Pitwall news

The development change that was announced in the season 3 changes has been put live. This changes how the part calculation (how good a part will be) is done, and thus is quite a big change. In the past the head developer his skills would have a direct impact on the rating of the part. This wasn't very realistic, because it would mean that a Newey would be able to make a Minardi a top team (parts wise) in a season.

To change this a new stat for every part has been introduced: research. Based on the skill of your designer and how many developers you have assigned to the research project, the level will slowly increase until it reaches the skill of the head designer. In the future it will change to the skill level of your design team (including junior's), but I want to give everyone the chance to set this design team up.
When a new part is created, this level is mainly used to calculate how good the part is. But of course the designer skill also still plays a role (to make use of the inventive and reproductive stats).
The research level will generally wear off slowly, but it will also drop whenever a new development project is started. The research level can only be improved by doing a research project or by doing laps (but it's a very low improvement) in any session.
I've decided to take it slow with the wearing off to make sure there are no developing dramas. After a season I'll evaluate how the average research levels are, and see if the drop in level should be stronger as initially intended.

The research projects are very similar to the development projects. They also take up a slot, you should also assign enough designers (generally less than a development project though), and they also cost money (half the price of the normal development projects). If you don't assign enough designers, then you will also get a sub optimal assigned designers warning message.
There have been a few other changes to the development process, so do consult the changelog to be aware of them.

Since this is a brand new system every team needs a starting value. I decided that the part rating of the best parts that were developed this season is the best indicator, and thus that value has been used. This is a very generous thing, and everyone is probably on a slightly higher level that they really should be.
With this change I hope to achieve something that I always wanted to prevent when creating PW2: avoid to get a game that is just brainless developing/clicking. This introduction increases realism and adds a few new strategies to the game.

And to end some other good news (that has been rightly so requested a few times): I'm going to be updating the development page to a tabbed page soon.