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Spying system : The "best car" curse

Hey, let's talk about something important : the spying system. As you know it was introduced to help slower teams to catch up faster teams in 5 races but this is not working well and I'm going to explain why.

In the past there was an issue allowing 2/3 cars to start with 500/550 dp (design points) and others teams with 350 points at best causing a big gap and often locking top4/6 positions in races. That's why an auto-spying system was introduced giving extra points regarding CD & TD after a race. But those teams were able to spend extra points where they wanted and they were able to be faster than top teams in 1 race only and then to dominate them ! The explanation is simple, among 8 attributes there are 4 to 6 main attributes giving more rewards than other ones.

It was said that was due to the very big gaps (150/200 pts) and the problem was expected to be resolved by itself for the new seasons but the reality was different. The best teams started with about 370/410 dp when others started around 300/340 dp and the same situation happened. The "best" cars quickly dropped in rankings to let place to teams which started with less points and which are now dominating races. So what to do now ?

The problem is caused by the possibility for slower teams to spend extra points where they want and that gives them a huge advantage to spend those extra points in main areas. So an easy solution would be to automatically spend those extra points at the top of each attributes, for example 24 spying points would give +3 in each stat thus allowing slower cars to effectively catch up in pace without giving them an unfair advantage.


Here is an example about what happened in the MJL :

Design before Australia / Results during the first race (setups for all teams)
Skid Marks ... 407 dp / 1-2
Frost Ice ....... 387 dp / 3-6 / +16s
Cactusaurio . 333 dp / 4-5 / +16s
Uchiha .......... 333 dp / 7-10
BlueHawk ..... 331 dp / 8-9
Djerzelez ....... 284 dp / 16-19

Follow me ..... low design / 21-22
=> level 18 team with level 12 CD so it started with pretty low design.

Dark Thunder low design / 23-24
=> joined the previous season for the 4 last races so it started with low design.

Cactusaurio gained 30/35s as compared to Skid Marks between Australia and China (+16s to -18s).
Follow me and Dark Thunder catched Cactusaurio in Bahrain/Spain and are now even faster.
Skid Marks finished 11-5-8 as best results in the last 3 races.
Frost Ice finished 18-11-17 as best results in the last 3 races.

The same is happening in all leagues and in my case I calculated I'll need to wait .. Brazil in 2 leagues to catch up with those teams and not even entirely.

So what is the point to start with one of the best cars ? I thought managers were rewarded by their choices but this is pretty much the contrary and a couple of managers are starting to hire 2.5/3 stars staff to start with a poor car in order to be fast and I understand them : sacrificing 2/3 races to dominate the next 14 races is not a bad choice ..

Thanks to have read and feel free to post what you think about the current situation and add suggestions about it.

the actual system of car design and spy is a big bull shit,
its a fucking lotery, last season i've drivers full, CD 20/20/20 TD 20/20/20
the best car of league, and at the end of seasson i'd fighting to enter in points...
and i think that i can only win 3 races

races now big bullshit, seems cyclism, all in group with DRS,
you can only overtake with DRS/KERS/ fired tyres

sux a lot.

In Pro MJL the Tier Balancing system is working pretty well except for poor Alex @OMN Arrows who has the best car. Over all the system is accomplishing MOST of what we would want. That is, close racing with different drivers sharing the opportunity to win. The system just needs tweaking to solve the problem with teams that are given the best car at the beginning of a season. One thing we don't want is only one or two teams always at the top season after season.

sorry jack, bad day, and some fustration ;)

some ideas for this issue
- NEXT SEASON: I think it's time. As managers, we need to be able to change the car for next season. Focusing, deciding where to put some design points or whatever. At the moment, we just know one strength and one weakness our CD has.

- SPY SYSTEM: it worked to reduce gaps (we asked for it, was needed and now we are having closer battles and many different teams winning races so, i think in the end, it really helped ;)
Problem: this spy system gives the ones with bad cars too much power by giving a lot of points which can be assigned better than the ones the best car has assigned by it's CD.
Possible solution:
- managers are allowed to assign max 10dp (+/-, i don't know) per area, per race. so, you can't have a car with 10dp in accel for the first race and 50dp in the second race, that's unreal ;)
TD should have strength and weakness, so, we spyed 20dp but you can't use more than 5dp in TD's weakness and you can use 15dp (note this is -5 and +5 from the max allowed in the previous idea) in TD's strength. (again, this numbers are just to give the idea)

or well, another not as good as that, but should work: spied dps, are assigned in the same areas. i mean, you spied a car with great accel (, and bad downforce, so, your accel gets increased and your downforce stays the same).

I'm in the MJL and a lowly level 13. I might employ as good a staff as I can but there is no way I should be challenging for podiums while Kimi is struggling so much with a much better car (and strategy). I don't know if it's just the spying system but I would expect to improve but not to the detriment of much better teams.

