Suggested

Car design

Hello, It is possible to mount the maximum power of cars from 100 to 120 ? This puts a small extent of renewal in the design. 

Today iGP says: no

What for ? 

I'm really sorry there will be no TL;DR for my post, but I had to dive really deep into this topic.

With the addition of two new races to the calendar it would make a lot of sense to increase the cap for car stats in all tiers. Maybe even higher than the suggested 120 because of a bigger problem i will talk about shortly.

First off the obvious problem. In my example I will use a max level (Level 20) manager: 2 extra races result in 40 extra Design points, 20 per race. It would also result in ~16 extra points from research from those two races. That is another 55 points not being able to spend on your car because most managers had their design maxed out in Round 16 already in the old 17 race calendar. A cap increase to counteract unspendable points which feels unrewarding to the player is the obvious thing to do.

Now onwards to the bigger problem, solving how high this new cap should be. For this I will have to digress a bit, so please bear with me.

In our current version people hit the maximum of 100 in the performance improving "Big 4" (Acceleration, Braking, Downforce, Handling) by Round 8-10 depending on how well they develop. This means in Round 10 at the very latest qualifying and thus races become a bit of a coinflip in highly contested leagues which can frustrate a lot of ambitious managers. With the old calendar this would mean 8 races (Round 10-17) of cars with same 1 lap performance. With the addition of two extra races and no increase to the design cap more than HALF the calendar becomes RNG to an extent which can create very unfun races where all you are doing is damage limitation in your fight for championship position. This can quickly escalate into a streak of bad qualifyings which can become very frustrating.

Back from our excursion.. This problem above is directly linked with our car design cap which should be raised so high that we max out the Big 4 much later in the season, specifically about three quarters of the season. What you get in this scenario is seasons more focused on your approach of research and spending your design points "the right way" through the first three quarters. In the final quarter of the season as cars are starting to even out again you will again need a bit of luck in qualifying but the randomness would already be reduced a lot from half the season to only a quarter of the races being affected.

My suggestion for the cap increase is not 120 but 160! And before you call me crazy, hear me out. If you raise the stat cap to 160 your CD and TD will develop next years car to a higher base value than the original 42-50, resulting in less points to spend on development than you'd think at first (For example: A CD that has been used in 6 races will convert the strength he possesses into 50% of the max value for next years car, meaning your starting value will suddenly be 80 instead of 50). If you apply this same logic to the idea of raising the cap to 120 you will notice that there would almost be no difference. That is why you need to raise the cap even higher to: A.) fight against the problem of cars maxing out too early with the addition of new races and B.) fight against the problem of cars being too similar in performance way too early in the season.

I also considered the fact that it may not be possible to completely max out Cooling or Reliability in this case. But since these two stats aren't improving race or 1 lap performance it shouldn't matter at all since maxing out the other 6 stats is all that matters and totally achievable.

Of course I know this is no easy feat and nothing you could change overnight by putting other numbers into the source code. Raising the cap to 160 would mean re-balancing the cars base speeds, how much time per lap on track Y is gained by one point in stat C, etc. Also re-evaluating the max speed of the cars at the new cap and of course Pro and Rookie values would need to be looked at aswell. But with now 19 races a change is much needed.

Your approach to the problem is also a valid one. With my calculation you'd reach max stats in the big 4 before Round 15/19. That's about the same as changing the cap to 160. But as you said there would be rounding issues and every odd or even Design centre upgrade would be worthless. Unless you change the building availability from Level 11 and start awarding 1 point per level. There would have to be compensation for players who already built the previous stages though as this would be quite a drastic change.

For lower level players I am not quite sure the DP make that much of a difference, since those profit from a higher research percentage when using a high rated CD/TD combination. Much higher than a Lv. 20 manager infact. The Technology centre difference making low level managers unable to compete is a different problem though that has nothing to do with the Design Point issue that is arising with the extra races.

My focus with the issue was on leagues where there is very little discrepancy in manager AND skill level where only slightly better optimizing in your development path can give you the edge over your competitors. And either your or my or a whole other approach is needed to give each season more of this optimizing and developmental game rather than the RNG occuring mid-season once the cars even out.

