Info Centre news archive

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This is an archive of game news announcements from the Info Centre.

Contents

Most recent announcement

Welcome to season 38!

By Neil Vaughn**
On: 2009-09-02 05:57:06

Thanks for your patience with the restart so we could restructure the new classes properly. It looks to be a very exciting and competitive season. You should take note of a number of changes for season:

  1. Class structure has been altered to help competition and make for better racing. Don't be shocked if you are not in the class or group you were expecting to be in.
  2. Testing gains for gearbox performance have been halved. The suppliers have been adjusted to compensate. This is to correct the problem with testing gains being too high.
  3. Montreal has been removed from the test tracks as it proved to not work as intended. Instead the ‘winter testing’ track before race 1 will be Barcelona with its 3 star rating for all tests.
  4. After much debate the suppliers were finally hammered out. Hopefully they will offer multiple options and prove to make for some great racing. Please note that the new, more radical, tyres now have a performance rating that includes half point values.
  5. You can now make bids on the markets for staff members from the start of the season instead of after race 2 as in previous seasons.
  6. Design reductions have been adjusted. For this season the design loss is 10% (above the base 40) for everyone. Starting in season 39 it will be 15% for classes 1 through 3, 12.5% for C4, and 10% for C5.
  7. Practice and warm up laps have been changed by class. Classes 1 and 2 will lose 5 practice laps and 3 warm up laps, classes 3 and 4 will remain the same, and classes 5 and 6 will gain 5 laps in each session.
  8. There will be a minimum DRP of 50% in C4, 80% in C5, and for C6 DRP will be have no effect.
  9. The in & out times for the pit lanes have been reduced as last seasons slower pit speed was deemed to hurt strategy too much. In and out times are now between s37 times and those from season 36 and before.
  10. Finances have been restructured and there is no longer a qualifying bonus, just race entry and finishing position money.

Looking to the future, the new server is installed and being set up. The new server is scheduled to be used for season 39 and onwards. Have fun and race hard! The F1TIME team

2009

Reset underway, please come back in 24 hours

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-09-01 07:32:21

We are almost done, but change to a new class system is not very easy thing to do, so as much as I think everything is ok now, we gonna take another full day to test everything and retest and make sure when we reopen F1time doors to the public, all cars, garages, tracks and shoes of your pit crew are polished and shining like new. Please come back in 24 hours or follow Gaetan's updates on twitter at http://twitter.com/f1time

Reset is moved to Friday

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-08-27 06:04:27

As I am still finding few things to fix in the new system and we are still debating suppliers for the next season, I have to move reset to the weekend. This will give us couple more days cushion to finalize everything and have a proper start to season 38. Please be a little more patient and we will go racing very soon. Thank you!

Update on reset schedule

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-08-25 18:17:31

Sorry, hard to type... I will try restart today, but it will probably drag itself into Wednesday night if I am not able to finish before midnight. I have finished all changes, but I had no chance to test them due to broken arm (hairline fracture in right radius bone) while playing soccer, so will see where it gets me today. Thanks everyone for all your patience Gaetan also provides f1time updates on twitter, so if you want to follow it, here is the link: http://twitter.com/f1time

Season 38 will be here shortly!

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-08-17 20:25:20

We will take an extra week break to make sure that transition to a new class/group system is smooth and season 28 should be reset 25th of August. Hope to see you back soon!New Season

'Contact Us' Misuse

By Jon Payton
On: 2009-08-12 11:06:57

Please remember that the 'contact us' link is NOT for holiday account cover notifications or bug reports. As per the game wiki, you should sent me an ingame mail (little envelope icon top right of the screen) if you are organising holiday cover, and you should use the bugs forum to report any suspected bugs. Also, please do not request that we undo any of your game actions. F1time staff can NEVER roll-back any mistakes you have made.

Server down yesterday

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-08-01 17:01:38

Due to technical problems server was down since ~14:30 yesterday and some of you were unable to submit race orders. While if possible I would do absolutely everything possible to postpone races in case like that, unfortunate reality is that I could not do that and race results will stand. After server went down, I have tried to contact our admin, but he was gone for the day (don't blame the guy, it was friday afterall and with the nice weather outside... you get the picture) and could not get repair the server till today (around 13:00). It is still unclear what caused the problem, but the problem itself was software based - failing to load one of important operating system librariy and without it nothing was working. Again, I wish I could move races 24 hours or so, but it was not possible and once serverwas back online, races are calculated automatically in 15 minute intervals, so by the time I got online races have been calculated. It is possible to restore server to one of the backup points, but since the server was only down right before race start, everyone had plenty of time to do race orders and races were already done, I chose not to go back that far and keep race results. Please always try to do your orders before the 6 hour period, because it is not always possible to ensure that webiste will be available to you 24/7, and as Murphy says: "If things can break, they will break at the worst time possible", so give yourself a break and do orders early. Sorry for yet another problem, but that is just the way the cookie crumbles...

