Design System - Your Ideas

Minimize the variation between 0%- and 100%-car by 50% and we are there.

The differences between let's say 100% car and a 70% car are just ridiculous (to me).

Grafin, not to put a damper on your idea, but that design system is probably getting abandoned :P

Right i've had some free time to run through David spreadsheet/idea's so i've got a couple of questions regarding that

1/ So assuming parts A-F, Does R&D change the main stats of these. or only sub-stats?
2/ Assuming you can only only have 1 part per season, e.g. A, [which you will improve throughout the season] does B-F stay the same or lose stats [due to less knowledge of the parts
3/ Can you through design/r&d etc, over a number of seasons make part A similar [or same stats] as part B/C/D etc
4/ How do you initally implement it [Just at the end of the season etc
5/ How do all of your parts come togethor as such? [with a combined skill level or total % increase/reduction etc]
6/ How do you keep it "even/fair" for all players? [both higher level players in lower tiers(rookie/pro] but also brand new players [surrely they will be at a disadvantage]

Apoligies if this has been covered and i just havent read enough into it

I like David Brady's latest idea with the parts having attributes with a 1-20 rating that can be improved upon (similar to current driver training).  There is one way that you could ensure that not everyone would have the same ratings tho.  Limit the total number of points that can be 'spent' in any part.

For example with a front wing.  You could have attributes like Top Speed, Cornering, Weight, Efficiency.  That would be 4 total attributes on the front wing with a combined possible 80 points.  Now just limit the total points that can be put into the part to, for example, 2/3 of the total possible and it would leave you with 53 (rounded up) points to spread between the 4 attributes.  This would allow the managers to try to decide which attribute for that particular part is more valuable than the others and at the same time does not allow any manager to max out every attribute for a part.

I'm thinking that to make the Chief Designer have meaning with this system a good way would be that the Chief Designer's level would limit how many points can be on a car.  So with my front wing example, a level 20 CD would allow the full 53 points to be on the part, and a level 1 would allow 3 points (53/20 rounded up) to be on the car (or a minimum of 1 point per attribute).  So for a part with 4 attributes you would need a level 2 or higher CD before you could start to improve the part.  The design staff can be used to determine how many points (up to a pre-determined limit) can be put onto any given part at one time.

You could have a system similar to the current design system where you have to assign your design staff to each individual part attribute to work on.  So if you want 5 of your design staff to work on the front wing you have to then split them up between the 4 attributes for where they are focusing their work.

Allow one 'upgrade' to be done to the car during the current season.  The longer a manager works on the parts the better 'upgrade' they can produce.  If they leave it go too long then they've wasted most of their season with a crappy car and are only good for the last few races, but if they do their upgrade too early then the competition might produce a better upgrade in a few race and then be beating them.  Make the 'this season' upgrade a temporary adjustment to the car attributes to reflect the mid-season upgrades we see all the time in F1. Of course you would use the same points limitations that I have above and you would need to assign design staff to this season's upgrade development.  Now I would amend the points limitation just a bit for this temporary mid-season upgrade.  Here I would say that your Chief Designer's level will determine how many points over the part maximum (53 in my examples) that you can go for a development boost during the season, but you can only do this if you already started the season with the maximum points in that part.  So if you have 53 points in your front wing at the start of a season and you have a level 20 CD then for your mid-season upgrade you can push the limits and add an extra 20 points, provided you did enough development work.  This would still keep you below the maximum possible for the part at 73 out of 80.

Now to keep people from just assigning everyone to this season's upgrade for half a season and then moving them all to next season's development, your Chief Designer's level can also determine the maximum number of design staff allowed to work on a part.  This season's parts and next season's parts would be considered different for this.  So a level 5 CD could assign 5 staff to this season's front wing upgrade and 5 staff to next season's front wing development at the same time.  The manager still would have to decide which attribute(s) those 5 staff would be assigned to on the front wing.

Now add Jack's idea to all of this for the longer you work on a part the better improvement you can get and it will encourage people to do development work from the beginning of a season toward next season's car, but make them have a tough choice on how many to pull from next season't development to put toward this season's upgrade.

Now I know what you're saying to yourself.  You're saying "self, with this system I'd eventually have my car parts maxxed for my Chief Designer's skill and will be able to put everyone into my upgrade for this season".  Here's how we avoid that one.  At the end of every season each attribute on each car has a % chance to deteriorate.  The minimum an attribute can be is 1 so any attributes at 1 do not have a chance to deteriorate.  Set the base chance to deteriorate at 20% and then add 1% to that for every point in that part.  With my front wing example, at the beginning I'd be at 1 point per attribute and so no chance of deterioration.  Say a few seasons down the road I have it at 20 points in the part.  At this point each attribute would have a 40% chance for random deterioration.  If I have it maxxed out at 53 points then each attribute would have a 73% chance to deteriorate.  Each attribute would be checked individually for this so one attribute might get lucky but 2 others would deteriorate.  The amount of deterioration can also be scaled up with the more points that are in an attribute, something like a 20% loss.  If you only have 5 points in an attribute you'd only lose 1 point but if you have 20 points in an attribute you'd lose 4 points.

