Motorsport Manager

I'm on the cusp of winning the drivers and constructors in the euro league with one race left. Mathematically I have the constructors but the drivers is going to the wire. This is with Archer BMR and this is the second season. Damn this game is tense!

I gamed the saves in season 1 but in season 2 I just went with what was dealt and kept at it. Much better without save gaming.
 
Its decent until you realise it does have some flaws and you'd be stupid not to take advantage of them. Whether its ace drivers who'll drive for the worst team while utter junk wont even talk to you, or knowing how to maximise your chances when starting at the back of the field cos of the reverse grid and still having a horrendous car.

Watching the races also makes you realise how bad the mobile version probably was but you'd never know cos you couldnt see it. Seeing the cars and how they over-react around each other is infuriating most of the time. You can be 3-4sec faster than someone, but they'll trundle along behind them and do bizarre things around them, such as go around them on a straight, outbrake them, then dawdle round the corner as the other car takes a proper speed and retakes the position.

That said, im definitely enjoying it, its just flawed. Nothing has come close to GPM before this, they've all looked naff and like its dumbed down. This is hardly ChampMan/FM stuff, but it covers everything quite nicely, its simple enough to enjoy it casually yet it has enough depth to enjoy it still.

My top tips after 5 seasons:

- Factory improvements are really useful, 10 extra workers (the slider between the 2 staff who deal with improvement & reliability) can have a huge impact in the first 2 races of a season. Design building... a lot of money and im not really sure i understand what im getting from it. iirc it unlocked the smaller buildings, but beyond that it seems lacking.

- 1st race of a season, focus on reliability of ONE car, screw the other!! If you can get one car to the finish without repairs, while 19 other cars will have issues, they'll be on tip-toes or repairing. My advise would be to ensure both the engine and gearbox are slightly better reliability - those are ~15sec repairs, the others are ~8sec. If parts are going to need repairs, make sure those 2 are good.

- Dont waste money on the fancy new chassis! Over 5 seasons, ive dominated 2 years in Euros and 1 year in Asia with a tinpot chassis! I've won 9/10 races in Tier 2, coming 2nd & 4th in the other. Thats always been with an underdog car with all parts hovering around average for the championship. If thats not enough of a reason, consider what you're spending money on: 3.25m buys you a basic chassis, iirc 12m buys the best (+ 4 optional addons through offers between 0.5-1.5m each), call it a 10m difference. You spend that 10m on upgrade parts, and next season you'll still have those benefits when you start building more parts. You spend 10m on a chassis, and next season you've got to do it all again, another 10m for just the same as before. Convince me its not a fools game. It wont turn your Manor into a Mercedes, not even for 1 season, but those upgrade parts will get you there gradually. Save your chassis & prize money, buy basic, and upgrade your HQ and leave yourself a tidy sum for upgrading parts come March.

- Try to find ways to avoid being stuck in traffic. Stupidly obvious, but the consequence of being behind anyone is terrible because its a nightmare to pass, and it feels more random than justified. You can be easily 3-4sec faster than someone and not pass them for 10+ laps. If you can see an opportunity to avoid being stuck in traffic, it can make a huge difference. Adjust your strategy to try and pit out into clean air; short fill, pit earlier, even fill up with more fuel to burn it off and go a few laps longer with your stint.
I've been stuck at the back, saved fuel & thrashed my tyres, pitted a few laps before i've expected to get out of traffic, a few laps of hammertime and im back with the field only ive got 80% tyre life while they're about to pit and clear a nice space for me to go flying into.
Dont spend 10 laps banging your head against a wall, look for opportunities. Admittedly ive pitted a lap before it turns out the rest would, and ive gained nothing when i could have stayed out and do another 5+ laps... but look for ways to better your situation.
 
EU tips:

1. Always keep your scout busy. Scout ALL the drivers - starting with the unemployed. At the end of the first season hire 1 (or 2) pay drivers (Bao Tang, Edda Jonsdottir, and Miia Lahtinen).
2. Hire Raphael Rodrigues on a long contract as soon as possible as your main driver. Pay him whatever he asks. Do this at all expense.
3. Don't pick a sponsor until the day before the next race if you have a slot. Always pick the one that pays the most over the period. If none exist then leave the slot until the next race.
4. If you have a rubbish car, dont get a sponsor that wants you to finish second unless they intend to give you a big whack of money up front. Never accept less than 800k for an upfront payment on a primary slot that asks you to finish above your expected position, preferably 1.25mill or more
5. Hire the best chief engineer you can afford as soon as possible (june-july season 1 - long contract all expense spared)
6. Keep your drivers and mechanics together for as long as possible.
7. Look two races ahead at which components are critical and build/upgrade 2 races in front.
8. Never run low reliability parts. If you have just designed a part and it has low reliability don't use it till the race after when you have had a chance to upgrade it (hence plan 2 races in front). In fact after race 4, try to never run parts at less than 70% reliability (within reason)
9. Try at very least to get one "good" type part for each category by the end of the season to 100% performance and 100% reliable..
10. Don't be afraid to go into debt to design parts. Never stand still, but never exceed 4.5mil debt
11. If you have run out of money (4.5m debt) then switch to perf and reliability improvements only
12. Don't bother paying for staff dilemmas - morale will naturally recoup.
13. Alternate the first two seasons between car development and HQ upgrades (Factory and design center in that priority).
14. before race 1 go to the finances screen and reduce the amount you are saving per race for next years car to the middle.
 