Season 38 Changes

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-06-19 06:21:07

Wait a second, season 37 has barely started, what’s going on? In an effort to improve F1TIME and communications with the players, we are announcing some important changes as early as possible.

New Info Centre and F1T News Over the next few weeks the Info Centre will be reworked to make it easier to communicate important information to players in a timely manner. In conjunction with this the goal is to create a separate news site for press releases and other user-generated content.

Class Structure The biggest change for season 38 will be the change in the structure of the classes. The remodel will create a 1-2-4-8-32-128 system that aims to make the climb to C1 more balanced by racing against other players more closely matched to your level. Additionally, some new options will be added to the upper classes, while the lower classes will be made a little easier for new players. As you progress you will be presented with more game options and challenges.

Finances A new financial system aimed at fixing some of the monetary imbalances in the game will be put in place. The new system aims to add some stability in the midfield.

More detailed information on these changes to follow soon.

Season 37

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-06-15 18:12:53
  • Please remember that designer does affect (Engine, Gearbox Aero and Tires) testing results, read wiki
  • In out times are longer from this season, so you may have to use different strategies from last seasons.
  • As announced, creating, joining, applying, revewing team does not cost anything from now on.
  • Number of sponsors was reduced by 1, but it is instantly modified by your C.director's "marketing" skill
  • Designer speciality skill is removed.
  • If you miss the race, it will not set you back as much as it used to. You will not gain anything in design or marketing, etc, but while your staff contracts will be reduced by 1, you will not have to pay their salaries or pay for engine, gearbo, tires.
  • At start of the season we will always have Montreal as a testing track which has the highest possible testing ratings.
  • Now you can test on any track available, even if that track if the one where you have next race.

When does the next season start?

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-06-12 17:42:30

Tonight the 36th season of f1time ends and we will crown another champion with only two contenders left, both of whom already have multiple titles under their belt. It will either be five times champ Joakim Sjöblom***** adding his first title since F1Time v2, or Neil Vaughn**, who is going after his second in a row and third in 4 seasons, but is starting as a heavy underdog. As always, you can follow the race live.

We will try another quick turnaround. Reset will be done on Sunday and you will be able to prepare for new season on Monday, then first races will run Thursday (c4) and Friday (the rest). New accounts will be approved on Sunday night.

You all know about changes in design, marketing, and there will not be any more big ones. From next season skipping a race should not hurt you as much as it does right now, and that is about the only change we plan to implement.

UPDATE Team creation/joining/renewal fees will be dropped for next season as well, so there will be no cost in participation in the team championship. Hope you all had fun this season and see you in season #37!

End of Season

By Jon Payton
On: 2009-06-11 17:55:25

Please note that with the last races of Class 4's season being run today (11th June), we will not be accepting any new accounts until the new season officially begins. You can still sign up for the game, it's just that the wait time for an account will be somewhat longer. The season end period can be anything from a few days to a few weeks, depending on what game updates are made.

Changing design and marketing orders is allowed now

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-06-04 18:13:21

In case you want to change your design or marketing orders, you can do it now. Just press "Reset all" button on those two pages and your Designer and/or Commerce Director will be ready to take new orders for the race. There is no penalty for doing it and you can do it as many times as you wish before offices close.

New Live Race (RC1)

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-05-03 04:08:07

Welcome to new Live race page. (yes, you may need to hit F5 couple times to make it work).

This is first iteration of many future updates that are planned to the viewer, but what you see now is the first step forward.

  • updated layout
  • cars moving vertically again as in v1
  • and most importantly - chat - that is not based on irc, etc, but simple ajax web chat that can not be blocked by any firewall, so free to use at work, school, home, internet cafe, bar, girlfriend's/boyfriend's place, etc... (of course make sure you finish your work, homework, coffee, beer, [....], etc. before you start chatting :), you have been warned... )

Here are few other things worth to mention:

  • nickname currently is your login (not very secure, so please go to your settings page and change it (max 12 symbols)
  • when you open window,you get last 20 messages
  • it updates chat every 2 seconds, if you spam or misbehave, we will find you and can act on it, so be nice please.
  • you have to login in order to post messages

I think that is it for "Appetizer", stay tuned for "Soup" as I am sure this meal will be server in more than 7 dishes :) as always, your suggestions as welcome and very appreciated, but I have no illusions - it will be impossible to satisfy all of you, so be patient if your ideas are put on the backburner... You can discuss in forum

Designers and C.Directors now accept your offers

By Tadas Bubelevičius
on: 2009-04-27 18:51:45

Both Designers and C.Directors now can accept your offers and you can start bidding.