At the moment the races are worse than before spying. It's just a reverse grid.

@Jay - I am also in the ED league in Elite. Despite being level 13 I have the best design somehow. The league has level 20 teams and a level 18 (winning team). How is it possible for me to have best design unless they have all downgraded their CD?

@Jack : Thanks, if you want more information I advise you to check the first races of the European Racing League for example, especially qualifying times between Monaco Yacht Club (one of the highest design) and Smid Racing which did only 8 races in that league the previous season.

@Lee : Design is generated regarding CD stars and not CD skills, that's why a level 8 team with a 5 stars CD will start with the same design as a level 18 team with 5 stars CD, don't forget the number of races a team participated the previous season are also taken into account but as you know starting with a very high design is not recommended currently.

The minus arrows on car design. Allow some negative adjustment ( a certain percentage, say 15 to 20 percent ) for teams with the highest development at the start of the season. Those points could be distributed to more important areas. Just active for the second race of the season.

+1 to all said by Joey

I agree, I prefer the old system. Out of interest are you getting mail saying that my car is better than yours or that you have one of the best cars?

i am in a fight with JC Skyfire in the elite div in the league i am in, JC caught up by half way through the season as expected, the problem with the system is that some teams will forever be in catch up mode and will always remain behind, others could end up gaining so much that they catch up all too quickly. in the season i am in with JC, it has been fairly even after the half way point.

The thing for me is that JC has better staff all round with extra levels, so i should be in catch up mode next season because JC will have more design points a race than i can manage by 2-3 points each race.

i like how so many good managers have ended up realizing the only reason they were so good is that the old system worked to their advantage and now there is a more fair system in place and suddenly they can't figure out why they are not as good as before when other managers who have never had the chance to show how good they are finally catch up and beat them at their own game.

@Jason - I agree with Kevin. Joey/Kimi is as experienced as they come and yet is at the back of the grid now. I joined the MJL league to pick up tips from him and in the previous version he was the one to beat and that wasn't just down to level and design.

Surely lower level teams should always be in catch up mode throughout the season. Like before, it should help you close the gap, not make you stronger.

I'd suggest negative changes to be made should be an option given to managers so they can adjust accordingly. Another suggestion is to design car for season start not automatically but by manager's choice as to where he wants to put DPs. Just as slow cars can put design where ever they want inseason. Managers with good CD shuld be given option to put design points where ever they want before the first race.

Sounds good for the design points earned from spying but what about those earned in house? I guess those would be fewer anyway and so highly unlikely to hit the cap?

Jack, If you implement that then the total number of points ever given at a single race would have to be reduced. Over at MJL my Pro team received 152 points after the first race but under the 20% restriction I could only use 128. Spreading the points out over more races would help anyway.

Yep for sure it helps to have a 1 star designer and a 5 star TD, a 5* designers car is roughly 50 in each design part for 1st race (400 points) and a 1* designer is about 10 in each part (80 points), after the 1st race you can get roughly 200 points from spy put 50 on each of the big design parts (Downforce, acceleration, handling, brakes) meaning car is almost at the 5* designer level, next race get another 100 points from spy split it between the big 4 parts (they are now 75/75/75/75) and if u assume the 5* guy has got level 15 development facility he will get 15 points for those 2 races so the big 4 will be (58/58/57/57) so now a lot slower that 1 star designer guy and it gets worse from there on… (approximate of course)

And overall after 2 races=
down force -Brake - acceleration - handling - fuel - tyres - cooling - reliability
5* guy = 58-58-57-57-50-50-50-50 (430 points)
1* Guy = 75-75-75-75-10-10-10-10 (340 points) This one would be quicker.

The problem is that tyre economy & fuel econ and the other 2 are not effective enough, easiest thing to do is just massively ramp up there effectiveness.

For example the difference between fuel econ of 10 & 100 should be like 5+ litres of fuel extra per stint that’s like carrying 2 laps extra fuel in comparison + longer pit stops. (im not sure what it is at moment but its nowhere near enough)

Same for tyre econ, if you have 10 for tyre econ, then supersoft tyres should be down to 90% wear after 5 laps compared to someone with 100 for tyre econ which can do 12 laps before 90% wear.
And be able to push harder before overheating.

Cooling = need less engines, like 5 per driver per season, restocked in between seasons, that’s 3-4 races per engine (and stop people buying loads of extra engines).
And have it that if you have 10 in cooling design after 4 races should be 90% wear in comparison to a guy with 100 after 4 races his engines only 50% worn and have it so engine performance degrades a lot.

Same with reliability for car parts and engine.


This stuff is all approximate, just using it as example etc.
But it would make all 8 design areas important rather than 4.
That guy with 1 star (if u had 75-75-75-75-10-10-10-10) would be slow in race but be quick in qualifying.