Rising Star 2 - Surviving and Thriving in the Expanding Game

A Primer for Beginners and those who find the new and expanded game a bit intimidating and confusing. I will try to continually update it as Todd adds features.

Hopefully, this guide will take you from the beginning of the game up through your first steps on the road to Music Stardom.

Last Updated (07/16/23)

The Long and Winding Road (Creating a Band)

Create your character with the toolkit and add a character name and band name in top left corner. The bottom left is a choice of instrument and bottom right is a basic aptitude skill. The aptitude skill cannot be changed and it allows you to advance that skill twice as fast.

As a nice touch, when you create a character, as well as hire any band members, you get to change their names. You can also use " " to add a special nickname. Renaming band members, as they grow is fun. Ray Bob Jones becomes Ray Bob "R B" Jones and will be referred to as R B in game. This becomes especially useful if you decide to use a MONGO in game to help you make money faster. As it is a constant reminder that you have a MONGO that will need to be replaced when he reaches is 'sell by' date. (More on that later)



The game utilizes a system of attitudes that are prevalent and both locally and regionally specific. These attitudes reflect what musical themes are popular in that region of the world, North America and Europe. These attitudes evolve over time so that an attitude that is unpopular today, may become popular in the future. You also have local attitudes in each state that may conflict with regional attitudes.




You can pick 10 sets of attitudes that your character can keep. Each attitude has two facets so your 10 attitudes can open 20 actual opposing attitudes. Of your 10 selections, you must choose 3 of the 20 attitudes you chose as your starting attitudes. Each few weeks (the time varies for each character) you have the opportunity to change one attitude. Be aware that if an attitude that you did not originally choose becomes popular, you cannot ever use it to make songs.

For example, my character can choose Love/Hatred as one of his 10 original attitude options. If he chooses Hatred when he enters the game he can not write songs with LOVE as a theme until a few weeks have passed and he is able to swap out the two opposing attitudes.

As a side note here, the game will NEVER switch between two opposite attitudes. If Hatred is popular, when it changes it will never go immediately to Love. Instead it will go to a new attitude and Love might possibly be added at the next change, so you will always have a chance to adjust your own attitudes to meet each month's change.

In this same example you can see by the left screenshot that he was unable to take four of the attitudes. He will NEVER be able to write a song using any of the 8 attitudes listed on those 4 tiles. If, for instance, Technology was popular, he would be unable to write a song about it. If one of his band-mates had the ability to write a tech song, that band member's writing skill would determine the value of the song rather than his own writing skill. (more about this later)



As previously mentioned, there are two continents (Regions) available in the current game. They are The United States/Canada and Europe. (see image above) They can each be accessed by touching and spinning the globe icon in the top left corner of the game map using the left mouse button. (see image below)



With a name like Ray Bob I decided to start his band in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I prefer starting the game in a smaller town for ease of travel, but any town will work. I do recommend that you pick a town with several other towns within easy driving distance. This allows you to book out of town gigs, shop, take jobs, or look for a manager in several nearby cities, and still get home in time to rest and repair before the next day. In some cases, you can actually travel to 3 towns in a single day without needing to rent a motel room for the night. This is a huge benefit in the early game when money is tight.

It is also nice to have an airport hub nearby (these cities have an airplane icon) so that you can travel for distant gigs when your popularity grows.

As a last comment on starting city, I advocate for beginning users that a small town is best. This way when you take jobs, they are always easy to accomplish. Some jobs will ask you to drive around to several spots in town and return. These can be tedious because in a large city there are a LOT more stops to make but the pay is the same. It is even worse when there is a time limit to complete the job. Having one minute to make 5 spots on a 4 x 4 map is a LOT easier than making 10 stops on a 12 x 12 map in that same minute.

The result can be expensive vehicle damage (repairs), loss of income (failing the job), personal injuries to the band members (medical bills and/or loss of happiness and work), and the inability to try the same job at a later time (all jobs are finite in number and not repeated).

CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED !

I Get Around (Travel)

Okay, here is where you begin to pay your dues in order to reach that brass ring of Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll Mega-Stardom!

As soon as you start your game you will notice four things.

1) You are the only person in your band.
2) You have no functioning musical instrument. (red instrument icon)
3) Your apartment is a dump. (You should see my first apartment)
4) You have gained a level of experience (the little pluses floating around your character pic) and can spend your first experience points. Depending on what difficulty you chose at the start, you will gain 6, 5, or 4 experience points per level.



I suggest that first-time players at easy level raise their Repair skill to 5 immediately and putting the other point(s) into Primary Aptitude. The reason for raising repair is to help jump start that skill and make early cash in game. Your skill level is a direct reflection of your percentage chance to repair an item. After this I will not invest in Repair since every repair attempt pays me experience (even if I fail), has a chance to raise my skill (every time I succeed), and every attempt has a 5% chance to succeed and repair some of the item's damage/wear. This will allow me to buy damaged gear for a low price and repair it to raise its value for resale, or personal use.l

The downside of repair is that each failure lowers the condition of the instrument until it reaches zero. I need a MONGO to help me. (more on that later)




Two important quick keys to remember are X and H. When you are in your Home or any building, X will move you outside at the building's entrance. If you are outside in any town where you own a home, H will move you inside your home from any location on the mini map.

In the screen shot (BELOW) you can see a small mini map of my town set up as a 9 block (3 x 3 grid square) containing my current location. Until I drive the streets I can not see any location but my own home and the close surrounding area. Hitting M opens the mini map and shows the entire city. In my case, the town is so small that all 9 blocks appear on the mini map.


As you see by the map icons, there are 5 Hotels/Motels, 4 Home sites, 4 clothing stores, 4 music shops, 3 recording studios, 2 managers, 1 photography studio, 1 garage, 1 Printer, 1 art gallery, 1 Park, 1 Cemetery, 1 Hospital, and 5 Music venues.

The 5 music venues on the map can be identified by using mouse over and they show 1 of the venues is a large Theater, 2 are night clubs and 2 are small bars. Without a manager, we can only book gigs for ourselves in the bars and clubs. Managers are necessary to book large venues like Theaters and Stadiums.

Since we are just getting started and have no songs, no instruments and no band, we will need to address those issues before we try to get a gig. Drive to the nearest music store (musical note icon) and enter it.



In the first shop we found a BC Rich Son of a Beast White guitar in very poor condition for $135. If I use this guitar it gives me +1 Stage Presence. This bonus remains regardless of condition unless it reaches 0. The current condition is 13/78 which means it has only 13 points of wear and tear before it is broken, BUT if it is repaired to max it will have 78 points. I can pay to have it repaired, but the cost is prohibitive and will not benefit me. In the early game, I want to raise my repair skill as fast as possible and sell the stuff I don't need for myself at a profit.



By right clicking the guitar in the store's inventory. When I left click it in my inventory, I can see what it is, what condition it is in, what I paid for it, and what the store will pay me to buy it back. This last notation is important. I can now drive to the other 3 music shops and see what they will pay for it.



As you can see by this screen shot, Alan's Discount Music is willing to buy it for $76 so I will always sell any used and repaired gear to Alan's, regardless where I purchased it. Please note, that if I am in another town where I do not know where the best shopping is, I can still see what I paid for any item before selling it.

Now our first band hire needs to be made.



As you can see, I had to drive to a neighboring town to find a band member who can repair gear. When you look at the ads on a music shop bulletin board, they describe what their primary aptitude is. We needed someone with repair skill and we found him. He is not very compatible with the band leader, but that is not a factor until we start playing gigs and making money. When everyone is broke, they are willing to work out differences, but as they gain success, the cracks begin to appear. No worries, as Dominic's usefulness will eventually have him joining the Pete Best's and Stu Sutcliffe's of the world.

Returning home, I go to the rehearsal room and choose REPAIR tab.

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Repair window shows the condition of all of my band's gear. Each member of the band gets a number of repair attempts per day based on the difficulty level of the game. Dominic has 27% chance of success per attempt, Ray Bob (R B) has a 5% chance of success per attempt.