Please note few things:

  • Start contract immediately option does not work yet, will be enabled starting next season.
  • After you submit your offers, do not forget to rank them from the "Offers" page
  • Report anything strange in bugs forum.

Server down, no bunny found, better times ahead

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-04-24 21:49:07

Server hiccups continue, Easter bunny has nothing to do with it this time :) and now it has became an annoying routine for everyone. It went down this morning and came back online just about an hour ago, which made me stop races and postpone everything yet again for couple days.

Whole network went down for almost full day today and it wasn't just f1time server that was down. Unfortunately there is nothing positive in these server downtimes and although every time there is an excuse that I can offer why this or that happened, that is not what should be offered to you instead of stable gaming environment.

For couple weeks now I have been working on an alternative that would be quite costly, but would allow the game to function with its' intended uptime. This commercial hosting solution will be ready in a month or so and while initial target is start of next season, there is still quite a bit of work to be done in server setup and testing (making sure that everything works as it should), so I can not make any firm promises and give you dates at the moment, but most likely we will have a bit longer break between seasons next time. If you want, you can always chip in for new server by becoming supporter, if not, no one can blame you after today and I still thank you for your moral support, patience and commitment to the game.

Tadas

The Easter Bunny hid the server

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-04-15 05:01:37

Well, not quite, but unfortunately there was no F1TIME to be found during the past weekend. On the verge of a very promising season this was terrible timing. What was supposed to be a six hour maintenance job turned into three days as the server administrator went on an Easter holiday with F1T still down. I can only offer my apologies to all and say that we are looking at alternative solutions so this does not happen again.

As a token of appreciation to all, the Easter Bunny did leave chocolate supporter eggs for everyone to enjoy. Please accept two weeks of free support status.

As promised the test tracks (A1 Ring, Nurburgring, Hungaroring, and Brands Hatch) will remain as they are for the first two races which means the test tracks will rotate on Tuesdays for this season and not Fridays.

We hope that veteran and new players alike will forgive this hiccup and continue to enjoy F1T as we aim to continually improve it.

Thanks,

Tadas and the F1T crew

What to expect from a new season

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-03-31 19:01:50

Now that season #35 is in the books and we have crowned first double champion of F1Time since it got a huge face lift in 2006 (it is Neil Vaughn** if anyone missed it), let's take a quick look at what is ahead in season #36.

  1. Designer and Commerce director market will become global. You will be able to offer 3 season contracts to them, but will have to compete with hundreds of other managers.
  2. Number of advertising spots on your car will go down by 1 at the end of the season #36, do not panic, read #4.
  3. Designers will get 4 new attributes rated in a 5 star system: "Aero", "Body", "Engine", "GB & hydraulics". The higher the star rating, the better designer will perform in improving that specific area of your car. 5 stars will represent 100% of current car improvement level, while 4 stars will be 85% of current level, 3=70%, 2=55%, 1=40%. Designers will receive those attributes between seasons, but they will only start working in season #37.
  4. Commerce Directors will get 4 new attributes, some rated in a 5 star system: "initial offer", "client relations", "marketing", "contract offers". Initial offer will be less random now and will depend more on a CD "initial offer" skill. "client relations" will influence patience during negotiation phase - smaller chance of sponsor cancelling negotiations and less penalty for altering initial contract. terms. "Marketing" will add 0-3 advertising spots to your car at the time of signing sponsor to a contract (so you can keep sponsors even after sponsor leaves if you have that sponsor signed already). "contract offers" shows how many offers you will get per race from this CD (1 to 3 per race).
  5. After season restart, before race 1, you will be able to buy your parts without any time penalty, so you will not have to "build" them and wait for next race, but can just buy them as designed. This is very important for those promoting from C4 to C3 as otherwise they would have to compete with their 40 efficiency parts for the first race. This also allows everyone else to quick fix their cars for the first of the season at no performance cost.
  6. Server was down almost all weekend, because it takes a ton of time to backup all f1time data (each race is split into ~500 minute by minute files) and with more than 10.000 races already done, backing up all of them is no quick task, so in fact, we did not have enough time to perform upgrades last weekend and some were postponed, I will be a bit more proactive this time and will help admin with backup procedure, which hopefully means that upgrade will be done much faster this time and downtime will be much shorter. The good thing is that we will have season break at that time, so no one will miss races or have to rush their orders in last minute.
  7. If #6 is successful, season reset will happen on 5th of April and first race of the season 9th of April (or 10th for Class 1-3).

