Hello
I am working on a single-player offline 'career' tool that is not focused on the player only. As in, it simulates progress across a wider racing 'world' in a somewhat dynamic way, beyond the series you happen to be racing in. For want of a better name, I'll refer to it as DSRW (Dynamic Sim Racing World) for now.
Before I ramble further, note the screenshot is an initial semi-functional mock-up/prototype only. This is early work in progress.
I'm posting to (hopefully) get some feedback on the following:
- Does something like this already exist? (if so - great, I'll delete this! - but I haven't found it yet.)
- Would this interest anyone other than me?
- Are there any major technical barriers that I may have overlooked in the proposed approach below?
DSRW is planned with the functionality afforded by the wonderful
Content Manager in mind - i.e. to compliment/work with it. It is also inspired by the very nice "
Racing Career" tool, which is great, but doesn't quite provide what I would like in a career mode. And I must credit Ted Meat for bringing these ideas back to mind with his recent video: "
Why Do All the Career Modes in Sim Racing Stink?"
What DSRW will (hopefully) do:
- Track progress of multiple racing series across multiple seasons.
- Work with any one series, or with a lot of them (may or may not be limited) - in a modular way.
- What series to use is completely up to the user - it can be as realistic or nonsensical as you like, from a 'traditional' karts to F1 style ladder with real drivers/teams, to a completely random selection of unrelated fictional series you happen to enjoy driving.
- Multi-class series will be facilitated as scoring is tracked in DSRW, not in AC.
- Series schedules, teams and drivers will change from season to season, with drivers retiring, losing their seats and moving through the ranks.
- Teams' performance levels may change from season to season, or a team may pull out of a series altogether.
- In series where it makes sense, teams may get new engine deals, which will effect their cars' capability.
- The player will be offered drives for the next season based on performance and availability (with an element of chance).
- A driver moving up the ranks to a new team will have knock-on effects down through multiple series as seats are back-filled.
- A pool of 'free agent' drivers and spare/new teams will add to mix.
- AI drivers will have attributes such as: age, nationality, skill, aggression, reputation and form.
- Skill, aggression and reputation ratings can change over time.
- Form gives a temporary boost in performance for a limited time based on results.
- You can check the results and standings in other series at any stage, with basic 'headlines' also generated to keep you in the loop.
How it will (hopefully) work:
- DSRW will be a standalone app that you run outside AC / CM.
- DSRW will import series 'modules' in a simple text format based on AC championship/JSON files, and/or a provided template.
- DSRW will import track and driver data from simple CSV/JSON files.
- Once a career has been started in DSRW, each player race weekend will generate a Quick Race Weekend preset file to import into CM.
- Once you have completed the race weekend, the results will be imported from the CM session JSON file back into DSRW.
- Series points and standings will be tracked in DSRW
- All non-player series results will be simulated in the background within DSRW in line with the season's schedule.
Anyway - that's more than enough rambling for now. I appreciate this kind of thing is niche, but I would appreciate any feedback of any kind from anyone who has taken the time to read this far. Cheers -