A much more simple way to stop people from hanging on to the same "great" parts for season after season, would of been to make everyone develop brand new parts for the beginning of every season. This would force everyone into a development race, which is what F1 is about.
Or make it when a part reaches its potential, it cannot be carried into the next season. Forcing you to develop a brand new part.
I think a better way would be to limit each part to 1 carry-over season. This would mean that you can start a season with the last seasons parts, but would have to develop new parts during the course of a season. The development process is too long to have to renew every season, but every other season would be doable, I think.
I was hoping that the rule changes on parts from season to season would force this. Increased restrictions would mean that a brand new part must be developed, or less restrictions would mean that an evolved part is at a disadvantage compared to a new part.
I liked the aspect of reaching full potential then not being able to carry over the part but also disagree since you could have an all superb designer when you get the potential of the part but no longer employee him season late when the part reaches max potential. So I will agree a two or three season max should be implemented before you can no longer use.
F1 rules change every season just enough that teams need to change some aspects if not majority of the cars parts. Maybe this would be a better avenue to look at since it could mean a chassis last 2-3 season or maybe 1 depending on the rule changes; which is where I thought we were trying to head with this new development aspect in the first place.
Problem comes from how to implement such changes every season since most part are not that complicated in the design process so are limited on how they can change.
@Dan: I understood your point about not having enough staff for new teams but currently we are all in the same position with limited staff but I think you are missing the point that the game is suppose to be played long term looking at the future more then the current season or even next season.
No point having an all superb designer early in the game when you have no means to max out his abilities. Once you have a level 5 HQ and the means to hire the staff needed to develop like mad then by all means hire that all superb staff member. This is where and how Frank wants the game played while we are all thinking sort term. Which is why the cost of staff and drivers are so high. We all wanted instant results and are paying for them in some ways!!
I see you point haha But I don't agree that an implementation with the purpose of preventing top teams keeping a top rated part without doing much, actually hurts smaller teams more is a good idea!
Quite simply the parts should not be rated as x/10. There is no need for an upper limit. Remove it and there is no need to artificially degrade designs.
The PW1.0 Model had it's flaws though in that the game was won by whoever did the most developing and continued to develop, trying to catch the top teams (which is what i was building up to) took forever. If you were at the top in PW1.0 then you could easily stay there...
I like that the current system puts an element of the unknown into each season, you may have a Superb head designer and a Superb design team but they can still get their designs wrong and you may ed up with not the best car. That wasnt possible in the old game and it got boring, now each season i can look forward to perhaps having a good car and if not the challenges of completing with a crap car, much more fun
