The Formula One Thread

[Ape]

Went ahead and started Career mode. It is the main mode in the game I suppose so I thought I would go ahead with it.

Went with Renault in the end and did a bit of Free Practise 1, only for my session to end in an incident...

[Robbo-92]

Taking over nicely from Palmer then! Or did you opt for him as your team mate?

Not going to lie anyway, after watching plenty of F1 2017 gameplay it's tempting me more than Gran Turismo sport. Tempted to grab it while I've got 15% off at work and not get GT Sport as with all the Switch and couple of 3DS games I'm getting before the end of the year, buying more than one racing game doesn't sound like a great idea!

[D.J]

Funnily enough, i've joined Renault too, though i've only made it as far as the first race as i'm still busy playing Just Cause 3.

[Robbo-92]

Well with you both opting for Renault I'll have to go for McLaren! Has the patch fixed any of the bugs like parts wearing too quick? Online any better?

[Ape]

I replaced Palmer. Thought having a competitive teammate might help the team in Constructors. AI I think I put on 39 or 40 difficulty so that it wasn't too easy without being way too hard for me.

Finished my first qualifying session. However, the first time didn't go so well after running the default setup:



I decided that since it was well below the team's expectations I'd restart the session and I'm glad I did, because I changed the car setup (I used the internet to try and find the best setup for Australia) and it worked wonders in qualifying.





After all that I was hopeful over Q3 and then... the rain came out and I didn't quite manage the same quality of lap as in the first two sessions, so qualified 7th. Still, very good position for a Renault in the first race of the season, aim will be to survive the opening race...

[D.J]

Well with you both opting for Renault I'll have to go for McLaren! Has the patch fixed any of the bugs like parts wearing too quick? Online any better?

Sadly i've still not had time to play it, yesterday i was at the harry potter studio tour instead.

In regards to difficulty though, i imported my data from F1 2016 (you get that option at the very beginning) and that set it at around 85.

[Robbo-92]

I better not delete my 2016 save data till I get 2017 if it imports difficulty data. Still keep meaning to get to the Harry Potter studio tour as well.

[phalanx]

Force indias shoving you off the track? sounds realistic.

[Robbo-92]

Wasn't a great race for the podium yesterday, decent race behind it though.

Anyway I'm more or less convinced to get F1 2017 instead of GT Sport, even more so when GT doesn't have much of a single player career mode as seen in previous games. Probably won't start with McLaren though, heard that even with all the engine upgrades you'll still be slower than a maxed out Renault engine. Will probably start with Williams or Force India instead so I've already got a decent power unit behind me. Might get it in the next couple of days, might not already got plenty of games to be cracking on with.

[Ape]

I have the same problem, haven't even done the actual Australian Grand Prix yet. Probably will do that soon, but I also want to finish Splatoon 2 and then Metroid: Samus Returns comes out next week... but this will probably be the only F1 game I buy in the forseeable future so no rush to get career mode done.

[Robbo-92]

Yep, it's kind of a nice problem to have though! I'm considering Metroid Samus Returns as well, got a decent list of games already on my buy list for the rest of this year, looking at them I'll probably be sinking a fair few hours into each of them so considering I know I'll sink plenty of time into F1 2017 (till 18 comes out) I'm thinking of skipping Metroid 2 Samus Returns in favour of F1.

Anyway, in regards to my previous post I was posting poor info, a maxed out Honda engine (apparently I'll add as I have no idea personally) doesn't even beat the starting Ferrari power unit...... Definitely not starting with McLaren!

[D.J]

Finally got around to playing it some more last night, finished 13th on my debut at Melbourne which wasn't too bad, but despite qualifying last at the next race in China, the safety car came out as i was near the end of a lap and so pitted, this gained me a massive amount of time and was eventually able to bring the car home in 3rd (my difficulty is still at 84!)

[Robbo-92]

Ended up buying F1 2017 after work today, still the special edition which means I still get to drive that lovely MP4-4

Will probably spend a little time doing some grand prix, see what car I like the best out of the Williams, Force India and Renault (maybe Toro Rosso as well) and trying to find a sweet spot for the difficulty before starting my career tomorrow as I've got the day off

[D.J]

I tried online once since my first disastrous foray, there didn't seem to be many suitable lobbies and i just wasn't able to get a game started.

[Robbo-92]

While I've only been playing for an hour (4GB update took a while to download) it's great fun, so far I've set the difficulty at 90 and its posing a big challenge so far, maybe a little too much but I'll persevere for the time being although I'll probably drop this down to 85 for the start of my career. So far I've driven the McLaren, Toro Rosso, Force India, Renault and I'm just about to race the Haas at a rain soaked Canada. Out of the ones I've driven the Force India has definitely yielded the best finish (6th) but I did have a bit of a train behind me

Edit, Haas performed well in the wet, went from 16th to 10th in 5 laps. Just noticed 'instant race', great little addition! Also difficulty is at 85, will certainly be leaving at that level, seems a nice sweet spot.

