David Seward medal 5000 12 years 49 days ago (edited 12 years 49 days ago)
You can still be very profitable and competitive if you repair every two races.
The biggest mistake people make is the cost of staff and facilities, and as Charlie said, switching staff around too much.
My tips to be profitable:
- Try and hire ONLY a Chief Designer and Doctor for as cheap as possible. Note, staff members become more expensive the higher level they are. At a very low beginner level you can hire someone for cheap. But if you really aren't sure how cheap, attempt to hire someone at a similar skill level for a very cheap amount and see what happens. If you can accept a contract for very cheap then go for the staff member you truly want, and offer slightly more than your test subject went for (This will assure you get a contract offer and don't end up empty handed, or having to wait 1 race to re-offer). Tip: Once you are about to level 5-6, you will need to hire these guys at around 200k / race or higher.
- Reasons for hiring only a good Chief Designer and good Doctor is because it will help with design progress / speed, and a good doctor will help with driver attributes from falling off too quickly.
- You really do not need a Commerical Manager or Technical Director. If you feel like they are necessasry, then just auto-sign them and it will find low-level staff for 1,000 per race. Very cheap. If you have a season or two under your belt, be sure you have logged fuel usage information so that you can pretty much disregard ever having a Technical Director ever again.
- If you really do not care about the level of your staff and want to have cheap staff, just Auto-Sign everyone and you will save loads of money.
- You can repair your car every 2 races to stay competitive and not run the risk of retirements or poor results. You'd typically retire during or sometime after your 4th race if you never touched it. Some tracks stress your car out more, so this can never be accurate. You could feasibly run 3 races... Maybe 4. But I typically have always been profitable every race and only chosen to refit parts and engine every 2 races or so. Also, you can easily have a 3-race old engine before refitting it.
- You might want to try and play in a 1-car only league. You can make money a lot faster with only 1 car. Then once you get situated and earn good money, entering a 2-car league shouldn't be a problem. But if you stick with a 2-car league, you should be able to master it over time.
- Do NOT join a league with very few people. Even if you feel like a very slow player in one league, stay in it. Train up your drivers, and work hard. Chances are... The players in your league have done the same, and just because you might win a championship in one league full of poor players, doesn't mean you will be uber fast in another league. You will want a full grid so that you can earn Objective Rewards. In other words, if you finish in the desired position --- or better... You will get around 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 in credits. If you run a two car team, that's extremely important.
- Do NOT leave a league mid-season and suffer a money penalty. Play the entire season until finish.
- Do NOT buy facilities that will have operation costs more than you can afford. For example, do not buy the Weather Station and more importantly do not buy the Commerce Facility. The Commerce Facility should only really ever be used if your Marketers level is very very high... Or else it's just not worth doing. You can operate without a Commerce Facility and with no Marketers allowing you to focus completely on increasing your number of Designers and Mechanics/Engineers. Which in turn promotes better Design speed and ability to fully refit two cars no problem. I would suggest using a Commerce Facility ONLY if you run a 1 car team because you can spread out your staff count much better when you have only one car to deal with. With two cars, the Commerce Facility is not worth it. There might be a time where you can use it, but money really does not become a problem when you meet your race goals, save some money with infrequent repairs, and have a focused set of staff.
- It is never smart to sell facilities just to get extra cash. If that facility is really helpful, try and keep it, and find other means of earning some cash. Sure, if you are low on cash, selling them should be your last option.
- Do NOT cancel a staff or driver contract early. You will get a 100,000 penalty, and if you are doing this with drivers, new drivers have huge signing fees that will quickly ruin your finances. Let your staff run through an entire season, and renew their contracts if they are performing well. You don't always want to resign new drivers every season either because it's just not worth doing it for cost reasons... and because you've trained them up to be much better than most new driver's skills. If you have lots of extra cash you can certainly be more choosy with driver selection and drop staff members more frequently. But be careful.
- Be sure the staff you want to hire has a good relationship with you. This is very important to decrease the cost for their contracts, or even an asking offer. If you want to ask a brand new driver to join your team, comment on them FIRST, then make an offer. This applies to any kind of new staff you are scouting. That will allow you to get the person for a little cheaper. If you work on tracking relationship levels for all your staff and partners so that you create a 10/10 relationship level, you can begin to have staff and partners for much cheaper. And of course, use the best sponsors and have the best relationships with them so that when their contract ends, you can re-sign (not renew) with them at the best possible earnings level (1,500,000 per race). You'll see.
Doing all of these things will allow you to strategize and perform better. You will end up having more engines available near the end of a season if you need to fight for a championship or points. And you will have loads more money for purchasing the really expensive facilities that matter most (LVL 8).
Hope this helps.
CEO & CTO
