Cars and rules for 2025

[Duplode]

Increasing the number of cars per season would have systemic effects that should be accounted for. Here are some of them, in decreasing order of how likely I think they are to become a problem:

• We already have more cars than tracks in a season. As things stand, custom cars have a fair chance of being featured in the season they are introduced (number of custom cars that won races in the past five seasons: 3, 3, 2, 4 and 4). An increase in the number of available cars could make it much harder for each individual one, cancelling out the intended effect of the change.
• More cars per season means more ambiguity and more time required for exploring the possibilities, which in a way would increase the difficulty of the competition.
• Additional cars would lead to more bonus points being redistributed after each race, pulling the bonuses further apart from each other, which in the long run leads to fewer multi-car races. That might not be a big problem in this case, though, as the effect of an extra two or four points being redistributed could well be quite modest.

If we were to remove a couple of original cars for a year, which one would you pick?

Always on a rotating schedule, as none of the original cars deserves an extended ban:

• One of the four powergear cars, to ease the PG pressure on track designers, going through all of them in a four-year cycle;
• One among the seven other cars. For this pick, prioritise cars with low bonuses relative to their balanced values, so that ideally the excluded car would be unlikely to feature in the season anyway, and go through all possibilities in a seven-year cycle. When it's time to bring back this non-PG car, it could make sense to do so with +12% on the coefficient it had at the time it was excluded.

[alanrotoi]

If we were to remove a couple of original cars for a year, which one would you pick?

I'm against removing original cars. We play the original game plus our tracks and custom cars.

What we could do is to add a couple of cars, that would be good this year or the next, no rush.
You know I love custom cars but more than 7 custom cars would be too much. Remember custom cars are know only for member of the community. If somebody comes from the outside it could be hard to learn about new and different cars and it could be an excuse to leave. Also having many cars would be hard not only for newcommers but for most of us at the time to choose the correct car for every race. 11 original cars + 7 = 18 cars looks like a good maximum number.

Again, no rush dreadnaut, the cars will stay here.

[Spoonboy]

Remember custom cars are know only for member of the community. If somebody comes from the outside it could be hard to learn about new and different cars and it could be an excuse to leave.

This is a good point, and is the most worrying aspect of adding more cars, of all mentioned so far. @Duplode's points are also worth considering.
I'd also agree that removing original cars would go against what we are all here for - celebrating Stunts!

However, for me one of the upsides of including custom cars is that it provides a showcase for all the work the authors put in to them.
It could be argued that a series like R4K gives a good spotlight to any custom car being raced, as everyone is driving the same car. However, participation is higher in ZakStunts, so an included custom car has the potential to be tried by more drivers.
Increasing the number allowed by 1-2 (and varying the garage each season as we do), would hopefully provide a little extra exposure without disrupting the season mechanics too much.

[Spoonboy]

I would also add that I would be happy to keep the number of custom cars the same, if we don't want to risk causing problems.

But in any case, we should keep the custom list well refreshed each season, and aim to include 'new' additions as well as established favourite custom cars.
(A slightly increased allowance for them would help with this, but I won't labour the point!).

With this in mind, we of course need to make sure new additions are well tested before allowing into the arena. Trying them out in other series such as R4K works well.
But I suggest we could think about a more organised test program. The aim would be to assess a new cars' performance, abilities and possible quirks, with an eye on how suitable it would be for each series.
I'd be interested to hear thoughts on this, and would be happy to be a part of such a program if we thought it would be useful. As you can guess, testing new cars in Stunts is one of my favourite activities!

[dreadnaut]

Thanks all for you thoughts and reasonings! It's tricky to balance ZakStunts as a conservative/old-school competition, while keeping things fresh.

I would be OK with rotating one or two original cars out for a year to make space for custom ones, while I think 18 cars is too many for 12 races, with many cars ending up unused or, somehow worse, piling up at the top of the bonus chart without receiving the love they deserve.