My recommendation here is that you use the higher skilled member to keep items from breaking (0 quality) and all other band members struggle to raise up their skill every day. I would normally have other band members added at this point, so let me recruit some more members.



Keith Strange is a low ego high playing skill drummer with good compatibility with RB. Dakota Hawk is a low ego bass player with good compatibility with RB as well. Her business skill is not as valuable over the long haul, but can definitely make a difference in cash flow at the start. Low ego is important because there is far less tendency to quit over compatibility or anger issues. As I said before, personality issues are not that big of a deal in the early days, and everyone's issues with Dominic will be resolved LONG before our band hits the big time.

Ooops...I did it again! (Hiring)

Spaznetz just posted his own guide on hiring musicians, and rather than rip-off his idea, I will just post a link so you can check it out. It explains exactly what each of those post-it notes on the Music Store bulletin board means.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3001692437

Who Are You? (Character Skills)

At the beginning of this guide, I did not go into much detail about creating a character and the pros and cons of each musician and skill. Most of the reason was that I want to let you play what you want and how you want. Some builds are better than others, but it is possible to be successful with any instrument/skill combo.

Please bear in mind that each setup will use a separate set of gear to take advantage of various stat bonuses. These bonuses improve your skills and can save you a LOT of wasted experience points if you make sure to check all four setups before spending exp.

The setups are for Practicing (playing skill), Performing (stage presence skill), Songwriting (writing music skill) and Busking (no bonus gear but specific instruments necessary to do this task).

There is no bonus gear for writing lyrics.

Instruments:

Vocalist: this is the least profitable musician in the early game, especially if you plan to follow my strategy of repairing and reselling gear for profit. There are only two types of equipment for the vocalist. (1 microphone and 3 effects processors per setup)

Guitarist: There is no distinction between lead or rhythm guitar in the game, but you can field more than one if you like. This is my favorite musician in game due to the wide variety of distressed gear available for repair and resale. (1 guitar, 1 strings, 3 processors and 1 amp per setup)

Bass Guitar: Much smaller variety of bass guitars in the game make it less popular than anyone except the vocalist. (1 bass guitar, 1 strings, 3 processors and 1 amp per setup)

Drums: The gear availability is about on par with Bass, but the greater per unit price makes it a lot more profitable when you repair and resell it. There are also a couple expensive additions (drum heads and cymbals) but they can also add enhancement bonuses, so it rates above the bass. (Drum, 1 drumsticks, 1 drum heads, 1 cymbals, 3 processors per setup)

Keyboards: Now that keyboards can busk, this is my second most profitable instrument, as keyboards and their amps are VERY pricey, but once you can repair them each unit sold has the highest average dollar value in the game. (Keyboard, 1 amp, 3 effects processors per setup)

So, using my repair and resell strategy for fun and profit, I rate the most profitable musicians to be:

1) Guitar
2) Keyboard
3) Drum
4) Bass
5) Vocalist

Now, about starting skills, they are great to have because each exp point used in your bonus skill counts double. However, there is no real consensus on what skill is the best for beginning the game. My personal take on each is included here for you.

***Let me reiterate here that Playing Skill reflects a musician's actual skill with an instrument and Play Skill reflects how well the band plays a particular song (based on rehearsal and difficulty)***

Playing:
I have mixed feelings about taking this as a bonus skill. Most players still feel that you are wasting valuable double exp points because busking earns you 1 playing skill each day until you reach 20. You also have a slim chance of gaining +1 playing when you rehearse a song that is difficult to learn (a song the band cannot yet raise to 100 Play Skill).

The fact that you are getting exp from busking and income from busking AND a possible free playing point for practicing is something I highly recommend avoiding as a bonus skill. So, if you do choose this as your bonus skill, do NOT put any exp into it until you reach the 20 free busking points. The reason is simple, the game will stop giving you a playing point for busking as soon as you reach 20 skill.

I consider Playing skill to be one of the most important skills to raise, especially early in the game. It lowers the amount of time it takes to learn new songs. It also makes it easier to learn difficult songs. But, if you skill it faster than the rest of the band, it seems to negate some of the benefits.

On the other hand,while many people choose to focus a different primary skill and use single experience points rather than bonus skills on it, I have recently tried using it as a bonus skill and rapidly ascend the playing tree until I reach 80 as soon as possible. While Playing skill can earn you money from busking and earn endorsements later in the game, neither of those bonuses results in much cash.

Music Writing or Lyric Writing:
Most players seem to favor music writing or lyric writing as their bonus stat, but there seems to be a growing number of players who feel that by not choosing either skill, it is an effective way to combat unhappiness in the band.

The reasoning is solid. In the middle-to-late game, when your band is finding success and making money, unhappiness drives a wedge between members, usually due to ego or songwriting credit. It is pretty common to have someone leave the band abruptly, if you are not paying attention.

Every gig you play consists of a set list and credit for each song is shared by each of the musicians who contributed a songwriting tile to it. The same is true for CD releases. If you choose to take a back seat and not write music, there is a greater chance that the other band members will share writing credit on most of your songs, making them each happier.

Stage Presence:
Another money maker. You can get (negligible) endorsements and your songs can get a better audience reaction (boosting T Shirt and CD sales for a lot more than endorsement cash) with a high stage presence. It also helps you to win Battle of the Bands competitions (letting you raise popularity and hire a manager).This is my recommended player skill.

Production: Was once the least valuable skill, but there was an update to the whole songwriting system that allows players to salvage and recombine tiles to raise their value. Production skill allows the band combine two matching tiles that were previously created to make them better. Each combine takes one point of production skill for each tile point. For example, a pair of matching 3 point tiles can create a 6 point tile and costs 6 Production skill. These skills can be used daily. Apparently, like with Business skill, the points you can use are based on the highest skill band member. This means that if the highest band member has 70 skill, the entire band can combine up to 70 points per day.



Business: This gets you discounts on instruments and gear in the early game. it also helps improve the chance to get a gig and the fees when you are booking your own club deals, but it becomes worthless after you get a manager.

Repair: If you follow my guide, you will never put more than 4 exp into this skill. I usually prime my character to 5 repair off my first level exp. After that, I skill it up by repairing things. The game has no end to the amount of gear to be fixed, and every attempt to fix an item, whether successful or not, gains you experience and a chance to raise the skill by 1 on each attempt.

That's right. You could (potentially) gain 1 skill point on every attempt!

You're So Vain (Attributes & Attitudes)

Earlier I mentioned EGO. I will try to expand upon that, as well as the other attributes and attitudes in the game. BELOW is Killer, he is a replacement drummer who I brought in after firing Mongo.


The attributes are listed below his image.

Inspiration - Show's how close he is to getting new song ideas. Every band member will get ideas, the higher their Lyric or Music Writing skill is, the better the quality of those ideas. Since Killer has low numbers in both, I cannot expect any of them to of huge value, since his band has been established before he joined. inspiration is gained by playing gigs, buying clothing, buying gear, writing songs, and many other positive events.

Health - Let's you know if he is sick or injured. Some days, you will wake up and the game will let you know a member is not feeling well. The illness will subtract from the member's skills in the form of parentheses listed after the stat (the same way gear bonuses are listed after skills). Sick band members can ruin a gig, so keep an eye on them. A sick member can be healed by bed rest (no practicing allowed) for a period of time based on severity. You can also visit the hospital and pay for treatment. If you opt to ignore it, they might recover a point each day with no help, but they might also get worse.

Happiness - The member's happiness is damaged by negative events, illness, car accidents, high ego, and conflicts with other members' attitudes. When the member hits zero happiness, they quit the band and take their share of the band cash. The only exception is if the band is on tour. If you are touring they quit as soon as the tour ends. Happiness is gained a lot like Inspiration. Notice that happiness is a blue button, pushing it shows the member's happiness and events that impacted it for the past few days.

