v0.4.1 — The Commercial Game: Negotiations & Engine Architectures
The Undercut: Racing Manager · published
v0.4.1 — The Commercial Game: Negotiations, Engine Architectures & a World of Manufacturers
0.4.0 made the driver market a real system. 0.4.1 does the same for the commercial side. Signing sponsors and suppliers is no longer a menu of instant offers — it's a negotiation campaign you run against the whole grid, on a budget, against the clock.
⭐ Sponsor & Supplier Negotiation — Completely Reworked
The old Sponsors and Suppliers apps are gone. Replaced by a single Marketing app with a unified workflow.
- Negotiation is a campaign. Pick a target, commit work units, watch it progress. Mission size scales with the partner — a small department can still land a big name if fully focused. Reallocate or stop any mission at any time.
- Everyone is racing you. AI teams run missions on the same sponsors and suppliers. When a rival targets your deal, their logo appears on your mission card and you get a heads-up email. Out-spend them or fall back to a safe deal.
- Completing a negotiation earns the offer — not the deal. Only your signature locks it in. Until you sign, a rival who finishes their own negotiation can steal it. Unsigned deals expire when the window closes.
- Contracts now have length (1–5 seasons). Rush a deal and you get one season. See it through and they offer their best terms.
🏭 Suppliers: Partnership or Client?
Every supplier deal is a real strategic choice.
- Works Partnership — the supplier pays YOU every GP, grants +2 reputation and +5 work-order WU per turn. But only one team can hold it. Race the grid for exclusivity.
- Client Contract — always available, signs instantly. Your negotiation progress buys up to 20% off the client price. The fallback that keeps you competitive.
🔧 Engines Have Architecture
Every Prime Formula Series engine now runs a real V8, V10 or V12 at 3.5L — shown on a spec sheet, not abstract bars.
- V8 — 500 hp, 13,000 rpm. Cheapest, most reliable, frugal, light — but less driveable.
- V10 — 550 hp, 13,500 rpm. The balanced benchmark.
- V12 — 580 hp, 14,000 rpm. Most power and driveability — thirsty, hot, heavy, fragile, expensive.
Horsepower drives the car directly: base × displacement × condition, feeding into the speed model. Fuel burn, heat damage, wear, driveability — it all reads the architecture you chose. Pick your motorist carefully.
🌍 A World of Manufacturers
Every career generates ~35 major road-car manufacturers with a 1990-flavoured country spread — Luxury, Sport, and Mass Market categories, each with a favoured engine architecture.
Browse them in World Data → Manufacturers. Click any for a full profile: identity, PFS record, current teams, prestige, valuation, and a sector prestige breakdown. Tyre suppliers get their own profile page too.
🎨 Updated Car & Suits Model
The car model and driver suits have been updated. The colour picker is fixed and players can now select the live 2D race livery directly.
🐛 Notable Fixes
- GPU memory leak fixed — World Data's Fame tab warmed helmet textures for all ~400 drivers in a single frame, enough to hang the system. Now only renders visible rows.
- Cars with destroyed parts can no longer start qualifying — repair or replace before quali.
- "Fix a problem" no longer offers fixes on last year's obsolete designs.
- News headlines wrap properly instead of spilling out of their card.
- Rival car upgrades and commercial deals now appear in the news feed.
- Scouting duplicate missions fixed.
- Engine sound +15%, consistent across all sessions.
- Main menu circuit loads from hand-vetted seeds — faster startup.
Try It
The demo is updated with everything above. If you want to experience the full negotiation system and engine architecture choices, now's the time.