Qualification

I recently ballsed up and missed the deadline for qualy. First time this has happened but got me thinking. - would it not be a good idea that if a driver did not qualify but still starts the race at the back of the grid? - just to keep things interesting in the race.

I think that is not a bad idea as in F1 if something goes wrong in qualy they normally still get to race but start from the pitlane etc..

But that would wreck the missed race clauses with sponsors, drivers, staff etc...

I do agree that it would be nice to race from the back instead of missing out right due to whatever reasons.

Maybe there could be a “start race from pits at end of first lap option” so there is a punishment for missing qualifying I.e you start a lap down but still an option to enter the race. Then it doesn’t auto add people in so doesn’t affect sponsors, drivers etc? And people don’t end up racing without strategy’s. An idea.

In the new race script I will make a new strategy calculator and then we’ll we able to use that for main teams who have forgotten to set their strategy (or a button that auto sets a strategy for those who don’t like to do it).

I thought the point was what to do if missed qualifying not strategy? An auto strategy doesn’t seem as good an idea as it takes part of the point of playing the game away. Unless the calculator was made to hamper the race it could work better than “human set”strategy.

Kind of agree with Will on this. We can't allow people just to have a default strategy and do well in an active division. I'm happy to have it but it should be targeted at just getting the cars to finish the race so the drivers don't lose morale and encourages users to do their own strategies. One of my annoyances with how it is currently, is that you can end up being stuck behind a car for many laps that had no strategy set and it ruins your race. It just makes me feel that it was pointless having that car start the race as it affects others if the person doesn't set a strategy.

As for the qualification issue, I reckon there should be a button the user has to push between end of quali and 1 hour before the race that allows their driver to start from the pitlane. Once the button is pushed, the driver is added to the qualification page and a notification is sent to all the teams in the division that the driver will start the race. Perhaps make it so that there are some requirements for them to be able to do it like having to show they have qualified in recent races or tested for this race (so people don't just turn up on a Sunday morning, enter the race, then have the auto strategy get their cars to the end only for them to do the same the following weeks) and as well as allowing new teams to be entered that perhaps didn't have the equipment to take part in quali but can make the race. We also can't allow automatically entering the race else teams that have been abandoned will be entered and that ruins the missed race clauses so persons get stuck in dead teams.

Adam stated:

a button the user has to push between end of quali and 1 hour before the race that allows their driver to start from the pitlane.

I like this idea as it shows you are at least on-line and simply missed qualifying. Testing aspect I disagree with as I tend to miss practice more then I miss qualifying and the race strategy since it needs to be done here by Friday. Where I miss practice since it ends Thursday during the afternoon here so only think about it Thursday night to see that I have missed it by a few hours.

Overall I am not a fan of auto strategy since my cars are so slow I have to hope that teams forget or incorrectly set strategy so that I might score points. Usually I am 3-5 laps down at the current moment.

Agree with Adam and Robert partly:

Auto strategy yes, if you are in a hurry, would be a good feature. But please make it slow, something like 20-40 seconds slower than optimal (overfuel by quite a bit, more stops, less stops, whatever). This is a racing team manager, where the biggest part is racing. Finding the strategy, setting it, thinking of the consequences of over/undercut, thats what makes this game fun for me. Would be kinda killing it, if the strategy was spot on by the system.

I just wanted to state this, I dont think Frank actually would make the auto-strategy superior to human strategy.

Ad quali: I like the idea with the button, but as Robert said without restriction. Without testing the car would be on the back of the field and slower, because no setup, so punishment enough.

To still have the min race clause working: change it to min quali clause.

just changes how qualifying works, do the same as race strategy so we could plan the qualifying before thursday;

this mean no auto stuffs but we could plan everything even before thursday

you could do the same for testings because actually we have to plan all the stints live, wait driver come back, we cannot change

engine mode... just change testing and qualifying so it's like race strategy, even active people would like, this gain of time

I mean I'll go back to shcool (and you to work ) so if with 30min I can have a decent strategy it would be fantastic and active

people still ahve their advantage; race clause still ok. We're manager, not the engineer uh !!