826 replies to this topic

[maxie]

It's time to start thinking ahead for season 3.

Meanwhile I'm still basking in the glory for the win at Monza.

[Rob Silver Speed]

Well i must say that season 2 seemed shorter than the inaugural season, maybe because of the unfortunate issues towards the end (no offence to BR). The quiz 3/4 of the way into the season was quite handy to replenish the funds of teams who were running out.

As for next season, we'll i'll let others give their end of season talk first so we don't get ahead of ourselves.

[smithy]

Wow.... someone is excited!

I think the first thing is to get some feeling for how many want to play. My feeling is we need at least 10 players (20 drivers) in order to have any chance at a season.

Season 2 probably felt shorter because we banged them out every two weeks (except for Japan?). I was thinking about it last night... we've been racing since the beginning of May, so it's been roughly five months - seems like FOREVER to me.

[maxie]

Thanks smithy for doing an excellent job. He definitely needs more help. How would you like all of us to help out, smithy?

[Nikos Spagnol]

Maybe we could race in Season 3 only 1 race every 3 weeks or so...

Or maybe Smithy needs some vacation while we stay here doing quizes or such.

Anyway, you can confirm the Season 1 Champions in the new season!

[maxie]

You can also confirm Italian GP winner 2005 for Season 3.

[procken]

Ewing-Plet will be there with car failures and so on...

[A Wheel Nut]

[Hoax]

Team Plutto Racing - The future
(Team Plutto Racing Press Centre)

Team Plutto Racing today announced that it will stand by its long term commitment to FAWC. Bosso Bengtsson said "We will be there and we will be there from the start this time."

[Rob Silver Speed]

Count me in

[smithy]

Thank you all for your support.

Counting the show of hands above means that we have six and with AcuraF1 from Season 1 that makes seven. Hopefully some of the other regulars will check in as they catch up over the next couple of days.

Now here is the bad news..... :

I have some comittments over the next couple of months that are going to get in the way of running FAWC. My son has final year exams through to the end of November, then we have XMAS and summer holidays and then in February I have to go interstate to work for about six weeks. All of that makes adminstering FAWC well..... a bit difficult.

So, even if we were able to workout how to SUBSTANTIALLY reduce the workload we still need to think of a way to share things around. Here's a taste of what happens each round:

* Update the development model and then get the results into GP2 - about an hour and a half but longer when there is a firing-and-hiring round;
* Run the race - about two hours;
* Write the race report - about four hours by the time you check on all of the incidents and put in all of the formatting code;
* Update budgets - about an hour and a half;
* Distribute development results - about an hour;
* All of the other statistical records - about an hour.

I'd appreciate any ideas you might have to streamline / cut down / share around work so that we can keep this thing going.

[el rapído]

Sí claro! El Toro Loco Motor are looking forward to another season

[maxie]

One thing I think we can share is updating the budget by ourselves. All we need is a set of clear guidelines and I trust that everyone here is honest and will do the correct calculations for their teams.

Another thing is we can stretch the season by running a race every three weeks or once per month. That would reduce the workload substantially.

What do you all think?

[TDC Racing]

TDC signing in!

Thanks for all the work Smithy, you have definatly put in some hours and it has been exceptional week in, week out.

[A Wheel Nut]

Perhaps the best option is to make things more open (ie - send out race replays, report budgets in the thread rather than email them out?) so more people can be involved in the running of FAWC while still running teams of their own.

On top of that, do we really need race reports? Most of the time I check whats happened results wise first?

[procken]

Great Ideas from both Maxie and A Wheel Nut!

My suggestion would be a combination of both.

*Budget as Maxie suggested, everyone updates their own budget. At the beginning after the pre season bidding (which I don’t think could be made public) Commish sends out the budget to everyone and thereafter everyone updates the budget by them self. Budgets could be sent in together with the development sheets and then be checked by commish to see that they are ok. People that are having problems with the budget could also be helped by us others in the forum.

* Run the race and Write the race report - As A Wheel Nut suggested I think that qualifying and race replays could be made public. Commish makes them available for download and if someone doesn’t have GP2 and aren’t able to see the replays, someone of us with GP2 could volunteer and do some race report.

