Money!

Hello!
I have been looking everywhere for help on this!

I played iGP manager for 3 months or so but I eventually stopped. I now want to come back, but i am in debt. I want to continue using my account but I cannot afford a driver and I have already sold everything I can from Facilites. 

Please can anyone help me!

Thanks, Nick!

New Account!

It would be nice to have a more detailed list of what "stays" and what "goes" when a reset is done.  This is (I believe) accurate, but imcomplete.  Could this get updated, and maybe a sticky made?

Budget - New
Facilities - New
Staff - ?
Partners - ?
Relationship - ?
Level - Stays
Reputation - Stays
Scouting - Stays
Development - Stays
World Rank - ?
Races - ?
Acheivements - ?
Career - ?

Charles

I recently reset my team and this is what I found:

Budget - New (50m)
Facilities - New/Reset, will need to repurchase
Staff - All staff contracts cancelled, will need to rehire
Partners - All partnerships cancelled
Relationship - All relationship levels stay. So it is quite nice to be able to recontract for cheaper if you had high relationships
Level - Stays
Reputation - Stays
Scouting - Stays
Development - Stays
World Rank - Stays
Races - Stays
Acheivements - Stays (iirc)
Career - Career history stays

I have written a small personal handbook for iGp, but here is the Saving Money sections, if this dousn't work, reset, but bare in mind, you aren't still with a chance of debt if you reset. So anyway:


- Repair your cars only if they are under 40%, they will not crash, but you will be slower with low %, do this until you are under 3.000.000 money.


- Sell Facilities (you can repurchase them again) to get a few millions instantly.


- IMPORTANT: Don't change drivers so fast! that is the main problem for people with money problems, (in a 2 car league) just hire 2 drivers per season, and if you renew them instead of hiring new drivers, is cheaper because you dont have to pay a new fee. In addition, if you do hire a new driver mid-season, the points you have gained from the driver you replace are no longer added to and (s)he will fall behind, your new driver will also have to build from 0 points (unless they previously raced for a team in your league and scored with them in the current season).

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:
[list]
[*]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.
[/list]
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.

That is mostly correct David.

One of the largest costs early on in the game is the signing fee for drivers. If you can accept that you are not going to be competitive for a while, I would recommend auto signing drivers & keeping them until you reach level 4. You should be able to find someone reasonable then.

The best advice I can give someone new is to look at what the best players are doing & copy them.

I I think something important to do with drivers is to find a driver who is about 20 and has 15 or more talent and just stick with them and train them, rather than going for an older driver. It pays off in the long run because you don't have to worry about signing fees that comes with changing every 1 or 2 seasons and after 2 or 3 seasons your driver can improve a lot and it really pays off. I did this and now my driver is really good, and improving all the time.

I agree with most of what is said.  If like me you are a poor manager then the commercial facility is essentail - but useless if you are always winning.  Also there comes a point when you really have to let your drivers go as their wages do keep increasing till it gets to a stupid level.  This only happens when you have played for years - lol

A slight addendum/correction to Mr. Seward's post:

It is possible to complete a season on just two engines per driver. You won't be competitive really, but if the objective is to save money, you can run the same engine from Australia through to about midway, and then replace it before Germany or maybe Hungary and use that engine for the rest of the season. When you get to the higher levels and have used the same suppliers for a while, the engine cost becomes a non-issue if you plan properly, but depending on your contracts it can be a burden to replace them often. Also has the added benefit of giving you extra engines late in the season or for the next season if you need to fight for points, as David said.

Well...if ur an active manager...in any league u can always make money....I wasn't the greatest ut have over 200 million and now in a league and not the greatest in this league...and still making money each race and not making the onus money each race....the ig thing is more sponsorship money and be active...you'll gain no matter what...I'm proof u can gain anytime...if u reset....keep this in mind

Thanks for all the help! I originally reset my team and now I am winning the championship I am In, with my drivers 1st and 2nd in the championship! (It's an active league aswell!) Also I am making around 3-4 million per race, even with repairing the car every race!

Thanks all!

-Nick

Reset is the best idea.

Did it 4 times.