Reset R&D if engine supplier is changed

[Samiainen 3]

Pretty much what topic states. I think it would create more immersion, if your engine R&D would reset if you change your engine supplier. In real life, the car has to be adapted if the engine supplier is changed, and reseting engine R&D would re-create some of that. Also if there is a regulation change in engine department, you could use that to change into a different supplier without too much penalty.

The engine performance after a season should not be almost 100 in every supplier, rather change maybe based on how teams with certain engine suppliers perform, and add some randomness into the mix. The upgrades you get from the engine supplier, should not be the base of how the base performance is for the whole supplier, rather be just an add on to the base performance of the engine.

For example, Honda is the weakest engine, but they give you upgrades during the season to bring it closer to the other suppliers. And when the season ends, the supplier upgrades reset, and the supplier performance would be the base, on which the supplier could upgrade the engine during the season.

 

The changes between seasons should be subtle, so that it would not change the pecking order of teams too much. Lets say Honda has 86 power rating, it could go up to 88, and maybe some other supplier could go down a notch or two, based on how the engine supplier teams perform relative to the expectation of the rating of the engine supplier. 

[Craig8921 14]

Good idea but I think it would make spending resource points on engine redundant if you decide to change. You will effectively have wasted points. 
An idea could be to have you chassis and/or areo departments take a hit instead. For example mclaren are switching to Merc engines, they will need to do some we small redesign at the rear to fit the Mercedes as it is different to the Renault.

any change in engine supplier should come with the current supplier upgrades they have already done. 

[MeduSalem 22]

To be honest... That we can do particular engine upgrades even though we are a customer team kinda feels weird in the first place.

Realistically we shouldn't be able to improve the engine ourselves on certain parts (like for example reshaped combustion chamber... lol... as if any of the customer teams would be able to do that).

Instead we should share the power research tree directly from our supplier which is locked to you (so you can only look at it but can't research anything) and instead we contribute to making it better by giving research feedback by sinking resource points to the supplier which it uses to improve the engine power and then rolls out improved updates to themselves and all their customers.

So basically in the first few seasons you'd also be helping making your engine supplier get stronger and their other customer teams but in the long run it will be a problem because eventually you want to target them in the constructors championship.

That would could open up an additional strategic decision when starting a my team career because the engine supplier may contractually bind you to invest a certain amount of your research on them to help improve the engine... and if they are strong already like Ferrari/Mercedes you don't want to over-invest except if your engine supplier is Honda/Renault which have to catch up in the competition anyway.

You'd have to weight what is more important to you... a strong/reliable engine from the start, but investing in them will make their team and customer teams even stronger in the long run or a less capable engine but the impact of improving them won't be that problematic in the long run.

So eventually it would be an interesting idea if later on we could build an engine ourselves if you have tons of money to throw around... so that you can stop making your previous engine supplier stronger by dumping your feedback/resource points on them, ending their superiority.

Only once you are building your own engine that is when I would start with your own power upgrade tree... to your own engine.

And maybe then improve relations to other customer teams so that you may sway them to buy your engine instead and they help you improve your engine with sinking some of their research points on you.

Edited July 12 by MeduSalem

[Falstojudilofa 115]

Would be cool if you could only buy an engine and do nothing with it. You just pay a regular fee to the engine supplier and they can use that to improve the engine for all teams. Not satisfied with the performance, than switch to another supplier that you think is better. Or spend a lot of money and R&D points to develop your own engine.

[DrDraken 481]

On 7/12/2020 at 3:29 PM, Falstojudilofa said:

Would be cool if you could only buy an engine and do nothing with it. You just pay a regular fee to the engine supplier and they can use that to improve the engine for all teams. Not satisfied with the performance, than switch to another supplier that you think is better. Or spend a lot of money and R&D points to develop your own engine.

So be a team that buys its engines, until you decide to upgrade to a Works Team and build your own.  Great idea.

[MausThem 0]

So if I change at the end of a season in my team to another engine supplier my whole R&D tree resets? 

[Turtlemoose 75]

On 7/12/2020 at 12:21 PM, MeduSalem said:

Instead we should share the power research tree directly from our supplier which is locked to you (so you can only look at it but can't research anything) and instead we contribute to making it better by giving research feedback by sinking resource points to the supplier which it uses to improve the engine power and then rolls out improved updates to themselves and all their customers.

This would be superb.