Pretty Certain CFR Rule Changes

As some of you probably know, I've been tinkering and testing some changes for the next edition of Championship Formula Racing.

I'm pretty sure this is where it will land.  Specifically, I'm pretty sure about the forced passing bits.  I'm 100% certain about the other bits.

So here they are.

Tests

In an effort to simplify down to two basic tables, Start Speed now has the same odds as testing any other attribute.  A start speed failure results in a mis-shift and the loss of one wear.  Start Speed is never damaged.  I like removing the stall possibility.  Losing your turn on the start when you were trying to go 120 is bad and I think the loss of a wear and a mis-shift is penalizing enough.

I also added a mis-shift to the failure result for Top Speed and Acceleration.  I found it confusing that you would test top speed, fail and end up going faster this turn than your new, damaged top speed.  I think having a mis-shift when you fail an Acceleration or Top Speed is more logically consistent.  I think it also makes the rolls more impactful, especially at the end of the race.  It is no longer a no-brainer to test your engine as you cross the finish line.

No change to testing deceleration.  I just included the table here for completeness.

Forced Passing

This process underwent the most change.  I wanted to end up with a single table for Forced Passing. I wanted to make it a little easier for the attacker, but not too easy.  I wanted to change the interaction between the attacker and the defender.

The first change was to how "blocking" works.  Instead of the defender just declaring that they are blocking to add 2 to the attacker's die-roll, the defender now has an opportunity to spend their own skill to add to the attacker's die-roll.  Spun defenders may not.  The attacker will still have an opportunity to add their own skill after learning what the defender is doing.

The odds obviously changed as well.  On the one-hand success now occurs on any result 9 or less.  But, a success of 7 - 9 also includes a wear damage to the attacker and the attacker must now roll on the Avoid Damage table.  This could result in another wear lost and possibly a wear lost for the defender.  The attacker may apply skill to this roll as well.  The defender may not.  If the defender is called on to lose wear, it does not matter if the defender used skill to hamper the attacker ("block") or not.

In the end, Forced Passing is easier to accomplish but will likely be more costly.  

Avoid Damage

This table replaces the old Avoid Crash table but is now used both to avoid a crash as well as to avoid additional damage after a successful forced pass with contact.  

On a 10-12, the result differs based on those two situations.  If this roll resulted from avoiding a crash, the driver loses 2 wear.  If this roll came after a forced pass then the attacker loses a second wear (since the attacker lost 1 on the forced passing table) and the defender loses a wear as well.

Slips at End

There is a game that can happen in the current rules -- If two cars are lined up with the finish line in sight and both cars can go 180.  It's a dumb game.  So, If you will finish the race this turn you may not take more than 1 slip.

Zero-base Car Builds

This isn't a rule change, but I am going to rejigger the car set-up table so that there are no longer any -1 values.  All of the math will remain the same, but all of the number will be positive.

Judging Track Styles

For a while now, I've been organizing tracks on my web site by the play style those tracks tend to favor.  In this case I'm judging tracks along the race-from-the-front and race-from-the-back axis of broad strategic choices.  All other things being equal, some tracks are just easier to hold a lead on than others.

Besides being interesting information, I like to use this data when picking tracks to use in a series.  Picking different kinds of tracks keeps the racing interesting from race to race.  I've also noticed that some drivers are just better at different strategic styles so a variety of tracks helps to keep the competition fair for everyone.

I've updated the table and some of the calculations that go into some of the scores.

How to Read the New Table
There is a lot of information below and in the key at the bottom of the track listing, but the top line are Raw Score and Adjusted Score.

Raw Score is my best guess based on results and Track Score of how a track favors play from the front (negative numbers) and play from the back (positive numbers).  A score over 1 or under -1 are suggestive of a strong lean.  Scores closer to zero are pretty balanced (or could favor middle strategies).

Adjusted Score is basically the same thing but relative to all the other tracks,  So where raw score tries to objectively describe a track, Adjusted Score is comparing that track to all the others.  Interestingly, there is less variation in those two things after using my new Layout Score than there used to be.

Measuring Tracks Based on Results
Ideally I score tracks based on actual race results from organized play.  In a perfect world I would ask each driver before the race how they were approaching the race strategically... instead I find proxies.  The two proxies I work with are qualifying position and start speed.

Qualifying position is an obvious stand-in for strategy.  Race from the front strategies like to start out front.  However, its not perfect.  There are times you make a pole bid hoping to end up one place only to end up somewhere completely different.

Start speed is another decent proxy in my view.  Race from the front people tend to like a 100 start speed.  Again, not always a perfect approach.  I've seen people take the 100 start speed not because they wanted to start with the lead but because they wanted to bid nothing and work up to the mid-field in a couple turns.  Some tracks are also laid out in such a way that 100 start speed may be of minimal value or hugely valuable regardless of overall strategy.

Certainly these two measures can produce mixed signals.  I've seen cars on the front row of a starting grid with a 20 start speed and cars near the back with 100 start speeds.  That said, I think these are decent tools to work with.

Math:
Basically I find the average number of points scored by people who started the race in the front 2 rows ("the front"), middle 2 rows ("middle"), and back 2 rows ("back").  [See the bottom of this page for how I score results.] I do the same for start speeds with "fast" being 100 or 120, "medium" being 60, and "slow" being 20 start speed.

I then figure out how much better front did than middle and how much better back did than middle.  Then I add those two numbers together.  A result of 0 means that middle was best or that neither front nor back seemed to hold an advantage, a negative result means that results favored cars starting in the front 2 rows, a positive result shows that results favored the back 2 rows.  Then I do the same for start speeds... negative results showing the high start speeds did better and positive results showing that the 20 start speeds did better.

