New Design System Development Update

We promised you in our last news release that we would provide more information on our new design system and here it is!

When we set out to redesign how this component of the game worked we decided that we needed to start with a clean sheet of paper and completely rethink every aspect of the design process.  It had became obvious to us that the current design system needed to be much deeper and have a more substantial impact on the actual strategy each manager uses not only on the race track but also in the race shop. We feel like we have accomplished that and we are excited to provide you more information about how it will work.

Cars in the new design system will be ranked on performance characteristics instead of the components used in the current design system.  The new attributes include: Acceleration, Braking, Cooling, Downforce, Fuel economy, Handling, Innovation, Reliability, and Tyre economy. 

Certain attributes will be better suited to certain tracks, meaning a winning car at Monaco is not going to be the best package at Monza. Some characteristics will even work better in the wet than the dry, leaving the realistic chance that a dominant car at the start of a dry race will be outpaced by a backmarker in wet conditions. Every race weekend will have some surprises on the timesheet based on who has the car best suited to that weekends track!

With this change to performance attributes there will also be a change with the job function of the chief designer position.  Every chief designer now has a "strength" and "weakness" value associated with the different areas of the car which they are specifically good or bad at designing.

If you want to target an area of performance in your car for the next season you will now need to hire a designer with that particular strength. As a manager you can no longer directly influence the next season car performance but instead will be given a platform to start the season with by your design team. The biggest influence a manager can have is to select a chief designer with strengths and weaknesses that they would prefer to start the season with, and these will be reflected in the design of the new car.

The interface to specifically design components for your car has received a complete overhaul as well.  New component designs are now researched and constructed via the creation and completion of 'Design projects'. There are short, medium and long term design projects available and each has a price associated with it.

Long term projects have the biggest gains but take the longest to arrive while short term projects can arrive in time for the next race even if you start a project mid “race week”. Medium term projects take about one “race week” to complete. The price for design projects also go up with the term with the long-term projects delivering the best "bang for buck" overall. The system is flexible enough that if you want to develop something immediately, either for a specific circuit or to fix a flaw from the last race, you can design a short-term upgrade in time for the next race.

The new system will also be changing how you allocate resources to designing your car.  You can work on a maximum of three design projects at once at the elite level, two at the pro level, and one at the rookie level.  This will require each manager to carefully asses what projects are important for the next race, the rest of the season, and the next season. 

Each team has the same capabilities to staff these design projects at each tier.  By default each project you schedule for your team will be staffed by contract designers who will charge a premium for their work.  If you allocate your own staff to the design department the rate that they charge is significantly cheaper.  Each tier of your league will also have a design cap to make for closer competition in the Rookie and Pro tiers.

Attribute upgrades, spies and the next season designs are all design projects, meaning you have to choose wisely what to allocate the projects to at the right time. Working on a short, medium or long term design project for next season means you've lost one of your three slots (at the elite level) for the current season or spying, so you will need to be careful not to fall behind on the current season by putting too much focus on the next one or vice versa.

Design projects are charged every hour in steps until the completion of the project. If a design project is costing you too much money you can cancel it at any time, but this can be costly as well because you will lose the design progress that you have made and cannot apply it to the car until it is complete.

With the new responsibilities that your chief designer brings to your team they also bring more of an impact on the performance of your team.  Changing your chief designer during a design project has a negative impact on the upgrade in performance. By not having clear leadership throughout the duration of a project your staff becomes demotivated and this reduces their output.

And finally the way that you physically upgrade your car will change.  Gone are the days of replacing specific components on your car when they become fatigued. Rather than playing the role of engineer, you play the role of manager, by specifying what performance upgrades you want to see on the car. Similarly, there is one global car condition attribute, and an engine condition attribute. Maintaining the car condition is still part of the challenge, but not on a component basis.

As you can see this is a significant departure from our current system and may give you some insight on why it has taken us so long to develop it.  We hope to have the beta version of this system in testing this weekend and are looking forward to collecting feedback from our testers on it.  We will be sure to keep you updated on how the development and testing is going and can’t wait for you to try it in the very near future.