This would help to emulate all of the constant changes in design and aerodynamics work in F1 even by the top teams.  It would also force managers to constantly be working toward next year's car or slowly be relegated down the field into a mediocre car.  Managers would constantly have to play a balancing act with how they distribute their design staff and make every car slightly different.

Now I was just using basic 1-20 scale on everything here, I don't even know if there are level 20 Chief Designer's but wanted to keep the numbers on the simpler side because the concept is more important.

1/ Some Main, Some substats, the style of the model A is absolutely little downforce, while model F looks like a Wing from 2008. R&D improves these stats, but the Downforce and Aerodynamics numbers are base numbers.
2/ Parts B and F are seperate from Parts A, they don't share the same R&D, for R&D on the other parts, you can improve them throughout the season. There is no real limit aside from 197 Designers. If you had 100 Designers, you can work on 20 different components at any one time. Each Upgrade should only take 1-5 Races to complete. Therefore there would be no reason to link their developments, but if you'd like we could add this:
[list]
[*]Research done on Front Wing A improved Drag Reduction by 10%
[*]Team's knowledge of Drag reduction improves
[*]Next Drag Reduction research on Models B to F gain an additional 1% reduction.
[*]Research done on Front Wing B improved Drag Reduction by 11%
[*]Team's knowledge of Drag Reduction improves
[*]Next Drag Reduction research on models A, C to F gain an additional 1% Reduction.
[*]Research done on Front Wing C, improved Drag reduction by 12%
[*]Team's knowledge of Drag reduction improves
[*]Next Drag Reduction research on models A to B and D to F gain an additional 1% Reduction.
[*]Research done on Front Wing A improved Drag Reduction by 12%
[*]Team's knowledge of Drag reduction improves
[*]Next Drag Reduction research on Models B to F gain an additional 1% reduction.
[*]Research done on Front Wing A improved Drag Reduction by 10%
[*]Team's knowledge of Drag reduction improves
[*]Next Drag Reduction research on Models B to F gain an additional 1% reduction.
[/list]
Etc..

3/ The idea of having different parts with different baseline stats is to add diversity instead of making them all similar. Models A are generally designed to be very fast on straight lines, Model F is suppose to be fast on corners, while Models C is suppose to be balanced but favours Straightline more than corner speed, and vice versa on Model D. Removing that effect just leaves you with 1 model. Think of it as tires, different types available.
4/ During the Interval starting from the last race finishing and 30mins before the first race starting, you have that time to choose your season's car components.
5/ Lets take speed bonuses for example, say a part gave the result +2 to speed, then your topspeed would be increased by 2 points (not 2kph), the conversion for that stat is entirely developer decision. but lets say it adds topSpeed=(enginePower*5)+((bonusOverallSpeed*1.5)+((BonusOverallSpeed/3)*2)), and say the bonus speed of your car is 23 and the enginePower of a Merc is 60. Then your car's topspeed would be 349.83Kph  (217.37Mph)
6/ If a team gets demoted then we could enforce a penalty to all R&D of the team and reduce some bonuses they gained as part of a 'Back to the Drawing board' or if they left the league.

On an additional note, Both Car One and Car Two can have entirely different models. If you know your driver's To strengths and weaknesses, you can create the baseline of your car around that.

To Calculate Drag, it would be 80% of Downforce take away drag reduction. (Model F front wing would have 16 drag) if you researched on drag reduction first round, it would have then got 14.4 Drag, another 10% reduction would be
12.976, and after constantly researching drag reduction for an additional 8 times, you'd have 5.57 Drag on the model F front wing.

Finally, researching costs money now, and researching further and further like 10 times onto one component's R&D of like Front Wing's Drag Reduction, then it would increase alot. Say it would go like this (times researched):

[list=1]
[*]$100,000
[*]$235,000
[*]$552,250
[*]$1,297,787
[*]$3,049,800
[*]$7,167,031
[*]$16,842,523
[/list]

This also grants the possibility of increasing or adding more sponsors to the game to fund teams and gives spending options for the top teams.

End of Season can increase reduce all R&D bonuses by 33% (ie if you collectivelyand resets the price of R&D by 1 level. So if someone had 5.5 drag to their 16 Downforce front wing at the end of the season, then next to the season, that wing will have 7.5 drag.

Also Aero-cooling now generates Drag.

Just please don't forget: It should NOT be realistic like it is in F1. Otherwise new members will not have a chance.
It should also not being complicated. New members...same here.
Keep it simple and fair.

Do not bash me, please, *grin* but I really like the one we have. It might not be very technical or sophisticated and I could come up as well with a highly complicated proposal or an engnieering approach, but will that work for the majority of members?