*All of the other statistical records - If that means standings and qualifying and race result, same as above someone of us with Gp2 that could see the replays and results type this down and post it in the forum.

I think that budget and development should not be public cause it makes the game more interesting with some degree of secrecy so that you don’t know where everyone else are at. Race replays shows a little bit, top speed and so on but that’s only realistic since if you are at the race you probably would see which car are the fastest

Comments?

[smithy]

Current teams signed in:

* Sparx
* Equipe P
* TDC Racing
* Team Plutto
* Ewing-Plet Racing
* El Toro Loco Motor
* Maximillian Motorsports
* Moosehead Racing (AcuraF1)
* Winton Motorsport

Well, we nearly have a season already!

Regarding race reports, I think Jase is onto something. Many years ago I raced in a league called LFRS which was a similar thing to FAWC (except there we actually raced). The only race report we got was the results and the lap time file.

LFRS was based on GP1 so we didn't have things like car failures. Therefore the downside with this style of race 'report' is that you wouldn't immediately know why you had to pit for for a technical problem (like Stoddard and her throttle problem). Does anyone know if that sort of info is embedded in the GPxLap file?

[Rob Silver Speed]

Perhaps the best option is to make things more open (ie - send out race replays, report budgets in the thread rather than email them out?) so more people can be involved in the running of FAWC while still running teams of their own.

On top of that, do we really need race reports? Most of the time I check whats happened results wise first?

First part was dicussed between season 1 and 2 and decided that it wasn't viable because it let teams know their exact ratings and such.

Second part i think if only the results were posted the game would soon lose interest because we don't get to hear about who did what and where.

[smithy]

Originally posted by procken
* Run the race and Write the race report - As A Wheel Nut suggested I think that qualifying and race replays could be made public. Commish makes them available for download and if someone doesn’t have GP2 and aren’t able to see the replays, someone of us with GP2 could volunteer and do some race report.

The only problem I can see with this is that your PC will run GP2 slightly differently from my PC. Therefore the race that I run won't quite be the same that you see when you replay it.

How does that happen? That's a very good question, seeing as I asked it myself. I have three PC's here, all of different specs. If I run the race on one and then replay it on another, people crash out where they didn't in the original, or there is car failure where there wasn't before. It seems to me that on the more powerful PC, the game runs 'faster'. So where they brushed the wall and got away with it on the slower PC, the brush becomes a terminal crash on the faster PC.

Rob is right, we did discuss making the replay file public between S1 & S2 and I was one who said that it would make too much game data public. Having said that, the development model in place now hides some aspects of that. For example, car BHP performance is a combination of a number of factors. Car failure is a combination of two elements (most of you have guessed this now).

What would become crystal clear is the driver performance (qual; race; random factor [otherwise known as fitness]). Is that necessarily a bad thing? It would take a lot of the guesswork out of driver training.

[Rob Silver Speed]

What would become crystal clear is the driver performance (qual; race; random factor [otherwise known as fitness]). Is that necessarily a bad thing? It would take a lot of the guesswork out of driver training.

Surely those of us who are good at what we do can see where out drivers need training, e.g. towards the end of the season mine needed speed because they were slow in qualifying, but in the race they had more than adequate race craft

[smithy]

So are you suggesting there is no need for development statistics?

[Rob Silver Speed]

I'm saying what we're given currently is sufficient, we see the drivers rating compared to the #1, and we see how to improve them from how they perform in quali and race, but if anyone else feels different i'm open to discussion

[Rob Silver Speed]

Depending on how many entrants we get/your wishes, i could drop my team in favour of being a kinda sub-commish deling with

* Update budgets - about an hour and a half;
* Distribute development results - about an hour;
* All of the other statistical records - about an hour.

As well as (unmentioned by you) all bidding(both pre-season and off-market), chassis purchase(my own idea, feel free to discuss) and anything else that people come up with.

EDIT: After another thought, Sparx would have to be run as a NPT as it would be unfair for a newcomer to be allowed the WCC rummer up team which includes FRR contracts on some of the ebst team members on the grid and a 30mil budget

[smithy]

Thanks for the offer but what we're trying to come up with is a mechanism for players to keep their team but take over more of the administration of the game. You shouldn't have to give up everything you worked for this season.

