I'm wondering if I'll actually be able to resign her once the year is up.

It's supposedly tied to age and the type of Level 3+ facilities you have. You can hover over the boxes on the individual drivers tab to see how they are developing. My guess is the 2.5/5 guy was older? I'm not sure if there are different development curves. As an aside, some drivers won't reach their potential unless you build other facilities to help them out.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

In the ERS since there's no qualification I generally send my cars out and pull them back in on each lap so I can tweak the setup until I'm 95%+. The goal is that by the end I can get one timed lap out of them, but that's not always the case.

Just curious. Do you still get pretty good feedback doing that?

[AnalBumCover]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Just curious. Do you still get pretty good feedback doing that?

I'm curious about this as well, if you get the same quality feedback on an in/out lap versus on a flying lap.

[SirBlurton]

Originally Posted by Ajaxab

Although I'm not sure, I also think that driver development is somewhat random as well. I had a 2.5/5 guy who just didn't develop at all during the season only to stumble upon a 2.5/4.5 female who has grown into a 4/4.5 in year 3. I'm wondering if I'll actually be able to resign her once the year is up.

I'm pretty sure not. I voluntarily stayed down after winning the ERS in year 2. Then in season 3 lost the team championship by 1 point when my second driver crashed on the final lap.

The real point of my post is that one of my drivers had progressed to 4 stars, and she would rather be unemployed than drive for me again.

On another forum, I read a current rating of 3.5 is the threshold for drivers to accept deals in the ERS - so if you get someone with better potential than that, lock them up long term.

[TexasT]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Just curious. Do you still get pretty good feedback doing that?

I do it every race and get great feedback.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by AnalBumCover

I'm curious about this as well, if you get the same quality feedback on an in/out lap versus on a flying lap.

I THINK you get the same quality feedback in terms of how good the current setup, I'm 95+% sure of that. However, flying laps do tend to give you more comments from the drivers, and they'll often tell you which way to tweak things.

[Ajaxab]

Originally Posted by nilodor

It's supposedly tied to age and the type of Level 3+ facilities you have. You can hover over the boxes on the individual drivers tab to see how they are developing. My guess is the 2.5/5 guy was older? I'm not sure if there are different development curves. As an aside, some drivers won't reach their potential unless you build other facilities to help them out.

The 2.5/5 guy was 20 when I signed him. I stuck with him for 2 years and he never developed beyond that. Maybe it was a facilities issue. The 2.5/4.5 woman I signed was 20 as well. She's now 24 and at 4/4.5. I've only built one new building during that time. Strange...

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I THINK you get the same quality feedback in terms of how good the current setup, I'm 95+% sure of that. However, flying laps do tend to give you more comments from the drivers, and they'll often tell you which way to tweak things.

It's this. I get the same overall feedback on the smiley faces for the setup, but I miss out on the driver comments. So I end up spit balling the setup more. Having some knowledge of why you'd want more or less of one thing than another for the track makes a difference too.

Also, I love it when the driver wants a stiffer suspension, and then I do it, and they complain even more, so then I loosen it up and they're like "Woooo, awesome man." It makes me think that even the drivers give you bad data if they aren't good enough at judging it.

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by Ajaxab

The 2.5/5 guy was 20 when I signed him. I stuck with him for 2 years and he never developed beyond that. Maybe it was a facilities issue. The 2.5/4.5 woman I signed was 20 as well. She's now 24 and at 4/4.5. I've only built one new building during that time. Strange...

I took a look at the drivers file, each driver has a different improvement rate so it's age, driver and facility dependent.

[Brian Swartz]

One thing I'm curious about, for those of you who have been having more success, is part development for the cars. I was way behind at the beginning of the current year, but this season I've put as many resources into it as possible(with my current HQ, which is competitive in terms of facilities, I can't develop any further than I have). It still appears that the gap is growing, and I have a better designer than most. Weirdly, the only team I'm gaining on is Dragon Race Team China(slightly), who has a huge budget and a top-notch(for the ERS) designer. Yet their car is rated worse than everyone else's, except mine.

Seems there's something about this process that I'm not getting. Any insight?

[kingfc22]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

One thing I'm curious about, for those of you who have been having more success, is part development for the cars. I was way behind at the beginning of the current year, but this season I've put as many resources into it as possible(with my current HQ, which is competitive in terms of facilities, I can't develop any further than I have). It still appears that the gap is growing, and I have a better designer than most. Weirdly, the only team I'm gaining on is Dragon Race Team China(slightly), who has a huge budget and a top-notch(for the ERS) designer. Yet their car is rated worse than everyone else's, except mine.

