Predator Underdog Challenge

[igamesometimes]

Is there an updated guide for the predator underdog challenge slow build? The last one i looked at is massively outdated

[★MrDragon★]

Well uuhh you could try it without a guide... Why look at the guide when ya can play it your way

[Ohayoghurt]

The basic idea remains the same. If you don't mind losing in the first season for a later gain, accept the 10th place target, keep Evans for a while, throw every bit of money you can spare into part building, with the occasional HQ upgrade with whatever's left over, and most importantly, save your money when it's time to build next years car.

You're not going to be fighting for the title for a while, so why spend more money than necessary on a chassis that only lasts one year, as opposed to parts that will carry over between seasons?

[L37]

IMO keeping Evans, as well as reserve, makes no sense at all. He is entirely terrible and not worth those 50k/race you have to pay him. There are better drivers out there for the same money, even ones with pay driver perk which will result in something like +200k/race while also being better driver. Specific one i used to hire was Franky Kinney IIRC.

Also getting better car next year... kind of a waste of money IMO. You are not going to catch up with parts in one season and winning championship in second season is unlikely, so without it as a target why spend money on better chassis components when they provide so little benefit? IMO it makes sense to go for the cheapest ones and invest in HQ and parts instead.

And that's why you should probably just play the game without following guides or advice - everyone is going to have his own opinion on this things...

[Trixi]

Well, its basically the same as if you are creating a new team:

you need to build new parts for the car, you also need a better factory. Then you need to replace the drivers, either with drivers of high markebility or pay driver attribute. with higher marketbility you can attrackt better sponsers.

Originally posted by L37:

IMO keeping Evans, as well as reserve, makes no sense at all. He is entirely terrible and not worth those 50k/race you have to pay him. There are better drivers out there for the same money, even ones with pay driver perk which will result in something like +200k/race while also being better driver. Specific one i used to hire was Franky Kinney IIRC.


yeah, kinney is an awesome driver, espacially this high feedback rating, low wage and pay driver attribute makes him the perfect reserve driver for most of the teams.

[DuDu]

You can win ERS in your first season, it's not that tricky at all actually, but then you will be kinda screwed and it will take a lot of money, time and save-scumming to win the whole thing in the next 2 seasons. Or you can just play casually and easily and enjoy the game, then become OP as hell and whenever you like to end it just win all 3 championships in a row without any challenge.

The main suggestion is to get Hong Liao and Shen Qi drivers ASAP (preferably from the very start) because they can become real legends and are pretty cheap at the beginning. Other thing is to risk 1 car's performance/conditions just so you can collect a bit more points. IIRC you don't have to win a single race to be 1st in the end of the first season (both with team and a driver) and to get it you need a bit of good RNG or just save-scum your way to the top.
Another thing you need to const. worry about in the first 2 seasons is to ONLY build parts that are crucial for the next race and to use votes smartly every year to maximize your own performance and money gain. What else... Right... Alex Barbosa is a must from the start, Ren Jia can be good too if you want to have a long run along with Bao Tang as a reserve driver.
Saving or writing down perfect setups for each race for drivers you always prefer might help as well with building those boosts at training more easily. That's it basically. Design and Factory must be priority, other things whatever suits your style. :)

P.S. I am in season 8 (have all saves from starts, ends, mid-seasons and pre-seasons of every single season so far), still in ERS because I like to play it for the sake of playing, even tho it's a challenge campaign, I won every single championship so far with both team and a driver; have level 3s on Design and Factory, Liao and Qi are developed to at least 4 stars and I'm on my way to start building Road Car Factory by the end of this season. I also have a decent designer with -1 risk level (epic) and insta. max upgrade (legendary) bonuses. Something that really helped me was having an excel file with all of perfect/purple (min. 98%) setups that I keep expanding for every season that passes. I was save-scumming hardly only in the first season and later on I rarely did...

Dunno if you can still use that exploit with your own drivers being buttered up after interviews. Anyway, those 2 tend to start looking for a better team/higher championship not before they get to 3rd star or something like that.

[L37]

Well, yes, reloading saves is extremely powerfull in this game as you can essentially have anything chance-based play in your favor. Literally anything from using rule breaking parts with no risk, to doing fast pitstops with no risk to getting whatever voting results you wanted, etc... but then will it be fun?

[Ohayoghurt]

The point of keeping Evans in the first season would be that he costs almost nothing to employ, and you don't have to pay his release fee until later when you have a bit more money to spare. Since you're taking the 10th place target in season one anyway, his lack of skill is ultimately irrelevant.

