GP4 Manager Game - CLOSED

Hey guys,
just wanted to share a few ideas about an adaptation of my fantasy F1 championship to a playable F1 Manager Game I was thinking of starting with some people.
Let's see what you think. I'm trying to strike a balance between simplicity and complexity, to make it interesting, without requiring too much time and energy to participate and organize.

EDIT: Currently discussing how to simplify this in the thread

BUDGET

The basis of everything, the starting point for any team, the first thing to consider will be budget (which I'll count as credits).
Basically I thought about setting up three sources of income (i'll specify some precise numbers here, but they are untested and conjectural).

-Base finances: Each season, each team will get a set and equal amount of credits, let's say around 100 000 cr.
-Sponsors: Each team will have the possibility of getting contracts with up to three sponsors. There will be a list of possible sponsors to choose from, each willing to invest at most a certain amount of money per season (let's say from 10 000 to 50 000 credits). Contract signings will work a bit like an auction, each team will send a request for funds to the sponsors they want and each sponsor will pick a candidate based on funds requested, the team's reputation and one other element I'll specify later.
-Prize money: Each team will receive some prize money at the end of a season. (let's say up to 50 000 cr.)

That adds up to a maximum season budget of 300 000 cr.

THINGS TO SPEND ONE'S BUDGET ON

Now that the teams have some money, time to spend it on stuff, and there are five things to spend money for (with budget caps, let's say 60 000 cr. each):

-Headquarters
-Tech. and Marketing Directors
-Two drivers
-Engine provider
-Car Developement (Next year car developement and In-season car developement)

Headquarters
HQs would simply have levels of developement, 1 to 10 (it influences the teams chassis quality, maybe a team's prestige or appeal, still have to decide)
HQ budget would simply serve to maintain the base, prevent them from losing levels or allowing them to gain some. The more the teams invest, the more chances of the HQ improving, the less chances of it falling behind in tech, it's just a dice roll with variable odds.

Tech and Marketing directors
Both have a skill level, 1 to 10. This would simply be their salaries.
The Tech director influences how good a team's chassis is. The Marketing director influences all the sponsor deals, staff and driver signings.

Drivers
Just driver salaries, I'll explain about drivers further down.

Signing drivers and directors also works on the same auction mechanic as signing sponsors. They will pick an offer based on money offered, a team's reputation and the marketing director's skill.

Engines
Each team must sign a contract with an engine provider, still works as an auction, the better the engine manufacturer, the higher the cost (maybe you've noticed I tend to favor this way of doing things, it lets teams determine the value of each of these elements without me setting hard prices).

Car developement
This will be divided between:
-Next season car dev. (the more is invested, the more next year initial chassis will be good)
-In-season car dev. (the more is invested, the more chances of a car improving during the season).

This is basically it, that's all there is to this game, get a budget, divide it between five "departments", sign four guys and an engine provider and sit back.
But how does it convert to in-game values ?

A car/driver values ingame are:

-Power (race and quali)
-Driver (race and quali + variation)
-Reliability

The power stat would be determined mainly by the engine, the team's chassis still having a noticeable influence on it. All engines would have a qualifiyng stat which would add power in quali.

The driver stat would become a sort of handling+driver stat. The driver stat would determined by two things, half of it would be defined by the chassis' quality, half of it by the drivers skill.
Drivers would also have a qualification stat (how much to add to their base skill in qualifying) and maybe a morale system using variation (i have the impression that variation is only added and never removed from a driver's skill, the expert modders will confirm that)

Reliability would be defined by the chassis' reliability stat and the engine's reliability stat.

I hope I managed to make this understandable and clear. What do you guys think, does it seem too complicated ? Does it lack important elements ?



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2019 11:17PM by Calligaris.

I think it is a good idea, but I see some complicated elements like the headquarters, when creating a league you need some clear and easy to understand rules, but I would be interested in playing

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natasp Wrote:
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> I think it is a good idea, but I see some
> complicated elements like the headquarters, when
> creating a league you need some clear and easy to
> understand rules, but I would be interested in
> playing

Well, to be fair, HQ could probably be entirely removed from it, maybe the directors as well.
Without directors and HQ a chassis's stats would be determined by the amount ressources you pour in. You would then have the choice of how to allocate them.
Otherwise, without eliminating all these elements, they could be integrated into a single "staff" stat, or a marketing and tech department stat without having to sign people.

Sponsors could also be simplified, probably by having less.

