Meanwhile, the rocket science continues:
With having no boosts for R1 at Melbourne it's easy for everyone to understand what results may be for the race with simulating it (every one of us can do this on our PCs). While doing it with the current starting perf file I found out that the results are
absolutely random, I mean there was no correlation with anything whatsoever. I had AMR drivers starting from 20 and 22, I had members of four new teams occupying a podium, and stuff like that (again you can run a race, preferably a live one, not accelerated, just to see it with your own eyes). I'll go too far with this to say that with the current starting perf we can simulate the race with throwing a dice, or using a random numbers generator, so you'll have the same result without even launching the game. Everyone have pretty much the same chances to win and to finish last as well. Meanwhile the round 1 is an
essential point for building a season further ahead, becase it's the
single round when teams and drivers
can't affect results in any way, having the boosting prohibited for this race. Now, my suggestion is to
modify both engine BHP and driver perf values
for this round only with
doubling them. By doubling I mean this: AMR, MPR engine BHP transforming from 783,803 to 786,806. One, Demon, Mac, Snake from 782,802 to 784,804. SCR from 781,801 to 782,802. And 4 new teams left with the current 780,800. For the drivers it is Elleker,16060,16090 transforming to 16120, 16180, and so on with Spangenberg having the lowest value for the race from 16024,16054 to 16048,16108. I've simulated 6 live (non-accelerated) qualies (6 consecutive cars on track and 2 attempts for everyone) and races in Melbourne with the pefs like that and that's the results I had:
Test 0For this test I had only engines doubled with the drivers perfs staying the same as it is posted on page 1. That's why I call this "Test 0".
Left picture is results for qualy, right picture is for the race (cars with the max BHP highlighed in red, and cars with the lowest BHP highlighted in blue):
_______Quick summary - AMR taking the front row with their both cars may look too much already, but the MPR cars with the same power qualified only 12 and 15, so I'd say this is fine. In the race both AMR started poorly dropping to 3 and 6 and later on were pushed off the track during the overtaking maneuvers, which resulted in Hinz finishing only 12th, and Elleker retired with the crashed car. It was a chaotic race with lots of cars colliding at turns 1, 3, 9 and 13. Anyway, all of this not really representative much, since for this test driver perfs stayed untouched.
Test 1First actual test with the engines and drivers perfs modified (doubled) as was explained before:
_______Quick summary - Qualy results can't be really taken as representative since the session started under rain (which was surprisingly heavy for 19% rain chance), so Paulo Silva was the only one who was able to set a lap, while the rest who came out behind him went into the pits for the wet tyres. That explains why he has 4+ seconds lead over the 2nd driver. During the race he was obviously pushed off the track by someone, which damaged his car and forced an additional pit-stop for him. Lots of collisions during the overtakes again, that's why Jalving finished 13th starting from 5th, and Rodriguez finished 5th starting from 18th. A best lap goes to Spangenberg, which is
worth to mention, as he is a driver with the lowest perf value on the grid.
Test 2For this test I have the qualy results only. The game just freezed after the race finish, and I forgot to enable the text logging in GPxPatch:
Quick summary - this may be the most damaging test session to my initial intention. I mean 7 of the 8 new team drivers being placed last 8 on the grid with only Cremasco showing a relatively good result (8th) is not what I wanted to achieve at all. But I still show this screen even if makes my idea to look shaky. AMR/MRP drivers didn't qualified too well though (5, 10, 11, 14), which kind of compensates the frustration of seeing new teams qualified that bad. I mean if I'd see either AMR or MPR taking first row like it was during the Test 0, I'd already throw my idea of doubling the perfs/BHPs for the R1 away.
Test 3_______Quick summary - only 0.5 gap between the first and last on the grid despite the "doubled" gap between the best/worst engine and best/worst driver still looks too low in one sense. Yet I've seen such low gaps in DTM, so I guess it's fine for realism. Scala 2nd, Silva 5th, Sanvitale 8th - not that bad for the new teams who looked doomed after the Test 2. AMRs/MPRs qualified 6,7,9 and 17 and it looks like they still have no significant advantage over everyone else. For the race I can say that it was the most "calm" race I had during the tests. Not many driver mistakes, not many collisions during overtakes, except Keranen (who set a best lap) spinned at the 11/12 complex while leading comfortly 2 laps before the finish. He got crashed by McClure and they both went to additional pit (that's why they both were lapped in the end).
Test 4_______Quick summary - The first pole for the new teams during my tests! McClure went last on track during the qualy and set a fastest time. Top two teams qualified in the first eleven for the first time during my tests. Nell crashed with his teammate at the 11/12 complex during his 1st attempt, no idea what happened to Worseling though (missed that completely). I can't say anything really about the race cus I was listening podcasts more than looking at the screen (so I don't even know who set a fastest lap), but the 3 new cars finishing 2-4th looks promising
Test 5_______Quick summary - 0,1 gap between the first 9
Silva, Cremasco, Scala at the 1st half of the field during the qualy. Fastest lap for the race goes to Gilson. Wasn't paying attention to the screen again, so nothing else to add.
Test 6Because of losing race results for Test 2 I decieded to run one more test:
_______Quick summary - remarkable low 14, 15, 18 for Hinz, Rodriguez and Jalving at qualy. And sensational 5th from 21 for Gilson (and a best lap) during yet another calm race, with not many cars colliding during the pass attempts.
OVERALL SUMMARYBecause of the importance of the first round,
I strongly recommend to use this formula for the 1st race to avoid results being too random (as you can see from the screenshots doing this doesn't automatically mean that AMR/MPR will 100% win a race, in fact new teams still have good chances to finish close to the winner (test 4) and even win a race with a bit of luck). The game itself offers lots of randomness affecting the results (such as rain, messy overtakes, driver errors, traffic during the qualy, traffic during the pits and anyway 500 variance as the basic value still gives everyone big chances to win). You should
went back to the original starting perf while calculating the results though, I mean to add/substract points to the original perfs posted in page 1, not to the doubled ones used for the Melbourne race. I really like how the overall perf progression system works, tho the cap may be upped a little (+20 points to the driver cap and +5 to the engines maybe). The driver boost values between 200-300 (depends on if you like boosts playing a bigger or smaller impact) should be ok, just like Connor said 500 is way too much, and 100 is way too low for the current variance. It's up to you to implement this or to leave it out. These are my final 2 cents tho
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For a list of EVERY download for GP4, look here:[docs.google.com]Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2017 11:49PM by Soutsen.