( (Qbd-Qfd)*Q + (Ssd-Sfd)*S ) / (Q+S)

Q = the number races where I have data for qualifying
Qbd = Qb - Qm
Qfd = Qf - Qm
Qb = the average points scored by someone starting in the first two rows on this track
Qm = the average points scored by someone starting in the middle two rows on this track
Qb = the average points scored by someone starting in the last two rows on this track

S = the number races where I have data for start speed
Ssd = Ss - Sm
Sfd = Sf - Sm
Sf = the average points scored by someone with a 100 or 120 start speed on this track
Sm = the average points scored by someone with a 60 start speed on this track
Ss = the average points scored by someone with a 20 start speed on this track

In the end this is a track's score if I have enough data to feel good about that.  I'm not sure how many results makes me feel really good about this method, but for now I pretend to feel good at 10 races.

Before I get to 10 races, I also look at some elements of the track layout.  I weight the results score more and more as I get more and more result data.

Measuring Tracks Based on Layout
Finding objective attributes of a track that predict how it will play has proven difficult.  I started with 5 attributes based mostly on gut.  But recently I've reassessed how well those attributes predict actual results and that led me to find new attributes.

Originally I used 1) Long Straights, 2) Corner Density, 3) Width, 4) Longest Straight, and 5) Track Length to concoct a layout score.

Long straights was a weighted count of straights longer than 7 spaces.  Corner Density was the length of the track in spaces divided by the number of corners on the track.  Those two measures were meant to explore how tight and twisty a track is.  Are there a lot of short straights between tightly packed corners?  If so, this could contribute to a race from the front strategy.

For width I measured the percentage of 3-wide track against the total length of the track.  This is all about passing.  Two wide track gets bottled up and blocked a lot easier than 3-wide track.  So a higher percentage of 3-wide should be better for running from behind.

Longest straight and track length are exactly what they say they are.  Race from the front cars tend to buy wear and start speed at the expense of acceleration, deceleration, and top speed.  So long straights can hurt those kinds of cars -- and by extension, racing from the front.  Finally, the shorter the track the easier it should be to hold on to that lead.

However, after updating my data recently I ran some regressions to see how good I my layout scores were at predicting results.  Turns out... not so well.

Y-axis is number of long straights.  X-axis is results score (lower favors play from the front).

Y-axis is corner density.  X-axis is results score (lower favors play from the front).

Y-axis is the length of the longest straight.  X-axis is results score (lower favors play from the front).

Y-axis is the track length in spaces.  X-axis is results score (lower favors play from the front).

Turns out track length, longest straight, corner density and number of long straights really aren't very predictive of how these tracks seem to be playing out.

Y-axis is the % of the track that is 3-wide.  X-axis is results score (lower favors play from the front).

3-wide is better... although the internet tells me that 0.3 is considered a weak correlation so this still isn't terribly predictive.

So I took a bunch of other measures and made up some new ones to try and find more predictive track attributes.  Literally the only thing I could find that hit the 0.3 mark is the number of corners that are 3-wide (for corners that change width I count it as 3-wide if it ends 3-wide).

Y-axis is the number of 3-wide corners.  X-axis is results score (lower favors play from the front).

This makes sense.  Corners are bottlenecks and good opportunities to pass so having more room in the corner, especially the all important exit row, makes sense as something that would assist running from behind.  Interestingly, the raw number of 3-wide corners was more predictive than the percentage of corners that are 3-wide.  This also makes sense... more raw opportunities per lap is better.

I tried creating a new layout score just based on this metric as it had the best fit, but the result included obvious blind spots.  I added back in the percentage of the overall track that was 3-wide and that helped a little but it felt like I needed more attributes to round out this track-based score.  So I went searching for modestly predictive things.

Turns out the number of "medium" straights is more predictive than a lot of other things I can measure.  In this case medium straights means straights that are longer than 3 spaces and shorter than 10 spaces long.  Why?  Because that data ended up being the most predictive.  Why?  No idea.

Y-axis is the number of medium straights.  X-axis is results score (lower favors play from the front).

Finally, I tweaked corner density to make it more predictive by only counting the number of corners that have a speed under 120.  (When I assign a single speed to a corner this way, I use the fastest speed through the corner that is not obviously less efficient than other options.)

Y-axis is track length divided by slow corners.  X-axis is results score (lower favors play from the front).

So I created a new Layout Score based on these 4 things, but I weighed the score so that the first two things counted more than the last 2.

Forced Passing and Championship Formula Racing

Last week I introduced a possible Skill replacement called Balance and a new way to bid for pole.  This week, lets talk Forced Passing.

Forced Passing

I find forced passing to be a very good thing, especially with larger fields.  It gives cars behind an option for when the road is just too crowded.

Problem

It can sometimes be just too hard to make that pass.

Solution

Again a two-parter and again involving the previously discussed Balance proposal.

The specific rule change is that the attacker in a pass can now use the racing line when passing.

The other change involves some of the forced passing die roll results: you can't lose wear from a random die-roll result.  You can lose Balance instead, but losing wear late in a race is often just a spin in disguise.

Game Impact

I think allowing the attacker to use the line will allow for many more forced passing attempts.  A lot of forced passing attempts come into play in corners and usually the attacker is only going to clear the defender by a space.  Taking away their use of the line often means that they just can't pay for the corner.

The impact of Balance on Forced Passing may be a bit of a wash.  Cars with low Balance may be un-willing to take the chance on what will be a bad die roll for them.  However, cars with higher Balance may be more willing to make the move as it is a roll that probably will not result in any loss of Balance.

Pole Bidding for Championship Formula Racing

Earlier this week I unveiled plans for the new Balance attribute to replace skill.  Today, lets talk about Pole Bids.

Pole Bidding

The pole bid is a crucial moment in a game of Championship Formula Racing.  But...

Problems

Every one of the new rules I am introducing was spurred by issues I wanted to address in the current rule set.