Seems there's something about this process that I'm not getting. Any insight?

Upgrading the Factory has helped me in Season 3 to at least make a dent in car development. I was able to upgrade reliability very quickly on new parts to start the season which in turn has allowed me to use what money I have on new parts. I also upgraded the Design Center which I should see benefits early on Season 4 as I will likely build one of the buildings which allow GREAT parts. Based on how my car currently ranks, I'd imagine the building will be the one which benefits gearing or suspension.

[Brian Swartz]

My operant theory at the moment is that they might have unlocked more Great part buildings. That's what I'm going to focus on next. I could always just restart of course, but I want to make sure I understand what's going on first.

[PilotMan]

I think you've found one of the sweet spots of the game though. There's enough flexibility and opportunity that you can probably find your own path to success as one of many possibilities. It would seem there's more than one way to skin the cat. My success has been steady. We've got an influx of money, and young drivers who are slowly getting better. I'm probably going to ruin their careers though because they'll be old as the hills before they find their niche. That and Vales needs to stop with the self destructive personality issues. That's having an impact as well.

[Brian Swartz]

Well as it is right now, anything in the low teens is a fantastic race because the car is just so far behind everyone else's. As in, the worst of the others are just barely 'below average' because mine drags the average down that far(with nearly max spending on the chassis in the pre-season, so it's not that). So I'm just figuring out how to not suck that horribly so that race strategy actually matters somewhat. From this situation, there's no 'multiple paths to success'. There's either making the parts better, or nothing else matters.

[nilodor]

Are you playing as Predator? It could be that you just started so far behind everyone else that it will take a while to catch up. Make sure you are making parts at the end of the season that max out your improvement level as they will get carried over as your base part for the next season.

I've also noticed that the AI racers are better (less running out of fuel before the end of the race), which has meant less cheap position pickups on the last lap and may also be part of the struggle.

[Lonnie]

My time with Predator is at an end. The new drivers I hired on in season 4 were just not up to the standards that I had established with the previous drivers. I beat one ultimatum from the boss by finishing 5th, however two races later he said 4th or bust and I was ousted.

This may be a blessing as I was hired by Archer BMR right away who had finsihed 6th this season. I'm going to keep on with this save and try the Predator challenge much later on when I have a better feel for everything.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Nilodor

Are you playing as Predator? It could be that you just started so far behind everyone else that it will take a while to catch up. Make sure you are making parts at the end of the season that max out your improvement level as they will get carried over as your base part for the next season.

Yes to the first part. The whole making parts at the end of the season thing I didn't do the first two seasons. I think that was the biggest mistake, and I realized at the start of this year(seasons 3) that the carryover was a thing. So I got myself even further behind than normal. I have just now gotten to the point where my engines are 9th best(everything else still sucks, but it's progress, designer is best at those). Depending on how patient the chairman is, I may still dig my way out(he's happy so far). I think I'll enjoy that whole process eventually, but it was looking for a while like a situation, and might still be, that they are improving faster than I can which would make it hopeless. I'm watching who they hire for designers like a hawk so I can make sure mine is better than average ... at least that way some progress should be possible. Eventually.

[PilotMan]

The 8th race of our third season saw some interesting developments.

We saw Valdes finally break free from his gambling addiction and he no longer spends all of his time in that cult, so his performance jumped immediately. Daine, is at the end of a secret affair, and I can only hope that she gets over it without any further damage to her performance because she's got a bright future.

Garuda, who is running away with both the driver title and constructor title apparently has pretty poor team security. Just a few days before the race I had the option to "purchase" the design to their engine. Lo and behold, not only was it the design, it was a fully functional engine, that was twice what I was running in our #1 car for ZRT.

So we got that mounted and Daine, our promoted reserve from a year ago took our former #1 engine. The set up gets nailed down and we are off. Daine pulls out ahead and then I proceed to watch Valdes drop like he always does at the start of the race then, with the new engine, he's finally got enough power to work his way back through the field.

We hang near the top all day, with good pits, and finish 2-4. We're now back on the pace where we finished our first season, except we're carrying in more momentum. A strong finish will get me excited for season 4.

[bhlloy]

Heh, that's a cool throw back to GPM2, where if you could spend enough on security, stealing from better teams was a very viable and sensible strategy

[PilotMan]

Race 9 in Beijing goes well for ZRT. We run with a 4 stop strategy which played well with changing weather conditions. Daine's affair went public and the resulting media storm really took a toll on her. Melo, who was hired as a reserve driver in the offseason, didn't have such issues, and being a quality driver we went ahead and promoted him to #2.

