Haraba wrote:Hi I saw this and thought it looked kinda cool, how exactly does this stuff work? I'm genuinely interested.
Hi, Haraba! I assume that you're new to the NS Sports forum in general, since this is your first post; this is going to get a little complicated, so bear with me!
The WGPO, or World Grand Prix Organisation, can refer to both the group of users on NationStates responsible for running single-seater formula racing competitions (in the style of Formula 1, Formula 2 and so on) and the group of governing bodies, racing teams and drivers responsible for running single-seater formula racing competitions by the logic of the universe that those users have created.
To be more detailed about it: each year we collectively run two seasons: the WGPC, or World Grand Prix Championships, which is our equivalent of Formula 1, and the WGP2, or World Grand Prix Two, our equivalent of Formula 2. In each, someone is appointed to host the tournament (these days it's normally Audioslavia, though we're trying to divest much of his responsibility at the moment since it's a significant amount of work). Any user, new or not, is permitted to enter up to two drivers; meanwhile, the host selects about ten to a dozen teams normally entered by users with past experience (Sometimes particularly good team submissions from new users will be accepted too - that's how I got my start, actually!). There's then a period in which drivers compete to be offered drives with various teams; sometimes a driver is already signed to a team from the previous season, sometimes users will arrange things via telegram and then roleplay out the agreement, sometimes teams offer time trials to determine who they'll offer drives to and often recruitment will take the form of last-minute arrangements to make sure that a team has a full roster before racing begins! Of course, real life happens too and teams or, more often, drivers drop out mid-season, so there will be a few who join in later (like Jessica Franssen three years ago, Jean Mercer-Daly two years ago or Drake Stevenson in this WGPC season).
At this point, I should explain how the races are done! Circuits are also submitted and selected by the host before the season begins, each with certain characteristics represented by statistics attached to them by their creators. Teams and drivers also have their own statistics, known as 'RATings' because they list a team or driver's Reliability, Acceleration/Aggressiveness and Turning/Technical Ability. All of these come into play during races. Each one features practice, qualifying and race sessions just like Formula 1 (though qualifying types vary a little). To simulate these, the host runs a programme or, in our case, a spreadsheet known on NS Sports as a 'scorinator' designed to produce an outcome for each of these events semi-randomly. I say semi-randomly because the outcome of each practice, qualifying or race session is not fixed when the spreadsheet is activated but can be influenced. Remember those statistics? A circuit with lots of long straights and sweeping corners is going to favour the teams with cars that have a good Acceleration stat and drivers with a good Aggressiveness stat; drivers and teams with good Technical Ability and Turning stats, meanwhile, do better on twistier, more complex circuits. Reliability, meanwhile, reduces how prone a driver or team is to making mistakes on track or mechanical failure, represented in the scorinator by random losses or time or dropping out of the race entirely. There's also another factor involved: RP bonus, which is a hidden score that the host sets for how well they judge a user has roleplayed between each race which affects that user's team and driver(s). Altogether, the system is predictable enough for teams and drivers to consistently do better under certain conditions than others and for the characters whose users are roleplaying consistently and weaving entertaining stories to come out on top generally but unpredictable enough to create intrigue and drama much like a real racing season would ideally have!
After each race, the results are scored and each team and driver gets points towards the overall season and, after the final race, a Drivers' Champion and Constructors' Champion are crowned, just like a real racing season!
There's also WGP3, which is a far broader and more individual set of tournaments. Essentially, the scorinator for WGPC and WGP2 has been made available for general use and, as such, anyone who would like to can run their own regional competition, like junior single-seater racing categories. These are a significant undertaking, though, so if you'd like to get involved I would suggest doing one of two things. Firstly, the next WGP2 season will be starting relatively soon (the previous one started in July last year), so you'd be more than welcome to wait for a bit and submit a driver for that and a team as well if you're up for it! WGP2 tends to be a bit less competitive than the WGPC, so it's an excellent place to start. On the other hand, if you really can't wait and can find a team willing to swap out a driver for you, you could submit a driver for the current WGPC season; there are only four races left, so you're unlikely to win anything, but on the other hand there have been latecomers who have done very well in the WGPC! Either way would be awesome and I'd love to see you get involved!
Looks like the biggest mistake of Terho's racing career was abandoning ole iBen!
still not done yet tho oops
