Forum topic: [NEWS] Upcoming changes: Automation, Scouting, and Person negotiations

United Kingdom Adam Wolf

Feltwell

860 races

4 championships

25 wins

105 podiums

Current team

United Kingdom Wolf GP
Division 2.2

@Nelson

i) I think i understand the scouting system atm and it is far easier to scout from person you are looking at's profile, skills then scout, rather than the complicated scouting menu. (just take note of ability and potential of people and just fully scout them. you do see people improve but most importantly have good scouts to begin with.)

iii) agree with that and I have the mindset of doing this with members of the team. ( probably consider being a hoarder of young talent for this reason)

June 25, 2023 07:28 pm

Belgium Frank Van Laere Pitwall Administrator

Lokeren

298 races

1 championships

9 wins

34 podiums

Current team

Belgium Skylark Racing

Frank, I praise your efforts on the staff side (badly needed), but I think that the supplier system is the single most urgent problem we have on competetiveness.

Yes, not being able to renovate staff was bad for the game. Having guys designing cars when they are 80 yrs old makes no sense.

But the tiered system for works teams makes the same teams win all the time. Works could be an advantage but maybe not that big, or we could have more balanced suppliers, less predictable from year to year

Just my 5 cents.

Nice to see you back

Thanks for the info. Suppliers and sponsors is something I want to tackle. But so is the race script. So I'll see if there are things that I can change. Ideas are always welcome.

Some greater supplier variance would be nice - basically the linear pathway on engines is an MCR works deal. Crystspeed having a technology breakthrough would really throw things around especially if the MCR deals are locked in for seasons. Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda, Renault have all had spells at the top and the bottom. As things stand you build up to the best supplier and the others become redundant as the hierarchy never changes.

Good point. Just like Honda started out at the bottom and then moved up the ranks. This is something that isn't in the game. But there could be financing simulation to simulate more resources going to a supplier and thus them increasing in the ranks. It's quite scripted right now.

The scouting changes will be interesting; I have been concentrating almost exclusively on scouting new talent for the last few seasons for the last few seasons but it's been fruitless so far - like finding a needle in a haystack. I've found a couple of people with potential but staff very rarely improve (I take screenshots of staff and compare them after a couple of seasons and there is nearly never any improvement) so I'm glad to see the ability to train staff is coming. One change I would really like to see is the option for "driver development" focus in testing weeks; not just setup and car development options. It would be nice if the head scout/coach provided regular updates on the improvement in drivers and staff levels in the news feed.

That's exactly why I wanted to fix that first. There was a very low chance of finding a good person, also because too few teams were actually doing scouting.
The idea is nice on the driver development, it's just another factor for me to take into account to prevent persons from becoming too good at a too young age. Also, it needs to be done in a way so that people don't do a million laps.
Also, you'll be glad to know that person skills history is coming back (albeit with a gap).

I am concerned the scout reports are often inaccurate with regards to potential. I have had drivers from youth levels until their mid-20s whose potential is 50-60, so I release them. Then someone else signs them and a few seasons later, an example being Paul Schlupp (who is now ranked 26) and, from my junior team, Michael Chávez Chepeda - who never showed the potential of the ability he has now and he raced for me for four seasons.

This has been massively changed. It can still happen that scout teams are wrong at the start, but if you do enough reports then you'll always get the same result. The difference is in how fast you get to that result.

I think the issue of teams sitting on established talent could be improved by limiting who junior teams can hire. I (and many others) have staff in my junior team who would be valuable to a div1 team. If there was a limit on the experience level of staff a junior team could hire (say 2/5) then more of the higher ranked names will be available. That's not to say a really good inexperienced staff member cannot be found, so there will still be some variance, but with top staff the junior teams are currently optimised operations and new div3 players struggle to compete. Obviously a staff member gains experience, when a threshold is reached the manager can be notified that staff member x has decided they need a new challenge and becomes immediately available for other teams to sign, regardless of contract. This, plus if junior teams can train staff more often than senior teams (as should be their job as junior teams), will help build the talent pool in the game.

When persons want to leave has also been changed, and junior teams play a factor in deciding whether they want to move on. So I would give that a try now and we can re-evaluate later on.

I am not in favour of the buyout clause idea; it will only favour the richest players in a staff member can be bought out at anytime during their contract. If staff members will not be very lenent regarding having a buyout clause it is pointless having a "no buyout" option - what employee would choose not to have that option if teams are basically forced to accept contract demands.

