Welcome to the Nexus Racing Driver Academy Series! A fundamental part of the Nimban team’s new driver academy programme intended to take the most promising young drivers under its wings, this is the place where they will be given most chance to soar, proving their mettle in racecraft and development away from the eyes of the world – though, for all the team’s assurances, Nexus Racing do have a WGP2 seat open…
The series will be entirely run at Crossbay Circuit, home to Nexus Racing’s headquarters and the Nimban Grand Prix, in copies of the Ultra High Speed Ground Vehicle Four that challenged in the eighteenth World Grand Prix Championships, each with its power curtailed to WGP3 speeds. Throughout, drivers will be offered the opportunity to work with personnel in the team on their various projects, which will then be applied to their own cars, allowing them to get to grips with Nexus Racing’s cycle and philosophy of development. In-universe, the series’ five races will have begun some time late last year and take place across two or three months; in real time, though, I intend to have it start on the coming Sunday and be wrapped up within a couple of weeks, to finish before the start of the WGP2 season. Don’t worry overmuch about cramming RP into this timeframe; RP bonus won’t be applied to the series to avoid incentivising just that!
Please be aware that each user may only submit one driver and only a small group of drivers will be invited to join the academy; submitting a well-written profile about an interesting character will elevate their chances of being one of the select few! Please don’t submit any drivers from real life (though pastiche and parody are valid choices).
If this is your first time learning about WGP racing, welcome! There’s plenty of information below to help you get started, even if this might be something of an intense introduction! If you’re a veteran of NS Sports or have even been in the WGPC or WGP2 before but fell off the radar, welcome back; it’s great to have you here. And if you’re a committed WGPer, thank you for keeping this place thriving. You can find all of the information relevant to roleplaying here below, whereas everything you need to submit a driver is just past that. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask here or send me a telegram!
For the roleplay and scorination of the Nexus Racing Driver Academy series, please visit this thread!
The season will contain five races, run for a period of two weeks IRL from Sunday the 24th onwards, so as to finish before the coming WGP2 season; in-character, this will represent a period closer to two months in time.
Between races, drivers will work with different Nexus Racing personnel to develop new systems and improve their cars. This will be represented as a choice between different statistical modifiers, each of which will be applied after a certain number of races and some of which may carry the risk of taking longer even than that. Be warned that your driver can only focus on one project at once; while they can choose to abandon a project halfway through, they will not have the resulting improvements applied to their car if they do so.For an overview of Nexus Racing, you can check out their NationStates Sports Wiki page here!The UHSGV-4, known by its nickname of ‘Chase Cutter’ like its predecessors, is near-universally recognised as the most technologically advanced and radical car in current WGP racing (a title that will almost certainly be claimed by the cars resulting from this series). Driving it, despite its numerous driver aids, is also considered one of the toughest challenges in WGP racing by virtue of its unusual characteristics in comparison to most cars. Needless to say, even the underpowered versions used in this series will be difficult to master.Below is a list of its myriad features!
Powertrain: Nexus Racing consistently possesses the most powerful car on the WGPC grid; though the UHSGV-4’s power will be proportionally reduced for the Driver Academy series, its powertrain remains the most integral part of the car’s conception and design.
- Paragon Warp Imagination Convertor Array Nexus Racing’s UHSGVs produce their power by running orbs of Imagination, a psionic power source unique to the Nexus Wardship, through an Imagination convertor array, machinery that emulates the brain functions required to conceptualise its use. Two of the convertors are Imagikinetic, directly applying force to the entirety of the car to push it along (one straight forwards, one in the direction of the front wheels); one is Imagielectric, producing electrical energy that powers four motors, one for each axle; and one is Imagithermal, regulating the temperature of the car’s tyres. As a side-effect of its use, the Imagination causes the car to shine a bright sky blue when the array is active. The array as a whole is cooled and protected by a large radiator that encompasses it. Recent improvements to the convertors’ coding have allowed the Imagikinetic convertors’ force to be directed diagonally downwards whenever it is not wholly needed for acceleration (Imagikinetic Downthrust/Impulse Substitution, or ‘IDIS’) and for the array in either of the team’s cars to apply some or all of its effects to the other car, providing it a temporary boost (Imagination Convertor Array Shared Thrust, or ‘ICAST’), though the latter of these will be unavailable during the Driver Academy Series.
