Motorsport Manager

Games
1

Search did not bring up a thread so my apologies in advance if there was one.

I guess free Steam weekends actually do work. For the first time ever I actually purchased a product that had a free weekend and put in 19 hours on the game in two days. I looked up at 2 AM Sunday morning to realize I had to finally go to bed. It has been a while since a game did that. I am not a racing or auto fan yet was still engrossed.

It is not dissimilar to something like Championship (sorry, Football) Manager. You build a team, maintain finances, set up your cars, hire staff and drivers, build and research new parts, interact with the press (very rudimentary) and race in one of three series. The interface is slick and it is quite easy to get around. It is challenging but unlike FM you see results of the things you have done. If you spend the money to build and refine a new engine you will see results on the racetrack.

The races themselves are tension-filled beasties. I find myself cursing at my drivers for letting someone slide by them too easily or taking the wrong angle on a turn. During races I am consistently evaluating pit strategies, laps to go, tire condition, fuel in the tank, position and weather. My quite poor team scored a triumph with 3rd and 5th place finishes in a race last season when I decided to put on rain tyres from the outset while most other teams adopted intermediates. When the rain came sooner and harder than expected we were able to blow by everyone on our way to a tremendous finish for our little group.

2

I enjoyed it on iOS when it came out a couple of years ago, but it seemed like it lacked depth, so didn’t really stick for me. I heard here on Qt3 that they have improved upon it but haven’t felt inclined to pay the money for it. I guess I should have checked out this weekend.

I used to love Microproses Grand Prix Manager 2 back in the day, but it was buggy as hell.

Edit: 5.6gb download, they definitely added something since the iOS version.

3

I like Motorsport Manager a lot - I’m approaching a hundred hours in it.

I think it took me three season to get the lowly open wheel team I chose promoted, (ZRT Autosport), but it was an excellent feeling when they went up, especially as I had kept one of the original drivers and he won the driver’s title.

The guy was a complete arsehole - difficult to work with, he’d alienate other drivers, could never get the second unlock from his mechanic because she hated him too and even the team owner didn’t like him. But he was fast, so everyone put up with it.

Here’s a typical week for him, where he got in a fight, went to court for speeding and signed a modelling contract…

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I also found the rule changes quite interesting and they completely changed the way we raced too.

Obviously without money one of the things that suffers is pit stops, so I voted to outlaw refueling and that turned out to be a terrible idea as it removed a lot of the penalty for early stopping and removed some opportunities offered by the weather changes.

Previously if you were approaching a weather change you could drop your fuel usage to extend range so that your pitstop wouldn’t happen until after the rain had stopped/started. Other cars that couldn’t get to that lap would come in, put on the appropriate tyres while they fueled and then have to come back in a couple laps later when the weather changed. Now, the right thing to do was just to come in immediately whenever you were on the wrong or old tyres, as the stops were taking just a few seconds.

Now the time lost spending two-to-three laps on the wrong tyres far outweighed the advantage of one fewer pitstop.

Then I also voted for spec engines which took a ton of cost out of development, but also meant I had drop my second driver and pay a hefty fee to break contract, as he had zero overtaking skill and without an advantage offered by a better engine he just couldn’t get by anyone. At all.

I bought the GT DLC when it came out and had fun with that and it’s definitely different enough to make it worthwhile.

I used the “create a team” option, so my team is even worse than if you pick a bottom dwelling existing team. However, there is one technology that comes up for voting in the GT class that can be absolutely gamed if you make a couple linked choices. In season two I still have the worst car on the grid by far, (although my transmission is now rated 9th out of 10!),l but I’m comfortably in the top ten and frequently on the podium, just by taking advantage of the new tech.

4

I didn’t have much time to play this over the free weekend but was really impressed in the 2 and a bit hours I did squeeze in. I’ll definitely pick it up at some point I think (as a certified scrooge and owner of way to many games I’m waiting for sub £10 pls thank u). Surprised they got so much right in the 1st iteration of a sports management game. Especially a genre that has been in the doldrums since Grand Prix Manager 2 which was what, 1996? People have been desperate enough to keep playing and modding that game for 20 years.