Ego - Ego is vanity and conceit. They demand recognition and reassurance on a daily bases. In short, they are the only being in their own world, and everyone else is an npc. There are several ways to counter a high ego, but it takes a lot more happiness-related events to counteract it. I try to have my high ego members use repair skill daily (+5 on each success and +3 on each failure) I have them contribute to songs as often as possible, I buy them clothing and gear. Just try to avoid high ego members, or monitor their happiness constantly. This particular Drummer, Killer was losing 48 points of happiness after every gig because he was not getting writing credit on any of our songs. I finally got his Music writing high enough to fashion a single 15 point Riff tile. I had the rest of the band complete the song with 25 point tiles and had a 90 Play skill song with excellent high difficulty. We made sure to play in in every set, and instead of losing 48 points, he gained 10!

Attitudes - are a reflection on what crowds will like and dislike in both a Region (US/Canada or Europe) and in a State. At times State attitudes will conflict with Regional attitudes. Since most of the crowds at any gig are made up of local people, State will dominate over Regional in those places. The attitudes on your band member's upper right tab is the Regional attitude. The one on this picture on the bottom right reflects the attitudes that the band member uses, and is colored green if it matches the Region. Attitudes are only about Lyrics, if a song has no Lyrics it will never had a negative attitude, but can gain a positive attitude in a gig where Instrumental Music is an attitude. A song with a negative lyric during a time when Slow songs or Fast songs are positive will remain Neutral, despite the lyric.

The Fool on the Hill (WTF is a Mongo?)

OKAY.

Let's talk about Mongo. (yes I am a Blazing Saddles fan)

Mongo is my generic name for Repair Skill focused band members. They are extremely valuable in the early game, but quickly become a drag on the band. The reason is obvious. The entire band can gain 100 Repair skill just by fixing and maintaining gear. So his focus on Repair means he will constantly struggle to keep up with the rest of the band as a musician. In fact, by the time you start making real cash, you will have roadies to repair your gear and more than enough money to refurbish everything whenever you like.

I cannot overemphasize this point. The condition of the gear has no impact on the bonuses, unless the condition is zero. That means that condition 1/100 is just as effective as 100/100. The only difference is that using the 1/100 guitar before repairing will break it.

So why hire Mongo?

The easy answer is this.

In the beginning, none of my band members can repair gear very well. They will cost me a fortune as they destroy instruments, amps, and electronics. This is unacceptable. Mongo takes that money sink and turns it into a money tree.

Here is how it works.

1) Hire a person with Repair ability of 30 as my first band member.
2) Buy gear that is in poor condition (below 30).
3) Let Mongo repair it almost fully.
4) Let other band members try to repair it to full.
5) If they fail, let them keep trying (as each failure reduces condition) until it is below 30.
6) If they succeed, sell or use it at need.
7) Rinse and Repeat

The reason I promote this plan is very simple. If you followed my guide, you have several nearby towns (each with 5+ music shops) within range to go and buy damaged gear, then return home the same day. Larger nearby towns have even more music shops. This gives you a massive supply base for acquiring damaged gear. You can then sell it at the shop in your home town that you know offers top dollar for used gear.

(insert best shopping network voice here) AND THAT'S NOT ALL !!!

As you add new band members, they already have used gear and their own cash. I make sure they buy damaged gear with their own cash, not band cash. When the gear is sold, they keep the cash. This way they can fund their own shopping for picks, sticks, heads, cymbals, clothes, etc.

And the real beauty of this method, is that while guitars are the easiest damaged gear to find, only a guitar player can buy one. But, every band member can repair any damaged item. So we can all skill up on repair (while stockpiling cash) as we busk our way to 20 Playing skill and slowly begin writing, practicing, and performing.

I make Mongo keep putting his points into Repair, because as soon as another band member gets to 50 repair skill, Mongo is sailing into the sunset and we are replacing him with a new member who has Playing as primary skill. This will help the new hire catch up quickly to the band.

CAUTION

Be sure that you don't have gigs scheduled for the time necessary to train Mongo's replacement! Breaking in a new band member massively hurts your Playing skill of each song, because you lose skill points every time you lose a band member and again every time you hire one!

Money (Staying Afloat)

Before we start taking our new band into the stratosphere of music stardom, we need to equip each member of them with a busking instrument. These can be found at music shops in every town.

For the next few weeks the mantra is simple.

1) Mow the grass at the nearby park, busk each day in the mowed park gaining 200 exp and +1 Playing skill per day (the park will allow busking for 2 weeks following the lawn mowing job, so you should gain 13 playing skill before needing to mow again).

2) Repair gear daily by letting the best repair skill band members keep items from breaking as the rest wear them down by trying to repair (you get experience from every repair attempt).

2) Write Songs or Practice songs (each member whose name appears on a completed song gains exp. from writing and all members get some exp as well as a possible +1 Playing skill from practicing songs).

(authors update) The Playing bonus may no longer be allowed from practicing, as later updates might have removed that bonus. I have not noticed it happening in recent playthroughs.

3) Sell fully repaired gear for profit at the best resale shop and replace with new worn out gear (be careful to ONLY sell the gear that is NOT utilized by the band. As you buy gear, often the band members who buy it will keep it for gigs, writing, rehearsing or busking In order to protect them from accidental resale. There is a box on the listing of each instrument allowing you to withhold it from resale).

Rinse and repeat the process.

During this time the experience from Busking, Practicing, Writing Songs, and Repairing gear will begin to level your band members. I recommend putting 2 points each level (4 skill points) into their primary aptitude skill. The rest into Playing skill (only AFTER they have maxed 20 skill from busking) or Writing Music or Lyrics depending on your preference.

The goal is to have a band with;

All members Playing skill above 70
At least one member with 70+ Music Writing Skill
At least one member with 70+ Lyric Writing Skill
At least one member with 70+ Stage Presence Skill

Playing skill allows musicians to quickly learn and master songs, especially difficult songs.



Each of the three Music writing tiles (rhythm, tempo, riff) has a Large Number (quality), a small number (difficulty) and a name (author).

Each Lyric Writing tile has a Large Number (quality) and a name (author), as well as the attitude (Blue text means it is currently popular and Red means it is currently unpopular in the region you are in, and all the others are neutral). The popularity of each attitude will change as the attitudes go in and out of favor with audiences, so today's popular theme may become despised later in the game and eventually regain favor.

***UPDATE***
In the screenshot, there is a bank where players were able to save particular tiles. This is no longer the case as more recent updates allow all the tiles to remain in the game forever.



In this example we are creating a 4 quality song with 16 difficulty. Three of the band members will get experience for collaborating on it as well as gaining happiness every time we play it at a gig (this can be a cause of friction in the band later when members, especially ones with high ego, get angry because they are not getting song writing credit). Notice that the Lyric is about a popular present attitude. As attitudes change, so will the song's popularity.

Our goal is to write 6 songs of dubious quality to allow us to practice them and play them in small gigs. The songs will suck, but will get us in the door at smaller pubs and (hopefully) a few Battle of the Bands competitions.

HELP! (Gigs, Pop & Rep)

Following the previous section, you should be writing and rehearsing songs for the experience. The songs were low quality and pretty basic musicianship. The goal is to eventually get at least 6 songs above 50-70 Playing Skill. When we are in that range of skill we can start looking for gigs in small venues. In my town those are Kevin's Watering Hole and Rick's Bar. There are also two larger clubs in town, but they are probably not going to take a risk of hiring us until we have some hometown popularity.

Playing Battles of the Band and winning are the only viable way to raise popularity enough to hire a manger. Each Battle win gives you a huge popularity boost.

I also drove to the two nearest cities to try the small venues in each. I was able to book the next two weekends as well as booking a gig on Friday night the first weekend of next month.

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Because each of these venues has me on their Calendar, neither will offer me another gig until I fulfill my scheduled date with them. If I fail to show up for a gig, my rep with that club will suffer and booking future gigs there will be very difficult.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes (Practicing & Dealing with shifting attitudes)

SO

We have our band in place.

