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Facility Upgrading Questions

Hi all! I’ve been playing this game about a month now and absolutely loving it. I think I’ve worked out what most of these upgrades do, but I can’t seem to figure out a couple of them and was just looking for some explaination and/or strategy.

1 - “OFFICES & HOSPITALITY”
What the heck does this change by upgrading it? I’ve admittedly never put anything into upgrading this in all my seasons, because I have no clue what it does and didn’t want to waste time and money that could be used towards “more important” facility upgrades (like design and manufacturing). It says it “raises staff morale +1”, but what are the benefits of staff morale going up? Is this a worthwhile area of investment, especially for someone who doesn’t buy in-game currency or coins with real world money, so I only have the cash/coins I earn in game to work with, and coins are at a premium when you only earn them in-game.  

2 - “TECHNOLOGY”
I see this comes with upgrades to “boost” and “DRS”, but again, I’m not really clear on the difference. I know what DRS is in F1, but in terms of how it’s used/deployed in this game I’m unsure? Is it just automatic in the race simulation when your driver is trying to overtake, or is it a manual activation during live races? 

And is “boost” the red meter we have during live races? If so I’d assume that upgrading it means there is either more available (the meter drains slower when using) or it is a “more powerful” boost when used but the same “duration” is available (it still drains the same speed but just provides a bigger performance gain)? 

I’m currently a level 12 overall, and my facilities are as follows:
Design = level 11 (4.5 stars)
Manufacturing = level 11 (4.5 stars)
Office & Hospitality = level 1 (0 stars)
Simulator = level 5 (2 stars)
Technology = level 3 (1 star)
Youth Academy = level 2 (0 stars)

So just how important is the office/hospitality facility, and what exactly does raising staff morale do or benefit?

Apologies on the post length, just trying to be detailed in my questions. Any help/info/advice is much appreciated!

Thanks,
Jason

Level 6 here. From what I understood, hospitality is completely useless because morale has no effect on performance.
Technology instead is the second most important building, because it creates faster DRS and Boost

Now, the difference between them: DRS is a system that makes your rear wing open to get more speed. This only happen if you are less than 1.0s from the driver in front.
Boost on the other hand is manual and only usable while attending live races. It simply gives your car overall more speed, but once it's finished you can't use it anymore.
Both of those can be used from lap 3.
Hope this helps a little.

That was helpful, thank you! I have ignored that facility because I just couldn’t figure out the benefit of raising morale, and didn’t see the need to waste 2 days and millions of dollars on it haha!

Also, the DRS/boost explaination helped. That’s what I was assuming it was, I just didn’t know the parameters of the DRS activation (and if it was manual or automatic) and the effect of boost upgrades.

Is it a longer duration of until depleted, but the same performance boost, or more powerful performance boost when in use, but for the same duration as non-upgraded?

Andrew - Boost will be used by the AI when not live attending the race but it is very sporadic and pretty much always the same times/sections of track.

Point to note about boost - AI will use it throughout the whole race if you are not in attendance. If you do attend and watch the race then boost becomes manual for the duration: this essentially means if you need to leave the race then no more boost will be used by the AI. So if you need to leave and wont be back then use it all up before you go

Upgrading the boost doesn't give more performance but it will last longer than the previous upgrade.

In my opinion, Tech Centre is one of the most important facilities and I would always try to maintain it at the same level as my team level.

If you manage your team well and regularly attend races you should have little problem in promoting up to Elite in maximum four of five seasons, maybe even quicker if you know what you're doing.

At this point you may find yourself racing against high level teams (L18 - L20) and with your L3 Tech centre you're not going to be able to compete. The first two laps are okay and then everyone will fly past you on the straight because their DRS is so much more powerful than yours.

Currently I'm L12 racing in a competitive and well attended league and my only hope of grabbing a few points to save me from relegation is a wet race. Above 1.0mm of water DRS is disabled and this negates the oppositions huge advantage.

Even as a L14 I have been overtaking while deploying DRS by others with L20 DRS. Depends on track and distance between cars, of course.
So yes, Design and Tech are the most important.
Manuf. depends on the amount of parts u have and use. If u watch adds and with new "daily rewards" u should have plenty of parts. So Manuf. can wait a little.
Youth Ac. only useful, if u in need of a cheap driver with star potential. Searching for such one and promoting him to team costs some coins, tho.
Simulator is useful for training driver, as long as they are below ur manager level. When above manager level, they get 3% on each session no matter what (at least according to my data. Does someone know better?)
O&H is useless.

From what I have read, Moral is useful to avoid staff retiring too soon.
This seems important only if you are high level, maybe around 15, because you'll try to keep your staff for a while and you won't reach the next level quickly. That's how I imagine it's used.

I felt the despair when reaching Pro and getting passed through so easily because my DRS was still level 1...
It's something you don't hear about a lot in the forum.

For how DRS works, it's all automatic, but it's on specific section of the track, and when you're below 1.0s of the driver in front, as Andrew said.