- Waste Kinetic Energy Recycler System (WKERS) Nexus Racing have utilised brake regeneration technology since their first entry into the WGPC, taking advantage of nanocapacitor technology from Krypton Nova rather than a heavier flywheel-based design.
- Photovoltaic Paint Introduced in WGP2 II, the paint coating Nexus Racing’s Chase Cutters harvests electrical energy from the light hitting the car, incorporating perovskite to widen the spectrum that it is able to convert.
Tyres and Suspension: The rubber on the track is arguably the most important factor in determining a car’s performance. Nexus Racing’s close partnership with In Motion, a small start-up from the Wardship’s First City, means that they can innovate on and optimise that to their hearts’ contents – and they very much have and do.
- Eight 595 mm In Motion cambered tyres Nexus Racing have used an eight-wheeled chassis since WGP2 III, running on wheels smaller than most other WGP cars, which offers more grip than a standard four-wheeled layout at the cost of additional complexity and weight. In addition to this, these wheels are not cylindrical but frustral in shape; with the contact patch flat on the ground, they lean at a five-degree angle inwards towards the car, with the result that as the car leans on the outer tyres in a corner their natural tendency to turn inwards assists the turn-in and allows for greater cornering speeds than otherwise possible.
- Perpendicular Action Camber Control (PACC) A Chase Cutter’s Imagikinetic thrust means that rolling resistance between the tyres and the ground is an impediment to top speed more quickly than in most WGP cars – one that Nexus Racing and In Motion have resolved. By pulling on their steering wheel, a driver is able to lean their car’s frustum-shaped tyres up onto their wide outer edge, made with substantially hardened rubber by In Motion, and significantly reduce the amount in contact with the track to reduce resistance and increase top speeds down straights; they can then push back on the steering wheel to lean them down and place the tyres fully in contact with the track for braking and cornering.
- Comprehensive Suspension and Traction Computer Control System (CS-TCCS) Nexus Racing have long possessed some of the most advanced computer-controlled driver aids on the grid. Each wheel of the UHSGV-4 has its suspension, braking and power continuously monitored and adjusted during a race, supporting and responding to the driver’s inputs.
Bodywork and Aerodynamics: Nexus Racing have come a long way from the days of a titanium chassis and two-element front wing; Nimban innovation and collaboration has seen to that, meaning that its Imagination-forged carbon fibre composite monocoque has more than a few tricks up its sleeves.
- Mass Aerodynamic Reconfiguration System (MARS) Underneath a Chase Cutter’s precision-shaped bodywork lie an array of motors and joints, controlled by a central computer. These continuously adjust the bodywork across the car to modify its aerodynamics for the situation, allowing the entire car to act as a missile, downforce generator or airbrake (most likely some combination thereof) as appropriate.
- Underbody Pressure Reduction System (UPRS) One large crossflow fan and two smaller axial fans draw air out from under the car to reduce the pressure beneath the floor and cause the pressure above the car to push it to the ground, past the radiators to take heat from the Imagination convertor array and out underneath the rear wing to improve its downforce generation.
Driver Tools and Communications: Equipment is only as good as its user’s ability to understand and harness it, a fact that is especially true for a Chase Cutter in all of its complexity – a problem to which Nexus Racing, of course, respond by adding complexity in the driver’s favour.
- Comprehensive Driver Information Visor Display System (CDIVDS) Projectors installed in Nexus Racing’s drivers’ helmets create a heads-up display, extensively customised for the driver and controlled by buttons on the steering wheel, that provides them with information about the car, conditions and race as a whole, eliminating the need to look away from the track. Most unique is the use of an off-site supercomputer to predict competitors’ lines in real time (Line Prediction Software, or ‘LPS’), based on analysis of their driving styles in past races and the circumstances at hand, and overlay them onto a driver’s view of the track, allowing them to attack and defend more deftly and tactically.
- Reactive Motion Enhancing Overalls (RMEO) Beyond the normal features of racing overalls, those Nexus Racing provide to their drivers have thousands of tiny endothermic motors woven into the structure. These motors, powered by the heat from the driver’s body, act as external muscles that support the driver’s motions and heighten their strength (and therefore endurance) and reflexes. This typically takes a period of familiarisation to stop the user from constantly springing about whenever they move; standard practice is to require drivers to wear the RMEO constantly for at least a week before driving with them.
