Motorsport Manager

[FaultyMario]

http://www.motorsportmanager.com/

Business simulator / RTS / fast cars. Sounds like a killer combination.


http://youtu.be/IBy0kDiIwPI

Anybody getting it?

[21Kid]

Cool. For people like me who aren't good at racing games, but still like racing games. :lol:

[novicius]

My people! :lol: :up:

[Kchrpm]

Is it F1 only? I can't watch the trailer, but that's what it looks like on the website.

[FaultyMario]

Looks like generic "open wheel gp racer" that's closely based on current F1. From factory management to team orders and everything in between.

[Reynard]

I'm close to getting this, $35 on Steam now. Anyone here get it, been playing at all, have any opinions?

[Reynard]

Ok so I've put in over 20 hours into this title now so I feel I can give a decent opinion. First it's pretty damn addictive for a racing junky such as I and I've been playing it voraciously since getting it but I'm going to be very objective in my opinion here. It's not too complicated and if anything, possibly a bit too simplified ultimately for my tastes but seeing as the original version was made for iOS, I can understand why. That said it still has a little bit of depth for the strategy layer if you will... where your monies are going to go and what return on investment will come there of.

If you haven't read any about it already, the game is based around 3 different fictional open-wheel racing series, which you can easily imagine to be F3, GP2 & F1, hey they didn't pay for any official licence. Along the way, away from the actual race events, you will be tasked with contracting your team (3 drivers, 2 mechanics, 1 chief designer) and scouting for other possible hires, selecting different sponsor contracts, voting on rule changes for the series you're running in, upgrading your team's headquarters and designing/building new parts for your race car. Then there are the actual races which is pretty much just like running in B-Spec mode in a GT game. You can adjust in real time how hard your driver's are pushing their tires or how rich they're running their fuel mix, when to make a pit stop (and what to do during said stop, fuel, tires, repairs... how fast). There will also be a practice session before hand and maybe qualifying if it's part of that season's rules package. You can set up your race cars with very basic performance sliders for front & rear wing angles, suspension stiffness, gear ratio, camber angle & tire pressure and of course tire compound. All on track sessions can be paused at anytime or fast forwarded up to 3 x speed.

I started a career mode game with a low/mid-pack F3 team and was able to win the driver & team championship in my 3rd season. Defended title in season 4 with utter domination, moved up to GP2 and struggled in season one but won championship in second season with out too much difficulty. This is both with mid-grade drivers, so I'm already wondering about how many different strategies for success there really is. I should point out that there are no difficulty levels to choose from in the game. I tend to foresee that after a couple months the game will turn into the same stuff over and over and lose it's appeal.

The mechanics of the gameplay are good, the menu's and look/graphics of the game are really nice but variety is lacking. For instance every person in game is depicted by a standard little "playing card" if you will with a picture of them front and center. However there is only one male & one female character in the entire game and thus the only individualism as far as their appearance goes are things such as glasses, facial hair & the colors on their cap. None of this is editable by the player btw. Your car's livery is however but again it's vary shallow with about a dozen predefined graphics to choose from and a tiny color palette to apply to them. Not terrible mind you as the cars are pretty tiny when racing so you never see the full liveries on track. Another thing I feel lacking are the "random" events that happen off track such as a driver taking up flying lessons or one of your cars' cooling system developing a leak. The reason I put the random in quotes is because after my short time playing is obvious these are just all going to happen no matter what and it's just when the RNG hits on them. It's less a matter of if then when. Speaking of RNGs, it can be frustrating at times too. I once had both drivers crash out of a race within 20 seconds of each other... while parading around behind a safety car no less (double Will Power @ St. Pete is not very likely at all ;)). I didn't mention weather yet but it rains a lot in the game. Far too much to be realistic IMO but of course that adds another dimension and a bit more tactical options during a race/qualifying. Qualifying itself isn't handled as well as I'd like either. It's like a very difficult mini-game where you have to try and balance in real time the car's tire and brake temps during it's out lap with a slider controlled by your mouse pointer. Try doing this for both cars at once and you'll soon see that's nigh impossible. So really you only get to run one car at a time and with the time constraints that usually ends up meaning 1 attempt per car and the latter car will have a big advantage because of more rubber on track (assuming no rain). That said it's fun and very satisfying when you manage to get the car on track at the latest possible chance to get a lap in with a clear track AND get your temps in their sweet spot. It's just a rare thing and I feel the whole process could've been designed better.

