Upgrading the office facility.

Do you have to purchase the Level 2 facility to unlock the Level 3? The game says the 120-capacity office unlocks at Development Level 3, which I have, but the option is still greyed out.

From memory, if you don't have enough money options grey out automatically until you have enough.

I have a balance of $57.8 million.

Hey,

if you are talking about Offices > Facility, you have to buy them successively (after another) to unlock the next higher level.

- Marius
iGP Manager Support

:(

This is disappointing. I would have thought it more strategic to be able to skip tiers. For instance, do you buy the 80-capacity office to grow your team earlier, or do you wait a bit longer and go straight from 40 to 120 capacity, and put the $4 million you didn't spend on the Level 2 Office into car development/staff changes/better suppliers? Which one is the better way? (Rhetorical question.)

Thanks for the answer Marius.

At each level you are buying a further 40 staff
So you have to buy them sequentially.

Do they stop at a certain level or do they continue as we level up? Now I'm in Level 7 and they have stopped at level 5 but I would like to add more at level 8.

No you're at maximum already Adam.

This is an area that might be added to in the future, as will all the facilities - I think.

I think this only makes sense if purchasing the Office upgrade automatically gave you the extra staff, but it doesn't; you still have to go and hire the staff.

I think this should be changed in future. The game should allow you to skip tiers on this, as long as you have the requisite level and funds.

I am not sure what you mean.
In the facilities page you buy the ability to have extra staff. Then on the staff page you allocate those extra staff to whatever jobs you want covered.

I am not sure how this can be done 'automatically'?
You would end up buying x number of engineers for instance but then they could not be susequently allocated to marketing.
I think this was how it was in beta and didn't work very well.

I think the way it is now works is fine.
You don't have to buy the staff at level 3 or whatever - you can wait until level 5 then buy the lot by clicking 3 buttons - I don't see the problem.

I think we're just not communicating well.

Your post that I quoted makes it sound like you're not buying an upgrade to the office, but rather hiring 40 more staff ( "At each level you are buying a further 40 staff" ), but this isn't the case: once you buy the office upgrade, you still have to go hire the staff. If you were actually buying staff there'd only be one charge, not two (one for the office and one for the staff changes).

I personally think it would be more strategic if you could go from a 40-capacity office straight to a 120-capacity office without having to buy the 80-capacity. If you could do this, rather than spending $4m on the 80 then $6m on the 120, you could just spend $6m on the 120, then put the $4m you didn't spend on the 80-capacity office into other areas, such as hiring a better driver or contracting better suppliers. I imagine that would lead to more variation as to how people play the game.

My point is the way it is now there's no tradeoff and it's in your best interest to upgrade the office as soon as you have the option. If you didn't have to buy them sequentially, then rather than buying the $4m upgrade as soon as you reach level 2 you could wait until reaching level 3, buy the $6m without having to buy the $4m, and then spend the other $4m somewhere else. Plus, it's a little misleading the way it's set up now: nowhere does it say (nowhere I've seen anyway) that you have to have the Level 2 upgrade to buy the Level 3. It just says "Requires Level 3" to purchase the 120-capacity office, rather than something more accurate/helpful, like "Requires Development Level 3 and previously purchased Level 2 Office."

I guess I'm too much of an idealist, but it seems to me that in a strategically-oriented game such as this, there should be multiple strategies that one could take in an effort to succeed at the game, each with their own benefits and detriments. Right now it seems as if there's only one "correct" way to play the game.