How Much to Bid?

It can be hard to judge how much to bid for pole.  Races can be lost with a bad bid.  If you end up over-paying for the position you end up in -- regardless of if it is the front or back or the field -- and your race can be effectively over already.

This is not just a new driver problem, but it certainly is worse if you have little experience.

So, there needs to be more opportunity for signalling bidding intention.  Right now, start speed and chatter before the bid is all we have.

Strategic Balancing

Bidding is also an important element in balancing out the two main strategic extremes: racing from the front and racing from the back.  If bids for pole are low, it favors those drivers who do end up with a bargain pole. 

Given that run from the front strategies are generally more effective than run from the back, there is an argument to be made that the game should include more pressure to bid higher for pole... or otherwise have that pole bid involve more of a sacrifice for the people who get it.

Solution?

This one is a bit of a two part solution.

Only Wear

The new Balance scheme I discussed last week would remove skill chips form the game, so remember that you can only bid wear for pole now.

More Bidding Rounds

After all car attributes have been revealed and car set-up is complete pole bidding begins.

Pole bidding will now be a series of simultaneous bids.  In each round you can either bid 1 wear or nothing.  If you bid 1 wear, that wear is added to the total amount of wear you have bid so far and you may bid again next round.  If you bid nothing, you drop out of bidding having bid whatever your previous bid was.

As with the current bidding, cars are arranged on the grid starting with the cars that bid the most wear and all wear bid is lost for this race.

Tie Breakers

Like before, tie are broken with a die roll.  However, this time you must use 2d6, high result wins, AND remember that Balance modifiers are added to that roll.

How Does this Impact the Game?

I believe that wear is more valuable than skill, so forcing players to bid wear for pole should make the bidding more meaningful and impact the post bid race more.

Having each round of bidding be a binary decision of 1 more wear or dropping out is intended to do a number of things:

• Add more peer pressure to bid for a top grid spot -- hopefully increasing the amount of wear spent to pole.
• Prevent people from WAY over-bidding for position.
• Provide more information for each round of bidding -- mostly in the form of how many people are still in this round.

Caveat

The idea of incremental bidding has been tried.  There is an optional rule in the published edition for 2-round bidding and I ran that in my PBeM for a decent test and found that it generally did NOT impact the end results -- bids were largely the same as before.

That said, I will be testing this as well to see if this form of auction does what auctions are generally supposed to do: get people to pay more than they might otherwise.

Introducing Balance, Replacing the Skill Attribute in Championship Formula Racing

I wish I could credit this properly but I heard a great quote on one of the podcasts I listen to -- probably Ludology:

"You are never finished with a game design, but eventually you have to publish it."

Championship Formula Racing has certainly been that kind of game.  In fact, I used to roll out new tweaks every year or so.  I've tried to tamp that down now that an actual printed version exists.  However, I think it is time to start talking about 3-4 changes I will be testing for inclusion in whatever the next version of CFR is.

I identified 4 areas to work on: slip streaming, forced passing, pole bidding, and skill.  Over a couple of blog-posts I'm going to outline my objectives and proposed solutions.  I expect and hope that the community will pitch in with their thoughts as well.

Lets jump right in then with what is the most expansive of the proposed changes.  Buckle in, this is not a short conversation.

Balance

Balance is a new attribute that would replace the skill attribute.  Instead of providing a pool of skill chips that can be used to modify die rolls.  Balance provides a modifier to all rolls that degrades over time in different ways.  I basically took this opportunity to re-work a lot about how die-rolls work in CFR.

Problems

Every one of the new rules I am introducing was spurred by issues I wanted to address in the current rule set.  I hope that Balance can address a number of issues.  Lets spend a little time looking at the problems I hope to address.

Skill is the Least Valuable Attribute

The only time I ever consider taking more than the minimum amount of skill is if I already have 8 wear per lap and absolutely can not figure out why I would want more of any other attribute.  Sometimes, I will take a lot of skill just to dump into a pole bid.  But I usually only want to have 2-4 skill in hand at the start of a 3 lap race.  maybe 1 or 2 for pushing my start speed.  Maybe 1 or 2 in the bank in case I need to try a chance or forced pass.

Think about it this way.  Would you rather have an extra 20 mph in acc or dec or top speed or an extra 9% chance of making a couple tests each lap?  If I think I can use that extra 20 mph in an attribute at least twice per lap I will decrease my skill to get it every time.

I'd rather all attributes have their place.  I'd rather find a way to make skill have value... maybe not for everyone, but at least for a decent number of people in a good number of situations.  This was my main goal for Balance.

Die-rolls are Too Complicated

Until you have the chart memorized, you had to check after every roll.  I still don't have the entire chart memorized and sometimes have to check it.  That feels very much like the old wargames influence that Avalon Hill added to Speed Circuit coming through.

I don't like the fact that many turns will go by without any die rolls and yet die rolls take up a disproportionate amount of the rule book.  Simplifying the rule book is noble in and of itself but I think it is also good proxy for game complexity.  For what it is, die-rolls just seem too complex.

So if I can to simplify something here I want to but not at all costs.  These issues are listed in order.  I care more about improving the value of the attribute than simplicity.  The next two items play into making things easier as well, I hope.

Higher Rolls Should be Better

This is a minor thing and Speed Circuit has always had high rolls be bad, but I think high rolls being good is more intuitive.  Especially when you think about the die roll modifiers.  A -1 modifier being a good thing is counter intuitive.

I know that most of the current players are used to this concept, but I just think it works better for new people if we take the time to fix this while I can.

Skill Chips are Clunky

The fact that you had to declare skill chip use before a die roll was always confusing for new people and have caught more than a few veterans napping as well..  The difference between the -1 and -3 chips can also be confusing.  The fact that there were limits to their use (only -2 unless you have a -3).  It all was just a lot.

