Forza Independent League

[Moosejaw]

Blooze,

I've seen mention of the Forza Independent League (or FIL) in various posts of yours. Can I trouble you for rundown of what the idea is behind it?

[Blooze]

The idea behind it is to have a repeatable Season that can be run on a class by class basis - in leau of running through the Season Master's idea of a Season in the Game.

Basically, it is all the Real World Tracks in the game, except the RWT in the QR system.
Even more basically, here is a list of the tracks and the number of laps run for each race.

Catlunya GP - 5
Catlunya Nat - 5
Catlunya School - 5
le Mans New - 3
le Mans Old - 3
le Mans Bugatti - 5
Leguna Seca - 5
Mugello Full - 5
Nurb' Ring GP Full - 5
Nurb' Ring GP Short - 5
Road America - 5
Road Atlanta - 5
Sebring Full - 5
Sebring Club - 5
Silver Stone GP - 5
Sliver Stone Int - 5
Suzuka Full - 5
Suzuka West - 5
Tsukuba Short - 5
Montegi Road - 5
Montegi East - 5
Montegi West - 5

That is 22 races.  When run in the Private Session against 7 AI opponents and a 40% bonus this "Season" yields $374,500 Credits and 267,500 XP points (in case your car needs to be leveled up - much more than enough).

Along with the activity, this provides...

• Like the QR system, it provides a means of comparing cars in a class.
• It replaces the local leaderboard that has gone missing in version of the game.
• Leaderboard tracking for the tracks that I care about the most.
• Because the races are consistent, the money can also be tracked on a car by car, class by class basis.  For me, it is another tidbit of creating a virtual Racing Franchise - ya gotta keep track of the money.

 

I am considering altering what I have written here in this manner.  The Forza Independent League would be comprised of (at this time) four separate systems.  Not unlike NASCAR and the Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Camper World trucks, ARCA etc...

• The Above now referred to as RWT
• QR2 - all 9 of the QR tracks
• Forza Targa
• Big Laps - one lap races made up of the Ring, and both of the Kaidos, Positanos, and King Cobras.

As you can see, once a feller has raced in all these divisions, he has pretty well finished off both the Circuit and P2P leaderboards for a class.  

That's what it is.  Of course, I have spreadsheets tracking the whole mess...

$

[Moosejaw]

Blooze,

I've always liked the way you take Forza in different directions and this is another top idea. Would you specifically keep a track of lap times or both lap times and overall race times? I used to like the old leaderboards that kept track of your race times beacuse you knew you were becoming more consistent over a set of laps when the overall times started dropping. Now the only thing that matters is the lap time. You can de-cert 4 laps out of 5 because you can't stay on the track but you have a golden lap in the middle of it all which puts you in the top 200. Is that good driving skills?

Going slightly off topic, in an unrelated post you got me thinking about how much money the cars are earning me in the game. Are the paying for themselves or am a building 100K'ers that I use once because they turn out to be crap?

So I made a speadsheet   and I now know the following:

My favourite car (which was a surprise to me) is my D350 07 Honda Civic Type-R. I have used it in 50 races covering 347 miles. It only cost me 50K to buy and build and it has brought in 461K in winnings a profit of 411K.

I was also surprised to find I have only driven over 100 miles in SIX cars. I would have guessed it to be way more than that.

It's amazing the information this game can give you if your interested enough to find it  

[Blooze]

Thanks Moose, that is a nice thing to say...

Re: Race Tracking
I have given it some thought, specially when I catch myself saying "piss on it" when a lap goes bad, it doesn't matter anyway.  And I did like the Career Leaderboards in the last version.  Of course that meant that you had to go off and race the noobie races with an R1 to remain competitive - something I didn't like.  In waltzing it around, I decided to pass for the following...

• Space - there are 28 lap races that I track.  Lap times for these are kept in two worksheets.  Tracking the races would double that.
• Capture issues - time spent looking at that little spinning "loading" icon is out of control in this version.  I've tried cutting down on it some by reducing the after race time to 10 seconds.  There is barely enough time to grab the lap time, and enter it - I usually help the speed reading by converting the seconds ball park-ish when I start the race.  176 is 2:56... I say that a couple of times to get it in my head.  Also, because it goes flying by so fast, I need to get my eye back on the game in time to notice if there is any damage.  Most of the time I know when I need to look for it - but you get surprised sometimes and then things don't balance and closing out at the end of the day can become a real pain in the ass.  Adding the race time to the capture event would mean bumping the after race time back up to 30 seconds in order to have time to jump between two speadsheets and convert two times, one of which (the race time can cause you to pause - convert 8:36.275 NOW!  See what I mean?
• There's no backup for flagging errors - either the game's or mine.  The way my spreadsheets are set up, I know immediately if I have entered a time that is out of line.  There would be no way to do this with the race times.
• I think database size and bandwidth consumed sending the extra data back and forth were the reasons MS dumped it, specially for a race with a top 100 time.

So, that is what I see with tracking race times.  That doesn't mean someone else can't do it.  I just decided for myself, I didn't want to deal with it.  With a Five lap race, one has to be pretty well on his toes or the whole thing can be pissed away as a Hotlap event and you will have to do it again.  The first lap is a throw away, and if you decert at the end of the second or third, the next is a throw away as well.

Re: Forza Money
It is interesting when you apply Real World concerns of running a Racing Team to the mix.  That 50% cut on resales can suck you dry real fast if you don't watch it.  The need to save for the rarest of the cars even adds more to the mix.  The old buy it, try it, dump it from the olden days doesn't make it for me in the new version.

