Archive

Super Aguri

Published
by
Pete
on May 6, 2008
in FF1GP News
. 0 Comments

Today, it was announced that Super Aguri has pulled out of the Formula 1, which is very sad to hear. If you want the details, head to one of the usual F1 news sources.

I’ve already had quiet a few emails about the subject, and I’ve had a few more today, all asking what is going to happen to your points if you have Super Aguri or their drivers, Takuma Sato or Anthony Davidson.

The answer is you get no points, which includes prediction points, even for predicting a DNF. The rules state:-

“To score any points for DNF positions, the driver or team must at least turn up for the 1st qualifying session of the race weekend.”

Here are some common questions.

Can I exchange Super Aguri ,Takuma Sato or Anthony Davidson for another driver?
No. It’s not technically possible to do this, and the current rules don’t allow for trading.

What if Takuma Sato or Anthony Davidson find new drives and end up driving for another team?
Then you will be able to score points like any other driver, regardless what team they drive for.

What if Super Aguri get brought out and come back to Formula 1 this season?
Then you will get points again since your team is racing again.

I’ve got 4 FF1GP teams, and I want to make a new team without Super Aguri but I can’t…
This is because there is a 4 team limit per user. I have increased the limit to 5 so you can create a new team. However you will not be entitled to any points from earlier rounds.

I’m a league owner, and a couple of my members want to enter a new team, but they cant because Ive set the rules to X that is stopping this. Can it be changed?
Yes please send me an email to admin@ff1gp.com and I’ll sort something out.

Round 4 - Spain

Published
by
Pete
on April 27, 2008
in FF1GP News
. 0 Comments

First things, that awful Heikki Kovalainen crash. The last reports said hes ok with no broken bones. Also respect to the guy for giving him the thumbs up while he was being taken to an Ambulance. From myself and everyone at FF1GP.com get well soon mate, and we look forward to seeing you behind the wheel again.

So hands up who was enjoying a Sangria with the Formula 1 today?

It was another great race today. A lot of the interesting action was down in the midfield today. Being a English person, you will find me supporting the British drivers, and it was excellent to see Jenson Button finishing in the points today, and of course Lewis Hamilton on the Podium.

What was more surprising was how close the top teams was in times, it was very close. The next race in Turkey, will be interesting. McLaren will have fresh engines, Ferrari will not. I think both teams will really go for it regardless of their engines, as the race afterwards is in Monaco. Why? Well in my opinion, Monaco is a slow circuit, you dont need a good engine to get around, you need a car that sticks like glue around the corners. Im sure you will have your own thoughts on this.

Now my email box has been a bit busy over the last week over the subject of Super Aguri. The team is in financial trouble, due to the Magna group pulling out of buy-out talks, and it was looking like they would not be able to make the Spanish Grand Prix, however Honda stepped in to help them out.

The question that everyone has asked me, what if Super Aguri do not make the race, what happens to my points?

The answer is you get no points, which includes prediction points, even for predicting a DNF. The rules state:-

“To score any points for DNF positions, the driver or team must at least turn up for the 1st qualifying session of the race weekend.”

However I did ask anyone who did ask me about the rules, do you think this rule is ok?

Now I was expecting a mix bag of responses, or a huge response saying Give us our DNF prediction points.

In fact all the responses said on the lines of Nil points Here are some of the responses I got.

“Why should people be able to score points based on a sure thing. Also surely this was part of the risk they ran picking the cheapest team?”

And I had this very honest reply from one of the players.

“With Super Aguri as one of my teams and Anthony Davidson as one of my drivers I should be saying yes to DNF regardless. But my sense of fair play says no.; if they don’t turn up for qualifying, there are no points for predicting DNF.”

And also this Player said “(I have a) bias towards any rule that helps me score more points. :)” but ended his email saying “P.S. Although ‘bonus points’ do suggest there needs to be some sort of skill or judgement involved to get ‘em.”

A big thanks to everyone who took their time to respond, and for now the prediction rules stand.

However one thing that was asked, How can I trade my team or driver if they go bust The answer is you cant but it may be something I will look into for the 2009/2010 season.

Next stop, Turkey!

Round 3 - Bahrain

Published
by
Pete
on April 6, 2008
in FF1GP News
. 0 Comments

Another race down, a strong comeback by Ferrari, and also a strong performance by BMW in Bahrain, it was a yet another cracking race to watch!

The next race is in Spain, which I have great memories from last year when I attended the race, along with quite few members of one of the leagues here. If you look closely pictures on the front page, 3 of the pictures where taken at the Spanish Grand Prix in 2007 by myself.

News from the FF1GP site, it’s running well. It looks like the small glitches from the 1st and 2nd round have been ironed out.

One question that I do get often from league owners one the lines of “Team X in my league has zero points, yet he got 34 points what’s going wrong?” First thing, it’s not a bug with the site. When you enter a league, it only counts points from the round you have entered the league before the day of the race. The reason for this is to stop team owners from jumping in and bringing their points to bump their place up the league.

However sometimes teams are a little late entering a league, and league owners want their points counted from the last race, or previous races. If you got a team that needs their points counted here is what to do.