If I look at all those superdumb questions I read here (yes, I know that this might be politically incorrect, but I suppose it to to true) I highly doubt that.

Most people here don't have a clure about real engineering.

And: If it needs to be complicated I would like to see some random outcomes. Design isn't forseeable. And it shouldn't be here, IF it needs to be complicated.

My 2 cents. ;-)

It will not be complexed.

Lets look at the R&D Page
[list]
[*]There will be 10 (2 across, 5 down or 3 by 3 with Research at the bottem) Retangle box for each component, with a drop down menu each available (Models A to F)
[*]Each one you select gives 4 stats such as Weight (Always shown), Aerodynamics, Downforce, Cooling, Stability, Durability, Braking Power or Shock Resistance. Beneath those stats will be R&D buttons used as a click and research, and under that will be the time remaining until research complete.
[*]A (?) will be available to each R&D popping up a tooltip, explaining what each does ie, Drag Reduction - Reduces Drag on this component to increase Top Speed.
[*]In Electronics, there will be 4 available buttons (prefixed with Team Level) which will be Technology. DRS will be found in the Rear Wing Component. Pressing these will begin research into that technology if the team's level is appropiate. Again a (?) will explain what each research does to your car, ie, KERS - Energy from brakes are stored in a battery, where when turned on will increase acceleration.
[*]On the right side, will detail the following stats
[list]
[*]Total Weight (Min. 640KG) - ###KG
[*]Speed Rating - ##
[*]Acceleration Rating - ##
[*]Fast Corner Speed Rating - ##
[*]Slow Corner Speed Rating - ##
[*]Front Brake and Tire Cooling Rating - ##
[*]Rear Brake and Tire Cooling Rating - ##
[*]Engine Cooling Rating - ##
[*]Drag Reduction System - Yes/No
[*]Kinetic Energy Recovery System - Yes/No
[*]Traction Control - Yes/No
[*]Anti-Brake Lock System - Yes/No
[*]Traction Control - Yes/No
[/list]
[*]On the right under the total stats, will be the number of Designers available, and the team you are currently spying on (which can be changed at any point).
[/list]

As for our current one, it's a really bad system that makes you good one season, then bad the next.

I'm with him. You should be punished for going all out on one season. Besides, when you get the wind tunnel and test rig you can catch up very quickly if you have a low ranked car. I had a 100% car one year, started the next year with a 50% car, quickly got it up to 80+% and still won the title in a tough league. I welcomed the challenge and i think we should have to choose. I also like how we have to make a decision on when we start focusing on next season. I dunno, seems like a good system currently that is only in question because of a few people who went for 100% and then raged because they couldn't dominate the next season.

In the meantime Jack, you could always just have, end of season, the 'Next Season' will equal to 40% of last season, ie, 30% this, 20% next, 100% this, 60% next, until a better more permanent system can be put into place.

I upgraded by Spreadsheet with it being more simplified and easier to understand: Link Here

Also I'd like to suggest removing the 'Component limitation' and allow you to change to any model every race. Seeing who focused on what component more would be interesting during the season, as for MONZA someone would have better Drag Reduction on his lower-Drag reduction component setup, where he wouldn't have spent much time in upgrading his stronger downforce packages for like Monte-Carlo.

Also I would like to suggest for Suppliers, specifically engines, that we pay for our Engines at the start of our contract, not per refit. Any unused engines will be refunded for 80% of the cost.

Also all suppliers would be contracted to the season, this will allow a bit more diversity with engines for all the teams in each league. Lower budget team would use Cosworth, a High budget team would use Mercedes or Ferrari, Renault.

Breakdown for Budgets
High Budget - $10mil Per season (5mil for one car teams)
- Mercedes
- Ferrari
- Renault

Medium Budget $6mil Per season (3mil for one car teams)
- Honda
- Toyota
- BMW

Low Budget $4mil Per season (2mil for one car teams)
- Cosworth

Relationships would effect the costs:
10/10 -10% Cost
9/10 -8% Cost
8/10 -6% Cost
7/10 -4% Cost
6/10 -2% Cost
5/10 0% additional cost
4/10 +5% Cost
3/10 +10% Cost
2/10 +15% Cost
1/10 +20% Cost
0/10 No Contract

For each season you do not sign with a contractor, you lose 1 reputation with them
For each Positive Comment, increases your relationship by 2 with current supplier (1 for other supplier and would -1 to your current supplier)
Contracts can be up to 3 seasons, at the end of each season you can request to break contract or request a Consensual Break, Consensual break reduces the relationship by 3, breaking contract reduces reputation to 0/10
Relationship Status only effects your next contract negociation, not your current one.

Some brilliant ideas in this thread. Diplomacy is always a useful tool. :)

I completely forgot to reply to this :D
This method of design progression gets my complete approval, coupling it with multiple Variants of components and specific upgrades to those components will give a great personality to the car's design progression.