Yes, true. Especially in the beginning. But, you could also say that a Red Bull (loaded with cash) team in Pitwall right now would have no means of becoming competitive.
Whether a person wants a buy out clause also depends on the loyalty & ambitious character traits. And on the power position that the person currently has. It has also been changed in the beta so that you can be more than 1 level of (2 now) what he is requesting. So if you make the rest of the contract strong enough, then he may accept a no buy out (but it will come at an extra cost for the "host" team).

I hope the "loyalty" stat plays a more significant part going forwards. Drivers (and going forwards staff members) who teams whose contracts have been honoured correctly and where teams have made investment in their training do deserve an element of loyalty. That doesn't mean a designer (for example) who is reaching a high skill level but is still a junior member of staff can't decide to leave and spread their wings, but there needs to be a balance rather than just a buyout free-for-all. There are real world examples - Ferarri offered Newey far more than he gets at Red Bull but he's happy there and stayed. Whereas Dan Fallows learnt from Newey but hit a ceiling of career progression at Red Bull, so moved to the head role at Aston Martin.

For staff maybe the "schedule" stat (I am not sure what it means or affects) could be replaced by "competetiveness", so staff who are not very competitive are happy staying in lower performing teams for the challenge (linked to motivation stat). Conversley, staff who are highly competitve might decide after a season or two the team cannot compete at a level they are happy with and want to leave. Maybe a thought for contracts is setting a first season goal; if a team fails to meet it the contract is weakened.

This is on my to do list, to make an inventory of where character traits play a difference and to list that, because honestly it's all over the place in the code and I'm not always 100% sure my self anymore (very honest answer). Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to start over and to redefine.
I would like to get to a Newey & Fallows situation, but the reality is that it's not easy to tweak and finetune to get there.

Phil, I agree on the suppliers. Maybe the system could be like the parts system, where once in a while they get reseted. And, then any one of them could get massively different ratings, while, perhaps converging a bit over the seasons until a new reset. That could be a start. I could even see potential to have teams coalitions on engine development, it would be fun, but perhaps too political and too ambitious. Let s keep it simple

This is what sort of happens with the stats. It just doesn't happen very often thanks to the way it has been set up. But I like the idea of political influence in a rules reset to try to force that reset (which is in the code, but just almost never happens).
Always open to ideas (but perhaps a different topic would be better to discuss supplier changes).

One question is would the new buyout clauses create wage inflation?

Normally it shouldn't. The current dynamics in place should keep that on a limit. We used to have heavy contract inflation, and that system fixed it back then.

Staff don't have an ambition stat, as far as I can see anyway. Only drivers have it.

Each person has character traits, also staff. That will be added in the beta.

The only other thing I'd say about scouting is it would be nice to have the points value with the rest on the page header. As it is if I don't keep checking the scouting page I hit the maximum and lose out.

I added them to the top.

There are pros and cons though; the cons being added complexity to the game, albeit more likely established managers are most likely to do it so, by knowing the game well already, are better placed to cope with it. The pros are potentially closing the gaps between the engines, ultimately leading to convergence and greater competition. Someone prepared to embark on a long term project can pick the worst engine, sign a works contract, and invest to bring it up to the top - the benefit being paying far less for the engine and having a long term contract.

I like that idea. I think we need to work it out more (probably in a different topic). But some questions come to play: how many engine suppliers should there be? In house engine development has been a long requested feature as well, etc.
Also, I do think there should be drawbacks from being linked as a works team to a supplier. McLaren has gotten out of it for example, it had its reasons, Williams and BMW ditto. One could be that you are forced to go public (which would not be realistic). Or that you are required to keep a certain driver in position #1. That you would lose the top sponsor slot for a not ideal money deal. Etc. We can't just have that to be the best solution without drawback, because otherwise everyone would just go for it.

i) Scouting should be much simpler. Part of the hassle is how hard it was to scout, now with the points it has improved, but still, it has become too complicated with all the nuances for potential and stats. To be honest I really never fully understood the system, and I have been here for a long time, have discussed it with Diogo Rebelo on our long talks about the game and we never got to a good conclusion on this topic.

I really hope you'll have a different idea soon on the new system. But if not, let me know of course.

ii) Suppliers: I believe that in F1, right now, the biggest advantage of being a works team is the financial help and the fit to the chassis that you have from the knowledge of the engine, probably also the Gearbox and other related parts - correct me if I'm wrong. Therefore, I would say that there should be a fine-tuning stat for the chassis on the engine, and works teams shouldn't have much trouble with that. Additionally, there should be up and comers engine suppliers that shuffle things from season to season. Another feature, not very F1-like but still interesting, could be players allying to help financially (or it could be a points system) to support one engine supplier to get better in the future.