We have skills and we are on the right path to stardom.

What more is there to know?

The answer to that is....LOTS!

We have only scratched the surface, and this guide is far from a definitive work on the subject of success in Rising Star 2 !



Attitudes change and you have to change with them or your band will be the next Milli Vanilli. It is not enough to have a hit song (or three) and ride the "Fame Train" to glory. Going into clubs, especially as your rep and popularity there goes up, you will see people talking and sharing thoughts on music both present and future. These are telling you what direction attitudes are heading. The more you see an existing popular attitude being shared, the longer it will stay popular. If the attitude is not currently popular, it soon will become so. This allows your band time to change member attitudes and write songs that are not only relevant now, but will soon become relevant.

Let me reiterate...You can get a jump start on new attitudes that WILL become popular soon! By checking any club where you have rep. The higher your rep at the club, the more attitudes are revealed. This is especially important when several band members have a faster turn around time to shift their own attitudes. When you check the player's box and see what three attitudes he/she has right now, as well as showing whether the member can immediately change one attitude, or how long they must wait before they can.

For example, suppose there is one member of your band who is able to change only every six weeks. All the rest of your band shifted at the 1st of this month and all of them now have three popular attitudes. Looking at the calendar, you see this slow shifting member can only be ready again on the 25th of the month. You go to a club and see that there will be a new attitude soon, because the clubs in your town are all talking about it.

First consider that your full band will be able to shift on (or near) the 1st of next month. This leaves you with three options to consider. You can shift the slow player on the 25th to match your band, or you can hold his change until the 1st and grab the band's shift to match each other (even though it's possible the two that already match might be the ones changing, or you can shift his odd attitude to a new one you know is coming. This way he is getting a jump ahead of the band to overcome the long lapse between changes.

Timing is everything, and even though the changes you hear about in clubs might be next month, or further down the road, it is easier for a band to match his attitudes than for him to try to keep up. One thing to watch for, is when you see instrumental, high energy, or low energy on the horizon you can use that month to get the band back in sync, since there will only be two actual attitudes those months. So....

PAY ATTENTION!

Stay Tuned!

*UPDATE*

Some people have serious lag issues when they enter a club to check on gigs, learn about future attitudes, or just play a gig. You can now check a box in SETTINGS to allow 2D rendering in clubs. When you enter you will see a flat image of thought bubbles and venue schedule without trying to walk around.

Eye of the Tiger (Rehearsing)

I didn't plan to add this, since it seems pretty straightforward. The more you practice, the better you get...right?

Actually, I was in game with my newest band, and was weighing whether I had time to rehearse my newest song in time for my next gig, or if I had time to write a second song and rehearse BOTH before the gig. I mean it stands to reason that if I am rehearsing twice as many songs, I will raise each song's Play skill (the skill to which the song has been practiced) half as much, right?

WRONG

You never wanna go play a gig without raising the song above 70 Play Skill. In fact, I have a hard limit of new songs being practiced to at least 85 Play skill before I will use them at a gig. After all, how can you evaluate the potential of a song that you cannot play well?

So, how many days do you have to practice a new song before it's ready to play it at a gig?

That's easy. The answer is 'it depends'.

You see, as you get better at Playing Skill, the faster you will raise the Play Skill of a song. In the early days you might have the whole band rehearse a new song, and only raise it by a few Play points, As you get better you will notice that the band's necessary rehearsal time is more efficient as Playing Skill goes up.

I find that having 70 Playing skill for ALL band members gets you to what I call the Rehearsal Cap. This is the most Play Skill points you can impart to your songs in one day. The cap on points is 100. So, with 70 Playing, practicing 10 songs at the same time will give each song 10 Play Skill points. However, even with that cap, you can never add more than 35 points to any song per rehearsal. So, if I have 70 Playing skill and I have a brand new song, it will take me 3 days to skill it to 100 (35 + 35 + 35 = 100. If I do the same with two new songs, it still takes the same amount of time ! However, if I rehearse 3 new songs, the formula becomes 33 + 33 + 33 = 99.

The formula is simple, divide 100 Play Skill by the number of songs you rehearse. It ALWAYS rounds down and never exceeds 100.

If I have one song at 95 and three more at 50, they each gain 25 Skill, so you lose 20 points in the exchange.

So, be careful when you click the option to rehearse all songs below 100!

Running on Empty (Finding Gigs)

OK. We have rehearsed our first 6 songs. Before the first gig, I went to a printing shop and had some T-Shirts made for selling at gigs. The shop allows me (for a fee) to design Tees, album covers, and gig banners. You can upload your own images for use in all three designs, or use the game's design editor.

Make sure you edit the price on the shirts. Some players give them away in an attempt to garner popularity, I always price everything with at least a 100% markup. Since the T-Shirts cost me $5 each, I will offer them at gigs for $10.

I have my 6 songs ready for my first gig at Vanessa's Pub.



Note that I do not name a song unless it becomes a hit, but that is my own choice so do as you will (I just got tired of using my fave song titles on songs that tanked for my band). If you like, you can use the built-in naming tab and then change the name later.



As you can see, our opening gig at Vanessa's Bar showed a serious deficiency in both our presentation and quality of performance. Somehow, I doubt that this bodes well in our Battle of the Bands tomorrow night.




As I feared, we were slaughtered at the Battle of the Bands. However, the weekend was far from a disaster. We managed to pick up inspiration, happiness, popularity and reputation with both the fans and club management, as well as some of the other local bands. This popularity with bands increases the chance that they will be willing to invite us to perform at their future gigs. We also sold a couple band shirts which will garner future popularity. Lastly, the clubs will be more agreeable about booking us for future gigs.



So, I drove back by both venues, Rick's had no openings, but Vanessa;s had a month's worth of slots to fill. Positive reputation and band popularity are a huge factor in booking gigs. Having a band member with Business skill helps a bit, too!

Unfortunately, I was forced to choose not to accept any more gigs in order to deal with a future headache.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do! (Bye Mongo)

Band Dynamics are always difficult, but success seems to bring it all to the fore. One of the advantages in this sim, is that you get a deep look into band chemistry and can plan accordingly. When you hire a new musician, his current relationship with each band member is illustrated for you by color and line thickness. However, do not be deterred if you find a perfect replacement who shows he is dynamically opposed to the rest of the band. He just needs to be finessed.

The relationships between band members is shown by interconnected lines. The greener the line between two members, the better they get along. Conversely, the redder they get, the poorer their relationship. Fortunately, personalities are not the issue, it is attitudes. Since you can adjust one of the prevailing attitudes that a member has every 2-6 weeks, within 2-3 months you can turn Ozzy Osbourne into John Denver.

Once you have every band member in sync with the same attitudes, the only issues you will get come from ego and events.

Now, on with Dom's sad tale.

As I said in previous chapter, in every band I begin, I look for one member with high repair skill to help my band members become proficient at repairing gear without spending valuable experience on it. I call them Mongo. The downside of the MONGO strategy, is that you often end up grabbing a skilled craftsman that has zero value in the band's long-term future. I mean sure, he can fix gear, but by the time I start touring I have road crew techs for that. They will do it automatically after every gig, and all I need to do is refurbish my well-maintained, but road-worn gear every few months to keep us playing gigs like a well-oiled machine. So some members that are vital in the early game, become an albatross by mid-game.

Like Dominic


We knew he would be trouble eventually, but we needed his skill. Now the rest of the band is more skilled than Dom was when he joined us, so we no longer require his skills.



While he is still making us money faster because of his 99 repair skill, his lack of other skills will become a bigger issue for us the further we go down the line. When the rest of the band has decent repair skills, we won't need him. We will need one with actual musical talent (production skill) who can help us reach musical stardom. Just think of poor Dominic as the Pete Best or Stu Sutcliffe of our band.

Earlier in the game we had a random event where Dom was arrested and we needed to bail him out or lose him. Because we were still low in repair skills at the time we chose to keep him. Now our options are

1) Wait for another random event.

