How to do a mock season and make it look good

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, I was busy last night and only got home from school a few minutes ago.

To do a mock season and "make it look good", the #1 key is effort. If you're gonna BS things and just post results, it won't last long. If readers see that you put in effort, they are going to be interested in reading it again. Writing a race recap is something that shows you put in effort, and doing screenshots or replays helps a lot too. I haven't incorporated either one of those very much simply because I don't have the time or a properly functioning laptop half the time, but I'd love to be able to consistently post them. Another part of effort involves the physical presentation of whatever you choose to post. If you post results and spell drivers' names wrong, let's be honest. Who's gonna keep reading if you keep typing "Clint Boyer"? This grammatical stuff, at least in my eyes, is VERY important in attracting and keeping followers. If I just posted one or two liners in the Silly Season posts where I simply announce the change in bullet form, that's really not going to be interesting. By adding in quotes and writing coherent sentences, I think it makes things more readable, at least to intelligent life forms haha. So all that stuff, while it may seem small, CANNOT be overlooked.

As for .ini ratings, I'd suggest searching on Google or the SRD Forums. I'm not the best with track.ini stuff, but there are TONS of useful resources that have been published/written over the years. There's lots of very intelligent guys over on SRD, names like fortine_00 and J.R. Franklin stick out in my head right now. They've answered probably hundreds and maybe even thousands of .ini editing questions over the years, so they know what they're doing. I'm not sure if they are as versed in the papy_ai stuff as the track.ini, but I would imagine that there are also plenty of people around the internet that could help you. I don't really worry about that stuff too much, the only changes in .ini files I make is if the AI are wrecking too much. (I just edit drafting distance if that's the case).

I always use 100% for opponent strength. There's varying opinions on what percentage is best for the AI. I've seen many say 97%, but in reality, it all comes down to preference.

Now, the fun part. Driver ratings. I don't want to sound like a snobbish prick, but I consider my method to be one of the better methods out there. Unfortunately, it requires a fair amount of time and effort, but it really does help. I don't think NRatings works with NR2002, but I could be wrong. If it doesn't, then this will be a real pain in the butt, but if it does, then it won't be too bad.

What I use is a self-made, tiered system. Using a 36-race schedule with the Chase, I "re-rate" teams and drivers after races 13, 26, and before the start of the new season. I rate drivers and teams separately, to allow for the possibility of a great driver being stuck on a disappointing team or a bad driver on a good team due to having funding. When I make the ratings, I simply find the "Points per Race" for each of the drivers I am rating. I then place them in one of 4 tiers. Each tier could have a different number of drivers in it. It all depends on where gaps happen in the PpR value. For example, at the conclusion of 2006, 13 drivers made it into Tier 1 for the beginning third of '07. I wanted more than just the 10 drivers who made the Chase to make it in, so the next sizable gap came between Tony Stewart and Clint Bowyer. Stewart had a 2006 PpR value of 114.61, and Bowyer had a 2006 PpR value of 106.75. That's a pretty substantial drop, so that is where I ended Tier 1 and began Tier 2. Likewise, Tier 2 ended with Bobby Hamilton Jr.'s PpR of 97.26 and Tier 3 began with Mike Bliss' PpR of 92. As the list goes on, the gaps become harder to find, so eventually you may need to make some difficult decisions on where to make the gaps. Luckily, the gap between the last driver in Tier 3 (Kasey Kahne with 78.14) and the first driver in Tier 4 (Kyle Petty with 74.81) wasn't too small, so it was easy for me.

I do the same thing for Teams, except each car on each team will get the same value. Contrary to real-life scenarios where each team may have a crappy car that gets the worst of the equipment (let's be honest - during the 2012 Chase, do we really think Roger Penske wasn't giving the best of his fleet to Brad Kez and giving the hand-me-downs to Hornish?), everything will be stabilized. Anyway, when I do ratings, I add up the total points accumulated by each car of the team. Let's look at Robert Yates Racing from 2006. Elliott Sadler drove all 36 races in the #38 and earned 6,453 points, while Dale Jarrett earned 4,325 running all 36 races in the #88. Also, a couple different drivers combined for 545 points across 5 races in the #90 car. The total comes to 11,323 points earned by RYR in 77 races. That makes the PpR for RYR 147.05. That ranked them 3rd on the list of teams, granting them Tier 1 equipment for the first segment of '07. I do the same method for each remaining team, setting the Chassis, Engine, and Reliability settings that way. I keep Aerodynamics the same for each team (I believe I use 85-100) because of the strict templates NASCAR has employed for several years to keep things even. I also give each Pit Crew ratings of 85-100 for all three categories, because there are hardly any differences in the top and bottom teams nowadays. Plus, giving the game some leeway allows for even the top teams to have a bad day or bad stop every once in a while.

As for the tiers themselves, I change it every year in order to find the best. This year, in my opinion, has seen a lot of parity especially with the struggles of some 2006 championship contenders like Burton, Kvapil, and Sadler. Some of the weaker teams like Evernham and Ganassi have also seen the potential for more surprising finishes, which I think is a good thing. This year, Tier 1 gets ratings of 75(min)-90(max), Tier 2 gets 70-85, Tier 3 gets 65-80, and Tier 4 gets 60-75.

A couple other notes include that Rookies and New Teams get special attention. To allow for more inconsistencies in results that typically come with new teams and rookies, I give rookies and brand new teams ratings of 55-85. Also, if a team changes manufacturer, they get the min value of the Tier below and the max value of the Tier above. For example, let's look at Bill Davis Racing. They finished 2006 with a PpR of 81.29, placing them in the middle of Tier 3. But because they switched to Toyota for this season, they get the min value of Tier 4 and the max of Tier 2, giving them 60-85 ratings.

Also, I should note that my road course ratings are solely based on my personal opinion. Jeff Burton has been a Tier 1 driver with Tier 1 equipment for a while, but he eats dick on road courses in real life, so I gave him Tier 3 ratings for those races.

I hope this helped! Don't be shy to ask any more questions!

How about that, I never knew NRatings was also compatible with NR2002. That's cool!

Well, my NR2002 mock season is almost ready to go. I'm still working on the schedule, as the season will be a fictional one. I'll have more details soon, but first, I just need tips on posting screenshots. I know how to take them, but to post them on here, I'll need an account on some photo sharing site like Imgur, right?

Actually, I might need a specific guide on how to post screenshots, results, and points on here. I just simulated the first race of my season, but the screenshots I took are being rejected as too big. Thus, I won't be able to post the results of the first race until I can get some help.

Also, I'm using Score4 for results and points.