[D.J]

God i hate this bug, can't believe it's still present two installments after it first appeared...

[Robbo-92]

Started my career at Force India, with Ocon as my teammate. I'm doing 50% races and currently have the difficulty set to 85.

Australia, qualified 8th and finished in 4th.

China, qualified in 6th and finished 2nd.

I'm tempted to up the difficulty but I'm waiting till I have a dry race to properly gauge my pace against the AI as the first two races have both been rain affected (Aus being wet to dry, China wet all the way through). Safe to say I'm really enjoying it so far

[Ape]

Carlos Sainz is going to race for Renault next season.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13172 ... en-changes

Renault's 2018 driver lineup looks significantly better than the 2016 one ever did.

[Robbo-92]

Meh, still think they should have kept K-Mag over Palmer after 2016, Palmer had a couple of good races. Renault now have one a good pairing going forward, seems to be rumours this is all part of the deal to get McLaren a Renault engine supply going forward, with Toro Rosso taking over the Honda deal for 2018 with a potential for Red Bull to get a works deal for 2019 going forward.

Sounds a little unfair but I would kind of love it (in an evil way ) if McLaren switch to Renault (for the record I don't think they should) and then the works deal goes to Red Bull and Toro Rosso for Honda to ace the new engine regulations that may be being introduced in 2021.

[D.J]

This is good news, Sainz is a very talented driver and deserves the chance to showcase his talents away from Toro Rosso.

[Ape]

Finally got round to doing the Australian Grand Prix. Started 7th put had to pit after losing my front wing in two seperate collisions with Raikkonnen and Perez. Dropped to the very back of the field but managed to make my way up to 7th on the final lap... only to run out of fuel on the final lap.

Ended up finishing 16th.

The recovery had been kind of good too.

[Robbo-92]

I always make sure I have the lap count + 1 for fuel, for the fuel test you kind of cheat the game and drive completely differently to how you would normally.

I did Bahrain last night, pace in qualy was terrible and finished 16th did a one stop strategy on soft-mediums to race back to 6th, annoyingly Ocon was doing fantastically well in 7th going for what I thought would be an aggressive super soft-super soft-soft strategy but he never pitted for his soft his soft tyre's so he got disqualified

The only annoying thing I'm finding so far is durability on the engine and gearbox, definitely not driving as aggressively as in previous games (spamming downshifts to decrease braking distance, hitting the redline in most gears, in rich mix a lot etc) but even so my first power unit will be done for (well 3/6 elements will be anyway) after the free practice sessions in Russia and I doubt the gearbox will be good for Spain. I know there's a lot of durability upgrades in the R&D but looking at it I'll be taking constant penalties for gearbox changes all season and will be taking new power units from Spa/Monza onwards. Think the power unit part of the R&D would have been better for the first upgrade to be 10% less wear on all units/gearboxes and then one slightly more expensive upgrade improving them by 50% rather than 3 at 30%, guessing I'd say you need at least two upgrades into each before you start to stand a chance of completing a season with 4 power units and gearboxes. Lower initial wear so you'd have to take one extra unit st the end of the year would have been better, or if you drove really smoothly you could make it on 4.

How are you both going for R&D anyway? I'm spending the first season improving the efficiency and quality control aspects so I can hopefully get plenty of upgrades first time round in my second and third seasons. Hopefully in my 4th I'll be fighting for the championship, if I make it to my 4th season, if not I'll just start a new driver with Ferrari and dominate the sport for the next few seasons.

[Ape]

R&D is a bit intimidating for me right now so for now I'm just going for what the game recommends.

Maybe in the future I'll get a bit more of an idea though.

[Robbo-92]

I think it looks a lot more intimidating than it actually is, most of it seems to be in levels, certainly the aero where it seems to be in set levels (granted you probably don't need all the first level to progress, just certain ones that pertain to the area if the car) of how much impact they have. Engine and Chassis seem to branch out from the middle path whereas durability (after the initial 10% less wear) seems to be a free for all. Not sure about yourself but I'm just planning on sticking with one team throughout my career, hence why I'm going for the efficiency and quality control options first so upgrades in my second and third seasons will cost a lot less and hopefully not fail. Fully prepared to be near the back of the grid going into my second season mind but hopefully it'll be a quick climb back up.

[D.J]

The McLaren-Renault deal has been agreed...

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13176 ... or-renault