Today the updated development system that was mentioned before has been released on the main game. This update allows everyone to finally start their season 9 development projects. As of course there is no time anymore to complete them all now, everyone receives an instant project per part for development. And also instant parts for production.
This system has been tested quite a bit on the alpha website. The alpha testers will notice that there are quite a few other changes (GUI and bug fixing related mainly). These changes were never pushed to the alpha website, so it's not the case that the alpha site has just been ported over. The main issues that were reported have been fixed.
What has changed in this development update? Quite a lot, here's all of it taken from the original specification document:
Split research
The pages need to become less crowded on Pitwall in general, and the research should therefore be split off the development page. With the changes that are coming for the research, it would be better any way.
Research to per season
Because research right now is focused too much on the current season we don't really simulate the trend in Formula 1 that sometimes the rules get thrown overboard and we get a new set of rules. This is not necessarily for the entire car, but it is regularly for one or more parts on the car.
As research will be split off from the development page, we can also allow a tab on the page to switch between the different seasons.
Rules maximum
The rules will now simply show the maximum value that a part can reach. Right now it says something vague like "very restricted". But from this change on the rules will simply show the maximum value that the part can reach.
Removal of rules limits
At this moment the development is limited by the rules, and also the value that a part has is relative to this limit. Parts won't be created relative to their limit anymore, and will have the real value. This also allows the teams to go over the limit with the parts, effectively running an illegal car.
Rules research
A new type of research that allows you to have your designers look into the rules and look for loopholes. Each rule set will have a real value, a potential value, and a multiplier which specifies how likely it is to find out the loophole. Not every rule will have a loophole each season (actually, only a few or no rules will have a loophole), which makes it exciting not knowing which loopholes have been found yet.
Development phases
Development will be split into several phases like we have now, but they will actually do something. The player will be able to cancel out certain phases or decide to make them shorter or longer.
1. Research
This phase starts the researching phase just like it can be done as a standalone. You will be able to state how high the research phase should go, but this won't be higher than the maximum research level.
2. Development
The actual development where the part is improved. It should be made clear to the player how long this phase should be as otherwise the player is in the unknown.
3. Test bed
This phase allows you to assess the performance of the part. This value can be different than the on track value.
4. QA testing
This phase is probably only useful for the gearbox as it allows you to see how long the part will last generally.
Part ratings
At this moment the part ratings are hidden until a number of kilometers is done. Since the test bed phase in the development is introduced, people will be able to know the rating of the part before it hits the track (unless they skip the phase). Instead of not knowing your own part rating, the system will be changed to trying to find out the other teams' ratings. Which makes sense, because you can always know everything from your own team, but need to look out where the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents are. Therefore over time the more kilometers your opponents do with their parts, you will get a better view of where they are with their parts. For now this will be kept the same for everyone (as in, there's no way to increase the rate of finding out how good another team is) as otherwise it will get too complex.
Better overview
Parts will be shown in such a way that it is clear which part evolved from which part. A hierarchical structure in which the first part is shown first and the other parts are followed by it.
Weight tweaking
Weight is still too much of a random factor. It can't be that a part all of a sudden is XX kg lighter. Especially for the heavier parts such as the chassis this is still a problem.
Project mechanics
The number of mechanics was set to a really low number, making it usually no different to have 2 or 5 mechanics assigned. This has been updated.
The careful reader will notice that the last two items (designer instructions & testing programs) did not make the cut. But these will be implemented later.
As I've noticed that there have been quite a few complaints about the morale/motivation, I've decided to reset that for all persons for now.
Next up I'll look into all the annoying bugs and/or features that are not working as correctly.
If irregularities occur, let me know and I will look into them as soon as possible. Have fun everyone!
