Harkonis wrote:I loved the mobile version though I kept forgetting to go back to it. Really tempted to pick this up but money has been super tight. The controls work ok? Seemed a good fit for touch controls on mobile.
The controls are fine, I just use the mouse plus the space bar on the keyboard to pause things so I can think about it.
I have about twelve hours on it now and I'm continuing to enjoy it. I've been a Formula 1 fan for almost forty years and the PC really gives the feel of running a race team in a similar way. There are simplifications for the sake of making it a game, but this does NOT mean the game is just a PC version of the mobile game. No, they really threw in everything including the kitchen sink. For instance, there are six components that affect the performance of the car on the track;
front wing = low speed corners
rear wing = high speed corners
gearing = acceleration
brakes = deceleration
suspension = medium speed corners
engine = top speed
Now it's important to understand that these components are separate pieces you install on each of your two cars. At the start of a season you have two of each component, one for each of your two cars (teams have two cars each). And each part has it's own current and max rating in both performance and reliability (so four ratings each). Both current ratings can be improved by assigning a mechanic to work on it, but only to a max value that is also a rating for each part. And the improvements aren't that great and take time.
What is a better way to have better components is to assign your designer to make a better version of a component. Based on the skill level of your designer and the facilities you have available, the time it takes to make a new part and how much better that part is from an original one varies. Also the component may have special attributes, like it works better (or worse) with certain compounds or tires. Or the part is "slightly" illegal and if you get caught in post-race scrutineering you will have your component confiscated, be fined and lose some positions on the race just completed.
Also, this new component is added to your stock of components. You might be going to a track that is hard on brakes and so you might swap out a brake component that has better performance but less reliability with one that has the opposite.
I'm not sure what happens at the end of a season, as I haven't gotten there yet. I don't think you carry over all the parts to next season, as it would make the parts screen really awkward to use. I think that the game must somehow reset the parts situation in some way, so that the new season starts with a somewhat blank slate. I'll post when I get there and see what's what.
Everyone still following me?
For now I'll just mention another fun (a relative term to be sure) part of the game, setting a car up for a race. In the lower series I'm running, there's limited practice time, but you still can send out your two drivers and get some feedback on how the car is set up. And as you can see from the screen below, there are six areas of adjustment on the left side, but they do not correlate to the six component parts. Instead, they affect the three Car Balance values on the right. Altering the wings affects the downforce, but altering the camber will change the handling
and the speed balance. I'm still pretty much lost on how to adjust what, since that Optimum Balance value on the bottom right doesn't change with the playing around with the sliders, instead it's a judgement by the mechanic based upon the practice stint. Or at least I think it is.
And just to make things just a
little more complex, different drivers have different levels of feedback, and the feedback isn't an objective value, it's more of a subjective call over the radio, like "
Tone down the aero, it's too high". The smiley faces also give you a clue as to what is working and what's not.
Did I mention that there are
seven different compounds of tires? In the junior series I'm running right now, you'll only have four types at a race, two wet weather and two dry weather compounds.
And all this complexity is just in one area of the game. Drivers have as many stats as a ballplayer in Out Of The Park Baseball, including Morale and Marketability. And you might get a driver that doesn't get along with his team mate, or doesn't like to do publicity shoots, or doesn't like to race in the rain. And you have to make contracts with them.
Oh, and the rules under which a series runs a season can change one year to the next. For instance, in the junior series I'm in now, we just voted to raise the pit speed limit from 40 to 60, which will make pit stops faster next year, which may make you want to alter your race strategy...
OK, enough for now, I have to get some sleep
- ChesspieceFace