See what you guys west of here can come up with overnight. I'll check in tomorrow.

[Rob Silver Speed]

Another idea that came to me in the middle of the night;

If you have the FRR on a driver and wont be letting them go, your 'first' choice of driver can be someone different as you wont be letting the currently contracted driver go

Might be flamed for that idea but it's still something.

[Rob Silver Speed]

After been a strong supporter for allowing 3rd drivers for this season, i feel that they give(gave) too much of an advantage to teams who need to fill a seat of an injured driver, as such, my 3rd driver scored more points than most of the other team's selected drivers.

[A Wheel Nut]

Originally posted by Rob Silver Speed

EDIT: After another thought, Sparx would have to be run as a NPT as it would be unfair for a newcomer to be allowed the WCC rummer up team which includes FRR contracts on some of the ebst team members on the grid and a 30mil budget

Its all bidding though. Highest bidder gets a team that wasn't quite good enough to win a Championship.

With regards to the budget, possibly the easiest solution is to have a salary cap. That way everyone starts the year with $22m but retain their FRR's on their staff and their development stats.

If that was agreed to, we could then all maintain our own budgets through out the season, but once the season was complete results of the season would be pending until all budgets were submitted in full for an audit, preferably posted on here so everyone could see it. And no one is disadvantaged in making that information public, because funds are reset next season anyway. Additionally, it prevents any one team having a monopoly on team members and unlimited development budget.

[Rob Silver Speed]

Do you want to speak to zoe about losing the 30mil in prizes she made this season?

[A Wheel Nut]

Okay lets say that all prize money from season 2 is carried over to season 3. Whats basically going to happen is that teams such as Winton and Ewing Plett will struggle to place high bids for the talented staff. Not only that they will also struggle to keep up with the top teams development funds for each round.

Season 4 comes along and Winton are even further behind. And so on.

Resetting the funds at the start of each season doesn't disadvantage anyone - they still have all the development from the previous season, they just don't have unlimited resources to secure all the best staff and have an unlimted development budget.

The sole result of a championship where funds would carry over to the next season would be a handful of teams always up the front and smaller teams struggling to keep up. Quite frankly I don't see the fun in that at all, and to be honest if that's what does happen I'll withdraw, and I'm sure I won't be the only one.

Surely you can agree that a season where everyone starts on level ground is more exciting than a season where most of the teams play catch up to one or two dominant team.

Thats fine in the real sporting world, but my understanding is that this a fun championship. Maybe I was mistaken?

In short, there is already too much disparity between the front and back of the grid. If one or more teams start the next season with almost THREE times as much money, you can be sure that will only grow.

This will probably be an unpopular idea but if the situation was reversed I'd be all for it. It's basically like playing a racing sim, having no damage on, starting from the back and ramming the rest of the field off so you can win. Its fun for a while, but after a while the best wins come when you beat the guy in second by less a few tenths after having been nose and tail the whole race and swapping position every other lap.

[procken]

Originally posted by Rob Silver Speed
EDIT: After another thought, Sparx would have to be run as a NPT as it would be unfair for a newcomer to be allowed the WCC rummer up team which includes FRR contracts on some of the ebst team members on the grid and a 30mil budget

How can you have a 30 mil budget for next season??

2b in the rules "All teams begin the season with at least $22 million. If a team has more than $22 million at the end of the season they may keep the profit and spend it as they wish. If any team finishes the season with less than $22 million they will be funded to $22 million again for the start of the next season ."

I would think that Pink Blaze is the only team that would start the next season with more than 22 mil, lets say that they maybe have around 25-30 million. I think its ok that she start next season with a little bit more than the rest of us but maybe there should be a limit how much you can carry over to a new season. Let’s say that some team is even more dominant next season and starts season 4 with 45 mil and everyone else with 22 mil

[procken]

Originally posted by procken
I would think that Pink Blaze is the only team that would start the next season with more than 22 mil, lets say that they maybe have around 25-30 million. I think its ok that she start next season with a little bit more than the rest of us but maybe there should be a limit how much you can carry over to a new season. Let’s say that some team is even more dominant next season and starts season 4 with 45 mil and everyone else with 22 mil

To even things out and reduce the gap there could be a extension of the rule 2b like this.

