My fictional and personal career mode (Text only, no videos)

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ismael
GP2 Racer
Posts: 395
Joined: 02.05.2016, 14:58

My fictional and personal career mode (Text only, no videos)

Post by ismael »

Hello all,

Latest Roberto Remédio's posts reflect the inevitable issue of time passing. So, I decided to publish my experience with GP2 since I got back to the game in late 2015 and register it for posterity in this forum. I'm not programmer nor designer, so I won't contribute with anything new, but I'm going to keep playing the game for many years to come, thanks to all the efforts of the community (I've downloaded already many of the contents, specially tracks, before using them.) I've considered to participate in F1GP2, but I'm more of long distance racing than hotlaps, so I focused on further developing my driving and set-up skills from where I left in 2000, when I first changed to GP3.

I installed GP2 again in 2014 and made an awful qualifying in Spa; it was great, because I thought it was going to be easy and, hell no, it wasn't. The challenge was back! However, only in 2015 I got really back in the game, and it was when I discovered the portal and forum.
I was really excited with the all tracks, the GP2Edit possibility of editing grips and HP, and the cars available, and I took a moment to decide how to play regularly. Eventually, I decided to create my own "career mode" and play it in a consistent way for an undetermined number of seasons. The first season would be a fictional "2016", and it took almost the same time as the real life one. I'm about to finish the "2017".

I do races with 50% Race Distance; something very good or very bad must happen in my life to consider do 100%, as I did 3 seasons in the nineties.

I thought of creating a fixed algorythm in a Excel sheet in order to create a career game, and I even changed some ideas with Antônio Pessoa (a big thanks to him), but eventually I considered that the Excel updating wouldn't replace a real software application. So, now I just set up a goal to myself before each season, measured by the Grip (and Random Grip Range) of my team-mate. The ultimate goal is to do better than in Ace mode in the original game, as I wrote here sometime ago. If I fail, we'll see what happens (I'll go to the back of the grid, or maybe to Indycar. We have the cards and the tracks...)

I have very little spare time, as I have a family and other hobbies, but this is like building a big puzzle that takes months or years. Right now, for example, I had not the time to proceed with a set-up idea I had for Jerez, since December (!) But there's no problem; time will eventually appear, and in the meanwhile I have a back-up copy of most files of GP2 needed (of course we know that we evolved from GB to TB, but it's still amazing how tiny they are!)

The plot

As you remember, in late 2015 there were wild rumours that Red Bull could quit F1, for not having a competitive engine. So I took from there. In my fictional 2016, Red Bull and Toro Rosso disappeared from F1. This and the dwindling TV audiences led CVC to sell it's position on F1 cheap to the FIA, who tool control of the sport very much like FIFA controls football.
For 2016, a number of measures were taken:
- Bernie Ecclestone was sacked
- Rules were drastically changed, meaning cheaper chassis, the return of slip-stream and stronger tires. DRS was vanished. Refuelling got back. Return to one-hour qualifying session, both at fridays and saturdays.
- Mercedes and Ferrari were forced to make and sell 2015 units to every team interested. FIA made a real threat to build up a new championship, even without Ferrari, in case of disagreement.
The costs of setting up a team lowered a lot. So, 5 new teams emerged overnight for the 2016 season: Google (bought Red Bull), Briatore (bought Toro Rosso), Ecclestone (back to Brabham days, but now under his own name), Piquet (2 brazilian drivers and Petrobras support; no recession here), and Coca Cola.

I raced with Coca Cola, the most under-powered team: 695 HP engine. The Coca Cola car jam is very nice, and I wanted to simulate a rookie driver who struggles with an under-powered engine - a thing we don't have in the Original game.


Fictional 2017

So, the carset of my fictional 2017 season is as follows:

Ferrari: Max Verstappen, Vettel,
McLaren-Honda: Raikkonen, Vandoorne
Renault: Magnussen, Ocon
Williams-Mercedes: Massa, di Resta
Google-Mercedes: Alonso, me
Mercedes: Rosberg, Bottas
Audi: Hulkenberg, Palmer
Haas-Ferrari: Grosjean, Robert Kubica
Briatore-Mercedes: Nasr, Josef Newgarden
Sauber-Ferrari: Ericsson, Charles Leclerc
Piquet-Mercedes: Lucas di Grassi, Rubens Barrichello
Coca Cola-Honda: Felix Rosenqvist, Fabio Leimer
Pepsi-Honda: Ricciardo, Wehrlein
Ecclestone-Ferrari: Sergey Sirotkin, Rio Haryanto

Reasons for important leaves: Hamilton lost the 2016 title to Vettel and took a sabbatical, but he might return; Perez got tired of not having a top car and went to Indycar, closer to Mexico; Force India was later bought by Audi, and Pepsi bought Manor to rivalize against Coca Cola.

For my third fictional season ("2018") I will reproduce the conditions of Ace mode. Battling against a 16184 Grip with same HP has been quite though and I'm yet to improve driving in the long run (this has been a slow process since I played again, but I'm doing progress.) Next season I'll try to win "Ace" again (this means Google will replace the Mercedes engine with its own unit, and will be the best of the grid; Alonso will drop to 15984 because he's going old); in "2019" I'll do again something harder.

The background is a legendary rivalry between me and Max Verstappen that could last 25 seasons (if Verstappen races until the age Schumacher retired, he will complete 26 seasons.) I thought of this in late 2015 because of Verstappen's very early age and good rookie season; he is still better in my fiction than in reality, although I'm among those who think he's not a marketing product.

In the future I consider to race again in the back of the field; and if I continue to earn my place at Google, it will happen with this team, as they are not a carmaker and will leave suddenly and without notice, even quicker than Benetton did. Anyway, anything is possible and there are tons of tracks to discover...

Seems it just got started. And I didn't yet considered making the kids playing it, they're too young. Thank you all
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rremedio
GP2 Legend
Posts: 1559
Joined: 14.01.2007, 15:05

Re: My fictional and personal career mode (Text only, no vid

Post by rremedio »

Great stuff, Ismael!

I always wanted to make a career game, but I got too far on it (I think I never got to 3rd season).

The idea of Bernie running a team after he is sacked is both hilarious and awesome!
"The Fox provides for himself. but God provides for the Lion"
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Early 90s F1 forever!
SixDegrees
GP2 Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: 18.05.2018, 05:40

Re: My fictional and personal career mode (Text only, no videos)

Post by SixDegrees »

evitable issue of time passing. So, I decided to publish my experience with GP2 since I got back to the game in late 2015 and register it for posterity in this forum. I'm not programmer nor designer, so I won't contribute with anything new
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