Jason Almeida medal 4915 5 years 173 days ago
Hi everyone, quick question:
When it comes to salaries, do reserves also get paid every race, or just the active staff? I’m hemorrhaging money this season and I’m not sure if it’s the new sponsor package I tried or the reserve staff costing me a fortune for “no reason”, or a combo.
I sold my super expensive driver a few races into the season (and now my reserve driver is actually having better results, with lower driver attributes but he’s the proper weight and stamina) and my reserve staff is currently just 3 people (1 of each), at $50k/race, so combined they still cost less than ONE driver or regular staff, but still, $150k total per race for people who aren’t even doing anything seems pretty pointless.
Ive also seen strategies talking about keeping multiple high-rated CDs, but what would be the point of this if they both cost a bunch of money per race, regardless of if they’re active or reserve?
Joshua Johnson medal 5000 5 years 173 days ago
Anyone employed by you, whether thy're active or reserve, is getting paid each race.
The point of having 2 or more CD's is to have 2 or more of your car's performance stats start at 50% (25 for rookie, 40 for pro, 50 for Elite) at the start of a new season. The other benefit will be having your CDs' weaknesses (provided they are different) start at a higher attribute.
Kevin Bissell medal 5000 Super Mod 5 years 173 days ago
Yes, staff are paid every race regardless of whether or not they are active.
If you want to reduce costs…
Chief Designer - When you get to higher levels (L17 – L20) and are therefore levelling up much less frequently, consider employing a couple of reserve CDs which you can switch around over the course of a season to maximise car design. At the moment don't bother keeping reserves because by the time you are ready to make a reserve CD active you will most likely already have levelled up and as a result they will be less effective. In a nutshell, buy CDs as you need them when you level up and sell the redundant ones.
Technical Director - I can't think of any benefit of a reserve TD. As with the CD buy them as you level up and sell the outgoing ones.
Doctor - Let the contract expire and the game will auto-assign a low level replacement which will only cost £50k per race. Very slight reduction in training speed of drivers but IMO a worthwhile sacrifice given the money you will save.
Drivers - At much higher levels you may decide to have a reserve driver from your academy that you can train as a replacement for an ageing active driver. But at your level personally I would not have any reserve drivers. Try to get hold of high talent drivers and train them as they race.
Jason Almeida medal 4915 5 years 173 days ago
So in terms of CD, if I have two on my staff, and say one is strong in acceleration and weak in fuel economy, and the other is strong in tyre economy but weak in reliability, would that mean that for my season I now have strong acceleration and tyre economy and weak fuel economy and reliability? Or is it only whichever you have active?
My “backups” now are just the no-star $50k salary guys that get auto-signed when you don’t have someone in the position after their contract, I just keep forgetting to sell them when I sign an actual staff for their position.
Kevin Bissell medal 5000 Super Mod 5 years 173 days ago
The main purpose of your CD(s) is to generate starting design for next season but in combination with your Technical Director they also influence your research in the current season.
CDs only contribute to next season design when they are active. You are in an Elite tier with a 50 DP start of season design cap. A CD at the same level as the team over a course of 17 races will yield 43 dp in standard attributes, approx. 22 in CD weakness and 50 (the start of season design cap) in CD strength.
Without the 50 DP start of season cap your CD would generate 64 DP so 14 of these DP are wasted. This is why multiple CDs with different strengths can give you a better start of season design.
At a low level (you are L12), if you were competing in a strong league you would level up quickly so it would not be good value to have reserve CDs because by the time you get around to making the reserve active you would have levelled up making the CD you were paying to hold in reserve less effective. However, in your case, because you only have one competitor and he is L13 the rate at which you level up will be much slower.
The calculation for XP gain per race is 40 + 20 x (Highest level in league - Your level)
If you were competing against L20 teams your XP gain would be 200 points per race.
Because your competitor is L13 you only gain 60 XP per race and this makes levelling up much slower.
TBH, you only have one competitor so you're guaranteed a podium position every race. All this talk about reserve staff is not really relevant or needed in your situation. If you want to save money run a cheap CD for the entire season, employ a good one during the break between seasons, make the new CD active, leave and rejoin the league then sell the decent CD and reinstate your cheap one.
Do this every season until you decide you want to challenge yourself in a competitive league and then you will need to think about staff strategy.
I hope this helps.
Jason Almeida medal 4915 5 years 173 days ago
This helps greatly. I’m still kind of just hanging in this league to use it as a learning tool until I’m confident I know how to manage everything. I was in a full league for the first 2 tiers, but for some reason when I advanced to elite it was only this one other team. Decided to is it as an R&D league for my entire team and strategy for a couple seasons then jump into a full league.
All the info and explainations everyone has given me in my threads has been extremely helpful and insightful and much appreciated!