Lacrowe Wrote:
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> Play only interesting for accountants

You should see my private championship, it's ten times worst. That's why i posted this, i'm working on simplifying it so it's playable.

I believe that staff or directors is a good thing, you are going to use real people like Toto Wolf and Claire Williams right?

---

liked this idea, but I still have a question:
for example, if a team reaches lv. 10 from Tech. and Marketing Directors, this lv. Will it be kept for next season or will it be "reset"?

TheFireKing Wrote:
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> liked this idea, but I still have a question:
> for example, if a team reaches lv. 10 from Tech.
> and Marketing Directors, this lv. Will it be kept
> for next season or will it be "reset"?

Well depends.
If I use marketing and tech directors as people you have to sign (like in the original post), then they will have a certain skill level which will be indipendent from who they work for and when they do it.

If I use Marketing and Tech department as a statistic each team has (with no precise people associated), then every year that stat will have a chance to go up or down depending on how much you invest in it.

natasp Wrote:
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> I believe that staff or directors is a good thing,
> you are going to use real people like Toto Wolf
> and Claire Williams right?

Depends, if people want to play with real characters yes (of course that will beg the question of how do i measure their skill). If not I'll generate them randomly like in my private seasons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2019 04:42PM by Calligaris.

I would prefer to play with real Drivers and Team Principals

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Calligaris Scritto:
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> You should see my private championship, it's ten
> times worst. That's why i posted this, i'm working
> on simplifying it so it's playable.

please can i know the kind of work in your real life ?

Lacrowe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Calligaris Scritto:
> --------------------------------------------------

> please can i know the kind of work in your real
> life ?

I'm a History student ^^

Got me semi interested so far. Keen to see what the working model ends up as....

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GPGSL Team Owner Debut - Melbourne, Season 8 - present
GPGSL Test Debut - Hungary, Season 4. GPGSL Race Debut - Adelaide, Season 5.

I'll probably make a second thread soon with simplified rules.

Here are some thoughts, just my opinion:

- Only two sponsors to choose

- One team director to affect the racing and qualy performances, and one tech director to affect the dev of the chassis

- Two main drivers, and a reserve driver, with the reserve driver being a source of incoming, like in the actual F1, where reserve drivers usually pay to be in the team, of course that if the manager decides to promote him to a main seat, he must lose this feature and the team must pay his salary

- Engine and tyre suppliers, but not with the auction system, the manager can choose whatever supplier he wants, but the higher the cost the better the perfomance

I can help you if you want, maybe providing a list of drivers and team bosses

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natasp Wrote:
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"- Only two sponsors to choose"

Yeah I was planning on reducing it to two


"One team director to affect the racing and qualy performances, and one tech director to affect the dev of the chassis"

No marketing director then ?

So my thoughts:

When it comes to performance the car would basically have three stats: power, handling and reliability. Power would mostly depend on your engine, with your car design still bringing a significant bonus. Handling would entirely depend on your chassis (and drivers) and reliability would be 50/50 (engine/car).

Meaning your car's stat would define your performance. Your tech director (and ressources) would influence your chassis quality, the player (which I imagined would play the role of team director) would then design the car, basically chassis quality would be the amount of points you can allocate between speed/handling/reliability in your car.

Is the team director you're suggesting more like a chief engineer ? In charge of setting up the cars during sessions.

"- Two main drivers, and a reserve driver, with the reserve driver being a source of incoming, like in the actual F1, where reserve drivers usually pay to be in the team, of course that if the manager decides to promote him to a main seat, he must lose this feature and the team must pay his salary"

Since I am trying to reduce the amount of stuff present in the game i feel like adding another person who does not have a direct influence on on-track performance would be counterproductive.


"Engine and tyre suppliers, but not with the auction system, the manager can choose whatever supplier he wants, but the higher the cost the better the perfomance"

Yeah the auction system for suppliers can be ditched. I'd like to keep it for personnel though. Wasn't planning on adding tyre suppliers as tyres do not seem to be too much of a factor in GP4. If you have an idea of how to make tyre suppliers significant I'm all ears.

"I can help you if you want, maybe providing a list of drivers and team bosses"
I'll probably use existing f1 manager games for drivers and staff



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2019 02:10PM by Calligaris.