"If a team has more than $22 million at the end of the season they may keep 25% of the amount exceeding $22 million"

For example if PB has $30, she has $8 million exceeding and 25% of that is $2 million so PB would then start the next season with 22+2 = $24 million

[Hoax]

Smithy, thank you! You have done a tremendous job with season 2 and I think everybody will second that! It is obvious that we should share the workload you have in administrating this game.

I personally think the game is fun as much of the game data is hidden to us who are playing. I hope that the game could continue to be run by a game master whom is willing to spend some time administrating everything needed to be hidden from the players. However, I can see at least one advantage keeping the game totally open and that is that Team Flusher could make a comeback...

I think we could live without race reports, some short statistics about the race would do. If it possible to make the race replay public I would really love that, it would be a lot of fun to watch.

As Maxie said, each team could administrate its own budget.

Statistics: This could be moved to someone else. Hey, even I could do this...

Tasks that would be hard to distribute among players:
- Handle bidding and other offers*
- Distribute development results*
- Update the development model
- Update GP2
- Run the race (could be done without any supervising?)

(*) Maybe some tasks could be made automatic through a web interface? Things like budget, bidding and distributing development results...

[Hoax]

Originally posted by A Wheel Nut
Okay lets say that all prize money from season 2 is carried over to season 3. Whats basically going to happen is that teams such as Winton and Ewing Plett will struggle to place high bids for the talented staff. Not only that they will also struggle to keep up with the top teams development funds for each round.

Season 4 comes along and Winton are even further behind. And so on.

Resetting the funds at the start of each season doesn't disadvantage anyone - they still have all the development from the previous season, they just don't have unlimited resources to secure all the best staff and have an unlimted development budget.

Surely you can agree that a season where everyone starts on level ground is more exciting than a season where most of the teams play catch up to one or two dominant team.

In short, there is already too much disparity between the front and back of the grid. If one or more teams start the next season with almost THREE times as much money, you can be sure that will only grow.

This will probably be an unpopular idea but if the situation was reversed I'd be all for it. It's basically like playing a racing sim, having no damage on, starting from the back and ramming the rest of the field off so you can win. Its fun for a while, but after a while the best wins come when you beat the guy in second by less a few tenths after having been nose and tail the whole race and swapping position every other lap.

I'll second that! I'll think there are some majow flaws with being able to carry over (all) money to next season and given another full starting fund.

An example: Team A entering a season and will not spend one dollar on development and in that way will in that way start the next season with 19,600,000 more. That’s not bad for one season and probably more than most of the other (winning) teams.

[Rob Silver Speed]

Originally posted by A Wheel Nut
Okay lets say that all prize money from season 2 is carried over to season 3. Whats basically going to happen is that teams such as Winton and Ewing Plett will struggle to place high bids for the talented staff. Not only that they will also struggle to keep up with the top teams development funds for each round.

Season 4 comes along and Winton are even further behind. And so on.

Resetting the funds at the start of each season doesn't disadvantage anyone - they still have all the development from the previous season, they just don't have unlimited resources to secure all the best staff and have an unlimted development budget.

The sole result of a championship where funds would carry over to the next season would be a handful of teams always up the front and smaller teams struggling to keep up. Quite frankly I don't see the fun in that at all, and to be honest if that's what does happen I'll withdraw, and I'm sure I won't be the only one.

Surely you can agree that a season where everyone starts on level ground is more exciting than a season where most of the teams play catch up to one or two dominant team.

Thats fine in the real sporting world, but my understanding is that this a fun championship. Maybe I was mistaken?

In short, there is already too much disparity between the front and back of the grid. If one or more teams start the next season with almost THREE times as much money, you can be sure that will only grow.

This will probably be an unpopular idea but if the situation was reversed I'd be all for it. It's basically like playing a racing sim, having no damage on, starting from the back and ramming the rest of the field off so you can win. Its fun for a while, but after a while the best wins come when you beat the guy in second by less a few tenths after having been nose and tail the whole race and swapping position every other lap.

