vroom vroom
season 5 will have some new features, here's a quick rundown of what they are and what they do
Relations- Every driver will now have an opinion on every other driver in the league, based on their previous interactions with them
- Clean racing will improve drivers' opinions of each other, and positive relations will encourage them to race cleanly and cooperate with drivers' they like to quicken their lap times
- Based on the type of incident or crash and which side of it they are on, drivers will lose relations (or even become rivals) with the other driver in the incident. In general, if a crash causes a driver to retire from the race or pit for repairs, they will decrease their relations significantly compared to a small incident with minimal damage. The "instigator" will lose less relations per incident (for example if Frank Oosterhout crashes into ketila and she retires, ketila will hate Frank more than Frank will hate her, and vice versa)
- Low relations will encourage drivers to race faster, more aggressively, and even try to crash out their rivals.
- You cannot influence relations, but they will decay toward neutral at a rate of 25% per race.
- There is no maximum or minimum relation directly imposed (it's not like, 100 or something), but because of the decay rate, there is a value (that depends on the length of the race and number of incidents) that cannot be surpassed in positive or negative relations, but in general relations should be between -100 and 100.
- Crash incidents have been modified to allow for the involvement of two cars/drivers in an accident. In the Race Incident Report, both drivers will be listed, the first driver being the one who "caused" the crash, and the second driver being the one affected. Every incident will result in a loss of relations between the two drivers, but not necessarily a loss of time on the track. Loss of time will be marked with an asterisk, indicating that their lap time will be slower as a result of the crash, that they had to pit, or they crashed out of the race.
- All relation information is reflected in the output text files which are uploaded with every race, but I will probably add it to the spreadsheet for easy visualization
Practice- The flow of gameplay is going to be modified beginning this season with the addition of a practice session.
- Instead of daily races and qualifying for the next session, a race "weekend" is going to play out over two irl days.
- Day 0 will be the day prior to the practice session, where players must submit an alternate test setup to compare with their current setup the following day. This is so that all teams can test different setups to determine optimal skill point distribution on their cars without running simulations with the Formula Universalis code themselves.
- The alternate setup may be created by moving one point on your car setup, as was allowed in previous seasons.
- This season, though, if you would like to change your setup, you must submit it before the practice session is completed. You may not compete in the qualifying session or race with a setup other than your current setup or your test setup.
- If you do not submit an alternate setup, you will compete in both practice sessions with your current setup, and that will be the setup used in qualifying and the race.
- For Race 1, Day 0 will be its own day, for all successive races "Day 0" will begin after the previous race results are posted.
- Day 1 will consist of two 3 lap "qualifying" sessions for all teams with their current setup and their new test setup so that they can be analyzed and compared. Each team will then be able to select which setup they would like to use for the official qualifying session and the race. By default, if the team does not choose, I will use the faster setup.
- Day 2 will consist of the qualifying session and the corresponding race.
- After the completion of Day 2 (the race), you will be able to submit your test setup for the next practice session (Day 0).
Car ConstructionNew season, new car. Now is your chance to redesign your car to keep up with the competition! The amount of points you may assign to your car is based on how many points it had at the end of the previous season. Available points per team will be listed below, as well as the maximum amount of skill points that can be assigned per category.
Team Solea Racing - 24 (10)
Dotruga Formula Racing - 23 (9)
Cows Go Moo Racing - 23 (9)
BONGATAR - 21 (8)
Team V.V. Imperial - 22 (9)
Team Digiikwk Racers - 25 (10)
Team Vincent - 14 (5)
The maximum points available per skill is calculated as floor(x*5/12) where x is the total available skill points.
here's the sheet for car setups as of the end of last seasonPractice for the Kaeshari Grand Prix will occur on Thursday