A Closer Look at the New SIM 6.0

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 9 years 0 weeks ago

The new SIM 6.0 arrived over break, with a whole lot of new stuff.

I've played with most of the items at least somewhat. There's a list of the new features under the Steward's Notices on the forum, and I thought I'd expand on them. Plus, at the end, discuss what else The SIM has on tap for the future.

RACING
Past Performances - This is surely the single most important improvement for SIM 6.0. Now, when you enter a horse, you can see the information on the other horses already entered with one click, and see how your horse compares. Plus, of course, this helps tremendously for those who like to bet and need to review the entire field. I do second a mention made on a forum thread, hoping that the finishing position for each race can be bolded. It would make that important stat stand out better.

Post Positions - Post position is now a factor for the two inside and two outside post positions (though the latter only applies to 11 and 12 horse fields) . Actually, The Steward mentioned in chat that post positions affected races last year, but the players just didn't know it. Of course, there's nothing one can do about the post position their horse draws, and since post positions aren't known until race day (ie, after entries close), players can't scratch because of a bad post. For better or worse, post position can be a ready excuse when one's horse doesn't perform up to expectations.

Good early speed can overcome a bad post. In short races, such as for Quarter Horses, the FAQ notes that, "the rail spot is affected more than the outside, because breaking clean from the rail becomes far more important." Steeplechasers are equally affected as the flat racers.

Also, on a recent forum thread, The Steward said that all surfaces (dirt/turf/AW) are equally affected, but that could change in the future.

Prior to this year, horses showed in entries and the race viewer in alphabetical order. Now, on race day, horses are in post position order. So, it's been an adjustment for this veteran player to find her horse amongst the entries! The race viewer does now have an asterisk next to the player's horse(s), so that does help.

More Betting - I don't bet, so haven't paid much attention to this. But I do have a player friend that really enjoyed hitting the Daily Double this past week. To play the Double Double, one selects winners from two races each day, and the cost to play is $5,000. For traditional win bets, the limit was raised substantially from $1,000 to $25,000.

Saturday Racing for Mixed Breeds - As an avid mixer player, I was glad to see this. It's just that, even with all the horses I have, it's frustrating that I don't have enough on hand to put in all the races. I've even seen a race or two this week that doesn't have any entries. After all, we didn't know Saturday racing was coming until mid last year. So, we're dealing with the same number of horses spread out amongst a lot more races. Actually, perhaps a lot fewer horses spread out among more races. A lot of players seemed to panic and got rid of their lesser horses with the gallop reclassifications -- that, on top of having gotten rid of a lot of mares in the panic after the nick adjustment during breeding season last year. Add both those on top of some players perhaps getting rid of excess horses due to the upcoming increase in minimum board. Now, "getting rid of" (ie, banishing to greener pastures) youngsters and horses of racing age means those horses are unlikely to re-join the pool of potential racehorses, since they now cost 10k each.

All the above means it's easier to earn purse money in mixers, but perhaps harder to find the horses to take advantage of said purse money. I think it's probably going to take the mixer breeds a couple of game years to grow into being able to fill all the races. Hopefully, The Steward won't be too quick to delete races in future game years that aren't being used immediately.

Race Replays - For those of us who like to watch at least some of our races before knowing the results, this is a huge improvement to the race viewer. Now, from one's Entries/Results page (in the "My Stuff" box of one's home office), one can, after post time, keep refreshing the list of race days, until today's races show under the Results section, with the TV icon. Click on the TV icon, and there's a drop down box of all one's horses which raced that day. So, one can pick and choose which ones to watch, or use the "Next" option to scroll through the races, or watch all of them.

Sponsoring Races - Prior to Year 41, one could sponsor a race 5-14 days before the race was run. Now, one can schedule a race for any future date, at least five days out, as long as it's in the current game year. Another new change is that, for stakes races, one can spend SIM dollars to increase the traditional purse amount, up to a million dollars. (To do this, you first have to check one of the stakes race options, and then a drop down box will appear.) So, now, players have a lot more flexibility with sponsored races.


BREEDING
Hypo Mate Tab - At roughly around the middle of February, when we were in the latter weeks of Year 40, the SIM starting tracking our hypo grades on this new tab for mares and stallions. This is great news, so one doesn't have to keep records -- that is, on their own horses. I wish it could somehow be expanded to include any hypomate done with the horse in question. For example, if I see a nice mare for sale, I'll most likely hypo her with the stallions I have currently standing at stud, to see how she nicks, before deciding to purchase. If I then purchase her, those nicks don't show on her tab, because I didn't own her at the time I did the hypos. So, there is still some record keeping necessary, if one does hypomates on horses they don't own.

Cross Breeding - Quarter Horse mares can be bred to Thoroughbred stallions, and Appaloosa and Paint mares can be bred to Quarter Horse stallions. This not only mimics real life, but it opens up more bloodlines to the otherwise small pools of mixers genes. To make a stallion eligible for cross breeding (only dirt studs are recommended amongst Thoroughbreds), the stallion owner needs to pay a one-time fee of 5,000 game points. Then, the mare owner needs to pay 250 game points to the SIM, in addition to the stud fee to the stallion owner, for each breeding to take place.

The Stud Book has "cross-breedable" categories for Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse sires. Right now, there's 34 Thoroughbreds listed, and 19 Quarter Horses listed, so mixer breeders have a nice selection to choose from.


STABLE MANAGEMENT
Enhanced Spreadsheet - For SIMperior players, the table of horses for each of our barns is even more helpful than ever before. Our racing and training barns now have columns to show how the horse galloped (with the new 6.0 gallop comments), the weather the horse prefers (which also gives us interpretations we haven't had before), and the equipment being used on each horse. The breeding barn has a column to show the mare quality. As with the nick grades, this information will only show up if the horse was galloped, bloodstock checked, etc., since the middle of February.

