New iGP: Car Development

Alpha testing of the new iGP Manager is underway. We’re not satisfied that the game is ready to move on to closed beta testing at this stage. As a result, we have chosen to extend the Alpha testing period by a couple of weeks. This means that the closed beta testers will not be invited until near the end of January to begin testing the new iGP.

As our thank you for everyone’s patience waiting for the new iGP Manager to be completed, we decided to release some new screenshots today. This time I’ll be showing you a host of new features and changes in car attributes, car development and upgrades, suppliers and car repairs. Something you will notice straight away in the desktop screenshot is the first glimpse of our new menu layout and sidebar, which allows instant and easy access to every area of iGP Manager. We have grouped key areas of gameplay in to more easily identifiable page names and made the management screens much easier to navigate as a result.

Anyone who has seen the previous blogs on the new iGP will know a lot of work has been put in to accessibility. Despite this, car development is one area of gameplay which has increased in variety and complexity.

While the new interfaces and car attributes make it easier to understand the impacts of design changes, they also greatly increase the variety of ways in which cars can be developed. In the old iGP car development had become somewhat routine, and predictable. People knew the best ways to work the system, and essentially everyone was developing a car in the same way. The new system encourages a large diversity of car designs. The balance of one car might blitz the straights of Monza, while another shines on the streets of Monaco. The unique characteristics of different cars suit different circuits, increasing excitement and variety in race outcomes, without any random factors at play.

Car upgrades follow a simpler (and less tedious!) process, where your Design points now accumulate organically, and can be applied on any attributes however you like. You could spend them all on acceleration development, for example, or spread it among the attributes of the car. Reliability is also a factor which can be developed now, and leaving it under-developed may result in more retirements. The upgrades are instant, and no longer require parts refitting. Cars still require repairs, however, and will wear over a race distance.

The way suppliers work has also changed completely, and is closely integrated in to car development. Suppliers previously suffered the same fate as car design – everyone took the same choice. To increase the variety of suppliers that people select, each now brings a different (and equal) bonus to specific car attributes. This means that there is no “ultimate supplier”, and asking which combination of suppliers is best results in a different answer for every team, based on their car design and attributes.

It is no longer possible to be without suppliers, either. Every team will always have engines, fuel and tyres. In place of signing and rejecting contracts, managers simply switch suppliers. This change is intended to increase race participation, in the event that any manager holidays or is inactive during a season.

The way next season designs work has also changed. Unlike in the old iGP there will be no direct control over the next season car design. The performance is determined by your chief designer, who, in a similar manner to suppliers, brings bonuses to your car’s attributes based on their own strengths and weaknesses.

As hopefully is becoming clear now, the entire system is much more coherent and integrated. The way suppliers, designers and attributes all correlate will create interesting and unique patterns of development. Some may go for a balanced design, while others may skew their car for the characteristics of certain tracks, or even for endurance, by focusing on improving their fuel and tyre economy. In this way, someone who doesn’t have the fastest car may be able to get by on less pit stops during a race and leapfrog faster teams, just as we have often seen in F1 with teams like Sauber and Lotus in recent years.

We look forward to reading your thoughts and feedback on the new system! A lot of effort has gone in to planning this system to address many of the issues that existed in the current version of iGP, namely: supplier hopping, linear predictable designs, participation levels, and of course, fun and enjoyment. We’ve done our best to make the game more fun to play, while at the same time adding more depth and strategy to gameplay.