That didn't sit well with Daine at all, but she'll manage since she's only supposed to be a reserve too.

Melo got the poll and had a great start, charging out to a nice lead. Valdes made a quick run from the back and with some team orders took the lead and started to go run and hide. The weather conditions were wet, which suited our 4 stop strategy.

Valdes pulled away and lapped the entire field except the #2 and #3 cars to get the win. It's only the second of the nine races that weren't won Cruz of Garuda.

This pushes us into 4th in the constructor leader board and within a shot of 2nd place, if we do well enough in the last race of the year.

[Umbrella]

I've started a new career with Predator with a couple of house rules, which I'm imagining as an edict from my chairman.

1. No mid-season hirings/firings.
2. In the silly season, only allowed to break one contract.
3. Long races only.

Since everyone on Predator, with the exception of Linares, is on a long contract, this is tricky. The first season is brutal with bad drivers, bad mechanics, and unable to design parts that are much better than what you start with. Plus, the long races mean that over time, my crappy cars fall further and further behind. I'm ecstatic if I can get a top 10 finish, which I think I've only managed 2 so far in 9 races. I'm so far in last place, it isn't funny. But the good news is, Santa Anna has managed to move up to 18th place in the driver standings, so progress?

I'm approaching the end of the nightmare season 1, and these house rules are really challenging me to decide which contract to break. My instinct is to replace Linares with a competent driver, move Evans to the reserve, and break the lead designer's contract. This will force me to live with the bad mechanics, but my cars just can't compete right now, and something needs to be done about that.

[Brian Swartz]

I think you are definitely making the right choice there. Sounds pretty similar to what I did, except for not realizing how important improving your parts was/is.

[nilodor]

Made the jump to the WMC (Top tier), after sticking around an extra year in the APS and dominating. I had the best facilities and car in APS, now I'm 8th or 9th in everything except for staff and drivers. First race I was lucky to finish 13th and 16th. Going to be a long climb to the top.

[Balldog]

Seems like they tweaked the amount of rain because it's been far less prevalent.

About to wrap up season for with Predator and we are in position to win the championship with a 25 point lead heading into the last race.

My #2 driver just got injured in an accident so we are bringing in the reserve. Hopefully it's enough to hold for promotion!


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[Brian Swartz]

On the same version of the game, it rained almost every race one season and then like twice at most out of nine races this time. I think it's random.

Originally Posted by nilodor

had the best facilities and car in APS, now I'm 8th or 9th in everything except for staff and drivers.

I dream of someday having your #firsttierproblems.

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

On the same version of the game, it rained almost every race one season and then like twice at most out of nine races this time. I think it's random.



I dream of someday having your #firsttierproblems.

Lol. You will get there.

I may be regretting my middle choice at the start of the season of 6th overall. We're very good at finishing 7th and the chairman is getting pretty pissed. I'm wondering if I should restart the season or see it through.

[kingfc22]

My race tonight has my job at Predator on the line. I had predicted us to finish 6th this year since we were only 15-20 points away from that number in season 2. However, with 3 races left we are about 50 points away and I just threw 20 points down the toilet by running out of gas with my #1 driver. I missed a calculation somewhere and by the time I caught my error, it was the last lap and we didn't have enough for even the lowest setting to get aroud the final two corners in 3rd

And good to know a driver can get injured as that may change my stance on the reserve driver moving forward.

[nilodor]

Just had the luckiest race finish. Wild weather weekend, so lots of stops to change tires. The guy in first place has, by far, the best car and is the best driver. He also nailed the weather changes so he's lapped everyone upto 3rd. We're sitting 6th and 12th with 2 laps to go when the guy in first's car blows up. So he's falling back to the back, I immediately switch to low fuel consumption to try and make up the extra lap of fuel I thought I had. Last lap comes around and everyone is running out of fuel and we make up a ton of spots to finish 3rd and 4th.

[hollmt]

Real World F1 mod out over on the steamforums for anyone interested in that sort of thing.

[BYU 14]

Hopefully a NASCAR mod is not far behind..

[cartman]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Hopefully a NASCAR mod is not far behind..

How are they going to eliminate all of the right hand turns?

[Balldog]

Man going up to Asia Pacific has been a bear. Only top 6 are getting points so we have nothing. We've been 10-14 every race so not horrible...
Finances are a hot mess though...losing about 500k every race. Whoring out my sponsorships for anyone with an upfront payment just to have a positive balance.


