30 Levels, Engine Manufacturers & Driver Special Abilities

This update adds significant new areas of gameplay, including 10 new levels of progression, the ability to become an engine manufacturer and supply engines to other teams, driver 'special abilities', driver BMI and more.

As it has been a few days since release, I will devote part of the blog to explaining the features and part to address any questions and discussions we've observed since release.

Driver Special Abilities

There are four driver special abilities. They are Street Circuits, Qualifying, Wet Weather and Racecraft (which influences wheel-to-wheel racing ability). Each ability has three tiers: Common, Rare and Legendary. The rarer the trait the more impact it will have on performance.

Newly scouted drivers and those generated by the transfers market from this point onwards will have a chance of random special abilities. There is a good chance of a common special ability, a lower chance of a rare special ability, with legendary ability having the lowest probability.

Within the driver edit dialog there is also the possibility to set a custom special ability and rarity level, much like when editing the strength and weakness of a Chief Designer.

Driver BMI

Driver’s will now gravitate towards a healthy weight for their height. This is known as BMI (Body Mass Index), a standard bodily measurement often used in the world of health and fitness. This addresses the matter of drivers being trained to unrealistically low weights to increase performance. Being over or under the ideal BMI will impact driver stamina. The two traits are linked.

Engine Manufacturers

When a team becomes an engine manufacturer, they can customise the strength and weakness of their engines to each circuit. They can choose to have a Handling bonus for Monaco, and an Acceleration bonus for Italy, for example. The weakness attribute will always be half of the strength attribute, meaning the weakness impact will also be greater for manufacturers than the default suppliers. This creates an interesting balancing dynamic.

At level 30 it also becomes possible to modify the weakness of the engine, not only the strength, but I suspect nobody will be there anytime soon!

Manager level is also tied to some key properties of engine manufacturing. There is a performance cap on bonuses which is matched to your manager level. At level 21 the cap is 21, at level 25 the cap is 25 and so on. Your manager level also dictates how many customers you can supply, with each additional level beyond 20 unlocking 1 new engine customer slot.

A manufacturer’s profit and loss value per race is determined by subtracting the manufacturer’s cost per race for its operations (750k) from the profit per engine it sells. The profit margin is 20% per customer engine. The resulting formula looks something like this: (customerCost * 0.20) * totalCustomers - 750k. More information will be added on this in-game in the weeks ahead, we appreciate that it needs better clarification in the UI.

To share your engines and sell them to other teams: use the share icon on your engine manufacturer dialog. Alternatively, they can click the engine image on your manager profile, next to your livery.

Currently, becoming an engine manufacturer is unlocked at level 20. We are considering making this feature available to all managers who reach Elite, what do you think?

30 Levels of gameplay

The main focus of expanding gameplay to 30 levels was to revitalize gameplay and unlock progression for level Level 20 managers, many of whom had reached the top of the old 20-level system a long time ago.

The range of available performance has not changed as part of the update, since it was already reasonable. Instead, it has been rescaled to 30 levels instead of 20, meaning racing should be closer than it was before the update.

Dynamic level XP has changed too. The simplest way to understand that new dynamic XP is that each manager will get the same XP per race as the top level manager in the league. Because the XP gaps between levels are smaller at lower levels, lower level managers will level up more quickly than high level ones, catching up on levels but not necessarily on XP.

Changing the formula for level XP gains was necessary, as the XP gaps between levels 20-30 are substantial, and would not have been suitable for the old XP formula. Also, if you are in a hurry, check out the new XP Boosters in the shop.

Balancing it all

While the integration of Tokens into many of the new systems may have been hotly debated, these decisions are based on data. Even now, the average Tokens balance of a level 21 manager is 261. The average surplus cash and parts at top levels are also significant. The update was partially designed to redress these imbalances and to give top-level managers something to manage again. We always ensure multiple routes to access, free alternatives and give careful consideration to balancing.

For example, a custom engine can be obtained by becoming a customer of any engine manufacturer or friend, using only contracts equivalent to the standard engine suppliers. For those who want to be an engine manufacturer, engine points can also be earned via racing and in-app ads. Drivers with special abilities are also proliferating throughout the marketplace and youth academies every hour. We have designed these updates to spice up the racing, while keeping them balanced for every approach.

Read the changelog for this update for more information.