The Solution?

As I noted above, Balance replaces Skill as the 6th attribute.  Below is a quick chart of what the 4 Balance attribute cards would look like.

Set-up

After car attributes are selected and revealed for all cars.  Negative or positive modifier chips are placed on that car's Balance card based on what the card indicates.  These Balance modifiers affect ALL die-rolls in the game.

In addition, create a starting Engine modifier pool equal to 1 plus 1 for every lap this race is scheduled to run.  (For a 3 lap race, each car would start with a +4 Engine Modifier.)  These modifiers are used only for engine tests -- acceleration, top speed, and start speed.

Deceleration modifiers can accumulate later in the race.

Die Rolls

All die rolls remain 2d6.  Modifiers are applied to those die-rolls based on that car's current modifiers.  These modifiers are not point pools like skill is now.  All appropriate modifiers are applied to every roll made.

After modifiers are applied, a result of 8 or more is a success, a result of 6 or less is a failure, and a 7 is a minor failure.  Box cars is always a success regardless of modifiers.  This is true for all die rolls.

Exactly what happens when each die-roll fails or succeeds varies.

Modifiers

There are effectively 3 sets of modifiers: Balance modifiers, Deceleration Modifiers, and Engine Modifiers.  Balance modifiers (the ones that each driver bought with their Balance attribute) apply to ALL die rolls.  Deceleration modifiers only apply to deceleration tests.  Engine modifiers only apply to acceleration, top speed, and start speed tests.

For example, if I had +1 Balance modifier and +4 Engine modifier, I would be at +5 to test my start speed.

Engine Tests

The chart below shows the results of the three engine tests.

Mis-shift means that the car ends up going 40 mph slower than attempted.  This is a big change over how we do things now and I think is more intuitive than the current result -- especially for top speed tests.

Like now, acceleration and top speed failures reduce the tested attribute by 20.  A second engine failure will also still result in a DNF.

The new Minor Failure result is a failure (and mis-shift) without damaging the engine.

Note that every time a car tests its engine it will reduce it's Engine modifiers by 1.  This represents wear and tear on the engine when it is pushed to it's limits. 

Also note that a Start Speed test is always rolled at -2 compared to Acceleration and Top Speed tests.

Below are some odds to give you a sense of what this means mathematically.

The odds above assume the start of a 3 lap race.  Of course these odds deteriorate each time such a roll is attempted.  But note that the first 2 tests at +3 Balance would automatically pass.  Odds would start out worse in a 1 or 2 lap race and would start out better for races of 4 laps or more. 

The odds above are also for a 3 lap race.  Start speed test odds never change since you can only ever test this at the first turn of the race.

Deceleration Tests 

First note that deceleration tests have a permanent +2 modifier.

Just as now, a failure results in reducing deceleration by 20 and requiring the car to use 1 wear for the deceleration (remember deceleration tests never really fail, they just result in penalties).  A second failure will still result in a DNF.

The new Minor Failure is a failure without deceleration damage.

Note that every time a deceleration test is made at least -2 will be added to that car's deceleration.  More for the failures.  Brake stress is mostly about over-heating.  But heat dissipates over time so every time a car passes a sector marker (there are 3 every lap) it removes a -1 modifier from its deceleration.

Above is the starting odds for deceleration at different balance buys.  

Because of how negative deceleration modifiers go away, if you do not test brakes too often and do not fail your rolls, you can keep testing deceleration or late braking at the same odds through out the race.  With +3 balance, that could be very powerful.

Balance Tests

Forced passing is the only die-roll without a Minor Fail result -- they simply count as failures which work exactly as before.  The only difference for forced passing from the current rule is that the attacker can be "damaged" even if the defender does not block and damage takes the form of -1 balance modifiers instead of wear.

Chance rolls are pretty similar to before but cars will take negative balance modifiers every time -- unless they crash.

Crash avoidance gets its own set of results -- which I think is cleaner -- and they are friendlier results.

Above are the starting odds for Forced Passes. Below are the odds for chances and crash avoidance.

The biggest strategic thing about these rolls is how balance modifiers affect every other die roll.  If you take a chance in the first corner, your balance is reduced by -1 even if you succeed and that will impact every other roll all race.  Forced passes, on the other hand, might never drop your Balance modifiers.

Pole Bids and Tie Breakers

Two things this also means.  First, there are no skill chips to use on pole bids now... only wear.  Second, Balance modifiers affect ALL die rolls.  So pole bid tie-breakers should always use 2d6, high winning, and apply Balance modifiers.

How Does This Impact the Game?

Lets looks at my goals and also some unintended consequences I've already noticed.

Is Balance More Valuable Than Skill Was?

I think so.  The 2 pt buy of +3 skill comes with some serious possibilities.  I could late brake into 1 or 2 corners every lap with no chance of damaging my deceleration.  I've got 3 or 4 basically free acceleration or top speed tests. Forced passes and at least my first chance come with a 83% success.

I would also seriously think about a +1 or +3 skill if I wanted to test my start speed.  In the past you could take only 2 skill per lap and still have enough to throw skill at the start speed table.  Low balance will make that roll very risky.

The fact that balance can now impact tie-breakers for pole bid -- and I suspect there will be more ties now that there is no skill to bid with -- could be interesting as well.

But in the end, we'll have to see.

Die-rolls are Too Complicated

Knowing that all rolls are the same helps (< 7 fails, etc.).  I also want to rejigger the stat cards so that die roll notes are on the cards.  Then in theory all you have to do is add up the related modifiers, roll, and hope you get 8 or more.  I am a big fan of off-loading rules from the book to the components when you can.

I suspect it will become less complicated as people get used to it.  But I'm not convinced it will in all be easier.