Server down, attention all stations...

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-03-30 14:52:29

As some may have noticed, on a really poor timing judgement, server was down since Saturday night and upgrades were finished only this morning. There wasn't enough time left for many of you to prepare for Monday's races. I have postponed today's races and everyone is given a fair chance to qualify for the race. I have used full database backup from earlier today (taken 13:59) so a little bit of your work and few laps may be lost, but can actually get more time to get things done for the next race. And that time comes from 24 hours postponed races for all Class 4. So tomorrow races will run for all classes, check your league page for updated schedule in a minute or two. If you were affected somehow by the database backup restore, please send me a private message explaining your case and I will address it with urgency it deserves. Please accept my apologies for this downtime. which really should be much shorter in the future and should have happened last weekend anyway.

Expected downtime on weekend

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-03-20 18:07:42

Due to maintenance and upgrades on weekend, server may be unavailable Saturday 12:00 to Sunday morning, please plan your race orders according to this schedule.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause to your weekend plans.

Server down, attention all stations...

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-03-09 15:17:00

Server went down on Sunday 11:04 and we were only able to get it up this afternoon (13:55), so there is really not much time left for many of you to prepare for Monday's races. Some cars in class 4 were already on the grid and ready to start racing, so I have made sure their races are postponed and everyone is given a fair chance to qualify for the race. I have used full database backup from earlier today (taken 13:00) so an hour or even two of your precious work may be lost, but please look at the bright side of life - you can actually get more time to get things done for the next race. And that time comes from 24 hours postponed races for all Class 4. So tomorrow races will run for all classes, check your league page for updated schedule in a minute or two.

If you were affected somehow by the database backup restore, please send me a private message explaining your case and I will address it with urgency it deserves.

Please accept my apologies for this downtime.

Important News

By Jon Payton
On: 2009-03-06 15:10:50

After a recent investigation, we have today taken the steps of locking the accounts of 2 leading F1time players. They were found to have been manipulating urls in order to gain access to an area of the forum which they have no rights to view. This is a significant breach of trust and cannot be allowed to continue. We believe the loophole they were using has now been closed, but if anyone else is found to be attempting the same trick they will have their accounts locked immediately.

Site updates, just hit refresh... :)

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2009-02-16 03:10:15

Recently there were few visual changes in F1Time and they may cause some inconvenience while browsing some pages. If you get an annoying popup telling you current time, or if something is not showing right, do not worry, just clean your browser's cache (to update *.css and *.js files) or same thing can be achieved by refreshing page with CTRL+F5.

Also "mailinglist" feature was added few days ago to the updated mailing page, which allows you to quickly send in game messages to predefined list of recipients (like your friends, buddies, neighbours or just some one you know), please read instructions on how to create and use mailinglist on "create new mailinglist" page

Also note, that you can configure RSS feed and "news ticker" (last 15 things that happened in F1time and that may be relevant to you) on your "settings" page.

And remember to submit your designs for the F1T shirt design contest! (there WILL be prizes!)

Sorry if any of this caused any headaches.

Welcome to season 35

By Neil Vaughn*
On: 2009-01-27 06:39:18

Welcome back for another exciting season of racing in F1TIME. With the reset done, the first races will begin on Monday, February 2nd. For the most part, game play has not changed, but there are a few changes to take note of.

C4 has undergone the biggest change to make it easier for new managers and those restarting versus managers with many seasons of design. When you race in C4 now you will only be able to buy, not produce parts, and they will all be at the default level for efficiency, cost and weight. If you elect to run parts you already have, they will also count as default parts. This will ensure a level playing field for all those starting in C4. However, you will be able to work on your design and prepare for c3 promotion where you will be able to use your fully designed parts in the race.

In addition to the design change, DRP for the race in C4 will always be 100% to help new managers adjust to finding out how DRP works, but not to punish them for failing to do so in their first races. DRP distribution and percentage will still count in practice, warm up, and more importantly qualifying, so make the best of your practice laps.

