Post by lucasfawkes on Jul 9, 2023 21:21:10 GMT 2
1st season (1996):
• Mod: real 1996
• long term deal on the hardest difficulty
• Team: Jordan Peugeot
◦ Drivers: Barrichello and Brundle (Morbidelli as a reserve driver)
◦ Chief designer: Gary Anderson
◦ Chief engineer: Tim Holloway
◦ Chief mechanic: Jim Vale
◦ Commercial manager: Ian Phillips
◦ Tyres: Bridgestone 4,5 stars
◦ Spare parts: SteelTech 4,5 stars
◦ Fuel: Total 2 stars (recommend for the Peugeot engines)
◦ Security: initially Silva (3 stars), after the half of the season onwards I went with Data Force (4,5 stars) after being robbed two times
Returning to play this game was incredibly exciting and nostalgic for me. Playing it as a mature adult and appreciating its pros and cons, knowing that it was released the same year I was born, is more gratifying today than when I was an 11-year-old teenager.
To provide some context, I started using Linux about six years ago, and since then, I abandoned and forgot about Windows games. After all, my laptop isn't particularly powerful. However, now that I'll be spending a significant amount of time away from my country, I decided to test if it was possible to play the old manager games that accompanied my adolescence to pass the time when I feel lonely or bored. Much to my surprise, I was able to install and run games like Grand Prix Manager 2, F1 Team (Pole Position), F1 Manager Pro, Grand Prix World, and EA Sports' F1 Manager... on Linux!
Season Recap: Coming back to play the game after such a long time and wanting to take it seriously, I decided to learn on my own without relying on guides, manuals, or cheats. I opted to start with a middle-tier team, the charismatic Jordan. The Jordan car in 1996 was good and reliable. However, being cautious with finances, I believe I began the season with 5 million dollars (was it dollars?), unsure of how much I would spend throughout the year. Additionally, I had no idea how I would perform in races or with sponsors, so I chose a cautious approach. This approach would later prove to be perhaps the main cause of my failure. For instance, I don't think I tested the car enough during the "pre-season." Nevertheless, I was confident in quickly relearning the game. After all, I had two good drivers and equipment decent enough to score points and maybe even achieve occasional podium finishes.
Summing up, throughout the season, the car was a typical midfield contender, but nothing more than that. I chose to play without team orders, generally using the "step on it" command at most. Thus, the gameplay was straightforward: attend the races, quickly set up the cars to avoid excessive wear on the parts, go for a the qualifying with the drivers taking more risks, and in the race, take it easy and aim to finish, hoping that the leaders and other midfielders would make mistakes or encounter failures, allowing me to occasionally score points. On paper, it all seemed easy. In practice, everything went wrong.
The major issue was with the drivers: they had more collisions and spun off on their own far more than I expected. The pace was there, and the car had potential. If I resorted to using the "do or die" team order in qualifying, it was easy to achieve unreal poles. For example, I secured pole position in Monaco (Brundle took pole with a time of 1:25:407, while Hill, in the dominant 1996 Williams, only managed third place with 1:28:906... yes, Barrichello was second).
But it didn't matter if the setup was perfect according to the drivers' feedback or if I gave the team order for the drivers to go into "ease off" mode, taking minimal risks in driving and conserving fuel, engine, and tires: they would always retire one way or another, in a frustrating manner, even when running alone on the track in the last positions. It's true that the retirement rate is generally high in the game. It's not uncommon for only 10 cars to finish the race, accurately reflecting the low reliability of cars from the 1990s. The question was why my theoretically good drivers were doing this. I imagined that the problem would be more related to the car breaking down. Sometimes it was car-related failures like blown tires, but most of the time, collisions and spin-offs summed up the frustrating GPs.
Things were tough at the beginning of the season, but as I relearned the setup and how to approach the races, the results started to stabilize. At least the midfield pace of the Jordan became clear. The only point scored so far was a sixth-place finish in Buenos Aires under heavy rain, thanks to Rubinho, who ironically is a low-quality driver in wet conditions. The strategy to secure that point was classic: stay on track and survive the chaos of accidents and retirements. Meanwhile, I rushed to finalize personnel contracts as soon as possible, knowing that the interest in the team would decline as the team's mediocre performance became apparent. However, I couldn't renew with Peugeot.