Let's stick to 11+5 then. Proposals earlier in this thread seem to include 2 custom cars from past seasons, and three new entries. We could also go for 1+4, but I'm happy to leave a wider range of cars to R4K and CCC, to differentiate the competitions

[Cas]

Yeah... it's a wild idea, I know. And all the points Duplode made at the beginning are very true. To the question of which two original cars I'd remove... it's hard. I could say the Lambo and the Acura because they are the two that I find the hardest to race with, but they do have a lot of personality.

Now, this is just brainstorming: there are other crazy ideas that could be used instead to add more cars without having the same impact. Like... say a system of 11 original and 11 custom in which each custom car is tied to an original car. Then, when one of the two cars goes up or down, the other one goes with it too. So bonuses would be applied to the "car team" instead of the individual cars.

All that said, I'm completely fine with the current system. I'm just trying to bring ideas and maybe they inspire other completely different ones, I don't know

[Overdrijf]

Always on a rotating schedule, as none of the original cars deserves an extended ban:

• One of the four powergear cars, to ease the PG pressure on track designers, going through all of them in a four-year cycle;
• One among the seven other cars. For this pick, prioritise cars with low bonuses relative to their balanced values, so that ideally the excluded car would be unlikely to feature in the season anyway, and go through all possibilities in a seven-year cycle. When it's time to bring back this non-PG car, it could make sense to do so with +12% on the coefficient it had at the time it was excluded.

Interesting proposal. Leaving original cars out was not something I was going to suggest, but I'm also not against it. It could lead to a more balanced field of cars. And this distinction between PG cars and others does make sense.

I would maybe make an exception for the Indy, with it kind of being THE car, the icon of the game. On the other hand of course, it's also the biggest powergear bully and victory thief.

As for the idea of "take away a car that has a low bonus anyway", I'm arriving at the same point through a different route. I think it's good to at least take a car that had a victory in the last season, preferably a full race of people using it. Maybe even give it some extra bonus the next season so it will see use in that one as well.

[Duplode]

Interesting proposal. Leaving original cars out was not something I was going to suggest, but I'm also not against it. It could lead to a more balanced field of cars. And this distinction between PG cars and others does make sense.

An alternative to outright leaving out a pair of original cars each season would be giving them a -11% penalty, effectively pushing them back one year in the rotation. That way, while they would most likely be uncompetitive for the season, people would still be able to race them for fun and have it show on the scoreboard. The 22 subtracted points could be redistributed by adding +1% to the other sixteen cars (assuming two additional custom cars would be included) and spreading the remaining six points across newly introduced or reintroduced custom cars (whose initial percentages have a fudge factor anyway). The selection of the cars to be penalised could be done as in my earlier suggestion (one PG and one non-PG, going through all original cars on a strict rotation with periods of four years and seven years respectively, prioritising cars with weak bonuses whenever feasible).

[Argammon]

Interesting proposal. Leaving original cars out was not something I was going to suggest, but I'm also not against it. It could lead to a more balanced field of cars. And this distinction between PG cars and others does make sense.

An alternative to outright leaving out a pair of original cars each season would be giving them a -11% penalty, effectively pushing them back one year in the rotation. That way, while they would most likely be uncompetitive for the season, people would still be able to race them for fun and have it show on the scoreboard. The 22 subtracted points could be redistributed by adding +1% to the other sixteen cars (assuming two additional custom cars would be included) and spreading the remaining six points across newly introduced or reintroduced custom cars (whose initial percentages have a fudge factor anyway). The selection of the cars to be penalised could be done as in my earlier suggestion (one PG and one non-PG, going through all original cars on a strict rotation with periods of four years and seven years respectively, prioritising cars with weak bonuses whenever feasible).

I wouldn't mind leaving the rules as they are with respect to the cars. Were we to follow your proposal, I would suggest giving the 11% penalty to cars that won 2 or more races in the previous season. This would hit the Jaguar and the Indy in the current situation.

[Duplode]

These are the coefficients I'd suggest for my second list:



The approach was the same from last year: start from the bonuses after ZCT281, guess neutral to slightly favourable bonuses for the new and returning cars, then tweak the values to keep the total sum at 176. The spreadsheet is attached for trying it with different cars or adjustments.