I've never played any other sports managerial games so have nothing to compare it to in that regard but in terms of what I know about racing I think it does a fair job if a bit overly simplistic, especially in regards to the technical side. It does provide some cool racing moments and some races can be very exciting coming down to the wire, it's just that as is, I don't think there is enough substance to keep playing it for months on end. But there maybe something to change that opinion and of course that is the fact that the game is mod friendly. Playsport the developer has said there will be Steam workshop support rolling out in the first half of 2017 and there is already a few little mods out in the wild including what looks to be a full 2016 F1 conversion that's in the works. So I'm hopeful that the game might actually get better in the future. Until then, my enthusiasm for the game is still high and I'll keep on playing until I get through a F1 season no doubt but fear the boredom might start settling in by then. We'll see.

[dodint]

PC only? Bummer. This is one of the few types of games where I think I'd rather have it on a tablet. I don't have a single game on my tablet or phone, but this would've been cool. I know it came from a mobile title but is that earlier title still supported? I wonder.

[Kchrpm]

There's an Android version, I've been playing it for a couple weeks. It's cool, but you can burn through (in-game) money very quickly so you have to not get ahead of yourself. I jumped championships too early at one point and just went ahead and put $5 in the game because I enjoyed playing and the work that went into it, but was going to go under.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.game.motorsportmanager

[drew]

One question, can you bribe or cause controversy like blow a load on Bernie's girlfriend's face (or Bernie, for that matter)?

[Kchrpm]

No, but your drivers can get caught speeding and you have to give a statement.

[Reynard]

In the PC version, one of the "random" events is to be offered a bribe before one of the voting sessions. A typical season (thus far) will have 2 to 3 votes and in the 5 seasons I've completed I've been offered 3 bribes. Every one was exactly the same amount and I've not taken a one yet because they're downright paltry.

[Kchrpm]

I'm not at the top series, but there have been no votes, just choices on what to improve on the car or who to make happy (fans/sponsors/drivers).

[Kchrpm]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/559430/

GT Series to be added.

[21Kid]

Ohhh, workshop now available too. I forgot to add this to my wishlist. Thanks for the reminder.

[Yobbo NZ]

Am about to be fired from Team Predator in the European championship.
Sacked my 2nd driver after a couple of races,he was rubbish
Hired another who has good stats, but kills car parts.
Next race, I have to finish 13th or higher...yeah, best result so far is 15th.

[Kchrpm]

The mobile game is so different :|

[Reynard]

My progress with this has slowed since Long War 2 came out not long ago and that has taken most of my gaming time but I'm still playing. Initially after landing in F1(World) with an F3(Euro) & F2(Asia) championship in my back pocket, my over confidence got the best of me plus I had two good drivers who decided they couldn't be teammates with one another and my game quickly went from strong to weak and I was fired half way into my second F1 season.

Instead of carrying on with another team, I started a new game, this time at helm of Vexella (originally was with Octane) with a better gist of how to approach it all and now just entered F1 again this weekend, this time with five F3 & three F2 titles to my name and a very built up HQ (I wanted to have a road car factory and it's income before getting into the top series this go 'round) and the goal of taking the F1 title in my 3rd season. I also managed to spot an unsigned 17 year old with a ton of potential early and have kept her under contract on my team the whole time while watching her develop and become a great racer. In game she's now 27 and just hit her peak at 4.5 stars with all her stats at 20 except for two which made it 16 & 18. I hope I can get her the world championship before those skills start fading too quickly as she owns 6 of those 7 championships I got in this campaign as is. I have another 5 star potential 18 year old under contract now as her new teammate who will hopefully develop as well as she did. Regardless I haven't tried any mods yet but will once I get that top trophy in the vanilla game. ;)

[Kchrpm]

The mobile game: I fully modified the entire HQ, and yet still get the random messages from the lead engineers saying that the HQ needs to be upgraded :|

[21Kid]

Motorsport Manager
WEEK LONG DEAL! Offer ends Mar 27 10:00am PDT

-50% $34.99
$17.49

on steam

[balki]

Motorsport Manager Android App is free for now (regularly $2.99) (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.game.motorsportmanager)

[21Kid]

Thanks!

[dodint]

Motorsport Manager Android App is free for now (regularly $2.99) (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.game.motorsportmanager)

Grabbed this, thanks!