The financial difficulty was alleviated around the middle of the season when I managed to secure sponsorship deals with 3-star and 2-star companies that, for better or worse, covered the team's deficit and provided a small profit. The expenses for cars and parts were high due to the drivers' frequent collisions. From there, I could shift my focus to licensing merchandise, maximizing the revenue potential for my team.
In terms of car development, I directed my efforts towards 1997, ensuring an 8% advancement rate in chassis design for each race. Here, I recalled an obvious game bug: once the car for the following year was completed, there was no need to develop new chassis from the second year onwards. At least in my experience, this always happened, which made things necessarily easier from then on, allowing me to focus on developing driving aids and internal and aerodynamic parts in-house.
During the season, Rubinho managed to score one more point, while Brundle, despite being much faster in single laps, consistently suffered from mechanical failures, even during practice sessions, despite having a perfect setup and new parts on the car. My frustration was so great that at some point, possibly in the middle of the season, I replaced Brundle with Gianni Morbidelli, but without success. Meanwhile, other midfield and even smaller teams surpassed a struggling Jordan in the constructors' championship. Somehow, Tyrrell managed to secure a solid 10 points.
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2nd season (1997):
• Team: Jordan Nissan
◦ Drivers: Rubinho and Panis (JC Boullion as a reserve driver)
◦ Chief designer: Gary Anderson
◦ Chief engineer: Maxwell Orwell
◦ Chief mechanic: Roger Milhouse
◦ Commercial manager: Milton Solen
◦ Tyres: Bridgestone (5 stars)
◦ Spare parts: Elite (5 stars)
◦ Fuel: Mobil 1 (4,5 stars, recommended for Renault engines)
◦ Security: Sentry (4,5 stars)
The second season was definitely better than the first, although the final results still fell short of the team's potential. For 1997, I let go of Brundle and instead hired a seasoned Olivier Panis, with a lower salary and a similar level to Rubinho (who, by the way, is an excellent deal in the game, as he is a paying driver in 1996 and remains so throughout the game, with great development potential). Gary Anderson stayed on as the chief designer, but the technical team was reinforced with excellent professionals. I spared no expense when it came to fuel, tires, spare parts, and safety. But the main change was the Nissan V8 engines. After the poor results in 1996, I lost the works contract with Peugeot, which offered a powerful 4-star engine for free, meaning now I would have to pay for new engines for any of the three cars. However, it's interesting how the Nissan engine works in this mod (and in the original game!). Despite having 3 stars out of 5, this engine has one of the highest power-to-weight ratios in the game, delivering 650 hp for 110 kg. What's more, it is the second cheapest engine in the game!
Unlike the previous season, I decided to be aggressive with expenses in 1997 since I saw that, even with weak performance, it was possible to survive financially. Once freed from the burden of developing a new car, I used the last races of 1996 to develop driving aids that were allowed that year (such as semi-automatic gearboxes). However, since the season was coming to an end, I couldn't benefit from and evaluate the true impact of this upgrade. For 1997, though, the rules changed, and it was possible to develop and use the driving aid called "advanced steering," whatever that means.
Thus, the season began on a much more solid footing, with more preseason testing until the drivers provided important feedback on car improvements, saying "the results look good," usually after a long stint of 40 or 50 laps. I also adopted a new weekend approach, paying more attention to vital car data, particularly temperature and tire pressure. I remembered that this was something mentioned in forums by other players, and whether it was due to that or the fact that I had a decent preseason, things started to improve for Jordan. The first three races were challenging, with the best result being a weak 13th place for Rubinho in Buenos Aires. At least now the cars were finishing races intact! This meant greater confidence for both me and the drivers, as their morale slightly increased. The fourth race, in Nurburgring, yielded the first truly positive result: a 7th place for Panis (while Rubinho retired). However, it was in Barcelona where I had the best (and unfortunately, the only) major result of the season: pole position and third place (both in dry conditions!) for Rubinho, trailing only the powerful Williams duo.
It must be admitted that in 1997, I started using the "or die" team order in both qualifying and races, not without some setbacks. While this order provided a significant advantage in one lap, it was useful in races but couldn't be used every lap for obvious reasons (spin-offs and collisions), especially if Rubinho or Panis approached other cars, particularly backmarkers. This led me to focus a lot on managing the cars during races, alternating between pushing for faster laps and slower laps to avoid the risk of crashes. At least this way, I could extract the true performance of the car for at least half of the race and, more importantly, finish them!