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[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by nilodor

Lol. You will get there.

Looks like I've finally stopped getting worse and am heading in the right direction. After 2 races in season 4, I'm 9th and just behind 8th in the team standings. Got a couple marginal drivers that have now improved significantly to the point where we're rated average in the ERS(still have Santa Ana as my best), and while the car is still the worst by far I'm slowly making progress compared to many of the other teams. Last year Gearboxes were voted to be made standard which was huge as they were one of my worst parts.

Originally Posted by hollmt

Real World F1 mod out over on the steamforums for anyone interested in that sort of thing.

Interesting. Decades from now when I finish this game I may look into that.

[Lonnie]

Originally Posted by Balldog

Man going up to Asia Pacific has been a bear. Only top 6 are getting points so we have nothing. We've been 10-14 every race so not horrible...
Finances are a hot mess though...losing about 500k every race. Whoring out my sponsorships for anyone with an upfront payment just to have a positive balance.

I am in the same boat. Was fired from Predator and took the reigns at Archer BRM. Won the team championship first year there and was promoted. They had hired Santa Anna as a reserve when I fired her before. Top 8 payout, so when it comes time to get new sponsors I put my new reserve in a main car because she has 100% marketability. Kinda cheesy, but get good sponsors. El Sadat just got a 2nd, so I think I'm going to make it through the year.

[Balldog]

Oh man, had an epic fail...#2 driver was locked in climbed all the way to 2nd place about 1/2 way through the race and I missed timed his pit stop...ran out of gas and fell all the way to 18th. Luckily my #1 driver bailed me out with her 8th place finish.

Still can't put this one down


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[Balldog]

FYI they just announced a patch coming on Dec 15 and Workshop coming in February it looks like!


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[kingfc22]

Patch Notes:
- Fixed an issue where some teams would pick too many risky parts
- Fixed an issue where too many cars would run out of fuel before the end of a race
- Improved AI pit strategies
- Fixed an issue where a significant number of cars would break down near the end of the race
- Blue flags no longer slow cars down but they do move out of the way
- Fix to database importing on Linux machines without en-US locale installed

Basically my ability to move up 2-5 spots each race for free are going out the window.

Love the blue flag fix as well. Hopefully, this finally solves this one.

[Balldog]

Haha yes patch is bad news for me too


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[Brian Swartz]

Good news, that's almost everything that would be at the top of my list to fix, along with the highly(though not completely) predictable crashes(almost always occurring at the same point of the race).

[AnalBumCover]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Good news, that's almost everything that would be at the top of my list to fix, along with the highly(though not completely) predictable crashes(almost always occurring at the same point of the race).

This was discussed briefly on Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MotorsportM...imilar_to_the/

[Brian Swartz]

Interesting, but I was more referring to the fact that 95+% of the time, a crash(if one occurs) will happen on or about lap 9-10.

[Lonnie]

I had both drivers starting 13 and 14. One of them broke his front wing completely off and 10 seconds later the other broke their rear wing 100% off. The second was basically cussing out an ai driver for hitting him, so they didn't hit each other. However, nobody else pitted for repairs while I had to stack pit and repair on lap 2.....grrr.

[PilotMan]

Season 4 for ZRT really came together. That engine we acquired from Garuda last season carried our tech over to this season and gave us a bump that would've taken a couple years to make. We overcame having to fire a mechanic (and our chief designer last year) for the second time, a wreck that took Valdes out of a race, numerous small bumps and unfortunate engine failures.

Valdes won 4 races and had 8 podium finishes to take the drivers title, while Daine managed a very respectable 4th place finish overall. We had a couple of 1/2 finishes this year and generally felt like the old Ferrari days where we could power past cars without too much trouble. But even then, we only had the 6th best car on the circuit.

We're not ready for the next level yet, but I think we'll make the jump anyway and see how we fare. I'm not sure another season of romping over the ERS will be that much fun. Worst case we end up back here again next season with some more chances to improve.

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

We're not ready for the next level yet, but I think we'll make the jump anyway and see how we fare. I'm not sure another season of romping over the ERS will be that much fun. Worst case we end up back here again next season with some more chances to improve.

I think it's worth making the ERS APS jump right away because those teams aren't that far ahead. But the APS - WRS jump is huge. You need to be at facility level 3 and have most, if not all of the buildings at least at level 1 to have a chance to be competitive.

[Capital]

What penalty is there for stacking both cars at PIT? I had to do that for fuel purposes and one of my drivers was not happy about it.