I'm just getting ready to record the race, so fingers crossed nothing goes wrong in Austria.
I have been thinking about what needs to change for next season, and have an idea to float.
Power, Downforce and Gears are the three most powerful upgrades, with Power being the only one without a downside. The driver upgrades (which is what gives all the drivers "personality") are badly underutilised until the power is all bought, by which point the cars are all on different power so there's no racing.
As such, I am thinking of dropping Power, Downforce and Gears as a buyable commodity next season completely, and making them all up to choice.
The cars next season will be the "Formula Reiza" cars, based on the 2011-ish season of F1, and once again will have High and Low Downforce packages and a longer and shorter gearbox. I plan to make Downforce and Gearboxes interchangeable, but I need to come up with a way of making sure everyone doesn't chop and change each round and every race has everyone with the same gearbox and downforce package - variety is what makes racing in Automobilista worth it.
Power will come in 11 packages of different percentages. Every team will be given a choice of 11 different power percentages, and must designate before the first race their plan for power at each race.
For example: 1.05, 0.98, 1.04, 1.00, 0.92, 1.01, 1.09, 1.02, 0.93, 0.97, 1.10
I will have to put rules in to stop people just putting all their high powers in the first few races to stop people being boring and gamesmanshippy, probably something like a "0.04 difference between each race" for example, but that's to be worked on. Every team will get the same bunch of 11 power varieties.
Prize money will all be reduced so that it just needs to be spent on the driver and reliability.
Does this sound good and something that will improve the enjoyment and competitiveness of the series?