2) Fire him.

3) Make him so angry he quits.

All three choices have consequences. Whatever the reason, he will take his share of band funds when he goes. Whenever a person is added/removed from a band, the band will also lose a lot of Playing skill on their songs. This will require rehearsal time to overcome. It will also drop further if/when we try to hire another replacement or a fifth band member.

By firing him now, we will mitigate many of the expenses and heartburn of losing him down the road. After all, the band is just starting out and has very little cash on hand. There are also ways for us to mitigate those losses.

We have 3 gigs still on our calendar. The plan is to fire him immediately after those gigs are done. That way we have time to rehearse before new gigs, so our playing skill will not be hurt by his departure. it also gives us time to hide the money from him so he cannot take any band funds with him.

I know, it seems heartless and cruel to recruit the guy and use him to make us better, then dump him and deny him his fair share. So sue me.

Music is a dirty business!



So, you can see we lost a huge chunk of our Music's Playing Skill after firing Dom. We then hired Sabrina.



Her only downside is her ego, it is below 50, but if she is not allowed to co-write a lot of our music, or if we don't include enough music that she collaborated on in our gigs and CDs, she might have anger issues later, despite her positive relationship with the rest of the band. This will bear monitoring.



From this point, I intend to focus on doing a few small gigs and write all new material for trial at these gigs. Any song that is low quality and not a hit song is only gonna end up in my dustbin. I archive them as soon as I realize they have no future value, except as salvage material. At this stage of the band's life, we can afford to grind through a few dozen new songs without saving any that are not hit songs.

Until the time we are able to write songs of at least 50 quality and difficulty, only hits will be saved.

Which leads us to the magical Hit Song!

FAME (Happiness & Street Cred)

Happiness, Popularity and Reputation are each firmly intertwined in Rising Star 2. Each of them can seriously impact your journey to the top.

Popularity measures how well you are perceived by fans and will impact the skill level of agent that will be willing to sign you. When a song or performance positively impacts an audience, your popularity grows. If every song is crap, and the audience is ambivalent, it will barely register.

Reputation is the measure of how well you keep your word as a professional band. Making it to gigs with a song list capable of fulfilling the required set gains you a positive reputation. Fulfilling a recording contract before the deadline also improves your band's reputation. Missing a gig, reneging on a contract, or trashing a hotel/motel room can negatively impact it, as well.

Happiness is a measure of band cohesion. If band members share attitudes in common, they are happier. If they collaborate on a song that is recorded and/or played at a gig, happiness grows. When they get new clothing, instruments, or gear, they get happier. Repairing items (even if the attempt fails) raises their happiness. Buying Artwork is a shared purchase that positively impacts all band members' happiness.

On the other hand, band members get angry when they are sick/injured. They get angry when their songs are not played at gigs. They get angry when they conflict with other band members due to attitudes. They also get upset when random events spoil gigs.

Road trips are the area where this problem gets blown up the most, because the band has no time to repair between gigs (individual repair can only be done at home, or done at a music store where it has no benefit to the band members). A minor issue can easily be multiplied into a major explosion over a few short days if you are not paying close attention.

Fortunately, the band members will not leave the band mid-tour, but they may very well quit the band as soon as the tour ends. This will put you back in the unenviable position of replacing them, training the replacement, and fulfilling any interim gigs with a sub-par band playing a barely-rehearsed set list.

You've Got a Friend (Getting a Manager)

Getting hooked up with a manager is a huge step in the game. This particular issue prompted myself to issue a challenge to see whether a band could grind popularity high enough to find a manager without taking part in a Battle of the Bands competition.

The resulting conclusion was a resounding "NO" !

Here is a link to the challenge thread in Steam's Rising Star 2 Community Discussion Board.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1235110/discussions/0/5089647632458395736/

The game is structured that no manager will sign a band unless that band has regional popularity equal to at least half of the manager's reputation. Therefore, a manager with a reputation of 4 will only sign your band if you have 2.00 reputation. The downside of this, is that most managers are much higher than 4 Rep, and you can easily spend 2 years of game time getting high enough popularity to get even a minimally skilled manager. Even if you find him, he cannot get a recording contract offer for your band, unless you are above 4 popularity. And that popularity is almost impossible to come by without winning a few Battle of the Bands competitions!

The battles are booked just like gigs, but it will be labelled as a Battle, along with which bands are already signed up. Each BotB win nets you a 0.5 popularity boost, and you can book them until your local popularity is over 5.

If you want more info on the popularity issue, please read the thread I posted above. Eeyore Donkey Donk and I posted our findings over a 2 year subjective period of game time. He used an exhaustive study of data, while I just screwed around playing (I refuse to attempt anything remotely exhaustive). We updated each other on the thread as we went along and he definitively proved my assertion that my band could reach stardom without winning a Battle of the Bands,

It makes for interesting reading.

***UPDATE (06/19/23)***

A recent patch now allows a self-produced album to be on the regional sales charts, so it may be possible to gain rep above 2 by self-releasing albums, where the early game only allowed contracted albums to chart. When it is further investigated, I will update this section.

Once you have a manager and a popularity over 5, you can start cranking out albums and ride the wave to the top.

Turn the Page (Crafting a Song)

About Inspiration, Songwriting and Gigs

No amount of inspiration will make a difference until you can begin creating two digit tiles (10+ value). Inspiration (which shows up on the individual band member's attributes view) only really impacts your Lyric and Music Writers. When they are inspired, they write new music or lyric tiles (song ideas). These tiles are saved, and can be added to a song, provided they fit the puzzle.

If the person who created the tile has another tile of the same size and value, you can combine them to make a new, higher value tile. Using, combining, and salvaging tiles makes up the lion's share of the songwriting process. It is also seriously improved by having a band member with Producer skill.

Tiles are valued at 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 35 points. Combining two tiles requires that my band has enough Producer skill points to equal the value of the two tiles I wish to combine. Producer points are spent each day and recovered the next, so a band with a Producer who has 50 skill, can spend 50 points each day combining tiles.

Only one band member can act as a producer, so it is of no value to have two members putting skill points into Producing. The game assumes that the one with the highest skill is the Producer, and only his points are used. The same applies to the Business skill. Only the band member with the highest skill contributes to a contract or gig negotiation.

For example, if I have 2 identical 3 point tiles, my band can combine them to make a 6 or 10 point tile (rng allows some combinations to skip a level) if a band member has at least 6 Producer skill. The exception is that I can also hire a producer once per day at a recording studio (for a fee) and add his points to my band's existing points to combine them. This way I can combine more and higher level tiles.

Please Note: When you combine two music tiles, the top tile is the one whose difficulty remains in effect. Combining a 10 difficulty tile over a 5 difficulty tile will result in a 10 difficulty tile. When combining lyric tiles, the top tile will determine the lyric's attitude when it is combined. Higher difficulty and better attitudes improve the song, so it is best to place the best tile on top before combining.

Salvaging is where you take an existing song that has not been recorded, and deconstruct the tiles to put them back into the main idea pool. I usually only salvage songs from my archive. This way I don't trash that brand new hit I just wrote. This is just one of the reasons I keep only 12-15 active songs.

Songs will also begin to get rusty if you do not play them at least once per week. So, if I have a song with 100 Play skill, and I play it Saturday night at a club and then I spend a week writing or playing other songs, it will lose 1 point in Play skill on day 8, and drop another point each day. Once I play it or practice it again, it will be good for another week. As a general rule, if all of my songs are maxed Play skill the night before a gig, and I don't need to write a new song, I practice all my combined active songs as a group. I get no experience for it, but it guarantees me 7 days of max skill.

This is another good reason to only keep a maximum of 12-15 songs active and archive any older songs that are not well received (or hits). This way if I have two gigs a week, each with 6 songs, I can still keep them up to snuff for a gig. If I keep too many songs active, they start losing Play Skill and get harder to manage. Besides, I don't need too many songs active when I can keep my best songs for gigs and/or recording.