I think teams teaming up is a great thing. It already is a thing, but it's not very visible. The number of km that is done is calculated each week in the development of the supplier part. There is an upper limit to that though (which I stand by).

To reply to some of the questions that have been raised by Jean Spiteri in the beta chat (before the database wipe):

Have also noticed the Academy feature. Interesting. Just a question, without fully understanding the feature of course, but should the Academy settings remain available to change even after you scouted in that week?

In the week update the academy ratings are updated.

Can you advise what determines the maximum scout points limit? Is it facilities? Or common to all teams?

The maximum limit is always 500 points. How fast points are added depend on the professionalism (now network) rating of the scouting team.

Is the one-time full scouting (academy feature) scouting amongst the current persons in the game or creating new ones?

This creates new persons.

Is it correct that both the Approachable stats are marked as a tick when convincing an own team person to be approachable?

When a person is convinced, then the approachable stat becomes a tick. It could be that he becomes only approachable for his own team, or for both. It depends on the motivation.

Will the team who loses the staff member get paid the buy out clause?

Yes, the team is paid out the sum of the old, then nullified, contract.

With the new buy out clauses, what will happen to persons who are 'Allowed to leave immediately'? Will the buy out fee be charged?

Allowed to leave immediately sets the buy out to 0,-.
July 18, 2023 10:15 pm

Belgium Frank Van Laere Pitwall Administrator

Lokeren

298 races

1 championships

9 wins

34 podiums

Current team

Belgium Skylark Racing

The full and final changelog can be found here:

* Scouting, FIXED: Error message when too few points is now readable.
* Team, NEW: Automation
* Team, NEW: Automation is automatically activated if a member is 2 weeks inactive.
* Team, NEW: Bot teams will automatically sign a (normal) contract with one of the supplier options.
* Rulebook, CHANGED: Development announced rules are no longer visible in the rulebook.
* Team, NEW: Best compounds can be calculated for the week (or remainder of the week).
* Cars, NEW: Bulk order advised compounds.
* Session, FIXED: The testing or qualification page would not load when there was no car created.
* Session, CHANGED: Auto qualifying is now in risk a lot and the highest engine mode.
* Session, NEW: Teams can automatically do testing.
* Session, CHANGED: Teams will only auto qualify if the auto qualify automation setting is enabled.
* Session, NEW: Teams will only automatically set a strategy if the auto strategy setting is enabled.
* Standings, NEW: Old teams will automatically join a division that has less than 8 teams. The manager will always be dismissed so that the team is available to take over.
* Team, NEW: Teams without a manager will sign a supplier contract.
* Person, CHANGED: Person negotiations speed optimizations.
* Person, FIXED: Person negotiations team id would not always be set to the correct team.
* Person, NEW: Teams can automatically set roles for its persons.
* Person, NEW: Teams can automatically sign persons.
* Development, NEW: Teams can automatically research and develop parts.
* Production, NEW: Teams can automatically create parts. By default it will try to create 3 parts for each of the latest designs.
* Sponsors, NEW: Teams can automatically start negotiations and try to sign a sponsor. In automation a random sponsor of the top 2 quality levels will be approached.
* General, FIXED: Person portraits and flags no longer have a dotted (link) line.
* Scouting, NEW: Added link to recent reports in the top section.
* Scouting, CHANGED: Before the report stopped generating progress from 3 seasons on, this has been changed to 5 seasons.
* Scouting, FIXED: Scouting reports would always be set as older than 3 seasons.
* Scouting, CHANGED: Scout report grading system removed, replaced by actual values.
* Scouting, NEW: Driver and staff tabs are now showing ranked by the rating or the potential of the person.
* Scouting, CHANGED: Information shown on the Recent tab is now more relevant to the user.
* Scouting, NEW: Academy
* Scouting, NEW: Each week each team gets the option to promote someone from the Academy for free. This person will be known for 100% for each relevant skill. The better the academy rating of your team, the better the chance you can score a good "pull".
* Scouting, NEW: All tabs now allow to immediately generate a scout report.
* Scouting, NEW: The shortlist is now also shown in the scouting center.
* Person, NEW: The shortlist button has been added to the contract tab on the person page.
* Scouting, NEW: A bookmark icon allows users to add persons to the shortlist from the knowledge pages.
* Scouting, NEW: Automated scout reports when the maximum number of points is reached.
* Scouting, NEW: Each job type can be enabled or disabled for automated reports.
* Desk, FIXED: Layout issue in testing only weeks.
* Person, CHANGED: Only persons who are "driver" can be signed as a guest driver.
* Person, CHANGED: Persons who have retired can no longer be approached from the person contract page.
* Person, CHANGED: Persons who have retired should no longer start a negotiations session.
* Person, FIXED: In negotiations with a person without a rank, there would be a non-numerical error.
* Person, CHANGED: The negotiation incentive tick will always be a cross if the person has decided to retire.
* Person, CHANGED: The job type of a person in negotiations is fixed to his prefered job. It's no longer possible to offer persons different roles to their prefered role.
* Person, NEW: Negotiations page now also shows how many teams are negotiating with a person.
* Person, NEW: Teams who are negotiating with a person are now shown on the person negotiations page. Depending on the persons' preference, he will share a full top ranking, only who is in the top 3, or will share nothing at all.
* Person, NEW: Supporters can quickly set a preset value of minimum, average or maximum.
* Person, NEW: If there are not enough points to offer a contract in the negotiations page, then this is highlighted in a message below the offer contract button.
* Development, NEW: Potential design team rating is now also shown, which will help to get an idea which direction the actual value will go.
* Development, FIXED: Fixed a few bugs in the rating display in case there were no or almost no known concepts.
* Person, CHANGED: Experienced drivers and staff who are generated have a higher "lowest" value.
* General, CHANGED: Replaced Hotjar by Clarity.
* Facilities, FIXED: Costs are now correctly deducted again.
* Staff, NEW: Training. Each week each team can train 1 staff member. Whether the rating is improved depends on the motivation. A rating can improve from 0 to 5.
* Negotiations, CHANGED: Person rank shown behind person type.
* Person, CHANGED: Removed allow to talk clause.
* Person, NEW: Buy out clause. The buy out clause is the seasonal salary multiplied by either: 0 (no buy out), 0.25 (low), 1 (medium), 2.5 (high), 5 (extreme). A person may not want to agree with an offered buy out clause, and this could be a reason to block negotiations. How high the buy out needs to be for the person depends on his loyalty, power position, but mostly on his ambitious character rating. The more ambitious, the more likely he will want a low buy out. The pay out only needs to be paid if the start season is before or on the last season of the person's current team contract.
* Person, FIXED: In negotiations the reminder message would be shown as many times as there were teams negotiating.
* Person, FIXED: When the rest of the offer is not enough to circumvent a block, then the total progress is also set to 0%. Before only the sub total was set to 0%, but this had no effect.
* Person, NEW: The current week is now taken into account in generating whether someone wants to talk about a new contract. The idea is that by week 10 everyone has had the chance to think about it, unlike in the current system which is a fixed limit.
* Person, NEW: Ask to negotiate contract. Depending on the motivation of the person, this may be successful. The better the motivation, the more chance for the current team. The lower the motivation, the more chance for other teams.
* Person, FIXED: It could be that a person changes his mind on approachable, while this was not intended.
* Person, NEW: Added some explanations to some of the contract options.
* Person, NEW: Search tab on the job market now shows the motivation for persons who are not yet approachable.
* Person, CHANGED: Decision date is now more prominently shown.
* Person, FIXED: Unassigned persons were not recognized as being unassigned and therefore did not get the morale penalty.
* Person, FIXED: Only drivers now benefit from the resting stat in the morale calculation.
* Person, CHANGED: Morale modifiers visually changed so that they make more sense.
* Person, CHANGED: Morale changes are now visible to everyone, and not just the current team.
* Person, CHANGED: Morale team discipline now takes the professionalism into account. Very professional persons will expect a high team discipline, while non professionals will expect a low team discipline.
* General, FIXED: bit.ly short url works again.
* Sponsors, FIXED: Redirect after signing a sponsor was broken.
* Sponsors, FIXED: After signing a sponsor, a feedback message is now shown.
* Person, CHANGED: Maximum characters increased in money fields in negotiations.
* Person, FIXED: Skills history is working again, this time in a more dynamic way. Unfortunately the driver skills could not be restored due too many changes.
* Person, NEW: Skills history graph in the "Skills" tab of the person.
* Scouting, NEW: Tooltips for scouting team skills.
* Development, NEW: Some parts are forced announced earlier than others. For example the chassis will now always be announced by week 8.
* Person, FIXED: The AI could in some cases not sign youth drivers.
* Person, FIXED: The AI would not update the number of admin points and therefore the signing persons script would stall.
* Development, CHANGED: The team ratings will now reach their potential (or future) value after 3 weeks instead of 6 weeks.
* Development, NEW: Up/Down arrows also shown on the development page next to the modifiers.
* Staff, NEW: Up/down arrows have green/red colors.
* Person, FIXED: The current manager of a person is now also correctly informed when a person is approached.
* Automation, FIXED: Staff space is taken into account when assigning persons.
* Automation, NEW: Facilities are built and upgraded automatically.
* Person, FIXED: No longer will managers get the total number of interested managers messages when a person is approached.
* Development, NEW: Finish and produce X parts.
July 19, 2023 10:38 am