The next most noticeable changes affect suppliers. The changes to suppliers are as follow:

  1. C4 has only one supplier per type to make it more level.
  2. Tyre supplier wear rates are now visible, instead of a rating such as medium, and some wear rates are now non-integer values. E.g. Bridgestone tyres are 1.75 wear now versus 2 previously.
  3. C1 and C2 now share the same suppliers to help balancing of the suppliers.

When buying parts from the market, you will now notice they are cheaper, as originally intended, so that managers with negative balances can purchase cheaper parts. The parts are still less efficient and heavier (by 5%) than their counterparts that your team can make though.

Enjoy the new season and remember to submit your designs for the F1T shirt contest! (there WILL be prizes!)

Season 35 coming...

By Tadas Bubelevičius
2009-01-26 06:10:45

...early morning 27th of January, 2009, after the remaining few changes are done. The season restart should be completed late evening tomorrow (EST), and the first races will run Monday and Tuesday.

While you are waiting, put your talent to work to and help create a new F1TIME shirt. For full details see the forums...

End of Season

By Jon Payton
2009-01-19 17:30:41

For anyone currently on the waiting list, or anyone signing up over the next week or so - we are coming to the end of a season, the last races of this season will be run tomorrow, and the season has already finished in many of the entry-level groups. This means that we will not be creating any new accounts for a little while. It will be roughly a week from today before we start to allow new accounts again.

Contact Us

By Jon Payton
2009-01-16 17:23:04

This is becoming increasingly misused, please remember the following:

  1. ONLY use English, as I deal with most enquiries.
  2. Do not use it to report bugs, you must use the forum for that.
  3. Please stop asking to move groups to be with your mates, the answer is ALWAYS no.
  4. Use 'contact us' for issues with your account, or anything you want to flag up for all admins (suspected cheating, fake names, etc). Anything gameplay related should be discussed in the forums.

2008

The F1TIME wiki is born!

By Tadas Bubelevičius
2008-12-22 04:40:46

Welcome to the newest addition to F1TIME, a new wiki (http://www.f1time.com/wiki/) designed to help ensure game rules and information is up to date and current. The wiki will be home to the rules, guide, FAQ, game play overview and much more. By using a wiki it will be easier to keep rules up to date and add useful information that is currently missing from the documentation. It will also act as a permanent repository for manager statistics and strategy guides that are currently scattered about the forums.

The wiki will initially be restricted to a handful of managers for editing, but all will be able to contribute to the discussion pages to help point out omissions or make suggestions for other additions.

It is still work in progress, as we also hope to begin translating the wiki, especially the rules, into as many languages as possible. By using the wiki, it will be easier for the language Admins to track rule changes and in turn keep the rules up to date in all languages.

We hope you enjoy the new wiki, F1T team

[1]

Designers and C.Directors negotiate new deal

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2008-12-02 07:47:45

Removing underbidding, has hurt best designers and commerce directors (Ds and CDs), who felt that they may be left without jobs in these tough economic times due to inflated salaries and collapsing financial markets. These F1TIME Senior Staff Labor Union (F1TSSLU) leaders were so upset that they decided to go on strike, which is why F1T was unavailable most of the weekend. After intense negotiations and few sleepless nights, an agreement has been reached between F1T.I.A. and F1TSSLU representatives that satisfied both sides. Minimum asking salary for Ds and CDs was reduced from new levels introduced earlier this season, but they will be higher than previously accepted under "underbidding" conditions. F1T.I.A. and F1TSSLU agreed to monitor situation in the market and revisit matter after Season 36 if necessary. Also was agreed to skip one market and only run Wednesday's market instead.

Season (re)start

By Tadas Bubelevičius
On: 2008-11-18 20:29:52

Another season ended and another new champion has been crowned, congratulations everyone who did well and pat on the back for good effort everyone else!

Since there are no new features planned this time, we will try a very quick turnaround (why wait?), reset should happen tomorrow (Wednesday) and first race of next season will be races on Monday, 24th November, 2008.

Of course, during season some enhancements are planned, but more about that when it happens (those are not features, or changes). Also note, that from start of season 36 (most probably) designer and commerce director markets will be global (every staff member will be open to sign by anyone), and both designer and c.director will gain some new attributes.

In recent weeks there was some effort to clean up layout and F1T looks, sorry for inconvenience that was caused as some changes made into game a bit premature and had to be cleaned up on live environment, but now that I am well into this process, I can review each page, make them a bit more usable and present some more data. Your feedback as always is much appreciated and if you have suggestions, they are very welcome!

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