Is this even worth playing?

[Matrix30815]

I played a old F1 manager on dos, and looking for a updated version? Seems not even worth the purchase even with the positive reviews. I love manager games!

[Hikyu]

I have hundreds hours on this game and still play... I think it’s the best Motorsport manager at the moment...

[Damsteri]

It's fun, but it's very far from proper management games. It has lots of bugs and it's a quite shallow arcade managent game, but it's addictive and fun to play. Would play a better F1 managent game if there would be one, but there is not.

The main problem in the game is that the game is focused on micromanagent in races. You need to constantly tell your stupid drivers what to do. Over 90% of the playtime goes for micromanaging your drivers' engine and tire usage... if you want to get best results.

[glen525]

i have 371 hours on it. while it is not exactly like the old games you talk of, it is very close. i don't get the hate for the micromanagement. races have a X12 speed, use that until you need to change settings.

[Matrix30815]

F1 manager professional on DOS, is it like that or more arcade

[Z30 Dandy Dust]

It´s very nice - spend a lot of time on it...

[shortshifted78]

Originally posted by Damsteri:

It's fun, but it's very far from proper management games. It has lots of bugs and it's a quite shallow arcade managent game, but it's addictive and fun to play. Would play a better F1 managent game if there would be one, but there is not.

The main problem in the game is that the game is focused on micromanagent in races. You need to constantly tell your stupid drivers what to do. Over 90% of the playtime goes for micromanaging your drivers' engine and tire usage... if you want to get best results.

But there are 2 edits to the dll to chose from to get rid of that if desired.
1. The no micromanagement option that allows the manager to decide when to pit and what to do during the pit stops, you can even control the ERS if you want, but the AI controls the drivers otherwise.
2. The Macromanagement option that has the AI fully control the race. The manager just sits back and watches in frustration, horror, or joy as to how the race unfolds before going back and handling bugets, staff, sponsors, etc

[Matrix30815]

I don't know yet if it's worth playing. How many bugs still exist? Is it a arcade race or a sim race?

[Bramborough]

Tons of MM videos on YT which will give you a pretty accurate idea quickly. I'm not saying that to be cheeky...I mean you'll get a much better assessment directly looking at a few minutes of video gameplay to decide if it's something in which you're interested or not. As opposed to trying to divine from a paragraph or two of text here; no matter how accurate or well-articulated a response may be, it is necessarily filtered through someone else's experience and preferences.

Aviticus Dragon and Loki Doki are two youtubers who I know have some MM videos out there. Not saying they're particularly well-played, but certainly good enough to get the gist of what the game offers. Tons of others, of course.

[Tig_green]

There are also a lot of mods out there improving (imo) the experience. If you don't care too much about cartoony characters and fantasy names then you might want to check out one of the great mods floating around in Workshop etc.(FIRE/ICE 2018 being the most popular I think, then there's TheFlamingRed's mod that modifies dll. files so pretty extensive modding there)

[Xautos]

i've played almost every f1 management on offer, although this game has a lot of options, it doesn't have as many as gpm2. the racing on this game is a lot more realistic compared with gpw, gpm2 and F1M '99, those games had their quirks and exploits you can take full advantage of from time to time and those were never patched out and accelerated timing could be useful.

compared to more recent f1 management games like pole position manager, this is far more fairer then those pieces of crap for games.

all in all it is very much likw gpm2, but a lot more updated.

[Alex]

This game is very close to be something really epic. Under the hood, though, there are some qustionably shallow mechanics that could've been much better executed with a bit more time and money. The frameworks are in place for a more in-depth version, if that's what the developers are planning to do. All in all, though, this game is a much better alternative than those old games that for the most part is just mentioned out of old habit and undeserved cult status.