United Kingdom Stephen Atyeo

1190 races

33 championships

154 wins

401 podiums

Current team

United Kingdom SGA Racing
Division 1

To clarify on the buyout clauses: do you have to "ask to negotiate", then if they accept you can buy out their contract? Is the buyout open to anyone then or just the manager who asks to negotiate?
July 26, 2023 01:27 pm

Belgium Frank Van Laere Pitwall Administrator

Lokeren

298 races

1 championships

9 wins

34 podiums

Current team

Belgium Skylark Racing

Ask to negotiate is when they're not open to negotiating with you. So that is always step 1 if that's not yet the case. If they are open to negotiate, then this step can be skipped. The only thing that this does, is the ability to be able to enter negotiations.

Then you start negotiations, where you can choose the start date of the contract. If it's immediate (when there is a buy out foreseen in the contract), then the buy out price is displayed there.
If a loophole is searched for and found, or if the person is marked as "allowed to leave", then the buy out is always set at 0,-.

Hope that clears it up a bit.
July 26, 2023 05:00 pm

United Kingdom Stephen Atyeo

1190 races

33 championships

154 wins

401 podiums

Current team

United Kingdom SGA Racing
Division 1

Thanks Frank. Just so you know whenever I negotiate with anyone I get lines of code across the top of the screen, like:

#0 debug(Generate requirements for 147149 (negotiations: 0), person_negotiations) called at [/home/pitwall/site/www/class.pitwall.org/person_negotiations_requirements.php:809] #1 person_negotiations_requirements::actual(147149, 14, 0, 0) called at [/home/pitwall/site/www/www.pitwall.org/my_person_approach.php:33] #0 debug(Set deadline date to 0 for 147149, person_negotiations) called at [/home/pitwall/site/www/class.pitwall.org/person_negotiations_requirements.php:1056] #1 person_negotiations_requirements::set(147149, 14, driver, ) called at [/home/pitwall/site/www/class.pitwall.org/person_negotiations_requirements.php:810] #2 person_negotiations_requirements::actual(147149, 14, 0, 0) called at [/home/pitwall/site/www/www.pitwall.org/my_person_approach.php:33]
July 26, 2023 06:11 pm

Deleted member

133 races

0 championships

0 wins

8 podiums

Current team

United Kingdom Holphiem Academy

Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this, but it has suddenly become an issue with the new update.

I have a junior mechanic who wants a contract until season 38, but I can only go to season 37 and therefore it is a red flag in the negotiations.

Previously, the staff member used to accept anyway, but my junior mechanic now won't sign even though everything else is green on the negotiation.

Can the available contact length display be extended please?
July 27, 2023 12:25 pm

Deleted member

133 races

0 championships

0 wins

8 podiums

Current team

United Kingdom Holphiem Academy

No idea what is happening with staff negotiations, but I get a notification that my number 1 driver is open to negotiations with me only but that is not true as it is Open season as I now have 6 or 7 others negotiating - Whatever tweaks have been made it seems that I am now in a position to get rinsed rich teams when I have spent so much time and effort to get somewhat remotely competitive.

Really not enjoying what I am seeing so far!


PS Also definitely not going to be able to renew since I am also now out of admin points, I have zero idea what I am up against in terms of others negotiation and I have a yellow highlighted feedback that basically says my offer is not good enough despite meeting every demand. Admin point cost with the new staff training updates are meaning my admin points are rinsed.

This is really frustrating.
July 29, 2023 01:39 pm

United Kingdom Adam Wolf

Feltwell

860 races

4 championships

25 wins

105 podiums

Current team

United Kingdom Wolf GP
Division 2.2

I have the same issue as the Junior mechanic for one of my drivers. Also when it is after previous contract expires, why should it state the current season? it should add the next future season available e.g. 38

regarding Phil's comment:
What determines the Release clause values for contracts as i perceive this can be too low?
July 30, 2023 05:25 pm

Deleted member

133 races

0 championships

0 wins

8 podiums

Current team

United Kingdom Holphiem Academy

Brilliant - lost my number 1 driver to a division 3 Junior team. Awesome. And no amount of money would make him consider staying so I gave up.
August 2, 2023 12:13 pm

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