That was basically the summary of the season. Additionally, during the year, I managed to develop the advanced steering up to level four, limited by the game's EMS (Electronic Management System), another "bug" or feature that I remembered (if you have a more advanced driving aid than your general electronic system, it can inevitably lead to failures during races). The car was also greatly improved in terms of internal parts and aerodynamics, with the first in-house parts finally being produced. These parts were not only better but also lighter, although more expensive (unless you have built the factory facilities to speed up and reduce the production costs). It's worth mentioning that, tired of having my parts and technologies stolen, I invested more in espionage in 1997, acquiring parts from rival teams, usually other midfielders like myself. Most importantly, whenever there was a new part, I would test it at Silverstone until the drivers gave positive feedback.
The team's potential excited me, and I believed that it would be possible, especially after Rubinho's podium finish early in the season, to climb up to at least fifth place in the constructor's championship. I didn't count on bad luck and, worse, bizarre results from the game. While Rubinho took on the role of team leader, usually being the fastest and most aggressive driver, Panis was a reliable second driver, finishing races when Rubinho retired for any reason. None of this was enough to stop another team from achieving an inexplicable result.
The 1997 Brazilian Grand Prix in Grand Prix Manager 2 was particularly... exotic. On Saturday, Norberto Fontana from Sauber took pole position. So far, so good. It could have been a game bug where fast cars push the slow ones, normal... until I realized that Fontana would have Emmanuel Collard from Footwork alongside him, and on the second row were the Tyrrell duo of that year: Berger and Patrese Blundelle (who da fuck is this guy? A mix of Patrese and Blundell?). Okay, I gave the game the benefit of the doubt, believing that stronger cars and drivers like Williams and Ferrari would take the lead and disappear in the race. But that didn't happen: Collard won with Fontana in second place. In addition, Berger scored points for Tyrrell in 5th, and Verstappen, the slow one, not the fast one, completed Footwork's dream day. There are things that only happen in Brazil, and I'm Brazilian, I guarantee the saying. The result would have been funny if I were managing a big team. In reality, it made me furious because they were direct competitors of Jordan and, in fact, weaker! Was the game trying to compensate for my heroic third place with Rubinho? I like to think so, and that I was unjustly treated to a level even Michael Masi wouldn't be able to conceive...
The rest of the year followed a similar pattern, with strong races at times, weak races at others, and occasional retirements, although much less frequent and frustrating than in 1996. The second half of Panis' season was particularly strong, albeit unlucky. He achieved four top 7 finishes in the final races... but three of those results were 7th places, which in 1997 didn't earn any points. On the other hand, Rubinho had a lackluster end to the season. The negative highlight was the race in Adelaide, which returned to the championship in 1997. My car simply didn't have the pace, and it was very difficult to get the gear ratios right, as they were never spread apart enough for the drivers' liking. When I finally found the sweet spot, the result was as mediocre as ever. The final race in Suzuka was exciting, and everything seemed set for a fourth-place finish for Rubinho, but both he and Panis retired.
In the end, I finished the year in 8th place once again, behind the bizarre Footwork team, which even surpassed the solid Sauber to achieve 5th place and the title of "best of the rest." However, things were looking good otherwise. With good sponsors, saving money with a paying driver, and not having to spend as much on rebuilding the car or on new engines, I managed to replenish the team's finances and pay for 4-star Honda engines, which were very powerful but heavy, in contrast to the lightweight yet weak Nissan engines. Who knows, maybe I'll come back for another season? At least now I have the successful Jordan-Honda combination that worked well from 1998 to 1999 in the real life.
• Mod: real 1996
• long term deal on the hardest difficulty
• Team: Jordan Peugeot
◦ Drivers: Barrichello and Brundle (Morbidelli as a reserve driver)
◦ Chief designer: Gary Anderson
◦ Chief engineer: Tim Holloway
◦ Chief mechanic: Jim Vale
◦ Commercial manager: Ian Phillips
◦ Tyres: Bridgestone 4,5 stars
◦ Spare parts: SteelTech 4,5 stars
◦ Fuel: Total 2 stars (recommend for the Peugeot engines)
◦ Security: initially Silva (3 stars), after the half of the season onwards I went with Data Force (4,5 stars) after being robbed two times
Returning to play this game was incredibly exciting and nostalgic for me. Playing it as a mature adult and appreciating its pros and cons, knowing that it was released the same year I was born, is more gratifying today than when I was an 11-year-old teenager.
