Seems like a lot of randomness for things that people cant plan around. In AMWEC the best cars had higher drivability than others allowing them to minimize crashes while this seems like its just how lucky each car is.
Drivability has an effect on crashes in this challenge. I included a lot of randomization to make things a little more interesting, so we don’t know who won the series by the 2nd race. I can tone down the randomness if I am convinced it will be a good idea. I’m already considering reducing the probability of many of the negative events or shortening the races. Also, I may have not made it clear, but reliability also influences crashes. The probabilities included are based off of my experiences playing DnD; however, I’m beginning to think with the amount of rolls taking place in a single race the probabilities may need to be reduced.
EDIT: I’ve trimmed some of the negative probability events and I’m deciding on new race lengths
I really like the randomness and your including all the wacky scenarios racing produces. But I must suggest toneing it down a little based on what I just read. I think we need more focus on the dynamics of how the car design will affect the race. You can keep all your randomization, but it needs to be secondary to our build parameters.
I’m definitely going to trim the probability aspect of this challenge further. A lot of these ideas aren’t really that great and the challenge needs quite a bit of revision. I’m considering turning this into a single race challenge to keep things simpler and easier to run since this is my first challenge. I may be away from the forums tomorrow, but keep the suggestions coming.
I’m going to have to read this more thoroughly, but so far the race calculations seem to be everything I was wanting for the next season of the AMWEC. I think I will have to prepare and entry for this series, given that it gets off the ground. But if it does, I want to claim HP Oil Solutions as a sponsor for the Laguna Seca event.
I’m replying from my phone, and my previous attempt at replying doesn’t appear to have been posted. Sorry if it’s just on my end and I end up double posting and repeating myself.
After further thought, the race schedule will include all currently proposed races. Also, Racer13 has claimed a sponsorship for Laguna Seca. As for the ruleset, there WILL be more revisions, and any potential entrants should keep in mind the rules can change quite a bit at this stage. Keep the feedback coming, and hopefully we will end up with a solid ruleset very soon. I would revise some rules right now, but opening up those huge posts on my phone isn’t fun XD. I can tell you right now that Misc. Rolls may be completely eliminated, and if they aren’t, I’m only keeping the penalties and probably reducing their likelihood. The likelihood of switching tires for changing conditions too early/late is also likely getting another look. I’ll probably tweak some other things once I get back to my computer and I can read my posts more comfortably/have time to read them.
Tomorrow I’ll be able to get to my computer and run some tests with the revised ruleset. After I do that, I’ll clean up this thread a little, reformat the rule posts, and finalize most of the edits I’ve made thus far since there seems to be no objections. There probably won’t be very many more edits aside from probability tweaks, unless if I’ve totally glossed over something I meant to remove or heavily modify. Hard to read these posts on a phone screen. There will probably be a week long period to submit cars after I decide to wrap up rule discussion and editing.
EDIT: while many of the harsher dice rolls have been removed, if this series goes well enough, I will run it again and maybe re-establish some of the crazier scenarios I removed if demand is high enough (albeit with some significant tweaking). The first running of the NASCC will exclude them, though. Also, just a heads up, I’m thinking of incorporating fuel mixture selection and tire conservation choices that can be made prior to the race. For example, you may be able to instruct your driver to switch to rich and push his/her tires hard if they are within X seconds of the next car. If this makes it in, the “battling” effect will be removed. If the fuel mixture choices make it in, you will need to make 3 engine variants. One rich, one middle, and one lean. The only differences permitted will likely be fuel mixture and ignition timing parameters.
Spec regulations will get another look. I’ll look into it tomorrow when I have my computer and I can open up Automation. I’ve mainly been focusing on the calculations since that’s what got the most feedback, and adding more parameters for the participants to control, but I’d definitely say the specs need another look. I’m going to read about some real racing regulations along with taking a look at AMWEC rules, but reading a lot on my phone isn’t very comfortable XD, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.
The series is meant to be pretty open in terms of car design, but it may be a bit too open.
All rules, regulations, details, yadda yadda, have been cleaned up a bit and moved to Google Docs.
Building rules have been beefed up and tweaked. There are more rules now, but there is still quite a bit of freedom.
Pit stop variability has been downgraded. Pit stops now only vary by a maximum of a second. Exceptionally good and exceptionally bad pit stops have been eliminated. All pit roads in the series have been standardized and they all take 20 seconds to travel through, excluding the time it takes to make a pit stop.
Race strategy has been expanded upon and a few major additions have been made, including qualifying strategy and weather strategy.
Cars in the series may now choose between 3 fuel mixtures on the fly (See “Race Strategy” document for details on how this works)
Tire compounds are now chosen on a race-by-race basis instead of seasonally
Displacement limit has been dropped to 5000cc
Max tire width has been dropped to 335mm
Hopefully I listed all the changes I made. Give the docs a read to make sure you are up to date on the current ruleset. Expect the submission phase to start within the next few days, but I’m still taking feedback and I am still willing to make changes. There are two confirmed entrants so far. From here on out I expect to only make changes to the building regulations, which is the smallest document to read, so hopefully any further rule changes won’t be too much of an issue to familiarize yourself with. There are no guarantees I won’t tweak the other two documents, though.
EDIT: Qualifying has been reduced to a single lap. The “pushing” mechanic has been expanded. Cars must meet the minimum cooling requirement.
And with a few more rule edits, we’re off! The first NASC isn’t likely to be the prettiest, but it will be a great learning experience for both me and the participants XD. All races are set to have a length around 250 miles for the first season of NASC. Remember to build not only fast, but easy to drive and reliable vehicles. It might save your bacon one of these days .
Rules are supposed to be closed now, but I was curious whether that was a good idea. Nobody objected during the rules phase, though. Although now that I think about it I can just calculate it by making a clone of someone’s car, setting the interior to basic with 0 quality, and then using that to generate a set effect x amount of fuel has on one’s lap time. Removing a rule isn’t such a big deal, so I’ll let this one slide.
But let’s please not try to rewrite the entire rulebook in the build phase . This is likely the only exception I will make since it’s so early and it shouldn’t massively impact any builds anyone has started. Any big changes or balance tweaks can be saved for next season (There will be one, or at least there will be another racing series ran by me that learns from this experience). I don’t expect the first run of this challenge to be all that great compared to the other race challenges on the forums, but hopefully it’s sufficient enough to generate interest. Once I have some experience under my belt running this series, I should have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t.
EDIT: Brand’s Hatch Indy doesn’t really work well with the current set of calculations, so it’s been removed from the calendar. Note to self: Base calculations off of distance rather than laps next time, lol. While I hate to switch things around on you guys during the build phase, I want to make sure I will actually finish this challenge and not let it die. Hopefully no one was looking forward to that circuit.
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