5

Just played the first tutorial race and was really enjoying it until the end. The race was ending, I was in 8th on the last lap and there were cars behind me that showed “finished” while I was still racing. How is that possible?

6

They were probably lapped by the leaders and you weren’t.

The race finishes the first time you cross the line after the leader completes the race. So if they were a lap down and you weren’t they’d finish and you’d have to go around and back to the line again.

They’ll still finish behind you, because they’ve completed a lap less.

7

Ahh, I did not know that, thank you.

Well I am sold. Neat game, a lot of polish since the iOS version as well.

8

If you’re running super low on fuel or have red components and the leaders are behind you you can slow down and let first place by and then cross the line to finish that lap instead of having to go around again.

9

It’s definitely added a fair bit since the iOS version, enough to justify a separate purchase, but it does seem to fall into a similar gameplay rut after a few seasons (though to be fair I haven’t played for several major patches now). It could also do with some quality of life improvements, like saving your car setups from previous races on a course, or an option to automate practice/qualifying (using said preconfigured setup). As it is, the seasons where you’re just consolidating, with no real chance of challenging for the championship, take too long to be fun (to be fair, you can level the same criticism at other management games, but they tend to have enough bells and whistles to distract you. I’ve been meaning to jump back in to see what the patches have changed and try to go up another tier or two.

10

Yep free weekend got me too.

So when you all are racing, I find I tend to just leave the driving at orange level for tire wear and engine drive. One of my drivers went rogue and it was really cool as I was floored to watch how dynamically he changed his driving as he raced. So do you all change those settings a lot? Or mostly leave them?

11

Orange is pretty much my default setting, but I do change them up a lot. Part of it is trying to make your tire wear and fuel align so that your pit stops are as efficient as possible, part is generic stuff like going low when the safety car is out, or gunning it in the final stretch, and part is reacting to track conditions.

12

Does this game work as just a strategy game if the subject matter isn’t of interest?

13

Also is it worth the full price or should we wait for a discount?

14

Totally. I couldn’t care less about motorsport.

15

Silly question: Is it just F1 style cars? Or do they do Rally and motorbikes etc?

16

The base game is just open wheel cars and the top division is analogous to F1.

Down at the bottom (third) division it’s still open wheel cars, but there are more spec parts that are given to the teams and cannot be developed, making it more like Indycar.

If you get the GT DLC then you add GT cars to the mix.

The game can be modded, with efforts ranging from changing all the team and driver names to match the real world,and adding the appropriate paintjobs, to mods that change rules and even carsets. One popular mod adds in Le Mans Prototypes alongside the GT cars, (if you have the GT DLC) and Indycar to go alongside F1.

The fact that these mods exist suggests bikes are possible, (but not rally, as the game is based on circuits and laps, (maybe RallyX though)), but someone will have to make a mod for it to happen.

17

I have a driver I want to drop at the end of the season. Can I hire a driver mid season to take over at the end of the season, or do I need to wait for the season to end and then hire a driver?

18

You have to wait. If you hire him now you’ll be forced to pick a driver to drop now, with resultant penalties. If you don’t care about your development driver and you can get away without promising the new guy a starting seat then you could bring him in now as the 3rd driver and then promote him at season end.

19

Worth noting that there is Steam Workshop support for this, and a whole bunch of available mods.

Most popular at the moment is the ICE MOD 2017, which will give you actual F1 and IndyCar teams and drivers.

20

I’m about to start season 3 where I custom made my own team and I am getting worse each season! I did fairly well in Season 1, then season 2 was a disaster as I kept finishing near last. The weird thing is I went with all mid tier chassis stuff at start of seasons 2 so I thought I’d do excellent. But the toher teams wickedly out stripped me in HQ and car stuff even though I designed each car part for my best driver. I’m confused what to do for season 3 now. I’m losing money each race but still coming out ahead as I have invested heavily in drivers with high marketability which is also the trait I selected at game start. Any tips?