Higher Rolls Should be Better

Well I can check that one off as a success!

Skill Chips are Clunky

I think this method of modifying rolls is easier to deal with.  But I did add some complexity with changing modifiers, especially the fact that deceleration modifiers go away over time.  This might end up being a wash.

Pole Bids

I like the fact that now bids can only be made with wear.  I think it will lower the bids generally but it also may cause slightly more pain for people who do bid for pole.  I'm not going to go as far as to say that this will balance out run-from-behind strategies but it might help.

Implementation

There is already testing planned for this, but you should feel free to implement on your own if you want.  Usage of this rule set will still allow races to count towards Organized Play.

Here is a one-page cheat sheet.

What Do You Think?

Enough from me.  Give me your reactions.

Indianapolis Build

Credit statsF1.com.

Another track build from a request.  This time Indianapolis.  Although the oval was officially an F1 track from 1950 through 1960, scoring back then let you drop your worst couple results from your season total which let all the regular F1 drivers safely skip this race with no consequences.

It wasn't until Indianapolis built an infield section that the track held a real F1 grand-prix in 2000.   This new track configuration featured one of the famous banked corners and most the two straights on either end of it.  The rest of the track was a tight, twisting affair before dumping cars back on to the oval.


Not a ton of great video to watch from this track as YouTube is a glut of video about the infamous 2005 race when all but 3 teams withdrew because their tires were imploding under the stress of the banked corner.

I did find corner speeds online.  So, good data to work with there.  Notes (pdf) in hand, I came up with some initial corner ideas (PDF) and started a build.

This was a tough track as the main straight is super long but the track in total is pretty short.  So I had competing needs to put enough spaces in the twisty in-field to get me back to the main straight and make the main straight long enough to feel right and come in around 60 spaces.

Often when building a new track my first build is close and just needs tweaking and refining.  Not so this time.  I got a lap into a test of the first build above and decided it was terrible.  I was shooting for an infield that was close to 1-line but this attempt gave too few choices to drivers.  I also decided to exaggerate the short straight in the middle of the infield and compress the corner sections on either side of it.

A number of iterations later and I was happier with the final version (PDF).

As happened when I built Imola, shrinking up the number of spaces in the in-fields resulted in some creative corners.

Corner 1

This was the only real good passing opportunity for F1 cars when the track was used by them.  That said, the green line will usually be your best bet.  Although running wide so that you can delay braking before taking the 60s through the corner can work and landing right on the apex on the red line can also be an advantage for next turn sometimes.

Corner 7

This may be one of the oddest looking corners.  It was not meant to look this odd but the combination of my layout and how I had to twist the track to make it fit and allow cars to fit inside it...

Anyways, this corner is important because there is a short straight right after.  So speed exiting this corner can be important.

It also works closely with the corner immediately before it.  If you are clear of Corner 6, taking the 60s for a faster exit can be best.  But you can often spend the less wear to exit through the 40 space at the cost of a slower exit speed.

I've been building more corners like this based on an interesting insight I read a couple years ago from the driver who used to play the Stig on Top Gear.  It was a discussion of different racing lines through a corner.  While there is a theoretical ideal line through most corners.  Most drivers don't take that line.  They take some variation of it based on competing desires.

Some drivers want to brake later.  This has the advantage of allowing them to maintain speed longer before the corner.  However, they end up having to wait longer before accelerating out of the corner again.  My quick way to model this is to effectively take a speed limited space away from the beginning of the outside lane -- allowing the car to travel faster before having to slow down.

The other option is to brake sooner.  This gives them a slower entry into the corner but lets them get back on the acceleration sooner.  My quick way to model this is to take a speed limited space away from the end of the inside lane -- allowing a car to accelerate out of the corner sooner.

Corner 13

Of course the final, banked corner of the lap needs to be important for this track.

I played with some of the concepts I noted above and with different racing lines.  I ended up tweaking this corner more than any other.  Having 4 lanes for the first time in a CFR build was challenging.  Maybe because I'm not used to trying to develop that many meaningful options.  

The far inside lane plays off of the early brake / early accel concept.  The next 2 lanes are actually the most efficient.  The 3rd lane is more efficient if you get stuck in the corner but cars with lower top speeds may not be able to take full advantage of that.  The outside lane is sub-par.

Another oddity of this corner is that the two inside lanes have a 120 posted speed limit and are the same number of spaces in length.  The outside lanes both have 140 speeds and the same length.  This is a nod to the fact that it is a banked corner which should narrow the difference in distance traveled between lanes.  But the lines running through the two middle lanes create 4 different options.

Conclusion

Despite the super fast back end of the track, I think this will play out as a pretty tight track that favors running from the front.  However, I would not be surprised if it ends up being a yellow track at the end of the day.

Will its nearest comps end up being Sakhir (PDF) or Barcelona (PDF)?  We will begin to learn that as it gets played.  The track is scheduled to be run during Redscape's next season.

Imola Build

My latest track build was Imola and I'm very happy with how it turned out.  Imola is the other F1 track in Italy and has hosted a number of grand prix under the name of the San Marino grand prix.  San Marino being a small nation in central Italy near the track.  Huge thanks to the San Marino group for giving me a great reason to build this track.

My usual process starts with lots of research...











Here's my notes (pdf) after watching these videos and more, reading notes online, and finding speed and braking notes for each corner.

I went into the build thinking most corners would have racing lines with only one decent path through each corner.  I also felt like this was generally a tight track that was hard to pass on... except Tosa -- which I would give multiple paths through to create the action we would sometimes see there and that I would try to exaggerate for game balance.

Here's my initial sketch of the corners for each track.

This initial plan worked out really well and I was just about to wrap up development when I noticed that the track was a LOT longer than I had planned.  Somewhere along the line, I lost track of my planned space count and made the straights a lot longer.  I had to cut them back a lot.