To provide some context, I started using Linux about six years ago, and since then, I abandoned and forgot about Windows games. After all, my laptop isn't particularly powerful. However, now that I'll be spending a significant amount of time away from my country, I decided to test if it was possible to play the old manager games that accompanied my adolescence to pass the time when I feel lonely or bored. Much to my surprise, I was able to install and run games like Grand Prix Manager 2, F1 Team (Pole Position), F1 Manager Pro, Grand Prix World, and EA Sports' F1 Manager... on Linux!
Season Recap: Coming back to play the game after such a long time and wanting to take it seriously, I decided to learn on my own without relying on guides, manuals, or cheats. I opted to start with a middle-tier team, the charismatic Jordan. The Jordan car in 1996 was good and reliable. However, being cautious with finances, I believe I began the season with 5 million dollars (was it dollars?), unsure of how much I would spend throughout the year. Additionally, I had no idea how I would perform in races or with sponsors, so I chose a cautious approach. This approach would later prove to be perhaps the main cause of my failure. For instance, I don't think I tested the car enough during the "pre-season." Nevertheless, I was confident in quickly relearning the game. After all, I had two good drivers and equipment decent enough to score points and maybe even achieve occasional podium finishes.
Summing up, throughout the season, the car was a typical midfield contender, but nothing more than that. I chose to play without team orders, generally using the "step on it" command at most. Thus, the gameplay was straightforward: attend the races, quickly set up the cars to avoid excessive wear on the parts, go for a the qualifying with the drivers taking more risks, and in the race, take it easy and aim to finish, hoping that the leaders and other midfielders would make mistakes or encounter failures, allowing me to occasionally score points. On paper, it all seemed easy. In practice, everything went wrong.
The major issue was with the drivers: they had more collisions and spun off on their own far more than I expected. The pace was there, and the car had potential. If I resorted to using the "do or die" team order in qualifying, it was easy to achieve unreal poles. For example, I secured pole position in Monaco (Brundle took pole with a time of 1:25:407, while Hill, in the dominant 1996 Williams, only managed third place with 1:28:906... yes, Barrichello was second).
But it didn't matter if the setup was perfect according to the drivers' feedback or if I gave the team order for the drivers to go into "ease off" mode, taking minimal risks in driving and conserving fuel, engine, and tires: they would always retire one way or another, in a frustrating manner, even when running alone on the track in the last positions. It's true that the retirement rate is generally high in the game. It's not uncommon for only 10 cars to finish the race, accurately reflecting the low reliability of cars from the 1990s. The question was why my theoretically good drivers were doing this. I imagined that the problem would be more related to the car breaking down. Sometimes it was car-related failures like blown tires, but most of the time, collisions and spin-offs summed up the frustrating GPs.
Things were tough at the beginning of the season, but as I relearned the setup and how to approach the races, the results started to stabilize. At least the midfield pace of the Jordan became clear. The only point scored so far was a sixth-place finish in Buenos Aires under heavy rain, thanks to Rubinho, who ironically is a low-quality driver in wet conditions. The strategy to secure that point was classic: stay on track and survive the chaos of accidents and retirements. Meanwhile, I rushed to finalize personnel contracts as soon as possible, knowing that the interest in the team would decline as the team's mediocre performance became apparent. However, I couldn't renew with Peugeot.
The financial difficulty was alleviated around the middle of the season when I managed to secure sponsorship deals with 3-star and 2-star companies that, for better or worse, covered the team's deficit and provided a small profit. The expenses for cars and parts were high due to the drivers' frequent collisions. From there, I could shift my focus to licensing merchandise, maximizing the revenue potential for my team.
In terms of car development, I directed my efforts towards 1997, ensuring an 8% advancement rate in chassis design for each race. Here, I recalled an obvious game bug: once the car for the following year was completed, there was no need to develop new chassis from the second year onwards. At least in my experience, this always happened, which made things necessarily easier from then on, allowing me to focus on developing driving aids and internal and aerodynamic parts in-house.