1. View the team in question and decide which round their points should be counted from.

2. As the league owner, send an email to me (admin@ff1gp.com) with the league name, the team name, and which round you want the points counted from.

3. Once I get the email, I’ll adjust the team’s joining round and the league scores to reflect the points score.

In future, league owners will be able to adjust the joining round to a earlier round of a member.

See you all in Spain!

Round 2 - Malaysia

Published
by
Pete
on March 23, 2008
in FF1GP News
. 0 Comments

First of all Happy Easter to everyone visiting today! Another cracking race, that was worth getting up at 6.15am for. The BNW’s had a good weekend, and the McLarens didn’t have a good one, since they got dropped down the grid for various penalties.

Now let me get one thing clear on improvement points for any who has Kazuki Nakajima (Williams) Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren) and Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) Their starting position is the position they qualified in before the FIA penalised them and moved them down the grid. So if you got less improvement points than you think you have, that’s probably why.

On a slightly related topic, Dropback points for wan to lose teams has been changed for the rest of the season. The points awarded for Round 1 will stand, but for round 2 the rule is as follows.

You get one extra point for each position you team or driver moves down the grid. So if your car starts 2nd and finishes 5th, you get a extra 3 points. But if you go up the grid, (ie if you start in 5th and finish 2nd) you don’t get any points, and you do not loose any.

For the 2009 season, I shall be looking at the want to lose team rules again with a clean piece of paper design.

Next race is in 2 weeks time in Bahrain, see you then!

Round 1 - Australia

Published
by
Pete
on March 17, 2008
in FF1GP News
. 0 Comments

Well the 1st round of the Formula 1 championship was a corker! The new standard ECU that is fitted to all F1 cars to remove traction control made the racing really worth watching. The end result was drivers with skill were rewarded and the ones who made mistakes where punished. This year will be an exciting season to watch.

While here at the FF1GP HQ website (Which does have it’s own bar!) the 2008 season is now moving along smoothly which a few glitches that came with this years FF1GP rule changes. Before I talk about the glitches, I would like to thank Dom, Matt and everyone at the Medway league for their help and support in ensure that this years FF1GP runs smoothly and for finding all the little bugs that I missed.

Onto this week’s issues and questions you are likely to ask.

Dropback points I am not satisfied the current rule for dropback point is working correctly with the new reversed prices for want to lose teams. The dropback rule is currently being revised, and will be changed before the next weekends. If you would like to add your input on the dropback points rule please feel to email me admin@ff1gp.com

The rules will be updated with the new change, but the points awarded for the 1st race will stand.

Prediction points A glitch in the calculation meant anyone with teams that did not finish, where being awarded 4 prediction points when they did not predict the team to not finish the race. This has now been corrected.

Kimi Raikkonen You are all thinking he started 15th, and therefore think he should be given 2 qualifying points? Sorry no, here is why. Kimi did set a time in the 1st qualifying session that would allow him to take part in the 2nd qualifying session, but he had a fuel pump problem and didn’t make back to the pits, and he had to be pushed back. Under the FIA rules, this isn’t allowed and he was excluding from taking part, and did not progress to the 2nd qualifying session.

Rubens Barrichello He was disqualified for running through a red light in the pit lane, so -5 points awarded to anyone who had him or the Honda team.

Any other questions Drop me a email to me at admin@ff1gp.com

Another review found

Published
by
Pete
on October 20, 2006
in Moonbase Beta
. 0 Comments

There is a review of Moonbase Beta on the Electron User Group site at http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/eug/revs/bbc-games/r-mbet.html There is a slight error on the review, the publisher is credited as Philip Hatton, not Peter Hatton. (Opps) So hopefully someone there will correct the little mistake.

In the mean times you may be interested on some technical information, on some of the code… click on read more!

Continue reading ‘Another review found’

Moonbase Beta - Author’s edition

Published
by
Pete
on October 17, 2006
in Moonbase Beta
. 0 Comments

Some good news, I foind a 5 1/4 inch disk drive, some reader software and the original source code, to bring your the original edition of the game!

This is the original Moonbase Beta when I finished the final compile and link of the code and graphics. It was pulled off a 14 year old 5 1/4 inch floppy disk using Omniflop from http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm

I was god smacked the data survived!

This edition is called the Author’s edition as it’s the untouched version before Superior Software got their hands on it. It somehow got released, on Play It Again Sam. (But I never got paid for it!)

I found a version in the BBC lives website, but this version has been hacked for infinite energy! Bit daff if you ask me, as all you have to do is hold down the keys PBH on the screen where you set the keys, and infinite life mode will be enabled when you see a little message saying “That’s me!”

Check the Downloads section of the website to download it.

Also I’ve recovered some of the source code to make the game, but it looks like one of the source code disk is lost, including the backup.

The Original Diary Notes

Published
by
Pete
on November 6, 2001
in Moonbase Beta
. 0 Comments

Back in 2000 when I started trying to keep a note on restoring the game, I kept this diary. This is the original entries.

Continue reading ‘The Original Diary Notes’