Fine, would you prefer i run Winton next you and you get Sparx? I'm damn sure i'd turn your team round just like i did mine ;)

[Rob Silver Speed]

Originally posted by procken


How can you have a 30 mil budget for next season??

2b in the rules "All teams begin the season with at least $22 million. If a team has more than $22 million at the end of the season they may keep the profit and spend it as they wish. If any team finishes the season with less than $22 million they will be funded to $22 million again for the start of the next season ."

I would think that Pink Blaze is the only team that would start the next season with more than 22 mil, lets say that they maybe have around 25-30 million. I think its ok that she start next season with a little bit more than the rest of us but maybe there should be a limit how much you can carry over to a new season. Let’s say that some team is even more dominant next season and starts season 4 with 45 mil and everyone else with 22 mil

EDITED FOR MY MISTAKE:

IF the team has less than 22mil it is refunded to that, IF the team has more than 22mil it will start with 22mil + whatever extra they earnt over the season so PBAG will only start with ~28mil

Hardly worth shouting about is it?

[Rob Silver Speed]

Originally posted by Hoax


I'll second that! I'll think there are some majow flaws with being able to carry over (all) money to next season and given another full starting fund.

An example: Team A entering a season and will not spend one dollar on development and in that way will in that way start the next season with 19,600,000 more. That’s not bad for one season and probably more than most of the other (winning) teams.

Each team chooses how it spends it's money, it would be grossly unfair to ask the teams who have worked their asses off to have a surplus at the end of a season to give it all up

[Rob Silver Speed]

Originally posted by A Wheel Nut
Okay lets say that all prize money from season 2 is carried over to season 3. Whats basically going to happen is that teams such as Winton and Ewing Plett will struggle to place high bids for the talented staff. Not only that they will also struggle to keep up with the top teams development funds for each round.

Amusing statement coming along when season 3 is started ;)

[GhostR]

Team Raptor signing in for Season 3.

[Rob Silver Speed]

And for the second season on the trot the constructor that had the WDC has not re-signed up (well yet)

[smithy]

My $0.02 on budgets

This issue came up in discussions outside the forum frequently.

* My interpretation of the rules was that each season you got an additional $22m ($2m per race), rather than being refilled to a maximum of $22m. It seems I was the only one with that view.
* I agree that it's unfair if you have built surplus funds that you don't get a chance to use them. For example, under the rules you are currently interpreting Maxie has no opportunity to spend his winnings from Monza; Team Plutto couldn't spend their Belgium winnings fast enough;
* I ALSO agree that the situation of PBAG is unfair to everybody else as they have in excess of $22 million already - we would end up with the Ferrari type situation described by Jase.

I propose a solution similar to Prockens suggestion. Something like: "A team can start a season with no more than $30 million. Therefore, at the start of each season each team is granted $2 million per race and this is added to their end of season balance. Where this grant would cause the team balance to exceed $30 million, the grant is proportionately reduced."

So, let's say that PBAG balance is currently $25 mill. They would get $5 mill to start the season. Let's say All Black Racing has $500K. They would get $20 million for a 10 race season and start the season with $20.5 mill.

I think $30 mill is a nice number. It's enough for a season of full development ($2.5m per race) plus a reasonable amount of employee salaries. If you pay more for salaries, then that puts pressure on scoring points to fund full development. This way you get rewarded for putting together a good team but not to the extent that it becomes a disincentive for everybody else.

We can toss around what we think the 'right' value of the cap is.... $30m is just my suggestion.

[A Wheel Nut]

Originally posted by smithy
My $0.02 on budgets

This issue came up in discussions outside the forum frequently.

* My interpretation of the rules was that each season you got an additional $22m ($2m per race), rather than being refilled to a maximum of $22m. It seems I was the only one with that view.
* I agree that it's unfair if you have built surplus funds that you don't get a chance to use them. For example, under the rules you are currently interpreting Maxie has no opportunity to spend his winnings from Monza; Team Plutto couldn't spend their Belgium winnings fast enough;
* I ALSO agree that the situation of PBAG is unfair to everybody else as they have in excess of $22 million already - we would end up with the Ferrari type situation described by Jase.

