Designing New Car Parts

[C. Love]

Hoping someone can give a little guidance on this as Im not sure I'm fully grasping the Part Design element of this game.

- Am I correct that if you wish to develop a Good or Great part, I have to design a basically useless Average part just to access the good part?

- I have read a number of comments regarding what carries over from one season to the next in terms of parts you have designed - is it the best two parts of each car part category that comes across? And in what capacity? I did some serious develeopment towards the end of my 3rd season (with risky parts) so that they would carry over without the risk factored in, but the parts dont seem to have the same performance rating in the next season as they did immediately following development.

Any clarification on these two points would be greatly appreciated.

[⎝HaSe⎠Domme]

Regarding your first question, yes, you have to build a not so powerful part, to be able to build better parts. I think it is meant as a learning curve for your design team, as without knowledge and experience, building a good or legendary good car part is nearly impossible in the real world.

Since I'm not finished with my first season, I can not answer your second question.

[Sgt.Knumskull]

Originally posted by Crackerphat:

- Am I correct that if you wish to develop a Good or Great part, I have to design a basically useless Average part just to access the good part?

--> Correct! You are forced to 'build experience'.

Originally posted by Crackerphat:

- I have read a number of comments regarding what carries over from one season to the next in terms of parts you have designed - is it the best two parts of each car part category that comes across? And in what capacity? I did some serious develeopment towards the end of my 3rd season (with risky parts) so that they would carry over without the risk factored in, but the parts dont seem to have the same performance rating in the next season as they did immediately following development.

Im in my third preseason and as far as I can see no parts are carried over to your next car/season. I've made screenshots and savegames to test this theory. My enviroment variable: driving in ERS. Maybe in higher tier series it is handled differently.

[Grote Thijzer]

Sounds like you have grasped it pretty well to me!

- You're correct that you have to build a part with an average component in order to unlock the good components. Then, a part with both an average component and a good component will unlock the great component slot an so forth.

That first average part may feel a little useless (and sometimes it is), but since it uses the best "original" part you have that season as a base, that new average part will probably represent a significant upgrade compared to your weakest "original" part.

- You're also right again about the next season. It's the best two parts of each catergory. Now i've never paid too much attention to the exact values of my own designs, but I'm sure I've read there's supposed to be a little performance decay. As long as the discrepancy between your best parts from the old season and the original parts of the next season arent'too big I wouldn't worry about it.

If there is a big difference (more than an average part's worth) you may have stumbled onto a bug. In that case you can try manually fitting all those risky parts to your cars after the last race in an attempt to jolt the game into carrying them over. If that still doesn't work you may want to take it up with the developers.

[dirwulf]

You can build high risk parts and not use them, and they will be the base parts with no risk penalty the next season.

[Elseran]

In regards to the above parts questions I have one that goes along with being able to fund the reserach and parts development. Since your team is on such a tight budget, as with real racing teams, how do you get enough money built up to afford new buildings to improve your car?

[Grote Thijzer]

Originally posted by Elseran:

In regards to the above parts questions I have one that goes along with being able to fund the reserach and parts development. Since your team is on such a tight budget, as with real racing teams, how do you get enough money built up to afford new buildings to improve your car?

First off, your budget may not be as tight as think it is. You can go into debt for up to 5 million without suffering any negative consequences.

To make sure you can actually get out of debt you will want to increase your revenue though and there are three good and easy ways to do that:

1. Be ambitious when your chairman asks you about the target for next season. Unless you're still very new to the game and haven't gotten a handle on race strategy you should always go for the highest option.

Don't worry too much about getting fired. As long as you get a few good results now and again you should be fine. And always accept interview requests. These may be beyond stupid, but they're guaranteed to give your chairman a +5 morale boost.

2. Watch your overall marketability. It's the average of your two driver's and your team's marketability rating. Getting 4 or 5 star sponsors is a pretty big deal. the 4 star sponsors unlock at 70% marketability.

If you can't find two fast drivers with 70+ marketability just try to get one. Then, get a reserve driver with a very high rating and, in between races, swap him around with your least marketable main driver whenever a sponsorship deal runs out.

3. Get a pay driver as a reserve and let him do practise. Bjorn Bjelland is by far and away the best man for this job. He will net you a 100K per race in the European Racing Series and that only goes up when you progress. Plus he has very high marketability so, you can use him for the marketing trick I just mentioned. Don't worry too much about his terrible feedback stat. I promise it won't slow your practise sessions down much.

[Jacques]

Originally posted by Elseran:

In regards to the above parts questions I have one that goes along with being able to fund the reserach and parts development. Since your team is on such a tight budget, as with real racing teams, how do you get enough money built up to afford new buildings to improve your car?

As the old adage goes, "you've got to spend money to make money". You get more money by doing better than your expected results. Better parts, mean better results which mean better marketability and more funding from sponsors, end of season funding and higher chairman funding the next year when expectations go up.
Early on, with basic buildings you'll run out of things to build before the end of the season, so any money made after that is a bonus.

[Sigi_Reuven [CH]]

Originally posted by Elseran:

In regards to the above parts questions I have one that goes along with being able to fund the reserach and parts development. Since your team is on such a tight budget, as with real racing teams, how do you get enough money built up to afford new buildings to improve your car?

- Hire 2 Pay drivers (I hired 3), Jonsdottir is one with a good value
- Hire an engineer with 5 extra slots.
- Build up part expirience through these 5 extra slots at very low cost
- Build the best part with 5 slots you are able
- + stats moving over to next season, + to max not (thats what i read)

funding and research should be no problem like this.
i took my time, played save to not risk my job and won, after 13 seasons, the F1 with predator and the challenge with near max buildings.

[Cyroch]

Originally posted by Sigi_Reuven DE:

Originally posted by Elseran:

- + stats moving over to next season, + to max not (thats what i read)

That does not hold true anymore. On the current version, +max stats will carry over, provided you actually maxed them out through the improvement.