At what percentage of design do you start the year?

Hey guys,

I'm wondering, when do you guys switch design to next season? I suppose if you're already dominant you switch earlier, if the fight is close, you keep on designing longer on your current car.

But in general, I wonder, what's your ideal percentage to switch to next season?

Cause what I don't want for my team is wobbling every season. I don't want to sacrifise one season for the next. I suppose managers can do this, but ideally I'd be strong every season. 

Thanks for your advice :)

Well the more percentage u have in your current season has an impact on the next season percentage. Like if you already have 100% car in the current season and developing next season, it will only increase by 1 percent no matter how much designers u put on them. So to be competitive is to have a nearly 100% car at the start which can be achieved at higher levels with manufacturing facilities and go for next season from the start itself so that u have a nearly competitive car for the next season.

My suggestion also would be to find a good balance between your current season design and the next season design like a 70/30 percentage. Could help be competitive every races.

Thanks, but mathematically it doesn't make sense to put the bar anywhere else than 100% on current season or 100% on next season. I think.

It'll also depend on how often you race.

I'm in a league where we race twice a week so I have a much longer period where I can develop both this season and next season's car.

Somewhere else on the forum suggested that at the start of the season you should be 100% focus on next year's car until it gets to 50% - as it should quickly go up. Then focus purely on this seasons car. I'm trying that this season and it seems to be working ...

I suspect you and I read the same post. I've been trying this for about a season and it seems to be working, but I use different percentages. Both the leagues I race in run three races per week, so I don't have as much time as you do, but I have more than twice as long as someone who races every day.

This will also be affected by what your competition does. In both my leagues, 70% seems to be about the average at the start of the season, so I try to target that (though I've yet to succeed). Typically that means shifting design to current season somewhere around 50% next season, which tends to vary widely depending on where you start the season with your design.

I generally always (with odd exceptions) work on "this season" which gives me about 40-45% on "next season" any way every season. So I start every season with 45% or so and am usually around 65% for the first race.

I'm new here and still learning. I wanted to really get a feel for the racing so I joined a daily racing league.

As a rookie my percentages are obviously low, all in the 20's for this season and the high teens for next season. My maximum performance is 79%. I've got the bar about halfway between this season and next. For my first season is this about what I should be doing? Or should I be focusing more on next season's performance levels?

So during the off-time between races, the staff will be developing? So if I race in a once a week league my percentages will go up more between races?

Sorry for the noob question, but thanks for the help.

Between the races, you can train your staf (once after every race, like the drivers). If you train your designers, they seem to develop "more", that is, a higher % total gets added to the design of your car, each time they improve a component.

Where your bar between this season and next should be, is the discussion here.... As you no doubt have norticed, the higher your percentage in this season, the longer it takes to develop a new component. So (theoretically), if you develop this season first to 100%, and then focus 100% on the next season, it will take a long time for each development cycle (but you do have a quick car right now). If you focus all the effort on next year, you will develop very fast - because your components this year are low. So your next season will be good - but this season will be slow.

Of course net season you will develop slow - because your components are already very good. This is what is Jaap called "wobbling" in the first post.

What is optimal depends on what you want - Wobbling means going fast one season, slow next. Averaging means going somewhere in between each season. The question is what strategy gives the best average.

I usually build next season up to about 60% fairly quickly - with the slider to next season. As I am on about 60% at start of the season, this goes reasonable fast (for my number of designers (100) and level (7). Then I switch mostly to this season. I build the car to about 92% last season (spying and paying for reverse enginering is very effective here, if you have more developed teams around).

But this is with a 3 times/week league, and at the experience and level as stated. Other schedules  and other levels of xp may change that - at level 8 you get facilities that speed up development. (And I dont even know this is the best tactic).