During the season, Rubinho managed to score one more point, while Brundle, despite being much faster in single laps, consistently suffered from mechanical failures, even during practice sessions, despite having a perfect setup and new parts on the car. My frustration was so great that at some point, possibly in the middle of the season, I replaced Brundle with Gianni Morbidelli, but without success. Meanwhile, other midfield and even smaller teams surpassed a struggling Jordan in the constructors' championship. Somehow, Tyrrell managed to secure a solid 10 points.
In the end, Hill became the champion, just like in real life, but it was Berger in the Benetton who took second place, perhaps indicating a more powerful car in the game compared to the team's real-life performance in the 1994-95 seasons. Schumacher, who was making his debut for Ferrari, finished in fourth place. Villeneuve impressed much less than in real life, suggesting that his stats are undervalued in the game, including his salary (I tried to hire him during the season, but he realized it would be a bad move to join Jordan and stated that he wouldn't accept racing for a team with poor performance, even with a higher salary. Very realistic!). However, in the constructors' championship, Benetton emerged as the clear winner, thanks to the strong duo of Berger and Alesi, and the underperforming virtual version of Villeneuve. Ferrari and McLaren finished in the top 4, facing the bitter taste of defeat, just like in real life. Meanwhile, Sauber secured fifth place, earning the title of the best of the rest.
2nd season (1997):
• Team: Jordan Nissan
◦ Drivers: Rubinho and Panis (JC Boullion as a reserve driver)
◦ Chief designer: Gary Anderson
◦ Chief engineer: Maxwell Orwell
◦ Chief mechanic: Roger Milhouse
◦ Commercial manager: Milton Solen
◦ Tyres: Bridgestone (5 stars)
◦ Spare parts: Elite (5 stars)
◦ Fuel: Mobil 1 (4,5 stars, recommended for Renault engines)
◦ Security: Sentry (4,5 stars)
The second season was definitely better than the first, although the final results still fell short of the team's potential. For 1997, I let go of Brundle and instead hired a seasoned Olivier Panis, with a lower salary and a similar level to Rubinho (who, by the way, is an excellent deal in the game, as he is a paying driver in 1996 and remains so throughout the game, with great development potential). Gary Anderson stayed on as the chief designer, but the technical team was reinforced with excellent professionals. I spared no expense when it came to fuel, tires, spare parts, and safety. But the main change was the Nissan V8 engines. After the poor results in 1996, I lost the works contract with Peugeot, which offered a powerful 4-star engine for free, meaning now I would have to pay for new engines for any of the three cars. However, it's interesting how the Nissan engine works in this mod (and in the original game!). Despite having 3 stars out of 5, this engine has one of the highest power-to-weight ratios in the game, delivering 650 hp for 110 kg. What's more, it is the second cheapest engine in the game!
Unlike the previous season, I decided to be aggressive with expenses in 1997 since I saw that, even with weak performance, it was possible to survive financially. Once freed from the burden of developing a new car, I used the last races of 1996 to develop driving aids that were allowed that year (such as semi-automatic gearboxes). However, since the season was coming to an end, I couldn't benefit from and evaluate the true impact of this upgrade. For 1997, though, the rules changed, and it was possible to develop and use the driving aid called "advanced steering," whatever that means.
Thus, the season began on a much more solid footing, with more preseason testing until the drivers provided important feedback on car improvements, saying "the results look good," usually after a long stint of 40 or 50 laps. I also adopted a new weekend approach, paying more attention to vital car data, particularly temperature and tire pressure. I remembered that this was something mentioned in forums by other players, and whether it was due to that or the fact that I had a decent preseason, things started to improve for Jordan. The first three races were challenging, with the best result being a weak 13th place for Rubinho in Buenos Aires. At least now the cars were finishing races intact! This meant greater confidence for both me and the drivers, as their morale slightly increased. The fourth race, in Nurburgring, yielded the first truly positive result: a 7th place for Panis (while Rubinho retired). However, it was in Barcelona where I had the best (and unfortunately, the only) major result of the season: pole position and third place (both in dry conditions!) for Rubinho, trailing only the powerful Williams duo.