Once I am able to book every weekend as a headliner in advance, I can create one new song each week and rehearse it up all week because last weekend I played all 12 current songs so they don't lose play skill for a week. Even if your weekend sets are only 6 songs you can play half on Friday and the other half on Sat or you can rehearse all 12 on Friday or Saturday night (since you are local).

This allows you to focus on creating a song and skill it up all week. play it at the Friday gig and delete the crap tune it replaces. If it sucks you only need it one more night and create again.

Until you can consistently write 25-30 point songs, inspiration is unimportant, because even members with minimal skill will still produce tiles that can eventually be combined upward.

As far as booking a lot of gigs in advance, every town has at least 2 small bars, as soon as you are able to book a gig at one of them, you can start driving to nearby towns and book the small bars there, as well. If you started in a small town with several others around you, it is easy to schedule up to 5 weekends in advance. As your popularity grows you can expand those gigs to the larger clubs, as well.

If you play it right, you can have a dozen clubs that are within a day trip's range from your home to book gigs at. By the time you are booking a month in advance you should be putting out 30-40 point songs easily and have gotten a hit or two written.

Forever Young (Maxing out Experience)

With the cap at 50, experience is even more important. One trick I have found for maximizing experience is using Bonus Days to the max. This is done by using as many exp adds as possible.

When there is a Bonus announced it is accompanied by a popup saying something like, "Today is a band member's Birthday" or "Today is the anniversary of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon" or some other big day in Music History. It tells you everyone in the band is getting multiple experience for the day.

On these days, the first thing you need to do is repair all the gear that you can (even failed repairs get exp). Then drive to the park and busk or take a job (this is a perfect time to save the "trash a hotel room" job). Next, drive to every small surrounding town to explore (or buy more gear to repair) which gives you driving experience, drive home (more driving exp) and Practice a song that will not max out (in other words songs that are not gonna hit 100 Play by practicing) if your song list is maxed, pick archived songs to practice. If archive is empty write a song with every band member contributing a tile, no matter how bad the song is.

Be aware, that you should make sure that the driving is completed same day. If you drive too far you will lose a day returning home, and forfeit the experience for the return leg, as well as any other following events for that day. One way to avoid this is to save the game at your home before you begin to drive.

As I said at the beginning of this guide, when picking my starting city, I prefer a small suburban town with a large airport city nearby, as well as 2 or 3 other suburbs that I can travel to and return the same day. This allows me to visit pubs in several towns and still return home the same day.

Bonus experience can hugely boost your band's skills, so make sure you use it to the maximum.

***Author's Note***

Somewhere in the forums should be a list of dates that give triple experience which you can use to plan your calendar. I will post a link if I find it.

FOUND IT!

(Props to Eeyore Donkey Donk for posting it on the forums!)

Jan 8 - Elvis Presley birthday
Jan 29 - Tamas Erdelyi (aka Tommy Ramone) birthday
Feb 9 - Beatles on Ed Sullivan 1964
Feb 19 - Tony Iommi birthday
Mar 4 - Jason Newsted birthday
Mar 24 - Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" released
Apr 5 - Kurt Cobain death
Apr 14 - Metallica sued Napster
Apr 23 - Ramones first album released
May 15 - Metallica "Kill 'em All"
May 31 - Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime" released
Jun 6 - Tony Araya birthday
Jun 24 - Minor Threat, coined term "Straight Edge"
Jul 10 - Ronnie James Dio birthday
Aug 1 - MTV debuted first video
Aug 7 - Bruce Dickinson birthday
Aug 17 - Woodstock
Sep 13 - Dave Mustaine birthday
Sep 18 - Jimi Hendrix death
Sep 24 - Nirvana released Nevermind
Oct 8- John Cummings (Johnny Ramone) birthday
Oct 22 - The Damned released New Rose
Oct 30 - MC5 live Kick Out The Jams
Nov 26 - Sex Pistols release Anarchy
Dec 15 - CBGB founded
Dec 24 - Lemmy Kilmister birthday

Gimme Three Steps (Attitudes)

OK there are 5 attitudes that you do not have listed for band members, but they reflect fan reaction (they show up on the yin/yang attitudes icon in the top right of the game screen).

• Low Energy Songs (blue energy)
  
• High Energy Songs (red energy)
  
• Instrumental Songs (made with no Lyric tile)
  
• Basic Musicianship (1-30 difficulty)
  
• Technical Musicianship (70-100 difficulty)

Each type is chosen when you create and name the song. These are also foreshadowed by checking the thought bubbles in local clubs. There is a huge advantage in knowing that a type of song that is not currently popular, but will soon be, can be written, rehearsed, tested on audiences, recorded and released in time to maximize its impact on the industry and the public appeal of an album.

It is important that you make note of any attitude that pops up in advance. It is quite possible to walk into a club and see two new attitudes being discussed and still not see them become active for 2 months or more.

For example, in my current game, I entered a local club where I have 25 popularity and almost everyone had thought bubbles. Many of the thoughts were talking about Love, Instrumental, and Depression (all current attitudes), but there were several talking about Sports Cars and Basic Musicianship.

I had started the game with Sports Cars as an attitude for my lyricist, and had archived several Sports car songs that were decent quality, and basic (since they were written while we were all low Playing skill). I started rehearsing them and added them to my first album when I noticed that several of the songs I was about to release on the album were currently bad attitude songs.

Despite the fact it was released on a low rated label, the album did very well for a group of nobodies.

I Write the Songs (Songs & Set Lists)

I have gotten a lot of questions about how to build a set list, especially when High Energy or Low Energy is an attitude. I have a basic set list for when neither attitude is present, then modify it for longer gigs. All you really need to understand about a set list, is that you need to manage the audience's energy and interest.

ENERGY

Every audience comes to the gig with energy to burn, and a need to be entertained. The first meter on the gig screen shows their energy and the 2nd one shows their interest. High energy songs drain energy from the audience. If their energy hits zero they will struggle to recover and lose interest in the music. You can manage their energy by strategically placing softer songs in the set list so they can recover a bit before the next rocker.

There are values to each song type. This is the amount of energy that an audience loses or gains during a gig. Understand that these are not absolute, the poorer the quality of the song, the less gain or loss, so some HE songs will drain more than others, while some LE songs will recover less than others. However, if the song is rehearsed to 80 skill, and the song is not massively horrible it should burn or replace the standard value given here.

Setting up a set list depends on whether Energy is an attitude.

Normal Energy Use at gigs starts with audience at 100% and uses:

High Energy (Red) - Burn audience energy by 30%
Medium Energy (Yellow) - Recover 15%
Low Energy (Blue) - Recover 40%

When High Energy is an attitude, the audience also starts with 100%, but uses

High Energy (Red) - Burn audience energy by 45%
Medium Energy (Yellow) - Recover 25%
Low Energy (Blue) - Recover 60%

When Low Energy is an Attitude, the audience starts with only 50% and uses:

High Energy (Red) - Burn audience energy by 4%
Medium Energy (Yellow) - Burn 5%
Low Energy (Blue) - Recover 10%

While Low Energy songs also do not ever burn energy, they get a penalty (on Normal attitude) when you play them while the audience energy is not under 20%, so be careful about making sure it is in a spot where you know the audience will be between 5% and 20%. (If energy hits zero the next song is penalized for boring the audience)

The converse is that you can start a gig (when Low Energy is an attitude) with 4 straight LE songs (raising energy to 90%) but if you play a fifth LE song (hitting 100%) it will also be a dud.

In High Energy attitude or Normal times, hitting zero gets a bad reaction. In Low Energy attitude hitting 100 gets the same reaction.

During High Energy attitudes, you will still be penalized for hitting zero, but you can also be penalized for hitting 100 with a slow song. so craft your set list carefully.

