With a slight delay, this morning the game has been updated to the latest version. This update was focussed mainly on racescript changes, and other much requested features. The site has been in maintenance today due to slower than anticipated scripts.
Morale changes
First of all the only change that has nothing to do with the racescript: the base morale. Before we had the “team fit” mechanic, which was not the most popular mechanic of the game (to say it with an understatement) since it was completely unclear how it actually worked. The mechanic itself was not properly built either, and therefore the commentary was justified. Because of that I've just completely removed that mechanic, and replaced it with something that is very clear: the base morale. A person will always converge to their base morale, which makes it clear from the very start what kind of morale you can expect for a person. The morale is of course still influenced by other factors such as winning, retiring, etc. Speaking of the morale drop, an important bug has been fixed which caused
Tyre temperature
Before tires had a reliable rating, and depending on certain factors they would degrade. The kilometers that a tire would last were also influenced by this, and this made for a bit of a messy system. A new statistics has been introduced which is the tire temperature. The tire will degrade faster the higher the temperature is. Combined with this new statistic another new stat is introduced for each part called “condition”. This stat determines how good a part is, and it will now fail when it hits 0. No longer will the number of kilometers that it lasts be a determining factor, but it will be indicative. Tires also have a condition, and the tire condition is also influenced by the temperature. Once the tire hits terrible there’s a big chance that it will explode. Once the tire goes over the cliff, lap times will also increase quite a lot, just like driver errors.
Performance calculation
A few changes have been made to how the performance of a car is calculated on each part of the track. A car that has a good acceleration stat will make more difference in tracks with an emphasis on acceleration, and the same goes for all characteristics of a track such as braking and the speed phases of a track section.
New driver skills
Since the performance calculation has been upgraded, I also felt that drivers were pretty much the same at the highest level. They could use more distinctive factors. Because of this several new driver stats have been implemented: low speed corners, medium speed corners, high speed corners which should speak for themselves. The old corners stat has basically been split up in three separate stats. Further more we split up the speed stat in braking and acceleration. All the new stats have been generated based on the existing stats.
Management stats for drivers now define how harsh they are on the car. Drivers with a high car management stat will put a lower wear on the car, while a good fuel management will result in lower fuel usage. The new tyre warming stat will result in tires being warmed up faster, since wear is much higher when the tire has a too high or low temperature.
The technical stat has been split up in two stats: car setup (which is the old stat) and car development, which is a stat that will be used in the future for car development.
The mental stats have been generated already, but have not yet been implemented.
Person ratings
Last season we had an instance where a very experienced player (I won’t name names) was clearly confused by how good his (okay, it’s a ‘he’) designers were. He was overestimating them, and it made it clear to me that the way the stats worked in the past were not clear enough. Because of this I’ve decided that more transparency is needed, and I’ve made the talent, global rating and global talent visible. Talent was already known thanks to scouts, but the global rating and global potential are new. These sort of replace the old reputation system. The global rating states how good a person is compared to all other persons in the staff category. So a 5 star person is one of (or the) best in their category (designer, mechanic, …). The potential makes it clear how much talent the person has compared to the talent of all other persons in their category. Depending on the knowledge of the person, you will see 1, 2, 3 or 5 stars with stars being the highest knowledge.
This is also updated for the skills of a person, whereas the old skill types (terrible, very good, …) have been replaced by numeric values up to 20. Depending on the knowledge a higher maximum number is available.
Car setup split
The car setup statistic has been split into two: performance and tyre management. Performance is the same as the old car setup stat, but tyre management determines how good the car handles the tires. The better they are handled, the lower the wear. For the first time in Pitwall managers can now also change the setup of the car, but only in a limited way. It can be set up towards better on performance, or better on tyre management. This is possible on the same page as where cars are sent out. Do note that it’s never possible to get superb on both stats since it’s always a compensation between the two.
In order to improve either of the stats, a certain testing program can be chosen in the testing session. Either program will also always improve the other program, but only in a limited way.
Tyre handling stat
A new characteristic has been created for cars: tyre management. The suspension and diffuser now have a tyre management characteristic which determines how hard the car is on tires. The better the stat, the lower the wear will be on tires. All old and current parts have been updated so that they have roughly the same rating as the other stats.
Fixes
Several bugs in the race script have been fixed (but not all), such as feelings would only occur in qualification sessions, while it should’ve been in race sessions.
Another big bug that has been fixed is drivers who would DNF in a testing or qualification session would keep “coming back” for the remainder of the stint.
That’s all for now, work continues on the racescript just like on the car development. More fixes will be rolled out soon.