As a result I got pretty creative with some of the corners... effectively taking spaces away from some corners to add spaces back to some of the straights.  I think the end result is a technical track that drivers will have to pay attention to or risk taking a corner wrong because they assumed they knew how it would work.

Tosa is clearly the signature corner of this track.  As one of the slowest corners on track it provides a braking opportunity and one of the few good passing locations in real life.

As you can see, this is not a "normal" looking CFR corner and combines a lot of tricks I've used before.

Having the racing line in the middle lane means that in some cases, a car can under-cut that ideal line if they have the braking and/or wear to pull it off.  Allowing a car to accelerate 40 mph from the first inside 40 space into the following 80 space can make that particularly effective if they hit that apex just right.

The two 100 spaces outside provides another avenue through the corner which can be effective if you hit it just right.  Leaving the speed off of the last space of that path also means cars can accelerate quickly from that lane.  Lining up the last two spaces of the middle and outside lane provides cars with ways to avoid congestion in case of slow traffic ahead.

I'm excited to see how the track works when raced in anger for the first time and pleased that that will occur at the San Marino game convention to boot.

Forced Passing Explanation

Mail Bag:

Hi Doug, 

I really enjoy CFR but I was wondering if you would be kind enough to explain forced passes to me? ...  

Regards, 

Levi

Thanks Levi!  I will try...


I thought of this later, but in the scenario at the end of that video where the car paid 2 wear and a chance for the corner but was then forced to slow to 140 because the forced pass failed... the Tyrrell can stay at 140 for the rest of the corner but can not accelerate again inside the corner.  Even though it paid for that speed earlier, the fact that the car was forced to late brake inside the corner resets that.

Solo Race #10: Season Finale at Mogyrod

Below is my new-fangled stitching together of video commentary and stills from every turn.



If you want to step through each turn in the race at your pace including the video commentary, see the Google Album.

Links to the rest of the series can be found on the series page.

Solo Race #9: Nurburg

I tried something a little new for this race.  I took photos but also recorded short videos periodically through the race... here is the result all stitched together into 18 minutes of video!


If you want to step through each turn in the race at your pace including the video commentary, see the Google Album.

Links to the rest of the series can be found on the series page.

Congress of Gamers Fall 2017 Post Race Report

Turn 1 sees 5 cars lining up for Eau Rouge.
Michael and Tim in front.

Eight cars pulled up to the start grid in Rockville Saturday at Congress of Gamers Fall.  I typically build a track revision for this race and this year we ran an old version (1983 vintage) of Francorchamps.  See my previous post for details on that track.

On the right you can see the results of turn 1 in the race.  Michael Schulz is in the lead after starting outside row 1 and out-gunning Don Tatum from there.  Tim Mossman moved up from row 2 after pushing his start speed to pull even with Michael.  Don, Will Kennard, and Kevin Keller filled out that large 1st group.  I'm in the white car in the middle distance while Dave Nace and Joe Powell bring up the rear.  The 3 of us started in the last 3 rows.

The 5 cars in front pushed through Eau Rouge and down into Les Combes as a pack.  But I had gained contact with the pack by then and Dave and Joe were not far behind. 

Below you can see the result of the field thinning out as we enter the mid-field section.  Michael spent some wear to take the lead again.  Don pulled up even with Tim while the rest of us held position.

Michael, Tim, Don Will, Kevin, me... into the mid-field.

Almost the end of lap 1 and Kevin joins Don
and Michael at the pointy end after Tim's spin.

Nothing too exciting happens the rest of lap 1 until the leaders make their way through the old Bus Stop Chicane.  Tim took the corner for 2 wear and a chance roll for what he is convinced would have given him the eventual win.  He spun despite spending 2 skill.

Kevin and Don ended up catching up to Michael as they exit the Bus Stop -- 3-wide heading into La Source.  Pretty much everyone ends up passing Tim as a result of his spin.  You can see Tim in 7th here.

As we began the 2nd and last lap of the race a couple turns later, I jumped out of my car and rookie Anna Pisto jumped in to finish the race -- waving off many of my suggestions as she went.

Through Eau Rouge again and down to Les Combes for the last time, Anna has pulled the white Tyrell into the lead pack just behind Kevin.  Don and Michael are still right behind Kevin as well but Kevin has more wear than anyone right behind him and already seems to have the race in hand.

I forgot to take pictures after this... Michael made a chance roll here.

By the time the cars have rounded Pouhon.  Kevin and Don are back out in front of the field.  Michael has damaged his car and makes a chance in Pouhon but pulls off instead of crashing in Fagnes.  Anna has some wear left but will come up short of 2nd after a couple missed die rolls.

Will pulls back into 4th and Tim falls back to 8th.  Kevin wins and Don gets 2nd.

Final Track Thoughts
Because this was a new track effectively, I wanted to talk about it.  I love it.  I've always liked Francorchamps -- maybe more than some -- but I like this version the best.

Starting at the beginning of the long back straight was a lot of fun.  Getting 5 cars through Eau Rouge is super interesting with all of the lines and slips and choices.  And we had a bunch going into that corner on lap 2 as well because the old La Source profile is wider and has a higher line that makes it a lot less of a bottle-neck than the modern version of that corner.

6 cars getting through La Source at the end of lap 1!

I will say that I like the modern Bus Stop better than the old one.  I love the modern bus stop.  But the old bus stop is not bad, it just is not as interesting.

All in all, the track became a lot less of a race from the front leaner.  It became very hard to pull away and I definitely think I will see people run this successfully from the back.  I can't wait to get this out into the wild more.

A New/Old Francorchamps Track for CFR at Congress of Gamers

10 cars going through La Source on turn 2
on the modern version of Francorchamps

I've gotten into the habit of creating variations of existing tracks for the races I've run at Congress of Gamers and Winter Game Fest -- held in my hometown of Rockville, MD.

