No major bugs encountered.
Music to my ears.
11 or 12 races yesterday with a new game started with 1.31c (mid race length, GT2, some minor mods added). No major bugs encountered.
Some more detailed things:
A. Once again saw an interview asking if I wanted to hire my own driver. I thought I took a screenshot of it, but apparently I did not, since I can't find it anywhere.
B. 3 random breakdowns, 2 of them in the same race. Seems ok to me.
C. I'm also (still) happy with the number of spins. And I've got kinda rubbish pilots.
D. 2 punctures, one at 20% wear and another at ~5%. The 20% one completely ruined my race, season and career, which is excellent!
E. I also have the display bug with estimated tyre duration. I did not pay much attention to it yet, but it seems to be recurring.
A. Was this a question 5 one? If it is, keep you're eye out and grab it and I'll be able to fix it better. If it's not a question 5 one then it's a different one which I've not seen occur before,
B. That's not bad. Is that three for your team? (Having two for your team in one race is pretty unlucky).
C. Awesome. Let us know how it continues as you get better ones.
D. 20% is indeed a bit higher then expected. I assume ultrasofts? And more importantly, did the AI have a similar issue In that instance (in vanilla, the AI are not really set to have punctures as they only occur after 0%, I have no idea how they handle a puncture before it). In one aspect, I'm glad it's occurred, I was thinking that maybe everyone changed their tyres before it happen pedi and punctures would hardly ever be seen,
E. So long as it's just one lap, I am not very worried. Have you noticed the new Tyre ztemperature mechanic yet? (I may have made it subtle - which could be good or bad,)
Game balance suggestions:
1. Longer time required to make the new car parts would be nice (+bigger influence of design office to it, leading to roughly same speed only at higher levels, longer at lower). If you have a few spec parts, you'll run out of things to do atm, even with a crap team. This would also make the bonus from Ex-Engineer background more important.
2. Mechanics skills could also use some balancing. Is pitstop legend any good at any level?
3. I'm not 100% convinced of the idea of removing the possibility of choosing the lower finish for new season than your previous one was. Sometimes it just makes sense to do a controlled step back in order to have two steps forward (e.g. when doing major upgrades to HQ or replacing drivers with young talent), and IMO the option should be left in the game. Think about McLaren with their Honda deal, I'm sure they knew they'll lose ground (even if they hoped it wouldn't be as bad as it is).
4. Does the mechanical issues / spanner icon actually have any effect on car speed? Should it? Should it be bigger?
Smaller workshop-kind of stuff (that I might mod in for my own use anyways):
5. Some tweaking for standard part components. There's some idiotic ones that just fill the grid and are never used. Especially the ones which raise the red zone.
6. Engineer part components - I think all the skills that only apply to races or qualify should be removed and replaced with something else. Does anyone really use the +to race or +to qualify components, if better ones are available? Especially the qualify thing is bad, since you don't even have a quali in half of the serieses. I think Engineer components should always be something useful and worth considering, and that'd make a bigger portion of the available pool worth hiring.
1. I've already added one day to all part times, and added 1 day off for each Design centre upgrade (3x it's normal values). I'm currently reluctant to go much more then that, a design centre with 2 days off of the time to make per level would be too overpowered, and it's already an important building anyway,
I did have the idea of making Higher Tier parts take a day or two longer to design (they already cost more). This might represent the 'complexity' of these high-end parts- but this isnt the effect you want anyway.
Anyway, it's all a money vs time issue. But yes, with spec parts tame no performance buildings, there is indeed a development ceiling. But it also needs to be with limited funds in ERS. The way forward is probably in your later suggestion.
2. Mechanic skills are very imbalanced, with the kings being Super Overtake, Nurse, Engine a Expert, and the one which eliminates redzone. The problem with PitStop Master is that pitstops can be really quick anyway,
As a side note (but on a similar note
Some Mechanic stats and some driver stats are quite useless.
I think all of these things could be tweaked, however, it s likely all in the dll - and I'm at the limit of the amount of things I can add to that on my own really. Once MM reaches the end of its active development cycle, I'll be able to add in these dozen of minor touches without having to recreate them each and every time a new patch comes out.
3. My argument is that had I been chairman of Mclaren, the team principle would have been Fired.
I can relate this to Pressure, but have no idea how pressure works over time. Is it a stat from just the start of the game? Maybe I can add randomness to it... Low: -1 / 0. Medium +1, High +2. I don't want people to always choose the safe option though.
Remember that you can keep a Chairman happy while finishing below expectation anyway, I believe the chairman has to be consistantly unhappy for the ultimateum to appear. I am also thinking of making some interviews questions revolve around increasing / decreasing Chairman happiness, at the expense / in favour of the drivers. Making Chairman Morale anbalancing act with driver morale, (I'm also actually looking at creasing the 'in the red money' Chairman unhappiness again but upoing the amount you're in the red by again. )
4. You mean when you hit the redzone. I don't 'believe' it,does (I Amy be wrong). And no it shouldn't. Because
- With legendary parts, you can be looking at 50-70% redzone when focusing on + performance ,
- Redzone already comes with greater condition loss per tic
- Redzone actually increases the likihood of complete random failure,
I think that's enough cons before adding time penalty too. The AI are struggling enough already with redzone issues
I had one lad pit every other lap because his car was in a constantly bad shape.
5 and 6 are released, and also not workshop moddable actually. Changing component effects requires a frontend.txt edit to get the effects to show, and it isn't something that is currently available on the workshop.
I've played and played and played with all of the components - looking for a fun but good way to make the upgrade system better / funner. I've considered random component oarts for engineers, double power to risky parts. Tonnes of stuff - but nothing has ever felt... perfect.
I have removed one race only part as it bugged me. And I've obviously done the +redzone to the performance parts. That's it though.
I'm really happy to come back and work on this area. It's easy to add hundreds of different combinations to make more components. I just done have the right 'desired core mechanic' to make the changes to.
Like you said, there's plenty of sponsor mods already, and they are relatively trivial to make (or steal from workshop mods for your own use, as I have done with ICE), so I really wouldn't bother. Please concentrate on more important stuff, things that go beyond workshop mods!
I'll take a look at the interview stuff, and if I understand something, maybe I get some inspirations from the triggers.
I think there's still a few areas in sponsors which could be improved upon. I think the 'long term contracts' was a good step in the right direction but there's more subtilise to the file which could be added. It may be worth while for me seeing if another modded wants to work with me on sponsors, to make a version which exists as a new gameplay balance base to go alongside all of these changes.
But it's not a high priority, but as Im Effective back to editing the asset texts, it might be on the agenda again one day.
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