I propose a solution similar to Prockens suggestion. Something like: "A team can start a season with no more than $30 million. Therefore, at the start of each season each team is granted $2 million per race and this is added to their end of season balance. Where this grant would cause the team balance to exceed $30 million, the grant is proportionately reduced."

So, let's say that PBAG balance is currently $25 mill. They would get $5 mill to start the season. Let's say All Black Racing has $500K. They would get $20 million for a 10 race season and start the season with $20.5 mill.

I think $30 mill is a nice number. It's enough for a season of full development ($2.5m per race) plus a reasonable amount of employee salaries. If you pay more for salaries, then that puts pressure on scoring points to fund full development. This way you get rewarded for putting together a good team but not to the extent that it becomes a disincentive for everybody else.

We can toss around what we think the 'right' value of the cap is.... $30m is just my suggestion.

Agreed.

[maxie]

Originally posted by smithy
* I agree that it's unfair if you have built surplus funds that you don't get a chance to use them. For example, under the rules you are currently interpreting Maxie has no opportunity to spend his winnings from Monza; Team Plutto couldn't spend their Belgium winnings fast enough;

Was just going to say that. Thanks smithy.

As for the figure of $30 million, what if there is a fourth season? PB is on pace to finish season 3 with over $30 million in the bank. Should we reset the figure every year or should we figure out a mechanism to automatically deal with the problem?

Other issues:

Points-scoring: Should we update our point-scoring system to award points to the top 8 finishers?

Numbering: Award car # according to the driver's finishing position (MotoGP style) or according to the team's finishing position (F1 style)?

[JForce]

All Black Racing are in for sure.

I for one would be reluctant to change many of the rules. I don't want race info going out, and I don't want lots of different people doing different bits. Having Smithy do it has been great, and I don't see why we should change that.

HOWEVER he of course can be very busy. So I do agree that some things should be taken away.

But I think a commissioner should run the race, and report on it.

The race preview could be done by someone else.
I dont think the race review needs to be as comprehensive as it is.
I think teams can run their own budgets. They can question the com. for clarification if they forget something, or stuff something up, but I dont think you need to send out a budget each round.

[JForce]

P.S

Am working on a website for the FAWC too

[Rob Silver Speed]

Originally posted by smithy
My $0.02 on budgets

This issue came up in discussions outside the forum frequently.

* My interpretation of the rules was that each season you got an additional $22m ($2m per race), rather than being refilled to a maximum of $22m. It seems I was the only one with that view.
* I agree that it's unfair if you have built surplus funds that you don't get a chance to use them. For example, under the rules you are currently interpreting Maxie has no opportunity to spend his winnings from Monza; Team Plutto couldn't spend their Belgium winnings fast enough;
* I ALSO agree that the situation of PBAG is unfair to everybody else as they have in excess of $22 million already - we would end up with the Ferrari type situation described by Jase.

I propose a solution similar to Prockens suggestion. Something like: "A team can start a season with no more than $30 million. Therefore, at the start of each season each team is granted $2 million per race and this is added to their end of season balance. Where this grant would cause the team balance to exceed $30 million, the grant is proportionately reduced."

So, let's say that PBAG balance is currently $25 mill. They would get $5 mill to start the season. Let's say All Black Racing has $500K. They would get $20 million for a 10 race season and start the season with $20.5 mill.

I think $30 mill is a nice number. It's enough for a season of full development ($2.5m per race) plus a reasonable amount of employee salaries. If you pay more for salaries, then that puts pressure on scoring points to fund full development. This way you get rewarded for putting together a good team but not to the extent that it becomes a disincentive for everybody else.

We can toss around what we think the 'right' value of the cap is.... $30m is just my suggestion.

Thats like rewarding the little guys for having crap teams and penalising the big ones for being too good.

Whats next? Wage capping?

[A Wheel Nut]

Originally posted by Rob Silver Speed


Thats like rewarding the little guys for having crap teams and penalising the big ones for being too good.

Whats next? Wage capping?

This is a fun thing you know, not much fun if one team runs away with it each season.

