I'll add my list of wants as well! Some of which might lean into more simulation territory, depending on how people interpret some stuff.
Rapid fire key points I've thought of:
- Switch from EGO to Frostbite (unless EGO gets a significant overhaul to warrant keeping around, but it doesn't seem so in its current state)
- Throttle input needs to be adjusted at near-stopped speed. I can't make fine-tuned adjustments at the grid box if my throttle doesn't apply until half percentage, which could then make me overshoot the grid box at times.
- An adjustment for how the F2 cars are released from their pit boxes. Seriously, what's with that weird forward-slide thing before I can leave the box?
- Optional manual pit driving! Keep ghosting, I guess, but I want to manually hit or blow past my marks. Piggybacking off this, race-style pit stops in Practice and Qualifying. They're rare, but it's very possible when teams have enough fuel to burn!
- Better Dynamic Weather
> Better visual look of wet-to-dry and dry-to-wet conditions -- drying lines should be more prominent, puddles should be more realistic
> Spray should be a tad more "aggressive"
- Better AI (Opponent Car) Behavior
> Team orders -- Player/Team/Teammate requests, have this fully replace objectives since "average lap time" or "hit [x] lap time" doesn't really make sense as one-shot objectives mid-race imo. I want to ask if my teammate can slow down to defend or give me Overtake Mode ("DRS"), and same in return with the teammate requesting that of me
> Racing Line variance -- Opponent cars shouldn't always be taking the exact same line every single lap. When a car locks up a wheel (which they don't even spear off like they've locked up), you can tell they're all taking the exact same line with no difference. A small variance of their "X-axis" should help a little.
> Stronger battling -- AI cars seem to still be scared when the player car so much as breathes alongside. Example can be Barcelona's T10, put a nose to the left-rear tyre, and they get scared off-line and back out immediately, despite being in a better spot for T11 and T12
> Tyre Wear -- As evidenced by a Reddit post in the F1Game reddit, AI cars need visible and actual wear, not be simulated to slow down over time to just mimic the wear
> More mistakes -- Occasional track limit violations, pit speeding, jump starts and/or grid box penalties
> Blue Flag/Slower Car recognition -- Player car being slow and off-line in quali, opponent cars on an out-lap seem to just recognize the player car is on a hotlap no matter what, and refuse to pass. Cars with DRS behind cars with no DRS seem to be endlessly stuck behind the car with no DRS, despite having hundreds of meters available in a DRS zone to pass.
- VR Support
> Better per-eye support -- No split-eye particles pls. It's really weird in-headset, and won't show up on the monitor from my understanding.
- LIDAR Scanned Calendar -- Self explanatory!
- Better Damage/Tyre Model
- Debris -- eg. a broken front wing should stay around until a V/SC to "clean it up"
- Punctures -- Should additionally be caused by wing-to-tyre contact, not just percentage wear
- Graining -- Self explanatory
- Wheel-to-wheel "Hops" of contact (suspension damage could also occur)
- Flatspots -- PLEASE
- Formula 3 -- Maybe? Not entirely necessary, but would very much be a "nice to have"
- Better V/SC deployments
> Seems like random chance for when a VSC gets deployed. Sometimes a retired car triggers a VSC, sometimes it doesn't. More consistency would be nice. Same goes for SC triggers as well.
- Post-Race DSQ -- Should be rare (but possible) for opponent cars, but can easily be done as a player
> Plank Wear -- Should easily be triggered by a player lowering the ride height as much as possible, this would easily wear the plank irl - could be a fun feature to make ride height matter more than just speed
- Career Mode
- Option for multi-year F2 running -- Especially if the default career calendar is going to be the previous year (eg. 2026), then the next year (2027) should be an option!
- Player in F2 should have the ability to be be signed to an Academy mid-season, and be invited to run as a part of the mandatory two F1 FP1 sessions when part of an Academy
- Alonso can have a multi-decade (23yr) career, the player should be able to as well. There's no true reason to limit the career save file to 10 seasons anymore with current specs of consoles and especially PC players. Maybe 20-25 seasons?
- A tad more Driver Moves (F3* > F2 > F1) *if F3 is added.
- Calendar Customization
> Let us re-order the calendar to our heart's content after at least the 1st career season
Better Engineer -- General phrase recognition, instead of hard-coded word-for-word phrase triggers
> "How're my tyres?" instead of "Tyre Status" or "When do we box?" instead of "Pit Stop Information"
- AI Engineer?
> This one might be an understandably "shaky" suggestion at best (which I entirely understand, but I do believe this could be used for good if done correctly) I do ask that you hear me out! First, to be clear, I believe Marc's voice should only be used for this if he gives permission, and if this is only used for F1 games. Secondly, this should be an opt-in feature for those that may not want to use this. Third, this is not meant to generate art or fully replace anything, just be more helpful with setups and give a more dynamic engineer experience, something different instead of the same hard-coded lines we've had for... what, fifteen years now? "We don't have the data for that request," comes up more often than not vs F1 2020 or even F1 23, so something's clearly broken with the current system in some way. Either they overhaul the current system or they throw in AI (to a reasonable extent) to make it more dynamic.
Usage Example 1 - Setups: Let's say I want to figure out why my car is wearing one side of tyres more. I could queue (cue?) up the regular/existing radio button, and say something like, "Hey, my tyres are wearing more on the left side, what changes can we make in the garage?" Then I'd get a response that would give me more detailed info as to what to change in the garage, or (maybe) even pre-set those selections for the next time I go into the garage. As the current setup screen stands, in my opinion, it doesn't do the best job at actually explaining what changes actually do. It's just "More camber raises the tyre temps and provides sharper turning." It doesn't explain whether or not it generates understeer or oversteer past certain points, or wears the tyres more or less. I can understand the general idea of what I'm being told, but I don't get the full picture. Bonus points if it taps into the telemetry of the player, since, from what I can tell, I don't think it gets much general use outside of EA Racenet and time trials. It could even make suggestions on where you could be applying brakes, throttle, turning angle, etc.
Usage Example 2 - Pit Stops: This one's a quick one, but I could again, trigger the radio and say, "I want to box on lap 25 with Hards instead of Mediums" and either it'll accept that request, or counter with something like, "We think lap 28 and Mediums is the strategy at your current pace."
Usage Example 3 - Racing Conditions: This could go a whole bunch of ways. Hypothetically, if we had something like team orders added, the engineer could come on the radio and go, "Your teammate is faster, please let them through as soon as possible," then I could counter with a whole bunch of stuff like, "Let me see if I can catch the car ahead first," "I feel like I've been faster this whole time," "Why should I let them through if I'm ahead on points?" etc. etc. and it could respond accordingly. Again, just generally a more dynamic experience.
