Anyone here currently involved in the Formula 1 PBM - Raceplan?

Used to play it Graham years back. really enjoyed it, just run out of time to paly everything.  What is it like these days?

Just started playing it about 8 turns ago.  Its good - took over a pathetic team with no points & have turned them into regular points scorers.  My only complaints would be the weird team names & drivers named Eric Cartman or William Wheelspin!

The 2005 F1 rules will be included in the new season too (we just ran the last round of the championship.)  I'm just trying to get my head around the 'silly season' & whether to risk not singing my drivers before the draft turn.....

gee it does sound like it has changed a fair bit.  drafting drivers?  Sounds cool, you will have to keep me posted how you go.  Whats your team called?  From memory teams were pretty well forced to gamble with reliability a lot by keep pushing the car updates.  Teams that really tested seemed to fall behind quick.  It was a great game though!

The rules of the game are pretty much up-to-date with the real life goings on.  Next season the ‘one engine for two races’ rule will also apply!

My team is, cough cough, the Lucky Strike GBR (Graham Beaton Racing) Honda!

I manage to test my car & I’m done pretty well so far.  Tho it does take other drivers to drop out before I get points some of the time.

Its not actually drafting drivers as such.  Those not signed after the last race of the year go into a free agency pool, for ANY team to try & sign.  There is a certain order for when each team bids, much like a draft.  The benefit is that you might be able to sign both your drivers again, but for less LP’s – freeing them to be used on the car.

I have a huge choice to make now!  Were at the end of the season now & I have managed to out-bid all other teams for the right to make the first pick in the draft (signing driver that aren’t with teams.)  I had worked out exactly who I was going to take & what improvements I was going to make to my car etc – but that was before I had the chance to sign the current WORLD CHAMPION!

He would cost me a lot & delay the car improvements by about three turns (two races into the season), but the chance to get some race wins (& a load more sponsors as a result), could make up for these delays.  What a choice, just as well I have two weeks to make it!!

 
Sounds like fun, will have to give it a go one day.

Danny is the one to contact if you do fancy giving it a go.  If only there was a program like GP_Vcon for it (so you could watch the race unfold in front of your very eyes), then the game would be perfect!

Now that would be an awesome way to watch a race unfold!! :-)  Good luck with signing the world Champ, that would be a coup.  So a bettere driver brings better sponsorship, boy that has changed a lot since i did it.  I remember it was good value years back.  How are you doing after two rounds?

In 11 races I have only scored 19 points – my best position so far being 3rd at the British GP.  Still a decent return considering how far behind my car was in terms of development, even now.  Made up my mind to take the world champ & see what that brings me.  I wanted to drivers with ‘real life’ names, but the chance to get a driver that good is too much to turn down!

As for the sponsors, it depends on how fell my drivers do.  However, if I have the world champ, I’ll surely have some good results as my race planning & pit strategies are normally good.  The amount of races where I have started in the middle of the field but made up the time to finish in the points is quite high – even in the last race, my good pit stops got a guy from 15th to 2nd before a mechanical failure ended his race!

Cool! Definately have to try this one day, but not now having just signed up for Dark ages.

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If only there was a program like GP_Vcon for it (so you could watch the race unfold in front of your very eyes), then the game would be perfect!

I'm sure Alan Milnes is trying to set something like this up for Star Chase, as he asked me to send him an EE report a few weeks back to test Empires as well. I would imagine (not being a techie at all) it would be quite easy to tweak something like that for Race Plan? Of course now that reports are going to pdf that might cause a problem!

Cheers,

Martyn (thinking Raceplan sounds more fun that RL Formula 1 is these days!!!)

so if reports are going to PDF, does that mean we wont be able to use GP-Vcon anymore?

moment of truth in raceplan today - I decided to go for the world champ, just hope he turns out to be worth the LPs.  i could have made a big step in the car had I not gone for him, but I had to really....

Pretty much, but  reckon sicnce so many people use it for gameplan they would give people an option of text or PDF for gameplan.
They'd be crazy not too.

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Martyn Williams wrote : Quote : If only there was a program like GP_Vcon for it (so you could watch the race unfold in front of your very eyes), then the game would be perfect! I'm sure Alan Milnes is trying to set something like this up for Star Chase, as he asked me to send him an EE report a few weeks back to test Empires as well. I would imagine (not being a techie at all) it would be quite easy to tweak something like that for Race Plan? Of course now that reports are going to pdf that might cause a problem!

What is GP_Vcon ?
Obviously I'm not imagining the correct thing at all, as I don't see how Raceplan and Star Chase have much in common at all.

It is software that reads your GAMEPLAN turn report and provides the information to you in various ways, for example you can export the statistics to Excel, view the game play by play or extract information like current standings, schedules, rosters and so forth. It makes GAMEPLAN twice as good, especially if like me you put some time into maintaining a website. It also allows you to save the game as a PDF, in the exact same format as when it is printed with the SSprinter program.

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I decided to go for the world champ, just hope he turns out to be worth the LPs.

Oh he was worth it!!  Got my first ever win today, taking the 10 points from the Bahrain GP by 41 seconds!!

Pity my young driver (Fernando Alonso), retired early as he had the same settings & very similar fuel load.  Could have been a 1-2...

good work

Just finished the last race of the year.  My star driver finished 2nd in the title race, but unfortunately I cant afford to keep him next year - unless I sacrifice the test team & mechanics to keep him!  

Never mind though because Fernando Alonso showed promising signs towards the end of the year & actually out-qualified his team mate in the last few GPs.  I'm also picking first in the 'draft', so can take my pick from the list of FA - including Mark Webber & this years world champ!  

I'm thinking of giving this game another go.  Does anyone here know of anybody currently in a Raceplan league?