Confused yet? The basic premise is to NEVER hit 0% or 100% with a High or Low Energy song. The Medium Energy (Yellow) songs can cross either boundary with impunity, but since Medium and High energy are barely impacting the audience, it is crucial to be careful to not exceed 100%

INTEREST

Audience interest is impacted by song quality, play skill, stage presence, attitude and hit status. A hit song ALWAYS makes a visible jump on the meter. All the other factors combine to slowly raise interest. A skilled band with good stage presence, good quality material, and music with a neutral or positive attitude, should gain the audience's interest. One or two hit songs will make it a sure thing.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE CALENDAR

Song attitudes change on the first day of every month, so craft your set list carefully,

Every band has run into this wall. You go on a multi-week tour and your gigs are selling out. The music has enough quality and popularity (maybe even a hit or two) that audiences are loving you. The end of the month rolls by and you suddenly have a horrible gig. The set lists are sucking because the energy is all over the place. You look at the attitudes and realize that High or Low Energy attitude has thrown your carefully crafted set lists into ruin.

Great Balls of Fire! (Hit Songs)

I am conflicted about this section, because I feel like it might spoil some of your enjoyment of the game. It has been discussed at length since the expanded game first hit Steam, so it is not so much a spoiler as it is a conundrum that every player goes through.

What I am talking about, is the ever-elusive hit song.

Every player seems to hit a wall where they do not know how to recognize a hit. The game is set up to make them incremental, so there are minor hits and major hits, with a full gamut between the extremes. They are also totally irrelevant to becoming successful in Rising Star 2.

YES, that's what I said...irrelevant.

They are also maddening, freakishly rare, and immensely satisfying....and are the main reason I keep playing this game.

First off, a hit is measured by audience reaction and is purely controlled by RNG. When the RNG Gods smile upon you, you get a hit song. I have read many comments from players who swear that they have gone a full game year without a hit song. I find this impossible to understand, because my bands usually get at least 2 hits on every album, and each contract specifies a year from contract advance to album release unless you are willing to suffer a penalty. (more about that later)

My only conclusion is that they have seriously failed to recognize hit songs, or have seriously failed to properly skill their band members. Perhaps my assumptions are incorrect (after all RNG is pure chance), but my bands usually get 2-5 hit songs per year at Hard difficulty level.

To begin with, the hit song, when fully skilled to 100, and without any negative attitude, will get 5 smiles from any audience (regardless of size) as well as a comment that the audience loved the SONG rather than the PERFORMANCE with post gig comments that the audience "tapped their toes" or "danced" when we played the song.

Here is an example from a recent game. Note the tags placed on my 3 hit songs, as well as the prevailing attitudes and audience reactions.



Please take note of the wording in the audience comments. Every hit will use the word SONG rather than PERFORMANCE in the audience description of the set list.

If you see one of those comments, rather than 5 smiles and a comment saying they liked or loved the PERFORMANCE, you have a hit. The bigger the hit, the easier it is to spot. I have had songs with bad attitudes and only skilled to below 80 still manage to get hit reviews, so when I say 100 and no bad attitude, I mean that as a litmus test for a minimal hit song.

I am not sure why others might have more difficulty writing hits, so I will tell you my personal songwriting strategy, using a 5 person band as my example. Rest assured, that I had a solo artist who played guitar as a Robert Earl Keen type of solo artist singer/songwriter and still managed to average more than 2 hits/year.

Band Setup Starting Skills:

One Stage Presence
One Lyrics Writer
Two Music Writers
One Producer

I usually push them to put half of all experience into the primary skill. I focus on Busking till all get 20 skill, then I put all the extra points into Playing until all band members have 70 Playing skill (without bonus gear). As each member levels their main skill at double, they should all be close to 100 in their main skill (that includes bonuses from gear, except for lyricist) by the time they hit 70 Playing. Even without the easier (Easy or Intermediate) game levels, they should get Playing Skill to 70 by the low mid-game levels (20-30).

During this time, I have the 3 songwriters staying happy writing 2-3 songs per week. The producer is happy combining tiles and producing our recording sessions. My leader is focused on being front man and is never unhappy. Meanwhile, I am keeping all band members focused on the same 3 attitudes. Green-Green-Green-Green-Green is the color of each of our band's relationship cohesion bars.

As my band hits the mid levels I start allowing them to expand their horizons. The lyricist will start adding music writing skill and some stage presence. The Music writers will start adding lyrics and some stage presence. The Producer will add mostly stage presence after maxing Producing. My leader will dabble in writing both, but never seriously threaten the actual main writers.

*** as an aside, there are two instances where Playing skill are used. Every band member has a Playing skill that expresses his/her ability to play a song. Each song also has a Playing skill that reflects how well the band has learned to Play it. ***

As I crank out songs, I rehearse them asap until I get them to 100 Play skill, then I test them at gigs. If they are poorly received I tag them with a frown face and they go into the archive for later salvage. If they get a good response (but are not hits) I decide whether to record them for album filler, or recycle them. If they are hits, I tag them with a smiley face and devil horns and play them at every gig. I also record them as Singles and EPs, as well as for my next album. As soon as the album contract is filled, I release all Singles and EPs before signing a new contract.

Most of my songs, as you can see, become salvage. The thing is, just because the song sucked, doesn't mean that the tiles cannot be recombined into a hit. It just means that they have not yet been combined into one.

The Load Out (Road Crew)

Here is where I want to talk about all the little people that make the gigs happen...the crew members.

The benefit of hiring crew grows exponentially as the game progresses. Early on, the cost is staggering. It in not uncommon to lose money on a gig that just includes the basic instrument techs and a merchandise manager. But, you soon will reach a point where they become cost efficient.

The Merch manager allows you to automatically restock CDs and T Shirts after every gig. No more realizing after a big gig that there was no merch at the table because you forgot to buy any. However, pay attention to the gig results, and raise the minimum stock total for any item that sells out. If you tell him to keep 200 T Shirts in stock, and a year later you haven;t told him to raise that limit, you could end up losing a fortune, because by the time you are a Mega-Star, your income from Merchandise sales might easily eclipse your gig pay.

The Instrument techs will immediately repair any instrument used at a gig. They will NOT repair gear that you don't use at the gig. Nor will they repair Busking gear. The rest of the crew are self-explanatory.

In every city there are a number of potential crew hires for you to examine. In some cities there might be a few and in others plenty. There is never a guarantee that a city will have a certain type of tech. They will also widely vary in their skill, their experience, their starting salary, and their potential growth. All of these are important pieces of information to have, but the last has the greatest long-term impact on your band.

Crew members should be reviewed often, and upgraded if possible. They have an experience cap of 200, but will continue to 300, which is confusing. The 200 cap is where they stop gaining skill, but the fact is that their salary is based on longevity means they will keep gaining salary until they hit $600/gig. When your crew members reach 300 exp, they will earn $600/gig. At that point they will be fully capped in skill, longevity, and salary. Every crew member will eventually hit 300 exp and 600 salary, so if you see a tech available at the same skill at a lower salary and both are past 200 exp you should swap them out.


.
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In the above example, you see the crew for my current band, Dreadnought. This band has a full crew of two guitar techs, a bass tech, a keyboard tech and a drum tech. Since I have no vocalist in my band, I do not need a microphone tech, even though all my band members have the microphone setting enabled, only a solo vocalist needs a tech. My instrument techs are each assigned to a band member, and they work every single gig, regardless of audience size.

Merchandise manager handles re-stocking CDs and Tee Shirts for gigs, and helps promote sales of merchandise. Every other crew member (Stage manager, Lighting Eng., Sound Eng. and Pyrotechnic Engineer) only works for headlining gigs (12 song sets) and Pyrotechnics only works headlining stadium venues (arenas) and can be disabled to avoid paying an extra $20,000.00 before starting each arena gig.