I have gotten flat out anal over my car count.  145 at this time.  I can quite honestly say that each of those 145 has a purpose.  I know why it is there and I really wanted to own it for one reason or another.  I had so many scrapped projects in my Forza II garage it was pitiful.

I have a rule, and except for the Big Three, I stick with it.  Every car in my garage must pay for itself and its parts.  I track this.  I know how many of the 100 cars I have processed that I am upside down on.  (2, at this time.)  I can account for all but $77,472 of the $32,604,997 I have won in the game.  I celebrate when I find some of it and the number is reduced.  It will be a big time party if I ever get the two numbers to balance.

OCD much?    Me??

$

[Fit4aking]

So far my FIL running has only happened in the cars that I consider "Slave Labor".  I was going to sit back and run the cars that I really like the most and have a whimsical run through the tracks in cars that I have already leveled up and paid for.  While this will increase my profits it won't do anything for the rack of cars I have sitting at level 0 or 1.  I even considered running in the lower classes and working my way up but even that wasn't doing it for me. 

I really am disorganized but working on cleaning up the shop.  The starting point is the Slave Labor cars.  The freebies that have been stacking up in the loading area that never seem to move much.  My new and improved list of FIL cars is going to start with all of the gift cars that I still have from Turn 10.  (ie. Nightmare R8, EVO Time Attack car, Toy Soldiers Supercar etc)  They will put me in the instant profit column as none of them will be upgraded, simply run, logged and stored away.  I don't use them much now so it won't be a big deal to beat 'em up and then put them in the warehouse.  If they get parked in the back I won't have to climb over them to get to the favorites.

I hosed off the R8 this afternoon and it's full of fuel, tires are kicked and I'll be running it through once I have some TV time.

[Blooze]

Well I have messed with it enough now and have all the spreadsheets working such that I can call the Forza Independent League  (FIL) set and operational now.

It consists of 4 different timed "events" that can be run on a Private Multiplayer platform.  Completing a "Season" produces around $1 million credits and puts a pretty good hole in the class Circuit and P2P leaderboards while doing it.

This has been discussed above and in other places, but here are the Four Events again...

• QR2 - These are the 9 tracks that are used for the Quick Rank system.
• RWT - Originally this was referred to as the FIL.  It consists of all the Real World Tracks that are not part of the QR2.  There's 22 of 'em.
• Targa Forza - This is the set of P2P tracks that is used in that Challenge.
• Big Laps - This is made up of 7 single lap races, Nurburgring Lap; Both Kiado Laps; both Positano Laps; both King Cobra laps.

With the Spreadsheet system I have the ability to track any/all of the cars in any Class, including my custom ones.  I am also able to track proceeds of cars that have multiple class toons.

For instance; my GSX runs in 5 classes - E thru A.  The cars History sheet displays the Total Races, Money and Miles for the car, reguardless of class.  Using my system I can divide it up accurately by class...  lets say the car has 60 races.  I can tell you that 16 races were in Class E, another 20 were in Class D, and the balance (24) were in Class C.  The Money and Miles are divied up accordingly.

Current plans call for every car/tune to run at a minimum, the FIL/QR2.  Most production cars can pay for themselves and Level up with just that.  The other FIL events will be run selectively - according to Blooze Chasing requirements and Project research.

I am going to be a busy boy...   If any of you feel like messing with this and would like to see what the spreadsheets are about gimme a shout...  But be forewarned, the system involves 41 workbooks which encompass spreadsheets 10 to 12 spreadsheets each in a hierarchial setting - about 500 sheets.  This is not for the Computer Timid type folks...

$

[Fit4aking]

I didn't realize how painful Le Mans was in F-class.  I finished up all 3 ribbons last night and I decided that it was pointless to run anything other than my missle built Eclipse on the Old Mulsanne as it was over 15 mph faster than any other car I have.  Set some new personal bests on each track so I hope to see some overall improvement as I head off to Laguna Seca.  Lots more to come and I hope to see the overall QR's of the cars play out in the final standings of the entire FIL season. 

At least I got a few laps in and my first race set a PB so I don't think I lost too much speed in my month off.

[Blooze]

I'm glad to see that you are able to get back behind the wheel!

Painful indeed.  I have those two tracks set to 3 laps, and my hand still goes to sleep... 

I have picked the slowest times that I have on the Le Mans tracks and have assigned those times to the cars that I don't intend to run on them.  Like the 22B.  It hasn't got the legs.  I know it doesn't have the legs.  So why bother.   The reason I assign the universal times is to clear the blank time and to get an overall time.

$

[Fit4aking]

I did the same thing to my spreadsheet.  There was just no way I could stomach running my 96 hp 510 on Mulsanne.  No way no how.  I could probably put a rubber band on the throttle and take a bathroom break without hitting the end of the straight.

Several unlikely suspects did pop up so far.  I'm still amazed at how close my GT-R is to the times the Blooze tooned Civic lays down.  Only a few tenths off here and there in most cases but they QR was a totally different story.  Odd how that happens.  Another thing I've noticed is how far off pace my older cars are from the most recent batches.  ALL of my retunes and rebuilds slaughter their previous iterations.

Wrapped up Laguna Seca tonight and I was surprised to see that a few cars ended up a lot slower than I anticipated, opposite of my predictions.  I'm learning a lot about my garage and making serious cash along the way.