More Lease Options - We used to just be able to lease mares to other players. Now, players can lease race horses and stallions to each other. Just as with mares, the lease will be up at the start of the next game year, and the horse will automatically be returned to its original owner at that time. Note that leased horses can't be entered in claiming races.

Linkable Transactions - This seems like such a simple thing that is a really nice convenience. For any transaction in one's bank that concerns a specific horse, one can click directly on that horse. This is particularly great for situations when a mare is bred to one's stallion. By clicking on the mare or the foal in the transaction line, the stallion owner can see who the breeder is.

More Group Actions -- It's a nice convenience that a large group of horses can now be gelded all at once. A group can also be put up for sale, for a uniform price, all at a once. As perhaps a result of the latter, the sales list now has over 3000 horses for sale, which is about double the usual number in the past.


FINANCES
The Exchange - I think this is a wonderful idea. Players can anonymously pay SIM dollars for game points, and vice versa. A player just needs another player willing to accept the trade at the price offered. Right now, there's a lot more players wanting game points, than there are players wanting SIM dollars. There isn't any history kept, so there's really no way of knowing how long specific offers have been sitting there, and how many offers are accepted on a daily or weekly basis. The current arrangement is in "beta" status, so presumably some changes to it will be made in the future. The SIM takes a 5% transaction fee for each exchange.

Insurance Rates - Insurance rates have been adjusted, based upon breed, as well as being generally lowered. This is particularly great news for the Appaloosa/Paint/Arabian breeders, whose horses have significantly less earnings potential than Thoroughbreds. See the FAQ on insurance for the specific rates.

Steward's Cup Purses - More good news for mixer players is that the Steward's Cup purses have been raised. (I have noticed that the FAQ on Standing Stallions now notes that all breeds have a minimum suggested required of 350k in earnings in order to be worthy of standing stud.)

Financial Summary - Players can now see how much they have earned and spent in a wide variety of categories for both income and expenses. One can look at any two years, side by side, to compare them. I asked The Steward why we couldn't see a total for all our game years, and she said, "Sometime in the future." I'm planning to write at least one article that focuses on the Financial Summary, to include what each category means, as well as some hints on how to increase income and decrease expenses.

Board Change - After the first couple of weeks of Year 41, the minimum board for all farms will increase from $5 to $20. While this quadruples the board cost, in actual dollars it still only means that annual minimum board charge for a horse will be $320 ($20 x 16 game weeks), which isn't that much. I think only the players with a huge number of yearlings and broodmares, and which don't have their own farm, might be significantly affected by this change. If a player has racehorses good enough to be actively racing, those horses ought to be able to cover $320 or so in annual board cost without any problem.

For farm owners that get boarders, the increase should help offset the $20,000 quarterly farm fee, on top of the $2 million it costs to build a farm.


MISCELLANEOUS
Grade 1 Winners List - I think I'm the one who caused this inclusion in our trophy cases, because a couple or so game years back, I showed off a website table I'd created of all my Grade 1 stakes winners. That prompted other players to also list their Grade 1 stakes winners, and some to wonder why SIM didn't have such detail for players. So, now we have it.

Video Tutorials - If you haven't looked at the Help page in a long time, take a look! There's now eight videos on basics of how to play SIM. They should be a big help to those who aren't the type to read.

Alexander Jaysman - Horse owned by "AJ" (the computer) now cost $10,000 each, which is a substantial increase from the $1,000 price in the past. What's more, The Steward has said that there will no longer be the annual $100 sale of AJ horses at the end of each game year. The result of these two changes should be that more players buy from the sales list, since sellers of cheaper horses don't have AJ to compete with.


SIM 6.0 LEFTOVERS
Believe it or not, after all the above (and it really is amazing how many different changes there are), there were some things the SIM staff intended to include in 6.0 that didn't make it. I asked The Steward for an update on the status these items.

Morning Line (including changing odds as bets are made) - During last year's Steward's Cup chat, The Steward explained that it took a while to figure out how to program a morning line, and then once they had the information, it was too late to include it in 6.0. She now says, "It will be packaged in with 6.5, which is more likely the start of 43."

Internal Fractions (some call them "splits") - The Steward says, "What happened with internal fractions is that the computer doesn’t think like horse racing people with their poles all being at spaces around the track and you just time the quarters. It was thinking in terms of a quarter of the race, half the race, and 3/4s of the race, which is great for a mile, but anything else the fractions look wonky and not like real fractions. So for a two-mile race the opening quarter was :46 seconds and I was like wut? Just need time to reprogram that so it understands."

Gallops Included in Stud Book Stats - Rather than having to count on players to report on the forum which sires their best galloping yearlings are by, it would be a whole lot more dependable to have such information included in the Stud Book. The Steward says, "Sometime this year." A reminder that the Stud Book is only accessible to SIMperior players.

Unsoundness - This could be a major factor in the game, as The Steward explains, "This was a big thing in the old SIM, where unsoundness was hereditary and if you had an unsound horse, you couldn’t race it every other week, it had to be every three weeks. Now every other week with one three week break is pretty standard, and there’s no punishment for working all your yearlings before week 5 other than the injury money you pay. This is definitely coming back." I wasn't a part of the SIM that long ago, so unsoundness -- especially in terms of breeding on -- should add an interesting twist to the game.

New Character - There was supposed to be a new character added to the game (along the lines of Dr. Hacklu, Clark Hoss, etc). All The Steward will say about this person is that he/she won't be around until 6.5, and "You guys will just make fun of him/her anyway!" That's intriguing.


This article has turned out way longer than I intended. There's A LOT of stuff in the new SIM 6.0. Enjoy!

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