IGP Manager launches Q1 Update.

The first major quarterly patch to iGP Manager has arrived, bringing with it the 3D livery builder.
Managers can now customize their team in full 3D before hitting the track.

All accounts have been gifted an additional free trial of 2D to get a taste for the new patch.

Here are some of the key improvements:

• Live Chat and Controls for all – Now free-to-play includes live control in a race
• 3D Livery builder – Customize your team’s appearance in full 3D
• Weather system – Overhauled to a completely new, more reliable API. Conditions
• Simplified to Sunny, Cloudy, Overcast, Light Rain, Rain and Heavy Rain.
• Visual weather – Visible rain spray in 2D viewer, indicating depth of water on track
• Practice lap times – After practice, lap times are now returned along with setup data
• Team Resetting – A way to make a fresh start when stuck in a tricky situation
• Marketers  now play a key role in team merchandise sales
• Doctors now reduce driver atrophy rate

iGP Manager is a ‘massively multiplayer F1 Manager Game’ developed by UK-based independent developers iGP Games Limited. The lead developers and directors of the project are Jack Basford and Andrew Wiseman.

A crew of freelancers were also hired to assist in development of graphical elements. The game has been in development since February 2009 and was released on December 11th 2011.

• Free to play with an optional subscription for premium content
• All users get 3 free trials of the 2D race viewer
• Create and customize a personalized virtual grand prix team
• Live races with dynamic weather and interactive team orders and strategy controls
• Host Public or Private leagues with custom race times and duration
• Features 17 international race circuits
• Compete with friends, family and people from all over the world
• Web Browser-based with no installation and free automatic updates to the service

 http://igpmanager.com

Q1 Patch – Release Notes

Key features & Improvements

• Live Chat and Live Controls for all – All users, free and subscribed, may now enjoy live racing and react to situations as they occur in real-time, balancing the playing field for everyone.
• 3D Livery Builder – Customize your team’s appearance in full 3D before hitting the track
• Practice lap times – After a test run, lap times are returned. When practice is complete all practice laps can be reviewed and compared, including which setup was used, what the weather conditions were and the lap times.
• Eliminated 2D lag spikes –  Lag spikes which were occurring in live 2D races have been fixed.
• Weather – For clarity now limited to: Sunny, Cloudy, Overcast, Light Rain, Rain and Heavy Rain.
• Detailed forecasts – By clicking on a day for forecasts a detailed description of expected weather patterns pops up, including expected rain levels in milimetres and more.
• Visual weather – Visible rain spray in 2D viewer, indicating depth of water on track
• Shortlist – Notification sent via mail when a driver or staff member becomes available if they are on your shortlist
• League system – Inactive leagues are automatically shut down by iGP after a fixed period and leagues must be half-full to activate promotion and relegation, encouraging group participation and increased activity.
• Team Reset option – Return to default settings and balance in the Rookie tier, useful for a fresh start when stuck in a tricky situation
• Beginner’s guide for new managers – soon to be shown to users on signup
• Marketers now play a key role in increasing merchandise sales
• Doctor now automatically reduces driver skill atrophy rate, maintaining higher skill levels for longer
• Quickly find Facebook friends on iGP Manager – It’s now easy to add  friends within iGP Manager who are Facebook Connected if you are too. Open your manager-settings page and click "Add your Facebook friends on iGP Manager"

Postponed features

These features are expected to be implemented within two weeks.

• Race Flags system
  Flags for different race conditions as in any real motorsport (Blue flags, Yellow flags, Warning flags etc.)
• Warm-up lap before race start
  The cars will form up on the grid before the race begins

Full Changelog

This list includes improvements relevent to the front-end experience of iGP Manager. Most changes to back-end performance and stability are not listed.