It must be admitted that in 1997, I started using the "or die" team order in both qualifying and races, not without some setbacks. While this order provided a significant advantage in one lap, it was useful in races but couldn't be used every lap for obvious reasons (spin-offs and collisions), especially if Rubinho or Panis approached other cars, particularly backmarkers. This led me to focus a lot on managing the cars during races, alternating between pushing for faster laps and slower laps to avoid the risk of crashes. At least this way, I could extract the true performance of the car for at least half of the race and, more importantly, finish them!
That was basically the summary of the season. Additionally, during the year, I managed to develop the advanced steering up to level four, limited by the game's EMS (Electronic Management System), another "bug" or feature that I remembered (if you have a more advanced driving aid than your general electronic system, it can inevitably lead to failures during races). The car was also greatly improved in terms of internal parts and aerodynamics, with the first in-house parts finally being produced. These parts were not only better but also lighter, although more expensive (unless you have built the factory facilities to speed up and reduce the production costs). It's worth mentioning that, tired of having my parts and technologies stolen, I invested more in espionage in 1997, acquiring parts from rival teams, usually other midfielders like myself. Most importantly, whenever there was a new part, I would test it at Silverstone until the drivers gave positive feedback.
The team's potential excited me, and I believed that it would be possible, especially after Rubinho's podium finish early in the season, to climb up to at least fifth place in the constructor's championship. I didn't count on bad luck and, worse, bizarre results from the game. While Rubinho took on the role of team leader, usually being the fastest and most aggressive driver, Panis was a reliable second driver, finishing races when Rubinho retired for any reason. None of this was enough to stop another team from achieving an inexplicable result.
The 1997 Brazilian Grand Prix in Grand Prix Manager 2 was particularly... exotic. On Saturday, Norberto Fontana from Sauber took pole position. So far, so good. It could have been a game bug where fast cars push the slow ones, normal... until I realized that Fontana would have Emmanuel Collard from Footwork alongside him, and on the second row were the Tyrrell duo of that year: Berger and Patrese Blundelle (who da fuck is this guy? A mix of Patrese and Blundell?). Okay, I gave the game the benefit of the doubt, believing that stronger cars and drivers like Williams and Ferrari would take the lead and disappear in the race. But that didn't happen: Collard won with Fontana in second place. In addition, Berger scored points for Tyrrell in 5th, and Verstappen, the slow one, not the fast one, completed Footwork's dream day. There are things that only happen in Brazil, and I'm Brazilian, I guarantee the saying. The result would have been funny if I were managing a big team. In reality, it made me furious because they were direct competitors of Jordan and, in fact, weaker! Was the game trying to compensate for my heroic third place with Rubinho? I like to think so, and that I was unjustly treated to a level even Michael Masi wouldn't be able to conceive...
The rest of the year followed a similar pattern, with strong races at times, weak races at others, and occasional retirements, although much less frequent and frustrating than in 1996. The second half of Panis' season was particularly strong, albeit unlucky. He achieved four top 7 finishes in the final races... but three of those results were 7th places, which in 1997 didn't earn any points. On the other hand, Rubinho had a lackluster end to the season. The negative highlight was the race in Adelaide, which returned to the championship in 1997. My car simply didn't have the pace, and it was very difficult to get the gear ratios right, as they were never spread apart enough for the drivers' liking. When I finally found the sweet spot, the result was as mediocre as ever. The final race in Suzuka was exciting, and everything seemed set for a fourth-place finish for Rubinho, but both he and Panis retired.
In the end, I finished the year in 8th place once again, behind the bizarre Footwork team, which even surpassed the solid Sauber to achieve 5th place and the title of "best of the rest." However, things were looking good otherwise. With good sponsors, saving money with a paying driver, and not having to spend as much on rebuilding the car or on new engines, I managed to replenish the team's finances and pay for 4-star Honda engines, which were very powerful but heavy, in contrast to the lightweight yet weak Nissan engines. Who knows, maybe I'll come back for another season? At least now I have the successful Jordan-Honda combination that worked well from 1998 to 1999 in the real life.
What did you think of this account? Should I continue my journey or am completely lost? Did I make too many silly mistakes? I think I should finally read the manual and hope that the Honda engines make a difference. I've also created some drawings illustrating how the Jordan cars from 1996-1997 would look with the sponsors I obtained in the game, always eliminating conflicting sponsors when necessary (a feature not present in this game)...
