Driver Development and Progression
Before getting into how the new driver progression system works, first lets chat about what Skills ratings a driver has.
Every driver has 5 core skills. Cornering (how fast a driver can take a corner), Braking (how much brake pressure they can apply without locking up), Focus (how well they avoid mistakes), Smoothness (how well they can manage the tires), and Racecraft (affects cornering ability when driving side-by-side with another driver).
Previously, these skill ratings updated automatically in the background, depending on the driver's experience and age. Now, drivers will earn XP to level up. XP is earned with good results, clean laps, as well as in-game events.
When drivers level up, they can select from 1 of 3 Perks. A perk might be a simple boost to one of your skills, a modifier to your Popularity or XP gain rate, or a Trait! To start, there are 9 Traits you can choose from:
- Quick Study: +20% XP gain rate
- Headliner: +1.0 Influence for every race rated 8.0 or better
- Fast Starter: +5 Cornering on the first lap
- Strong Finisher: +5 Cornering on the final lap
- Qualifying Specialist: +5 Cornering in during Qualifying sessions
- Last of the Late Brakers: +15 Braking within 10m of the car ahead
- Swagger: +1 Cornering per Influence held (up to 5)
- Reframe Artist: Poor results reduce Performance Rating by 20% less than normal
- Engineering Mind: +50% Tech Points earned (Tech Points are used to upgrade the team's car)
New Messages and Articles
In Career Mode, there are now several new conversation options to influence how the motorsport world around you evolves!
- Select Team Research Focus: At the start of each year, your engineer will let you know how the team plans to allocate their Tech Points for the year to develop the car. You can spend 3 Influence to change this allocation (or spend 5 influence to change it during the middle of the season).
- Performance Rank Change Article: Every time your performance rank changes (from Bronze -> Silver, for example), the press will write a brief article. The article content depends on your age (<25, 25-34, or 35+), your new performance rank, and if it increased or decreased. There are 72 permutations. I wrote all 72 articles (as with everything in the game) by hand. So please read them!
- Advocate for Driver: You can increase a Team Principal's opinion of a given driver by advocating for them. Useful if you want to influence who they may sign without spending too much influence.
- Recommend Signing: Or you can be more direct and suggest they sign a driver. This requires a good relationship with the Team Principal. You can even spend influence to insist they send them an offer!
- Request Seat: OR you can directly ask to be signed to the Team Principal's team, which also requires a strong relationship. And again, with enough influence, you can insist they send an offer.
- Mentorship: You can ask any driver who is at least 8 years older than you to "mentor" you. With enough influence, they will improve your potential rating for whatever Skill they are best at.
While there's still much more to come from the Influence, Messages, and Media systems, this update is a huge step towards the vision of "Influence allowing the player to enact their will on the paddock".
More Natural Mistakes
I heard consistently that mistakes felt "too punishing", and I agreed. Making a mistake in Throttle Trace was like toggling a switch. You go too fast for too long, you flip into a "mistake state" and run wide/crash into a barrier/wreck your teammate. Small mistakes felt like they had outsized consequences.
No longer! Gone is the "Control" meter. Instead, when you go too fast, you'll still have control of your speed while you're running wide. This allow you to recover from mistake much more naturally. You'll see that the lines you take from going too fast are much more varied, and not all of them will result in you going fully off the track.
IRL Vroomula 1 World Champion
We have just concluded our inaugural season of the IRL Vroomula 1 World Championship! This is a league we organize in the Discord, and where many of the top Throttle Trace players compete each month for the title of Best Throttle Trace Player in the World.
Congratulations to Domas for winning Season 1! It was a tight battle with Helios that came down to the final round, where a clutch Fastest Lap point secured the championship.
