Career mode bike performance and upgrade costs

Guide to help with team selection and upgrade planning in the 'managerial' career mode.

Introduction

Some information about the game, obvious or otherwise, mostly focusing on the managerial career mode.

Something I've noticed as I continue to play through career and update this guide is that MotoGP 20 is a flawed diamond. Which is a nice way of saying buggy mess. Definitely some things for Milestone to improve in MotoGP 21.

Upgrade costs

The UI design doesn't make it obvious where your staff are assigned to when trying to reshuffle them. The best advice I can give is to always double check that you're getting the most out of your R&D team. Also, the staff points required to develop an upgrade is equal to the research points paid. I mention this to point out that any excess development points are wasted.

Finally, when an upgrade tree splits into two paths (marked by a <> here), only one of the branches can be installed at any given time.

Moto3

Engine 1: 400, Engine 1+: 500
Engine 2: 600, Engine 2+: 700
Engine 3: 800
Power 1: 1,000 <> Economy 1: 1,000

Frame 1: 300, Frame 1+: 400
Frame 2: 500
Handling 1: 900 <> Tyre wear 1: 900

Total: 12 upgrades, 8,000 points.

Moto2

Engine 1: 500, Engine 1+: 750
Engine 2: 1,000, Engine 2+: 1,500
Engine 3: 2,000, Engine 3+: 2,500
Power 1: 3,000 <> Economy 1: 3,000

Frame 1: 1,000, Frame 1+: 1,500
Frame 2: 2,000, Frame 2+: 2,500
Handling 1: 3,000 <> Tyre wear 1: 3,000

Engine brake 1: 1,500
Anti-wheelie 1: 1,500, Anti-wheelie 2: 2,000

Total: 17 upgrades, 32,250 points.

MotoGP

Satellite bikes cannot develop certain upgrades (marked by underlines here). However, fictional teams are treated as factory entries for this purpose.

Engine 1: Always installed, Engine 1+: 1,500
Engine 2: 2,000, Engine 2+: 2,500
Engine 3: 3,000, Engine 3+: 3,500
Power 1: 4,500 <> Economy 1: 4,500
Power 2: 5,500 <> Economy 2: 5,500

Frame 1: 1,000, Frame 1+: 1,500
Frame 2: 2,000, Frame 2+: 2,500
Handling 1: 3,000 <> Tyre wear 1: 3,000
Handling 2: 4,000 <> Tyre wear 2: 4,000
Handling 3: 5,000 <> Tyre wear 3: 5,000

Aero 1: Always installed, Aero 2: 2,500
Drag 1: 3,000 <> Downforce 1: 3,000

Engine brake 1: 1,000
Traction control 1: 1,500, Traction control 2: 3,000
Anti-wheelie 1: 1,500, Anti-wheelie 2: 3,000
Power mode 1: 2,500

Total factory: 30 upgrades, 84,500 points.
Total satellite: 24 upgrades, 57,500 points.

Start of season bike performance

Moto2/3

The team performance gauge in career mode is mostly useless. For factory teams, the race/championship target of the team you sign for correlates to how good your bike is.

C.Target	T.Perf
10th	70%
5th	80%
3rd	90%
1st	100%

The advantage that stronger teams have is inherent, so whilst upgrades can help bridge the gap, it's still a struggle to perform well at the weaker Moto3 teams. Not so much Moto2 though, as the pace disparity in that category is a lot smaller.

Notice that I said factory teams earlier. Fictional teams are overpowered, because no matter what target they have, their Moto2/3 bikes perform as if you signed for a team with a championship target of 1st. This 'exploit' pretty much eliminates the need to sign for stronger teams within a category.

MotoGP

Unlike the junior classes, MotoGP gives stronger teams more pre-installed upgrades instead of an inherent advantage. This means that Aprilia/KTM have as much potential as any other factory bike, though it will take longer to fulfil it.

Team	Upgrades	C.Target	Bike type
Repsol Honda	9	1st	Factory
Ducati Corse	9	1st	Factory
Monster Yamaha	7	1st	Factory
Suzuki Ecstar	7	3rd	Factory
Red Bull KTM	3	5th	Factory
Aprilia Gresini	3	10th	Factory
Petronas Yamaha	6	3rd	Satellite
Pramac Ducati	5	3rd	Satellite
LCR Honda	5	5th	Satellite
KTM Tech 3	3	10th	Satellite
Avintia Ducati	3	10th	Satellite
Fictional Ducati	6	5th*	Factory
Fictional KTM	3	10th*	Factory
Fictional Yamaha	5	5th*	Factory
Fictional Aprilia	3	10th*	Factory
Fictional Honda	6	5th*	Factory
Fictional Suzuki	5	5th*	Factory

*In the case of fictional teams, this is the target for the most lenient sponsor of the three options.

The only actual drawback of a satellite ride appears to be their slightly lower potential. The upgrade tree for factory and satellite is otherwise the same, and I see no evidence right now of the same upgrades being less effective on satellites, despite what the team performance gauge suggests.

Extra notes

- The bikes in GP/TT mode are not upgraded, and perform identically to their career counterparts sans upgrades, or extra upgrades in MotoGP's case. This means that the listed team performance ratings in GP/TT mode aren't always accurate (Honda Team Asia Moto3 being one major example).

- In regards to contracts, a proposal chance of low is still perfectly viable, especially if you can perform well during the negotiation. As such, it is relatively easy to move up to Moto2 from Moto3. MotoGP will take more time and/or good results to reach; 112,000 reputation was what it took for the low tier teams to give me a proposal chance of low.

- I'm still updating this guide as I go along and encounter more... let's call them quirks in the code. I still haven't reached MotoGP class in career mode, so there's plenty of time for me to find more stuff to add.