- Photonic Analysis for Automated Starting (PA-AS) The very first mid-season upgrade applied to an UHSGV remains essentially unchanged; activated by a driver in the seconds after lining up on the grid for the race start, this system detects the absence of red light from the starting lights to trigger the acceleration of the car in the instant that the race begins, contributing to the Chase Cutters’ legendary advantage off the line.
- Sympathetic Imaginational Communications Link (SICL) Rather than using electromagnetic radiation to carry messages, Nexus Racing use Imagination convertors to telekinetically link the air in front of the mouth and ears of the driver and those with whom they are communicating, typically their race engineer, eliminating latency and substantially improving sound quality.
Safety: Nexus Racing have been in the vanguard for safety in WGP racing since their inaugural appearance; perhaps unsurprisingly for a former military outfit, each of their cars is as much of a fortress as is possible at over three hundred kilometres per hour.
- Deflecting/Intercepting Anti-Projectile Driver Enclosure Module (DIADEM) Named in part for its shape, this Imagination-forged titanium structure partially encloses the UHSGV-4’s cockpit to protect the driver; the driver’s heads-up display projects an image of what would be visible behind the structure to mitigate what little loss of visibility results. Despite offering each of them for general use, this is the only one of Nexus Racing’s safety innovations that has been widely adopted in WGP racing; though Nexus Racing’s own cars do not heavily rely on it due to their other safety features, it remains a powerful statement of intent and a valuable last line of defence for the driver.
- Imagikinetic Atmosphere-Generated Shield (IAGS) An off-site Imagikinetic convertor fixes the air around the car in place in the instant before a collision as detected by the car’s sensors, creating a shield that protects the car and driver from physical impact. This has thus far proven effective against other cars, barriers and a stray lynx.
- Imagikinetic Structural Integrity Sustenance Unit (ISISU) Should the IAGS fail to sufficiently dampen a strike, a second off-site Imagikinetic convertor finely exerts force to control the warping of the car’s body, cushioning the driver against the blow.
- Imagikinetic Remote Anti-Shrapnel Shield Unit (IRASSU) A final Imagikinetic convertor is specifically dedicated to imparting kinetic energy to incoming projectiles in the opposite direction of their current travel, halting them in midair relative to the car and rendering them harmless.
Lap Record (WGPC Car) 1:26.018 (Ryker Lane, Nexus Racing UHSGV-1)
Track Length (km) 4.83
Bio With the success of Nexus Racing apparent from the very beginning of the WGPC 15 season after Marika Pedanovic won the first race and champion-to-be Ryker Lane achieved fourth in the second along with a clear public interest from high native viewing figures, Jacob Gibbons, Nimban Minister for Sport, saw immediately an opportunity for the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System to carve out a place for itself in worldwide motor racing. Thus, Crossbay Circuit, the first purpose-built racetrack in the Wardship and the world’s first track with significant underground and water-crossing sections, was born.
The people of the Nimban origin universe have a long and proud tradition of constructing race circuits in areas of astounding natural beauty; Crossbay Circuit continues this tradition, running across, through and below the stark dolomite rock cliffs of Nimbus Bay and, in parts, above its sparkling waters. The circuit itself was pulled together from parts of three of the Nimban origin universe’s most famous tracks, Vertigo Loop Racetrack, Keelhaul Canyon Raceway and Dragonmaw Chasm Raceway. It has so far played host to five WGPO international races, two in the WGPC and three in the WGP2. The course’s lap record remains that set by Ryker Lane on his ceremonial lap to open the circuit in his Drivers’ Championship-winning UHSGV-1.
Crossbay Circuit is also run through with the latest advances in Nimban technology. Roman-style concrete has been used for its hydraulic properties and decreased environmental footprint to construct the bridges for the over-water sections of the track. In terms of Imagitech, a large Imagikinetic force field, permeable to nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen but impermeable to all else, overtops the course and divides spectators from the cars, both keeping pollutants sealed in where they are scrubbed from the air by industrial-scale machinery underneath the track and serving as nigh-on unbreakable protection for fans from rogue car parts; a more recent innovation has been the addition of Imagikinetic convertors to remove debris or damaged cars from the track. Traditional belt-and-tyre barriers guard the clifftop section of the circuit and, where they exist, its runoff areas.