• Added Translation engine for core navigation elements and headings
• Added translations: English, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Latvian, Macedonian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Spanish
• Added comment moderation powers for all users on their personal profile, and league hosts for their league pages
• Added option for users to delete own comments
• Added moderator powers to close, merge and move topics on forum
• Added filter for 1 or 2 car leagues on league-select
• Added avatars to Hall of Fame
• Added auto-page-skip to Hall of Fame (automatically jumps to the page you appear on)
• Added World Rank to manager profiles as determined by the Reputation rank in the Hall of Fame
• Added team reset count to team profile – indicating how many times the team has been reset
• Added bonus to finishing in promotion zone (if active) in Elite tier of +100 reputation XP
• Added a changing clouds overlay to 2D viewer to reflect the degree of cloud cover.
• Added manager join/leave messages to the chat window.
• Added chat and live control to live timing window
• Added test run lap times and review of test runs when complete
• Added detailed forecasts by clicking on a day in forecasts area
• Added basic Beginners Guide – soon to be shown to users on signup
• Added car livery system
• Added liveries to team profiles and race grid
• Added influence of Doctor on driver skill atrophy
• Added notification mail when shortlisted staff or driver becomes available
• Added opt-in any time team reset option – restores default balance and team configuration without wiping XP and stats
• Added Facebook invite Friends options
• Added race start time readout and countdown to 2D viewer
• Added coupon system for subscriptions
• Added Rules & Regulations guide
• Added active bids to shortlist page
• Added league host option to enable or disable relegation and promotion
• Added multiplier for positive reputation gains in Pro and Elite tiers, 25% higher XP in Pro and 50% higher XP in Elite relative to Rookie tier
• Added tier level limitations (Rookie 8, Pro 12, Elite 20) and if development or scouting skills go over the respective tier limit then they are capped. Driver training also becomes limited.
• Added display all teams on standings regardless of whether they have raced or not
• Added rule: leagues must be at least half-full to activate promotion
• Added 2D viewer connection health detection and automatic recovery mechanisms.
• Added team column to timing chart.
• Improved car/driver behaviour in the pit lane
• Improved 2D viewer loading process, increasing load speed and resilience.
• Improved realism of the rate of change and degree of track wetness under different weather conditions.
• Improved the driver’s intelligence regarding whether or they can pit before the leader finishes the race.
• Improved the general timing mechanism for measuring lap times, drs detection point activation, etc.
• Improved how penalty avoidance on league leave/join is applied to avoid if first race refit has not passed
• Improved clarity of league join button when full, indicating "Tier X is full" as well as greying out button
• Improved Hall of Fame to show all active managers
• Improved membership system performing upgrade to latest stable version
• Changed the effect of ‘dirty air’ to be more substantial when a car is following close behind another.
• Changed tyre temperatures for qualifying to optimal range
• Changed drivers to be more aggressive during the race start.
• Changed merchandise sales system enabling losses or profits depending on sales figures
• Changed the 2D viewer to continue execution when minimised, resolving several related bugs
• Changed scouting and development XP to be gained at a rate of 40XP per race
• Changed league join and leave penalties to only penalize if the current season has started.
• Changed number of trials of 2D viewer from 1 to 3
• Changed driver weight filter to encompass all drivers
• Changed car and design rebalancing to not apply if leaving a league without having raced in it
• Changed sponsorship money to not be awarded if not participating in race
• Changed default race duration to 50%
• Changed names in the chat window to full names and increased the names column width
• Changed the pit crew to use the rain start/stop tyre compound specified in the Advanced Strategy in more situations.
• Removed retired drivers and staff from driver and staff lists
• Removed survey forum
• Removed wage estimate from staff profiles
• Removed a general margin of error factored in by drivers when deciding to pit for fuel.
• Fixed lag spikes during races
• Fixed league-hopping exploits that allowed teams to race more than once per 24 hours for a period
• Fixed occasional incorrect test runs count on home page
• Fixed races being run with 0 cars
• Fixed DOB year showing as -0001
• Fixed UTF8 support issues
• Fixed live race screen showing as blank white page for some users
• Fixed non-functioning trials
• Fixed incorrect bids countdown on manager-shortlist
• Fixed promotion and relegation zone sizes not being historically accurate on league-standings
• Fixed erroneous race counts for comments made on entities in game
• Fixed inaccurate notification messages
• Fixed translation system IE compatibility
• Fixed autosign exploit that allowed retiring drivers or staff members to be renewed
• Fixed occasional skipping of promotion of last team in tier and relegation of one too many teams
• Fixed garage numbers not  being set correctly for each tier
• Fixed bug that would enter a team in to the end of two seasons in quick succession if promoting
• Fixed driver 1 setups occasionally not saving for some users
• Fixed test runs and setup development being accessible without engine, fuel or tyre suppliers signed.
• Fixed designs being scaled incorrectly on league move
• Fixed innovator achievement issues
• Fixed auto-sign occasionally signing drivers who were in negotiations with another team
• Fixed negative finished races on profiles
• Fixed experience attribute resetting to 10
• Fixed races being scheduled for incorrect days of the week on season reset
• Fixed offices facility so that each level of upgrade must be bought in order rather than one step to the maximum level
• Fixed new subscriptions not extending existing ones if different packages were purchased
• Fixed bug which caused erroneous "inactivity" shutdown of an active league
• Fixed blank page when attempting to load Facebook API on manager-settings/fbsync.
• Fixed graphics alignment issue where an empty bar would appear at the top of the screen in 2D viewer
• Fixed several bugs where the values in the 2D viewer pit strategy window would not update properly.
• Fixed drivers mistaking pit cancel orders to mean do not pit again.
• Fixed several problems with DRS.