Calligaris Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> natasp Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> No marketing director then ?
>
> So my thoughts:
>
> When it comes to performance the car would
> basically have three stats: power, handling and
> reliability. Power would mostly depend on your
> engine, with your car design still bringing a
> significant bonus. Handling would entirely depend
> on your chassis (and drivers) and reliability
> would be 50/50 (engine/car).
>
> Meaning your car's stat would define your
> performance. Your tech director (and ressources)
> would influence your chassis quality, the player
> (which I imagined would play the role of team
> director) would then design the car, basically
> chassis quality would be the amount of points you
> can allocate between speed/handling/reliability in
> your car.
>
> Is the team director you're suggesting more like a
> chief engineer ? In charge of setting up the cars
> during sessions.
>
It can be done the way you said, but I don't see a point in using a Marketing Director, and yeah like a chief engineer, per example: Toto Wolf might cost more to hire than Claire Williams, but he will deliver a boost in the performance for the races, or qualys. like: Toto Wolf --- 10000 credits of salary --- +25 boost points in the race
>
> Since I am trying to reduce the amount of stuff
> present in the game i feel like adding another
> person who does not have a direct influence on
> on-track performance would be counterproductive.
>
Since the drivers will have a morale system, if the main driver is performing badly, the manager could decide to use the reserve driver, also it makes the feeling more "real", just like in a actual team, manager games usually allow you to have a reserve driver
>
> Yeah the auction system for suppliers can be
> ditched. I'd like to keep it for personnel though.
> Wasn't planning on adding tyre suppliers as tyres
> do not seem to be too much of a factor in GP4. If
> you have an idea of how to make tyre suppliers
> significant I'm all ears.

They are not, again just something to make it more "real", but is not necessary, they can affect the performance if you decide to use it as part of the values for handling and power

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So here is a basic proposition for the final form of this.

Each team will pick a name and nationality, each team will a reputation level that will influence the willingness of people to sign for them. (1 to 5, 1 is a backmarker, 5 an established Top team)

Each team is given the same basic budget (I'll get into precise numbers later)

Teams then send contract request to a list of sponsors, they get a max of two contracts. Some sponsors will be willing to invest more than others.

That will be their initial budget.

With this budget they must first sign a technical director, this guy's skill will influence how good a team's chassis is

Teams must then sign a Chief Engineer which will give a boost to race and quali performance

Next comes the Engine Suppliers, the better stats the engine supplier has, the better engine he's likely to build, the more it costs.

Then come Drivers, each team will sign two drivers, there will be a sort of "transfer window" during which teams can make offers to personnel, drivers and staff will pick an offer based on money offered and a team's reputation

Drivers will have three stats, Base Skill, Qualifying, Variation. Those skills will be hidden from managers though, managers will have to judge drivers by their performance on track. Drivers will also have a reputation which will influence, for example, their minimum salary. (For now i'm not sure about the morale system, still have to find a fair an consistent way of applying it)

All contracts will be entirely paid upfront at the start of the season to make the mathematics of it easier.

The remaining budget can be spent during the season to improve the car, or can be invested into next season's car

Now let's go into more technical details.

A chassis quality will be defined by: Tech Director Skill and the ressources you invested in car developement . Chassis quality will be a score, an amount of points which you will be able to allocate between three stats (two pre-season testing session will allow teams to fiddle a little bit with their settings): Speed (which will be added to engine power), Handling (which will be summed with the driver's skill) and Reliabilty (which will be summed with the engine's reliability to give a final all-round raliability score.

During the season teams will have the possibility to invest whatever budget they have left to develop their car, or decide to invest it in car developement for next year.

The engine will have three stats:Power, Qualification mode (how much of a power bonus you get in qualifying), and Reliability.
Each engine provider will have two stats, Tech and Ressources, both will influence the final product's quality, but Tech will have more influence on the engine's initial quality, while ressources will have more influence on how much the engine will be upgraded during the season.

Now, about the real people/fake people thing.

I personally prefer fake people, as managers won't know them and will thus have to observant to understand if they are good. But I do understand that it is more fun to play with real people, so I'll probably go for real people.

If I use fake people, I would set up an evolution system, for example drivers would enter the championship around the age of 20 and get better in their younger years before stagnating and, as they get old, lose a bit of speed.

With real people i wouldn't do that, but it wouldn't be interesting if people just remained the same through all their careers in the manager game. So I think their stats should still have a chance of randomly changing and they should have a chance of retiring so there's some variation in personnel.

Start simple and minimalistic, if it works, then add more details

sounds really good, but it's still just the beginning, if it works, we'll probably have to make some changes.