[Rob Silver Speed]

It is a fun thing, but if a budget cap is placed, the fun will drain away for me as i have worked my ass off to get my team from joint worst in season 1 to #2 in season 2 and all i get to show from it is an extra 8mil.

I would much prefer that if a team has a lot more than the others they are "encouraged" to invest the money into another team, say Winton for example. That way i keep my advantage that i created, plus i get some extra development/income from the team i've invested in.

Full example:- PBAG have a lot more money than Winton, they decide to invest 10mil into Winton and provide them with they previous years chassis for free, in return PBAG get 10% of any prize money Winton make and get 0.5% improvements for every 1% improvement Winton make to the chassis e.g. Winton start Season 3 with a chassis rated at 85%, so if an improvement Winton make takes the chassis to 90% PBAG get a 2.5% improvement to their chassis.

[Rob Silver Speed]

Originally posted by A Wheel Nut
This is a fun thing you know, not much fun if one team runs away with it each season.

Anyway, i did offer you the chance of swapping teams for next season to show that you can do well even with a more basic starting salary

[Nikos Spagnol]

First of all, thanks for Smithy for all his hard work during the season.

I agree with Smithy new proposal over the budget rules. But it should be stated that, if a team occasionally ends the season with a surplus higher than the 30 mil limit (which is unlikely), that should be keep, and no further money would be added for that team.

We need to reduce the workload. But I wouldn't "throw away" the race review. My suggestions:

- ALL the development/stats math must be kept to the Commish. Otherwise, the game stats would be made public and everyone could, with a little guessing, who is the best driver / engine, etc.

- The initial budget would be calculated by the Commish. However, the development costs and prize money could be updated by the players themselves. So, after each round, every player should e-mail the Commish with his up-to-date budget sheet. Don't know if that would made the Commish live easier, because he would occasionally need to confirm our calculations.

- Race preview would be written by the players - I did Brazil's, but could have made more. If the player choose to write the preview fail to attend the deadline, no race preview for that round. To avoid problems, we could choose that player among the most active of us.

- We would run one race every 3 weeks, with some vacation around Xmas and New Year.

- Firing/hiring periods would only take place after round 3 and 6. I see no need in changing staff every 2 races (right, Rob? )

- After running the race, the Commish would e-mail the same player who wrote the race preview for that round, sending him the results, lap file and the main highlights (i.e. "Stoddard spun in lap 6 on the Eau Rouge exit, crashed hardly, but she's not injured") with the screenshots, if needed. The player would then write the review, with his writing skills (i.e. "Jessica Stoddard was having a cool race in 9th position when suddenly she lost grip in the Eau Rouge exit, her Sparx wildly oversteering and spinning in a cloud of rubber smoke. Everyone feared the worst when the car hit hard the tire barries, parts flying everywhere, while the poor marshalls waved yellows like mad but the upcoming drivers weren't lifting at all. When the TV cameras shot the stricken car, barely visible under a huge cloud of dust from the gravel trap, the World awaited for some movement inside the cockpit for some agonizing seconds. When a very shaken Jessica emerged out of her car, with the help of some brave marshalls, a wave of relief could be felt in Spa-Francochamps. Stoddard procceded to wave to the fans on the stands, before being taken to the medical center to undergoing some precautionary tests."). I volunteer to do some reviews too for Season 3. Again, the player would have a deadline to write that, otherwise, Smithy would post the bare results and highlights in a very simple wording - like the e-mail he sent.

As for Rob complain about the budget, well... Rules are rules. Smithy is already changing those, otherwise, your team would begin the season with $ 22 mil. like everyone elses'. And some variety is good, see, my team did a **** season after being WCC.

[Rob Silver Speed]

- Firing/hiring periods would only take place after round 3 and 6. I see no need in changing staff every 2 races (right, Rob? )

i didn't change that often this season did i?

As for Rob complain about the budget, well... Rules are rules. Smithy is already changing those, otherwise, your team would begin the season with $ 22 mil. like everyone elses'. And some variety is good, see, my team did a **** season after being WCC. [/B]

I would have had a lot more, if it wasn't for a ball-less wonder cancelling the FRR buying