Measuring the value of these crew members is a lot like measuring the value of band members. Each crew member's job is to mitigate random events during gigs. The higher their skill, the better the chances of them doing so. They might keep a stage light from falling on a band member, or be on the spot to replace a broken instrument, amp, or speaker without detracting from the performance. They can also fail to mitigate those events, seriously impacting the audience's enjoyment.
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In the above example, look at my bass player's tech, Todd Peacock, and compare him to the best rated bass tech currently available for hire, Alice Jasso. They both have the exact same experience (190) and the same salary ($264). However, Todd has 73 skill compared to Alice's 63. Since all band members gain 1 exp per gig, they each will hit the skill cap of 200 after only 10 gigs. Even if Todd were to gain 1 skill per gig, he will cap below 85. Therefore, if I want a bass tech higher in skill, I will need to hire one that is below 200 exp (with enough potential to grow), or has already capped at a higher skill rating.

As you can see, both of my guitar techs, as well as my keyboard tech are already capped at a skill of 90 or higher, but my drum tech is capped at 80. I will be checking the want ads at every town I travel to, until I find a tech who can grow above 90, or is already capped that high. Unfortunately, there is no way to know whether a young, less-experienced crew member will grow fast enough to get there. The game has an unknown potential for each crew member, and that will only be revealed over time by hiring them and monitoring their progress.

Since skill points are not awarded for every gig (rng), the goal is to make sure you end up with a full crew of techs that can be close to 100 skill by the time they reach 200 exp.

Look at the pair of screenshots below.


As you can see, I have two tech crew members with below 200 experience. My Lighting tech, Abby Guenther has 105 experience and 46 skill. The Bass tech, Gerald Hyman has 125 experience and 56 skill. Everyone else on my crew has topped 200 experience, so they can no longer gain skill. I added these two precisely because they had around 50 skill and around 100 experience. My hope is that they will add a skill at close to 1 point for every two gigs. If this is accomplished, Gerald will cap at 94 and Abby at the same score.



Eleven gigs later, they are both progressing at the same pace. Abby with 116 gigs, has gained at exactly the same rate as Gerald. They each advanced on the same day for each skill point and they each gained 4 points in 11 gigs. Which suggests that all crew members advance at the same rate per gig and that rate appears to be on or near 40%. This reduces my projection from 94 each to 86 for Gerald and 84 for Abby.

I SPOKE TOO SOON!!!!

Definitely there is a RNG factor at work, as the next gig Abby (who has less exp) does not gain any skill, but Gerald adds another.



***After Further Review***

The learning curve, for lack of a better term, seems to be that a new crew member gains a little less than 1 skill for every 2 experience until reaching 200 experience. After that, only the salary goes up and caps at 300 exp and $600 salary. Since the closer the crew gets to 200, the fewer points that can be gained, it seems that hiring a tech with 23 exp and 8 skill is a LOT better option than 115 exp and 48 skill. At a minimum of 40% and max of 50% rate of gain, the first example would end up with 78-96 points of skill with an average of 87 at 200. The same formula has the second tech ending up with 82-90 with an average of 86 skill at 200 exp.

So, even if it looks like a wash, it isn't since the upside of tech one is 6 pts higher and the downside is only 4 pts lower. Not only that, but if RNG is a factor in this, it would make better sense to hire techs with minimal exp and a skill close to half of it.

We Are the Champions (Shady Awards)

This brings me to the end of the guide, so I guess I should mention the yearly Shady Awards. These awards are the game's version of the Grammy Awards. They are held at the end of every January, and encompass all recorded songs that were released in a contracted album during the previous calendar year.


The criteria is pretty much self-explanatory. In the event that you have a musician with no lyric writing skill, they can still be nominated and win if they contributed at least two music tiles to any song. The larger the contribution made, the better their chances of being nominated. There is no requirement that the song be a hit...or even popular. I try to have one song on each studio album that is 100 quality, and 100 recording quality, as well as being written as an instrumental with them contributing 2+ tiles, or as a song with them contributing 3+. I realize that the requirement says 2 tiles, but I am unsure whether contributing 2 tiles that equal less than half the value of the song is enough to be nominated.

Since my lyricist is a guitar player, it is not difficult to guarantee that outcome. All of my members have enough skill by level 50 to get them each a nomination-worthy song each year. The only exception is my drummer/producer, who struggles to contribute, but is close to the sell by date, where we will dump him like Pete Best and find a quality young writer to replace him. After all, at 50, we don't need a producer in the band, and we can take a hiatus to train up his replacement.

Anyone know where we can find a young Ringo Starr to replace him with?

I hope you enjoyed the guide, and please leave your comments or corrections below.

[Bohemian Rap City]

OOOPs I already loaded the bonus dates in my guide, but EEYORE and FESTER deserve the shout out for their help and input, as does @Spaznetz for the same.

[Bohemian Rap City]

Bonus days link with special shout out to @EeyoreDonkeyDonk and @UncleFester

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1235110/discussions/0/5234891274101783819/?ctp=2#c3435704300832293600

[Bohemian Rap City]

Are you talking self-produced albums, singles and eps?

One way to gain a LOT of XP is recording. I find the cheapest studio early, and record my best song to 10% (on a bonus XP day) and make it a CD to sell at gigs, (along with a band logo shirt).

By recording a song the band gets exp and if one member is producer he gets a bonus credit.
The next week I record the same song again at 20% and rinse/repeat.

By the time I have a manager I am selling my shirts and 5-10 DIFFERENT singles of the same song.

IDK if I get more cash than with one good copy, but it seems to earn me more and the exp is HUGE.

BTW there is a list of bonus dates in discussion forum.

[Erzebet Bathory]

Yeah, I think it's the better manager/contract for me. My strategy this game took longer to get started, but was super satisfying, where I basically spent the whole of months 2-3 doing battles.

Out of curiosity, for CD's, have you noticed if recording quality plays a role in how well they perform, or should I go with the "good enough for government work" approach when not trying to get a Shady award?

[Bohemian Rap City]

Thanks for the compliment. The hotel/motel trashing is a one time thing, as are all side jobs. You maximize it by making sure you only accept the job to trash a Hotel rather than a Motel, since the damage you can do is much greater. As long as you don't accept a job, it will pop up again and again. If you fail a job (deliveries, timed runs) you don't get another chance at it. This is especially important with timed jobs (go somewhere and get back before clock runs out) since they are much harder to complete in a huge city than they are in a small town, but pays the same. I never accept a timed job in a large town.

As to the plateau situation. The first happens when you don't take (and win) enough Battles. The battles give you a huge popularity jump which allows you to get a manager. After the first contract get a better contract or get a new manager. Any time you feel you are getting bogged down, get a new manager.

[Erzebet Bathory]

Very new to the game and guide for about a week, wanted to say thank you. This has helped me get out of the I don't know what I'm doing rut, even if I'm in a minor, minor plateau (the I just released my first album on the label and think my popularity peaked, but not sure what to do next slump).

There is one really good side job I want to point out, though, which is trash the hotel room. I'm not sure if it only pops once a game, because I've only completed it once, and no hotels have ever had side jobs again after it, but the job pays you all the damage you cause twice over. It was a fantastic early cash bump to make like 6 grand in one side job, because RNG was on my side.

[Bohemian Rap City]

Glad you enjoyed it. There is really no way to fail at the game, but there are a lot of different ways to succeed. I like to take as much of the grind out of it as I can. With that said, the game is a great casual play and pretty addictive.

[BB.Stoney]

New to the game, I found this guide an excellent intro/help piece. Happy you keep it updated, too. The game seems to have a couple of balance issues, but I actually love playing it.

I put a lot of time into working odd jobs every day, and have done no busking beyond a couple days to see what it was. I didn't think about the XP gains, only saw a $20 day and was done with it. I am thinking that was a mistake on my part. I am going to try a new game with your method and see how it goes. Thanks for your work here. It makes a difference

[Bohemian Rap City]

It affects the crowd's energy. Each song burns crowd energy. You don't want them exhausted, nor do you want them asleep. Read the "I Write the Songs" chapter above.

[Bigolcritty]

So what is the difference when writting a song and choosing high, medium, low energy. is that just the difference between a fast song and a slow song or something?