Wings and bodykits in general have two effects: visual and mechanical.
The visual effect is quite straightforward. You change a part, the car looks different.
The mechanical effect is itself split in three: downforce, mass, and tuning.
Body parts may be lighter or heavier, which has a marginal impact on performance. Body parts may have more or less downforce, which has a significant impact on performance. And some parts unlock the aero slider in tuning.
Racecars usually come stock with all of the above, while production cars are a bit of a mixed bag. To keep it short, some cars have body parts that are just dead weight while most cars only have one option to unlock the aero slider in tuning and add some downforce: the Forza aero option.
The problem there, and this is personal preference but I’m sure I’m not the only one there, is I find Forza aero parts to be unsightly, and having the same wing on every car is just lame. What is the point of going fast if you look lame doing it?
The suggestion then is fairly simple: make Aero and Appearance (A&A) two different things. This implies two major changes.
Firstly, all existing aero options have no downforce impact, and don’t unlock the aero slider. Parts only affect the mass of the car, and have a standard cost (whereas currently race-adjustable parts are more expensive, in this proposal all parts have the cost of non-adjustable parts, because they are effectively non-adjustable).
Secondly, two new submenus appear in the A&A menu: “Adjustable front aero” and “Adjustable rear aero”, for cars that don’t already have stock adjustable aero. Each of these would have two options available: “Stock” and “Race” (having the CP cost of current Forza aero option, IIRC 400 and 100 CP for rear and front aero respectively).
The “Stock” option does nothing, while the “Race” option adds downforce and unlocks the aero slider. Effectively, the “Race” options has the gameplay effects of Forza aero (minus mass reduction, which comes from picking a visual part). These options would ideally be available regardless of which visual parts are applied or not applied.
Here are some high-fidelity mockups of what it may look like:
The Aero and Appearance menu:
The Adjustable rear aero submenu:
The desired effect in the end is for players to be able to benefit from the mechanical effects of a rear/front wing on all cars, while having control over the car’s looks.
It is unrealistic, however, this is a videogame, videogames are allowed to put the fun factor above realism.