What this game boils down to as it is now, is primarily setting up the car during practice and choose which tyres and trim to focus on unless you got time to get everything maxed. So there's some strategy involved there. Both in terms of picking drivers with decent feedback (or relying on yourself and external information) to set up the car properly, or go with other drivers and risk having less optimized set-ups for each track. Then there's the qualifying mini-game, which I always let the driver handle themselves, and lastly make a plan for tyre changes to find the optimal lap to pit and so forth. Then, due to weather change, scrap all plans and make the best plan-B and C. This part is quite realistic.

The micro-management of the drivers during the race can for some be a bit too much. I enjoy it, though.

Aside from creating a new car before each new season, everything between races is quite simple and shallow. I don't really know what they could've done to make it more interesting, though. The nature of F1 propably sets this part of the game aside from other sports-management games since you have a fairly small staff to worry about compared to a hockey or football team.

PS. I could go into detail about what I mean about "qustionably shallow" but since you can just extract the ***DesignData-files yourself and have a look, I will spare everyone the spoilers. These "shallow" choices do actually work to create an illusion of deep gameplay, so the less you know about it, the better.

PPS. I noticed I over-used the word "though"... though I'm not a native English speaker, so I'll let it slide.

[Jun]

Originally posted by shortshifted78:

Originally posted by Damsteri:

It's fun, but it's very far from proper management games. It has lots of bugs and it's a quite shallow arcade managent game, but it's addictive and fun to play. Would play a better F1 managent game if there would be one, but there is not.

The main problem in the game is that the game is focused on micromanagent in races. You need to constantly tell your stupid drivers what to do. Over 90% of the playtime goes for micromanaging your drivers' engine and tire usage... if you want to get best results.

But there are 2 edits to the dll to chose from to get rid of that if desired.
1. The no micromanagement option that allows the manager to decide when to pit and what to do during the pit stops, you can even control the ERS if you want, but the AI controls the drivers otherwise.
2. The Macromanagement option that has the AI fully control the race. The manager just sits back and watches in frustration, horror, or joy as to how the race unfolds before going back and handling bugets, staff, sponsors, etc

That sounds awesome!
I was wondering if there was any mods of that type, but I couldn't find on the workshop.
Where did you find them?
Thanks in advance!

[shortshifted78]

If you are comfortable using dnspy to edit a dll file, then here are the 2 options
MACROmanagement under ConsoleCommands

 useAIForDrivers = true

No Micromanagement under SessionStrategy

private void UpdateDrivingStyleAndEngineModes()
{
	bool arg_06_0 = this.mUsesAIForStrategy;
	if (this.mVehicle.pathState.IsInPitlaneArea() || this.mVehicle.timer.hasSeenChequeredFlag)
	{
		this.mVehicle.performance.drivingStyle.SetDrivingStyle(global::DrivingStyle.Mode.BackUp);
		this.mVehicle.performance.fuel.SetEngineMode(global::Fuel.EngineMode.Low, false);
	}
	else
	{
		this.mVehicle.performance.drivingStyle.SetRacingAIDrivingStyle();
		this.mVehicle.performance.fuel.SetRacingAIEngineMode();
	}
	if (global::Game.instance.sessionManager.isSafetyCarFlag)
	{
		this.mVehicle.performance.drivingStyle.SetDrivingStyle(global::DrivingStyle.Mode.BackUp);
		this.mVehicle.performance.fuel.SetEngineMode(global::Fuel.EngineMode.Low, false);
	}
	if (this.mVehicle.car.seriesCurrentParts[1].partCondition.IsOnRed())
	{
		this.mVehicle.performance.fuel.SetEngineMode(global::Fuel.EngineMode.Low, false);
	}
} 

I would have directed you to my mod and the discord link in it, but as of last week, I now have a heavily updated dll that likely won't work with the current designdata files (explaination on the mod page)

[Tyso3]

Grew up playing things like Grand Prix Manager myself so i see this as the succesor to this game. Very much worth it on that front.

As a managment game, could it be better? Hell yes it could
As a Racing Mangment game, Could it be better? No its the best on the market.