It hooked me pretty hard and I played three seasons in my first sitting. Took a while to get the race strategizing down but things are going well.

[balki]

ugh, me too, sat down for what felt like an hour nut it turned out to be 5 hours.
Squeaked by the bottom tier the first go-around then struggle mightily for the next two season in the next tier up. Finishing second in the second tier pays less than half of winning the bottom tier, so stay there until you dominate.
My strategy is usually H->H in hopes that I can make one less stop. Totally neglecting driver development.

[dodint]

I thought the tires were 100% effective until the little graphic ran all the way down. In reality once there is about 30% left my track position would start to get crushed. Once I figured that out I started racking up podiums.

[balki]

Looking at qualifying times they degrade right away (wish they kept times of all the laps in a race like they do in qualifying)

[dodint]

Yeah. It was a waste putting my fast driver on multi lap qualifying runs, they never once went purple/green in successive laps.

[Kchrpm]

The reason to do multilap qualifying is that they will get back to the pits a little earlier. Send them on a 2 lap qualifying stint, call them in after the end of the second sector, you can some sneak out for a third stint more often.

Very rarely, due to rain or traffic, the second lap can be faster.

[dodint]

I usually set it to three laps, and if the sectors are white white I cancel the lap and bring them in.

The game says that the bad drivers will find a rhythm and do better with more laps, but I've not really seen that.

[Reynard]

I saw it was free also and grabbed it even though I generally don't like playing games on my phone. I guess it was to be expected but just be glad you didn't play the pc version first because the android version is soooooooooo sparse by comparison... I had to do a Cam and delete it.:o It truly made me appreciate the game I have been playing that much more. Not trying to be a snob but after becoming used to what I have, it just wasn't going to ever get played. So I guess if you are all enjoying the mobile version so much, you really should get the pc version at some point because you'll absolutely love it by comparison.

Regarding said PC version. It ended up taking me 6 seasons in the top class before finally claiming the championship. It didn't help my efforts in that after my second full season in the class there was major rules overhaul (not something that you get to vote on) so that all my car development up to that point was made moot. The plus side was that pretty much everyone was on even footing at that point so I didn't have to suffer through another season at the back of the grid.

So after accomplishing that I tried my first mod and I chose the ICE Mod 2017 (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=888465396)
It's pretty cool so far, even though the game play is essentially unchanged, all the added details and obviously real life motorsports drivers, teams, personal, series' etc all add a nice bit ambiance to the game. I hope that some day the actual tracks will be mod-able too.

[21Kid]

A legend returns. Motosport Manager Mobile 2 is available to download this Thursday, completely rebuilt from the ground up.
More depth, more detail, more thrilling, split-second decisions.

More info -> https://badgergp.com/motorsport-manager-mobile-2-go-go-go/:up:

[Kchrpm]

:up: :up: :up:

No mention of GT series like in its PC version, but I may buy in anyway.

[animalica]

I picked up the PC port because I found it cheap on sale:

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/motorsport-manager 66%
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/motorsport-manager-gt-series 50%
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/motorsport-manager-challenge-pack 25%

I don`t care of F1 so I was happy about the GT Series DLC.

I did a full race to get firs impressions and now I just started the career mode.
Looks nice but the amount of options is a bit much in the beginning.
So far I like it. :)

[Reynard]

Nice! There was actually another big update just last week plus another DL content addition featuring full on endurance racing now. Haven't purchased that yet... but I will. ;) Despite my contemplation at the beginning of this thread almost a year ago, I haven't grown tired of it yet. All the updates have only improved the game (as they should of course), the latest added a 12x speed with a ton of options for having it show down to normal speed, triggered by specific events of your choosing. A most excellent along with an earlier one that gave an option to opt out of the frustrating qualifying mini game I spoke of. Those being only two standout changes but there have plenty of graphics, camera and other UI tweaks etc. all good stuff.

As Steam only tracks hours played if you're online, I do not have the true tally but I'd imagine it's probably over 600 at this point. :o I still really like the ICE mod I spoke of but that has yet to be updated for the latest patch. I actually have 3 simultaneous campaigns going in that currently. One as Clarkson running Sportscars (with the finance perk), one as May running open-wheelers (w/engineering perk) and then one as Hammond running GTs (with driver perk... I know, I know but it is the only other choice ;)). In the interim I've been playing with the competing FIRE mod which so far is also pretty damn good.