A lap of the track begins in Sector 1 with a short run down the end of the start/finish straight to Turn 1, a long and smooth left-hander that is deceptively tight in the middle of the turn, as well as descending by a few metres over its course. From Turn 1 a short straight leads into the gentle Turn 2 before the car enters the first of the two tunnels on the course. This downward plunge, where the track meets the pit exit (redesigned before WGP2 III to make pitting less of a delay compared to a normal lap and thereby encourage more varied and daring strategies), transitions rapidly into an underground stadium section featuring the moderately tight Turn 3 and the hairpin of Turn 4, both taken as the track plunges downwards. It then passes under itself before shooting down and out of the cliffs into the water-crossing Sector 2.
Immediately drivers are forced to deal with the esses of Turns 5, 6 and 7. While 5 does demand something of a decrease in speed, the latter two can be taken surprisingly quickly; the measure of a good driver here will be how much momentum they can retain into the straight leading up to the nudge that is Turn 8 and the sweeping, ever so slightly banked Turn 9. After Turn 9 the chicane of Turns 10 and 11 provides another momentum-holding test into Turn 12, which technically begins immediately after Turn 11 but really comprises the mid-speed corner at the very end of the sector.
Sector 3 is by far the fastest of the sectors. Drivers dart into the cliff tunnel after 12 to face a long, climbing straight broken only by Turn 13, a left-hander whose core difficulty is its obstruction of a driver’s vision leading up to Turn 14, a slightly tighter but still fast right-hand turn at the tunnel’s exit made far trickier by the sudden reduction in downforce that comes with the levelling gradient. A straight section leads to Turn 15, probably the sector’s slowest part; from there another small straight and the chicane of 16 and 17 brings drivers back to the far end of the start/finish straight and, through that, the finish line.
This is the profile template for academy drivers; so long as you include all the necessary information, feel free to tweak it a touch or just use it as is!
- Code: Select all
Name:
Name Trigram:
Nation:
Nation Trigram:
First Preference Car Number:
Second Preference Car Number:
Reliability/Aggression/Technique (total: 12, max. per stat: 5):
Bio:
Name: Your driver’s name; nothing much more to this one! Subtle symbolism relating to other aspects of their character welcomed.
Name Trigram: A three-letter (or number) code to represent your driver. This is almost always taken from the driver’s surname. Ryker Lane, for instance, uses ‘LAN’ but could also use ‘LNE’; he probably wouldn’t use ‘RKR’ or ‘RLN’. There are three main exceptions to this rule. Firstly, if a driver’s surname matches that of another driver, a single letter from their first name might be used to distinguish them; in real life, for instance, brothers Ralf and Michael Schumacher used ‘RSC’ and ‘MSC’ respectively. Secondly, if your driver has three names they can choose to take a letter from each, such as Jean Mercer-Daly, whose trigram is ‘JMD’. Finally, a driver who only has one name will obviously take their trigram from that.
Nation: The country (or other geopolitical unit) that your driver comes from. Shouldn’t be too difficult for you to find!
Nation Trigram: A three-letter code to represent your nation, separate from your driver’s trigram. For example, the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System’s trigram is ‘NIM’.
First Preference Car Number: The number you’d ideally like for your driver, between 3 and 99; 1 and 2 are typically kept for the current champion of a series and their teammate, so drivers tend not to use those for personal numbers. Try to make this different from other people’s first preference, if you can; if there is a clash, unless there’s another resolution made between the people involved, preference will probably be given to the first to submit their profile. Nexus Racing’s existing drivers, Ryker Lane, Jean Mercer-Daly and Janne Laukkanen, use 94, 41 and 17 respectively, so choosing numbers other than those would also likely be a good idea!
Second Preference Car Number: It’s good to have a backup, just in case! Follows the same rules as the above. If worst comes to worst and neither the first or second preference number is possible, I’ll try to get in contact with you to see if we can arrange another one; if that doesn’t work, a random number will be assigned. Fingers crossed, that point will never be reached!