This year I decided to do an older version of the famous race track situated in Francorchamps, Belgium.  This is an OLD track that dates back to the 1920s.  It started life as a 14 mile long monster connecting the towns of Spa and Francorchamps.  That track was last used by F1 in 1970.

It would be 13 years before F1 returned to a much shortened track akin to what is used today.  In the years between then and now, there was some tinkering to the track that resulted in the modern version first used in 2007.

I modeled the 2007 layout for Championship Formula Racing earlier.  It is an interesting track in that it is very long and looks like it would cater to race from the back strategies.  But in real races it tends not to as discussed in my recent categorizing of tracks post.

My hypothesis is that the quick run into La Source thins the field and gives front of the pack cars a boost they never quite lose in most races.  Thus my interest in the 1983 version of Francorchamps.

1983 was the first F1 race on the new, shortened Francorchamps and is the only F1 race on that track that used the old start / finish line which was located just AFTER La Source.  This is where the start / finish line had been for the entire previous history of the track.

I left most of the track the same as very few changes seem to have been made from 1983 to now.  The two places big changes had been made were at La Source and the Bus Stop.  In the end I was able to get two new tracks out of this because in 1985 F1 returned to Francorchamps and the only change from 1983 was that the start / finish line was moved to its current location.  This layout stayed in affect roughly through 2005 and the advent of the modern layout.

• 2007 (modern) Version [pdf]
• 1983 Version [pdf]
• 1985 Version [pdf]

Lets look at a couple of the non-start/finish line changes.  La Source looked a fair bit wider back then.  So I made it 3-wide and re-profiled it in general.

1983 / 1985 version of La Source.
You can see the back of the starting grid just after the corner.

2007 / modern version of La Source

The bus stop has gone through a lot of changes over the years.  This version is roughly right for the time period (they made so many changes, I am not likely to make versions of them all).  This older bus stop is a little faster and splits up the back straight differently than the current version.

1983 / 1985 version.  Note how much closer to the kink in the back straight it sits.
The couple extra spaces are effectively on the other end of the corner.

2007 / modern version of the Bus Stop.

I am excited to run this track October 7th at Congress of Gamers to see if behaves more like a race from behind track than its modern cousin.  I hope to see some of you out there.

CFR Race at Congress of Gamers, Fall
October 7th, 2017
9:30 am teaching demo and set-up
10:00 am race start

Solo Race #8, 3 Laps at Sao Paulo

Three races left in my 2017 solo series.  I cling to a small lead over Jackie Stewart as we head to Sao Paulo, Brazil for a 3-lap race.

I think I can accelerate slowly and still get to my top speed and I think the higher deceleration will come in handy a couple places on the track.  I want lots of wear here and hope to make a move from a mid-field start.

I bid 4 for the pole and ended up tied with two other drivers, lost the tie breaker die rolls, and ended up 6th.  Mansell was one of the two cars I tied with and he got huge value bidding 4 for 4th on the grid.

Fangio just beat Vettel for pole by a skill chip.  Stewart ended up 7th.

Lap 1

Alonso (yellow) rolls a forced pass and ends up 3rd off the start.

Alonso gets past me on the start.  Although he had to roll a forced pass to do it.  That move got him up to 3rd.

Stewart and Fittipaldi pass me exiting the Senna S with their better accelerations.  I'm down to 9th already -- an early drop in position that has become pretty typical for me this season.

As the cars begin lap 2, Fangio has built up a big lead.  Alonso is third again -- having given the position up to Rindt earlier, then taking it back on the big front straight.  Mansell is 5th.  I'm 9th.

Lap 2

I start making a move in the middle of lap 2.  Here I spend 3 wear to pass Fittipaldi.  Later I'll spend more wear so that I can get out onto the front straight with everyone else.

Me (in blue) passing Fittipaldi to move out of 9th.

Lap 3

As I cross the line to start lap 3, I pass Rindt and Hunt under braking and get inside Mansell -- all the way into 5th.

Me moving into 5th after the long straight to start lap 3.

 I was able to stay in front of Mansell exiting the Senna S and tucked in behind Stewart.  This is the real battle -- can I get past Stewart?  Meanwhile, Fangio broke his top speed and is out of the race, leaving Vettel to try to hold off a hard charging Alonso.

On the right, I take the slip from Stewart and dive inside for 2 wear for the pass.  You can also see Alonso has caught up to Vettel.

Huge move for me that I hope I can make stick and which will extend my championship lead a bit.

But Stewart fights back.  Below he spends 3 wear to pass me.  In addition Raikkonen has fought his way up from the back to challenge for a podium as well.  You can also see that Alonso got past Vettel a couple turns ago.

Stewart (orange) pass me.

But the very next turn both Vettel and Stewart chance Bico De Pato in efforts to challenge Alonso for the win.  Both spin.

Vettel (red) and Stewart (orange) spin in front of me and Raikkonen.

I got through Bico De Pato even with Stewart who then spun the next turn chancing the last corner of the race.

In the drag race down the front straight, I lucked out that Raikkonan broke his top speed and so I was able to hold on to second and keep Stewart behind me.

Alonso long ago finished for the win as I hold off Mansell, Raikkonan,
and Stewart for 2nd.

Wrap Up

The second place was my 4th podium of the season and was extra nice because Stewart (5th), Fangio, (dnf) and Vettel (dnf) did not have good races as my top competition for the championship.

Alonso's win was his best result.  Mansell's 3rd was his 3rd podium in the last 4 races.

Next up will be Nurburg for a quick 2-lapper before the final race at Mogyorod.

If you want to see this race turn-by-turn, see the google album.  If you missed a race, check out the series summery.