[Ilsensine]

No offense JayOTT but from a financial point of view, you should always replace Willam Evans by Franky Kinney asap.

In my current playthrough, I signed Kinney for 87k per race (you can probably haggle for less since it was my first offer) but her sponsor (pay driver) gives me 218k each race meaning a net gain of 131k per race in my pockets. If you keep Evans, you do not have to pay the 229k for breking his contract but you *lose* 46k per race (his salary).

No need to be a math genius to realize that Evans' release fee and whatever sign-up bonus you give to Kinney are covered after only two races. After that you save 170k + in driver salary every race and Kinney has a marketability of 75% compared to only 27% for Evans, meaning even more money from sponsors. As a bonus, Franky is also a better driver. Not that it matter a lot with the crappy car that Predator starts with but it could help achieve one or two sponsor bonus during the season... maybe.

From a roleplaying point of view though, it sucks to fire the poor guy because he is such a team player, also Austaralian like the team, the chairman and Santa Ana like him and he really seems to think that he can win something this year.

[L37]

Originally posted by Ilsensine:

...
From a roleplaying point of view though, it sucks to fire the poor guy because he is such a team player, also Austaralian like the team, the chairman and Santa Ana like him and he really seems to think that he can win something this year.

Yeah, have to agree here.
From roleplaying point of view firing everyone feels really bad. It is like i take control and instantly throw their whole "team" out of the window hiring entirely new crew. In my case i only left Ines because she is a decent driver and has fairly cheap contract, but it probably makes sense to replace her too because of very poor marketability (and the fact that her decent stats make no difference with those car).

Also you payed Franky Kinney a bit too much. She easily accepts 58k, as a reserve too (hiring as reserve makes sense even when using her as one of main drivers IMO, as she will not complain much about worse car or possible demotion this way), and i suspect it might be too much too since it was accepted instantly.

[DuDu]

I just want to add that the real downside of playing a long run in ERS or ASC in this challenge is that you are const. being 1st and yet you are deciding to stay in the same championship which gives all of the upper "league" teams even more advantages over your team to progress more because nobody is getting relegated like ever, essentially, and bigger/better championships gain you more money = better/more improvements (not to mention far quicker HQ upgrades) each year. Remaining in ERS for a decade is a bit of suicide (what I am doing right now) because that difference in quality is most applied.

Never figured out what kind of balance comes from when you get promoted to the higher championship -- does it simply gives you performances that is an avg. of whole championship or do you get a bit under the last team in that "league"?
P.S. I just checked, I won my very first season (season 1) with Sara Thomas in Underdog Challenge. If you want to win that first season, my suggestion is just to take some 3 or 2.5 star driver and go for it with 2nd driver being one of the generic ones. But still, I think the best start ever in every challenge/run is to get to Liao and Qi ASAP, they are definitely the best drivers for at least first 10 seasons, a big advantage is that they are very young as well.

[Trixi]

Originally posted by Mr.Tav L'Adan:

Never figured out what kind of balance comes from when you get promoted to the higher championship -- does it simply gives you performances that is an avg. of whole championship or do you get a bit under the last team in that "league"?
P.S. I just checked, I won my very first season (season 1) with Sara Thomas in Underdog Challenge. If you want to win that first season, my suggestion is just to take some 3 or 2.5 star driver and go for it with 2nd driver being one of the generic ones. But still, I think the best start ever in every challenge/run is to get to Liao and Qi ASAP, they are definitely the best drivers for at least first 10 seasons, a big advantage is that they are very young as well.

If you promote, your car will about 9th in the grid.
If you demote, your car will about 2nd or 3rd best.

[DuDu]

Originally posted by Trixi:

Originally posted by Mr.Tav L'Adan:

Never figured out what kind of balance comes from when you get promoted to the higher championship -- does it simply gives you performances that is an avg. of whole championship or do you get a bit under the last team in that "league"?
P.S. I just checked, I won my very first season (season 1) with Sara Thomas in Underdog Challenge. If you want to win that first season, my suggestion is just to take some 3 or 2.5 star driver and go for it with 2nd driver being one of the generic ones. But still, I think the best start ever in every challenge/run is to get to Liao and Qi ASAP, they are definitely the best drivers for at least first 10 seasons, a big advantage is that they are very young as well.

If you promote, your car will about 9th in the grid.
If you demote, your car will about 2nd or 3rd best.

Aaaahh! Thank you! That clears out some things. :)