Hi guys, the problem that Alexander Fass poses is living together in our league ... It is full of great managers and we are 32 players in the Elite category ... our qualifications on pole are unfortunate, since the game wins the game relegates me to the worst places in qualification with Alex who has also obtained great results in his last seasons but his pole ratings are unfortunate too ... Alex can confirm that during most of the season I had the most developed car, I arrived at Silverstone with the big 4 in 100 and more than 50 in fuel economy and tires ... I have not had practically a positive rating throughout the season until the race of Abhu Dabhi where I no longer had options for the title ... many of the managers of the league we are in contact by whatsapp, we have compared cars many times and some managers with 20/25 points less qualify in front of me with similar strategy ... it is something very very absurd, q That even makes me doubt if there is a compensation system towards those who have the worst car and get worse results ... I personally would like each League to have the possibility of restarting the cars at minimum values, such as when we joined a new league .. would be positive the possibility of starting with the cars in those values, it could be done that it was by decision of the administrator after having reached an agreement with the great majority of the managers of the league to use that restart or not to use it (I think that you would be surprised at how much that option would be used) .. I think it would not be necessary to remove the extra extra from those who have designed with 3 design heads, somehow that extra could be applied .. Without a doubt this would favor those who really They know how to design and know the real characteristics of each circuit, and calculate the fuel consumption and the degradation of the tires to optimize the maximum performance on the track throughout the season Rada ... greetings

Hola chicos,el problema que plantea Alexander Fass lo estamos viviendo juntos en nuestra liga...Esta llena de grandes gerentes y somos 32 jugadores en categoria Elite..nuestras calificaciones en pole son lamentables,yo desde que gane el campeonato el juego me relega a los peores puestos en clasificacion junto a Alex que tambien a obtenido grandes resultados en sus ultimas temporadas pero sus calificaciones en pole son lamentables tambien...Alex puede confirmar que durante la mayoria de la temporada tuve el coche mas desarrollado,llegue a Silverstone con las 4 grandes en 100 y mas de 50 en economia de combustible y neumaticos..no he tenido practicamente una calificacion positiva en toda la temporada hasta la carrera de Abhu Dabhi donde ya no tenia opciones para el titulo..muchos de los gerentes de la liga estamos en contacto por whatsapp,hemos comparado coches muchas veces y algunos gerentes con 20/25 puntos menos califican delante de mi con similar estrategia..es algo muy muy absurdo,que incuso me hace dudar si hay un sistema de compensacion hacia quien tiene peor coche y obtiene peores resultados..a mi personalmente me gustaria que cada Liga tuviese la posibilidad de reiniciar los coches a unos valores minimos,como cuando nos unimos a una liga nueva..seria positiva la posibilidad de empezar con los coches en esos valores,se podria hacer que fuese por decision del administrador despues de haber llegado a un acuerdo con la gran mayoria de los gerentes de la liga para usar ese reinicio o no usarlo (Creo que ustedes se sorprenderian de cuanto llegaria a usarse esa opcion)..creo que no seria necesiario quitar el plus extra de quien haya diseñado con 3 jefes de diseño,de alguna manera se podria aplicar ese extra..Sin duda esto favoreceria a quienes realmente saben diseñar y conocen las caracteristicas reales de cada circuito,y calculan el consumo de combustible y la degradacion de los neumaticos para optimizar al maximo el rendimiento en la pista durante toda la temporada...saludos

Thank you for all your answers

Whichever way its done, what I'd like to see is it becoming impossible for even the highest and best managers to max out their cars. Everyone more or less develops their cars in the same way, if it was impossible to max out cars, there would be slightly more variation in how cars are developed. 
Ideally, I'd like to see drivers having a like or dislike for the way cars behave and for the CD to work in tandem with drivers during the off season, to produce cars suited to drivers likes - a pointy front end, a more stable rear or whatever. OK that would probably require a lot of work from the devs and maybe a more simple solution would be for the CD to develop the new car with a teams drivers likes/dislikes in mind and then managers have to try to figure out the best development path. Maybe Handling is the main thing to develop first, or braking. The thing is, there needs to be a way of making it more varied before the game becomes to predictable.
The more varied the game is, the less easy it is just to read the guides, build your team and follow everyone else.