Suggested

DRS and KERS researchable

Hi all,

My suggestion is as the title states: Change KERS and DRS into research fields while making reliability and cooling dependent on the HQ.

This would provide several benefits:

1.) DRS / KERS becomes a level playing field. 

As we also see in another currently highly discussed thread, the current DRS system is highly unfavorable for lower level players. Especially on tracks like Austria where DRS is generally really effective, having a lower developed DRS really hurts. The experience is even worse, since one does not have any influence on it apart from 'playing more and finally reaching level 20'.

Making DRS and KERS research items will force managers to make a conscious decision on whether to upgrade it or not, especially in comparison to the big 4.

2.) Research becomes more diverse

Currently, research strategy is a game of optimizing the largest gap within the big 4, maybe adding in saving DP or the odd focus in fuel economy. Having more valid options available for research would probably also level the playing field while also creating a more diverse portfolio of development strategies, since it will become less likely to max out on everything by the end of the season. 
Of course, this is also a question of balancing, but as this is a first suggestion, I will leave this out.

3.) Long-playing managers will still enjoy benefits, however not as large

Allowing the technology center to improve cooling / reliability will still provide benefits for experienced managers by reducing engine wear/ part wear. However, it's impact will be less game-influencing than it currently is.

Overall, I think this change would provide many benefits at little cost. What are your opinions?

This would mean we have 2 pointless hq facilities....

I get the idea but think it would be very difficult to implement as how do you sort out adding cooling and reliability into the HQ area? Does it automatically start at level 1 for everyone, or does it start based on comparative levels for the other areas? 

I’m not exactly sure how DRS and Kers are worked out now apart from being researched in HQ, but they should be relative to the speed of your car for the following reasons -

If a lower level person has developed their car well and is running at the same speed as other higher level drivers, they should have the same benefit for kers and DRS

Slow backmarker cars shouldn’t be getting the same benefit as their car is running slow anyway.

I would suggest the technology facility to be used for reliability and cooling instead of KERS and DRS. Each upgraded level will lower the parts consumed and engine wear by a certain amount. It could be implemented analogous to what we have now, the only difference being that you have 20 levels instead of 200 points to scale.


As for your other point, that's exactly what I want to address. If, in the current state of the game, a lower level person has researched well, they will still be at a disadvantage during the race due to having less KERS and worse DRS. That's absolutely unfun and does not reward good research and management. Instead, people are simply punished for not having played as much yet.

Having KERS and DRS as research items would solve the problem exactly as you suggested, since good research and development throughout the season would also yield good KERS and DRS thus rewarding good research!

I was meaning how would it start though. So if they brought the idea in tomorrow, would everyone’s HQ for Reliability and Cooling be at Level 1? Or would it be at the level the Technology part was before?

Completely agree with it being equal for everyone, makes racing fairer then, and also would mean that the slow cars getting lapped aren’t coming flying past with DRS. I get the idea of bringing it into the research part, just think it might be tough to do, working out the exact level of improvement per 1/200.

Alternative suggestion (quick fix) would be to  just keep research as it is, take the Technology section out of HQ and everyone automatically get the same level kers/DRS which would work out by improving their car speed by “x”%.

Then longer term they can continue to look at ways to improve research to take it away from just the big 4.

Ah I see, I would suggest keeping the level of the facility as is and then use the scaling currently implemented just scaled down to a base of 1 to 20.


However, I honestly like and tbh even endorse your quick and dirty fix suggestion. I think fairness should be prio 1 an the rest could be figured out afterwards!