I wouldn't mind leaving the rules as they are with respect to the cars. Were we to follow your proposal, I would suggest giving the 11% penalty to cars that won 2 or more races in the previous season. This would hit the Jaguar and the Indy in the current situation.

I don't mind sticking with 11 + 5 for 2025 either; that was mostly brainstorming about things we might do in a future season. Targeting cars that win multiple races could lead to a vicious circle, in which split podiums and surprise wins bounce away the same car repeatedly. A rigid cycle seems less risky in this aspect, and the results shouldn't be too different, at least for the first several seasons, if cars with weak bonuses are the first to be targeted. (For instance, going by my criteria Indy and Jaguar would be the current picks as well.)

[Overdrijf]

An alternative to outright leaving out a pair of original cars each season would be giving them a -11% penalty, effectively pushing them back one year in the rotation. That way, while they would most likely be uncompetitive for the season, people would still be able to race them for fun and have it show on the scoreboard. The 22 subtracted points could be redistributed by adding +1% to the other sixteen cars (assuming two additional custom cars would be included) and spreading the remaining six points across newly introduced or reintroduced custom cars (whose initial percentages have a fudge factor anyway). The selection of the cars to be penalised could be done as in my earlier suggestion (one PG and one non-PG, going through all original cars on a strict rotation with periods of four years and seven years respectively, prioritising cars with weak bonuses whenever feasible).

At that point though, why not just leave all the cars in and let luck sort out which get used? Just give the custom cars that might be gone after a year a high enough bonus to see use.

[dreadnaut]

I think too many options each race could be quite draining, or the initial bonus would have to be high enough to decide the cars half of the season.

Anyway, I'm thinking of going with a standard 11 + 5, and try to get PTB-264. It might not be ready today, but the calculations will be retroactive 😅

[Argammon]

These are the coefficients I'd suggest for my second list:



The approach was the same from last year: start from the bonuses after ZCT281, guess neutral to slightly favourable bonuses for the new and returning cars, then tweak the values to keep the total sum at 176. The spreadsheet is attached for trying it with different cars or adjustments.

I wouldn't mind leaving the rules as they are with respect to the cars. Were we to follow your proposal, I would suggest giving the 11% penalty to cars that won 2 or more races in the previous season. This would hit the Jaguar and the Indy in the current situation.

I don't mind sticking with 11 + 5 for 2025 either; that was mostly brainstorming about things we might do in a future season. Targeting cars that win multiple races could lead to a vicious circle, in which split podiums and surprise wins bounce away the same car repeatedly. A rigid cycle seems less risky in this aspect, and the results shouldn't be too different, at least for the first several seasons, if cars with weak bonuses are the first to be targeted. (For instance, going by my criteria Indy and Jaguar would be the current picks as well.)

I think the value for the Oxia is too high. Yes, it has a little less grip than the Mercedes but has faster acceleration and a higher top speed. I wouldn't be surprised if the Oxia beats the Mercedes on most tracks if they have equal bonuses. Given the other numbers, I would suggest +2 as a starting bonus for the Oxia. 

[Cas]

I have another idea... not to be applied now, of course... but there is a way in which you can add more cars without causing any problems to the bonuses and without removing original cars.

You'd have the normal 11 + 5 and, in addition to that, you create a queue of up to 11 "replacement" cars. When a car hits the top 1 position in a race, in addition to the normal bonus impact, the car is removed from the the list for the rest of the season and the first car from the queue is pushed into with a predefined starting bonus. This way, every winner car would be removed for every race. You don't need to have a replacement car for each race. Cars available can be less than 16.

[Duplode]

I think the value for the Oxia is too high. Yes, it has a little less grip than the Mercedes but has faster acceleration and a higher top speed. I wouldn't be surprised if the Oxia beats the Mercedes on most tracks if they have equal bonuses. Given the other numbers, I would suggest +2 as a starting bonus for the Oxia. 

The grip advantage of the Mercedes is very significant. I have done the "standard" test on Default with both cars, and the Oxia is slightly slower, with the difference in the order of one second. That being so, a difference of 1-2% in favour of the Oxia is reasonable as a starting value.