CFR Track Ratings Revised

The list of tracks I have build for Championship Formula Racing attempts to organize tracks based on how well they cater to one extreme strategy or the other.  Red tracks appear most favorable for racing from the front while purple tracks seemed most favorable for racing from behind.

Initially I organized these by gut, but pretty quickly applied some track profile metrics to determining what would end up being better for each strategy.  However, the ideal would be to use actual results from actual races.  I've now got data from 36 races on these tracks that helps me to do that and so I've redone some calculations and reorganized the tracks.

Performance Metrics

Because I do not actually know what strategy a car was using or attempting, I use a couple of proxies.  One is to look at where the car qualified.  A car that qualifies in the first 2 rows I consider to be running a front strategy.  A car that qualifies in the last 2 rows I consider to be running a back strategy.  My other proxy is start speed.  I consider any car running a 100 or 120 start speed to be running from the front and a car running a 20 start speed to be running from the back.  Obviously these are not perfect proxies, but they will have to do for now.

I then figured out how many points each position on the starting grid produced per race.  I also figured out how many points each start speed group produced per car.  I wasn't ignoring the middle groups and I think that is a viable 3rd strategic group but I did not want a 3-way variable... maybe next time.  But I did subtract the points scored by middle groups from the other numbers I calculated to provide some relationship to those middle strategies.  I use the point system from Organized Play.

Looking at the scores for Monte Carlo we can see that both the Front and Back groups are negative.  This means that the middle 2 rows actually did best.  But the front two rows did better than the back two rows.  Interestingly, the next two numbers show that 60 start speeds did worst.  20 start speeds (slow) having done a little better than 100+ start speeds (fast).

Finally, I show how many races I had at least some data I could use for these performance numbers.  Note that for many in-person races I might have only final results and so no data was helpful.  More often I would have only grid position and not start speeds.  For instance, the two races I have for Sao Paulo did not include start speeds which is why both Fast and Slow are 0s.

How Are Tracks Grouped

First I would look to see how many races I had in my sample for performance data.  With 10 or more I relied exclusively on the performance data.  With less than 4, I would rely exclusively on the track profile data.  In between and I look at both sets of data.

In that big table on the right, I show the scored produced by formulas I apply to different data.  For the in-between tracks I blend the track score and results scores together based on how close to 10 races my sample is.

To create the groups I look at the scores.  If a score is a standard deviation or more above or below the mean it ends up in the Red or Purple groups.  Yellow tracks tend to be meaningfully pro running from the front.  Green tracks should be pretty even but the reality is that are often still a little pro running from the front.  Blue tracks tend to actually be more balanced looking.

Race from the Front Bias

It has long been debated that CFR has a race from the front bias.  The data I've collected here does nothing to disprove that.  It is a game balance point that has long been on the radar.  The average results score (not shown below) of all tracks for which I have data is -1.73.  Roughly that means that some combination of starting in the front 2 rows and/or having a 100 start speed should be worth almost 2 points in any given race.

Tracks that Changed Groups

Now I'm going to look at some specific tracks that changed groups from my last groupings.

Francorchamps

Lets start with a doozey.  Francorchamps looks like a race from the back, is still the longest track I've built, and was grouped as a blue last time around.  But I have 10 races I can pull data from for this track and the results say different.

The chart to the right shows a starting grid and the average points that each spot has generated over those 10 races.  Note that due to field size not all grid spots have 10 samples in them.

The pole position is highlighted because a value of 11 or more means that the average result from this spot is a podium finish.

Why are the results different than expected?  My guess would be corner 1.  It really spreads out the field early and gives the cars that get through it on turn 2 a turn or so lead on the back half of the field.

Spielberg

Funny track.  When I built it I was convinced that this would be a deceptive red -- a track that looked like a play from the back but had too many choke points.  Twelve races later it turns out you can run it from behind sometimes.  But the front is still better on average.  So it moved from Red to Yellow.

The grey, na fields indicate that the 10th and 11th spots on the grid were never filed.  All of the data here was from my PBeM that caps at 10 cars.

Sakhir and Suzuka

Both of these tracks look more balanced on paper but so far they have both performed more front-leaning.  With only 4 or 5 races in the books on each with the data I need, they have moved from Green to Yellow although Sakhir could end up in red if trend continue.  Suzuka might end up in yellow.  Suzuka is very narrow and this result jives with my experiences on that track.  Sakhir surprises me.

Sakhir

Suzuka

Hockheim and Istanbul

Both look like race from the back tracks.  However, I have had thoughts that neither really were before.  And my track profile metrics peg them as greenish.  Honestly, I think I may have let perception blind me a bit when I made Hockenheim purple and Istanbul yellow last time around.

Interestingly, while both look moderately front-leaning from a grid perspective.  Both have odd metrics relating to start speed.  At Hockenheim, that 100 start speed seems crucial but the 20 start speed is apparently significantly better than the 60.  At Istanbul, the 100 start speed is terrible.

Istanbul

Hockenheim

The 2nd column in those tables is the average points with different start speeds (100 or 120 = fast, 20 = slow).  The 3rd column is my sample size.  So some of Istanbul's weirdness could be sample size related.

Austin and Valencia
I am convinced that Valencia is a run from the back track.  But the results so far suggest that it is more balanced than that.  Austin has been pegged by some as a run from the back as well but results are also suggesting better balance.  So they moved from Purple to Blue.  Austin could end up Green eventually.

Austin

Valencia

Oyama and Sochi
I don't have data (yet) for either but they both moved because I had placed both where I thought they were going to end up after racing despite what the track metrics may say.

Oyama looks so fast but it is also very short so it scores lower on the track profile scoring and moves from Purple to Blue.  Sochi has some choke points on it that I am not sure that the track metrics pick up on, however I've moved it from Blue to Purple for now until I can get more data on it.