Suggested

Improving Youth Academy and drivers

This few days i was thinking on what point of the game needs an improvement. The cars management is, in my opinion, very good because it's simple to use and very funy with not too much parameters at once but complex enough to let me enjoying the game.

But, the drivers system where we can only train them until they are 20 stats/20 talent for the end-game is, well, pretty boring. So, i was thinking on way to improve the Driver Academy. Here is my idea.

1) First of all, create a Youth League where we can let the young drivers (15-17 years) drive.

Because it's not the main game, i think we need simple rules. So : automatic and random races, same car, same setup (just as in F2, F3 and others rookie's formula). Then, results posted on a simple sheet with lap times and final position. After the race, you get an e-mail, coming from your staff in order to know how good is the driver (i will explain it later).

2) Hard choices.

With the help of your staff, you'll have to choose if you :

a) Let him go

b) Promote him/her. Because he's young, he can only use the team's simulator but you are able to train him for free (!) until he reach 18 years old. But, you are not sure if the driver is good enough to become a true champ'.

c) Keep him in the Youth League for a few races to know exactly if he is that good/or not.

3) Secret stat.

My system only work if the drivers can have an hidden stat (let's call it « Potential »). Your goal is to find precisely how good is the secret potentiel of a young driver. The more races he do in the youth league, the more precise is the staff evaluation. But, of course, you can promote him faster, arguing that you are sure that he is the next world champion.

To help you, your staff can send you standard informations just as : « Ho, i think that this driver has a good potential in Fast Cornering ».

The idea behind « potential » is to add bonuses to our drivers just like engine, tyres and fuel suppliers are actualy doing in the game. For exemple, if you end up with a driver with high potential in speed cornering and train him to level 20, you will have :

Speed cornering : 20 (+3)

We can imagine a system like this (but this is only for exemple) :

High Potential (+ 1 bonus)

Very High Potential (+2 bonus)

Strong Potential (+3 bonus)

Master (+5 bonus)

So, with my system, there will be no more clone drivers 20 talented/20 stats/5 stars rating but a more complex and balanced system where a 18 talent driver with high potential can beat a 20 talent driver.

This will also improve the Youth Academy even for low to medium level players juste like me because, atm, the Youth league is only useful when you are high level.

This is also a new challenge for the old, very very very old players of iGP (:p)

What do you think about it ?

Ps : sorry if my english is not that good : i'm not used to write in english.

Hey there,

I'm intrigued with this topic, especially how this would change the game to some extent.

One fun question: Do you really trust the academy young guns, or instead (ab)using the transfer market for excellent drivers? This one optional for you to answer, so here comes my take of your options...

About the youth league, this could change the game quite significantly. But I have a question: Are you sure with the 15-17 yo age restriction for the league? Because in real life, some drivers aged 20 or something are still considered as youth driver instead of recognized as full-fledged competitor.

Regarding the hiring options, the second option got my attention. What do you mean by training them for free? The training already cost zero, so you could've made them train without affecting their contract of 20 races until they raced their first one.

About the "potential" stat, how can this work alongside, or replace the "talent" stat? Would it affect just one stat, or many stats with varying effects? Or should this "potential" stat be the new "talent" stat? This is a very good idea to increase variety in the game by making the drivers more like Pokemons (do you also play Pokemon? :p) with their hidden, so-called Individual Value and Effort Value(s).

Anyway, thanks for your game-changing ideas; guess the community needs more players like you. :)

Wrong. The only way you can train them for free without affecting their contract is only on a day when your team is not racing or to have your team not be registered to any league. Even if you have them as a reserve driver, the day your team enters a race you will find the contract of your youth reserve driver has been reduced by 1.

Thanks for the reminder there. I do notice about that too when it's off-season.

I mean, he proposed a kind of free training, just like off-season training, for drivers aged 15-17 while the season is still going.

Two answers to questions posed. 1. Can you trust the young guns from the academy? 2. Are academy drivers only useful for upper level players?

1. Academy drivers are far more trustworthy than drivers from the transfers market. This is because you are able to train them in the most efficient manner. And because, with rare exception, they are just plain faster than transfer drivers that have the same number of stars. There already are hidden variables even in the academy drivers. There are no clones. Two drivers trained to exactly the same stats can vary by a full second in practice speed.

2. Contrary to what Joey said in his guide, academy drivers are extremely helpful even at pro level. They are NOT necessary to success at pro level but can make a significant difference in how easy it is to promote to and avoid relegation from elite level. The idea that talent does not matter in pro level drivers is false. I tested this myself in the beta phase. And the results of my test demonstrated that double the talent equals about 15 seconds faster over a 50% race distance. Thus equal drivers with identical stats that varied only by their talent showed that level 6 talent drivers were about 15 sec per race faster than level 3 talent drivers. And that level 12 talent drivers were also about 15 seconds per race faster over level 6 talent drivers.
.....The best place to get excellent drivers with high talent is in the driver academy with a level 8 academy capable of producing level 18 talent drivers. Those drivers when trained efficiently can last to level 15 manager level

I am currently level 9 (3 races and will be lvl 10) and my youth academy is lvl 9. The most so far I have been offered from the academy is a talent 13 which took 9 attempts before this was made available to me. So what I would like to ask is how many attempts do you think it should take on average with a lvl 9 academy to be offered a Talent 18 and my second question is what talent can I expect to be offered with a lvl 9 or 10 academy?

Level 9 max offering is talent 19. Level 10 max offering is talent 20. The driver generation is random so back in beta I once had to attempt 25 times to get the high talent driver I knew was available. Recently I only had 6 attempts to get top talent. If you are really lucky you could get it on first try. 20 to 1 odds against getting the highest level driver in one try. Odds improve at getting highest talent as your academy level goes up after level 10.

So let's say you get offered a Talent 20 driver but his weight is 90kg and stamina 5, would you still sign him?

Yes, the easiest thing to train is physical. Do it first and it won't take long to take off all the weight and get stamina to 20. When a drivers stats are low like academy drivers are every button push results in an upgrade to your drivers stats. Higher level simulator helps training. However younger is better for training, speeding up training significantly. 17 and 18 year old drivers train noticeably faster than 20 year old drivers.

Thanks Dee for the advice!