Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Codemasters have revealed more information about the team management element of the upcoming DiRT 4 game.
Released as part of the latest Codemaster DiRT 4 Roadbook blog post, the British development team have given players some more information about the upcoming team management feature due to form part of the latest DiRT franchise game. With a provisional release date of June 4th still on schedule Codemasters are keen to share with potential players some of the new functionality due to form part of the title, and it looks like the team management aspect of the game is to play a starring role come release day.
The new feature will be broken down to five categories, namely:
- Your Team
- The Branding Suite
- Staff
- Facilities
- Your Garage
I'll hand over to Codemasters themselves to explain more about each feature...
Branding Suite
Of course – no team is complete a name, a livery, colours, sponsors and driver numbers, and this is all customisable by you in the Branding Suite. Once you pick your team colours, these won’t just be used on your vehicles – they’ll be everywhere associated to your team. That includes being on your Service Area canopy, ground sheet, staff overalls, and even your transport lorry. Oh and for those of you that have been asking, your name and flag will appear on the car too.
Now, moving onto your livery. It’s not a fully customisable livery that you can design and upload yourselves, but we’ve given you the tools, patterns and designs to create your very own, extraordinarily smart-looking team ‘theme’, which all of your vehicles will be equipped with.
Your branding suite is also important for your team’s finances, as this is where you have the opportunity to shout out about your sponsors. At first, you’ll only have space for one sponsor – but again, work on expanding and upgrading your Sponsor Hoardings facility and more slots will open up to you. This is where you’ll also be able to view the status of your sponsors – how the relationship between you and them is, the duration of the sponsorship contract, things like that. Of course, your sponsor quality also depends on the negotiation skills of your PR Agent – so making sure you have a happy, well-skilled PR Agent is all part of the secret to your team’s success.
Staff
To start your team, you need to get some staff on board. You start off with a small yet perfectly formed yet of employees, all covering the vital components of a motorsport team – including an engineer, a PR agent, a co-driver, and spotters for Rallycross and Landrush. There are some empty slots in the team locked to begin with, but these spots will unlock as you improve your facilities enough to cater for additional staff members (we’ll run you through the facilities section in a moment!)
For everyone you have employed, you also have a fact file of info on them – what their skill levels are like, what their mood is, what kind of cut they’re taking from your overall winnings, their contract duration. Once you’ve hired them you’ll find out if they have a particular trait you need to keep a look out for. These traits can be positive, but they can also be negative – and in certain scenarios, will affect the outcome of a certain situations. So keep an eye on your staff!
Facilities
Any good team needs some solid facilities to make sure they’re developing well and prepared for any eventuality – and in DiRT 4, part of the challenge with your team is ensuring this happens. Developing your facilities really opens up the potential for your team; for example, better accommodation means you can hire more engineers, expanding your garage means you can buy more cars, and even good catering makes for a happier workforce!
There’s a comprehensive suite of upgrades to your facilities available, but they’re also on the pricier sides of things – so you’re going to have to pick what to work on very strategically in order to meet your goals.
Your Garage
Now onto your garage. This is your corner of the game where you can view the cars you’ve bought over your career. It’s also where you can view the vital stats about your vehicles, their spec, their mileage, how many times the car’s suffered from terminal damage, and even how many podiums you’ve managed to bag at its wheel. All of this information all contributes to your car’s resale value too – because in DiRT 4, if you’re strapped for garage space or cash, you can offload your less-used vehicles for extra cash.
And when you’ve got enough cash for your next car, you have two places available to peruse for your next off-road vehicle: the Dealership, and the Classifieds. As you’d expect, the Dealership is where you go for your brand new, nice and shiny vehicles – but the Classifieds is where you head to pick up some of the iconic cars of off-road racing.
Finally, a top tip when it comes to Classified ads: if you give the Private Collector part of your facilities a bit of love, you’ll improve your chances of seeing rare vehicles available for purchase in this bit.
So it looks like Codemasters are working towards a much more fleshed out and substantial experience away from the stages and tracks n comparison to DiRT Rally, which was understandably one of the biggest complaints from the previous release. Added to the allegedly improved realism and considerably larger roster of content, then we could well be looking at one of the biggest and best releases from Codemasters in a very long indeed.
DiRT 4 will be available for Windows PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 June 2017.
Check out our DiRT 4 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for all the latest news and discussions regarding the latest edition to the DiRT Rally franchise of games. Get yourself over to the new sub forum today and join in the discussion!
Looking forward to DiRT 4? Do you like the inclusion of team management in the new game? Let us know in the comments section below!
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