Reliability/Aggression/Technique (total: 12, max. per stat: 5): These numbers define how your driver does their driving. The higher their Reliability, the better they are at keeping their car on the road and running it smoothly to avoid mechanical wear and tear, reducing the likelihood that they drop out of the race or suffer severe time losses; the higher their Aggression, the better they are at holding their nerve into hard braking zones, getting the power down out of an apex and throwing their car into high-speed corners, making them more adept on circuits characterised by long straights and bends punctuated by the odd hairpin; the higher their Technique, the better they are at threading their car through complex sequences of turns and precisely adjusting the car’s momentum and positioning to suit the circumstance, allowing them to thrive on tracks dominated by series of low- and mid-speed corners. You only have twelve points to spend in all and a maximum of five for each stat (decimals are allowed), so choose wisely!
Bio: This section is for who your driver is as a person. What events brought them into motorsport and what made them interested in Nexus Racing rather than a more conventional top team? What are their motivations and ambitions? Wax lyrical about the tragic death of their sister’s friend’s dog, do a thorough analysis of their narcissistic tendencies brought on by that mirror they were given at the age of three, retell their glory days fighting in the Long Kart Offensive of ’05 – yours is the freedom to do any and all of it! Or, you know, don’t. Brevity is the soul of wit and all that.Name: Tolemus Plutarch
Name Trigram: PLT
Nation: The Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System
Nation Trigram: NIM
First Preference Car Number: 12
Second Preference Car Number: 14
Reliability/Aggression/Technique (total: 12, max. per stat: 5): 5/5/2
Bio: Tolemus Plutarch is the child of a family of soldiers, his parents veterans of the Novan Civil War which forged much of the modern Nimban military. Both of the Sentinel faction, the two instilled in him a powerful sense of dignity and self-sacrifice which he carries with him to this day. Perhaps it is just as well, for Tolemus has needed the internal compass.
First taking up karting as a school-funded activity, Tolemus quickly became adept and entered into formal competition, racing well and earning himself a spot in the overall Nimban league. Just old enough to miss out on the first Imagination schooling, he was instead picked up by Falcon Race Team for a Cityprix drive – and, in the reshuffle next year, subsequently lost it despite putting on a pretty good performance, including one victory. Finding himself out of a job, Tolemus searched for something to carry him through the next few years; his call was answered by Talbot Cars, who were looking for a test driver at the time.
For the last few years, then, Tolemus has found himself somewhat adrift, increasingly discovering that he sorely needed the thrill of a competitive environment to truly thrive. When Talbot found themselves in desperate need of drivers for the inaugural WGPi, therefore, he surged forward to claim this chance at rebuilding his racing career – a chance that rapidly brightened as Talbot Chariot Racing, a last-minute effort to challenge in the new category, became unexpectedly competitive with Tolemus at the reins. While not enough to overcome the University of the Second City Challenge’s late charge under Olivia Stone and Baxon Aurora, Tolemus did place third in that Championship, earning substantial recognition in the Wardship.
That recognition seemed to do him few favours, at first. Tolemus returned to Talbot as a test driver, the fond memories of his WGPi challenge warming his spirit but no more, especially as administrative difficulties saw the competition fail to return for a second annual season. Then rumours started to circle that Nexus Racing were looking to expand their driver development effort; soon after, reassured that he would be able to continue his partnership with Talbot (in part through the promised WGPi placement programme), he took his place within that effort and now looks to rekindle some of that warmth back into a competitive fire.# DRV Name NAT R A T
5 ZHU Shuzhen Zhu SHW 4.00 5.00 3.00
7 TUV Batu Tüvshinbayar TJU 3.00 5.00 4.00
12 PLT Tolemus Plutarch NIM 5.00 5.00 2.00
18 JKN Haru Jukkenna AUR 5.00 4.00 3.00
31 VEP Marju Vepsälättinen ALB 4.00 4.00 4.00
41 ROU Edward Rousseau ETN 5.00 3.00 4.00
50 AKS Adriana Ela Kowalski Lillian VEZ 5.00 2.00 5.00
55 KTW Kheri Kitwana IST 5.00 2.50 4.50
69 KIR Taavi Kiirejäävõisteja NYK 4.90 4.60 2.50
83 RAJ Hassi Rajall CHA 2.30 4.70 5.00
2 RNC Russell Nathan Cook SWO 3.00 5.00 5.00 # are typically not 1 or 2; R/A/T adds up to 13, not 12