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I've finally got round to having a proper go at this... and before you know it, 4 hours have disappeared! Great fun.

I picked the 8th team in the Euro one and have managed a 2nd place in one race and a couple of 4th's too. Currently 4th team after 5 races.

Not got as far as looking at how I hire staff, so reading above I guess I'd better take a proper look at that!
 
Lost my main driver, he wanted too much cash. Problem is that there is no one else good available!

Have had the worst car for the last 4 seasons...need to try and catch up!
 
I won my second season with Raphael Rogrigues with a mediocre but heavily upgraded car - constructors and drivers championship. Decided not to go up to the Asia Pacific cup till I had upgraded my factory to lvl 3 and design centre to 2 at least.

3rd Season I went for the worst chassis possible and pummelled my cash into the HQ. I lost my expensive chief mechanic because he wanted to go to a higher league.

I replaced my worst race mechanic with a better one.

Now on race 5 and I'm averaging 4th in the constructors, with a target of 3rd. Plenty of money this time for car upgrades after having landed a 6.5mill upfront 2nd sponsor, thanks to the marketability achieved from the last season win.

However I know Rodrigues will not stay at the end of his contract, and I'm unlikely to win this season, so I am planning ahead and trying to find a replacement driver. This will affect my sponsor potential for next year...

No idea which way its going to go. I'm likely to loose my best driver, loose a big chunk of my sponsorship income but I will be able to design faster and improve reliability and performace twice as fast. This game is awesome.

Rodigues by the way feels almost like cheating. The guy is so good he can win in a roller skate. He's decided to make a film about himself now. Narcissist...
 
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Yeah, thats why i didnt bother mentioning him :D
Im doing a streamed co-op* game with a mate in Norway using Geforce Experience, its no different than playing it locally 99% of the time, and we were looking for a new driver for Preditor (worst Euro team) and stumbled upon him, and it pretty much shakes everything up a little too much.

I'd already completed my first season by this point and he'd signed for Not-Williams by that point. I ended up stuck with El Sadat & Young (iirc, he might have been the TD) till the 3rd season, but still won the 2nd season and 3 & 4 were too easy, i just wanted to build things up so my car wasnt rated below average in Euro and im accepting promotions to a higher tier. That said, i barely got over average in Tier 3, moved up and thats been even easier somehow. I think its easier to outsmart their strategy because you have ~80% tank capacity so fuel isnt quite a factor and you can definitely do a stop less if you want. Its also random grid, so when you've spent 4 seasons with both cars starting at the back after 2-3 races, and guaranteed it cant be worse than last 2 spaces, its easier to get to the front.

Theres a guy i signed in season 4 who i'd spotted mid-way through the 2nd season but wouldnt talk to me, season 4 El Sadat wanted to move up and his contract was up, and i got lucky and the chap i'd been hoping for was still available. Couple of 19-20's, couple 10s, but otherwise above, still young and hadnt been snapped up by anyone. I certainly wouldnt call them a 'cheat' driver, and side-by-side i'd take RR especially as he'll accept 100k less wages than normal as a driver perk.

You've done pretty much what i did with Archer though (7th in EU), strengthen rather than go charging in head first. Not sure what i'll do for season 6 though, i'll take a look at Tier 1 and see how my car compares but i'd like to do things like Qual and start where i deserve to be, and go back to the early challenge of a top-10 feeling like an achievement.

Take a look at G. Alvarez, he may have been snapped up already, but he was my S3 signing and did great, I have no issue mentioning the other guy referenced above, but as you say with RR, if people find them themselves (and its not hard, you dont even need to scout to know with 75% certainty whether they're someone that might be worth scouting - and also if they reject an approach, well you cant sign them anyway so no hurry scouting them either) and take advantage then fair enough, but pointing out the Messi who'll play in your pub team when dross wont even talk to you, it removes a lot of challenge.

* to clarify 'co-op', the game doesnt have multiplayer or coop, he's streaming, i can control his mouse and we both play as if im there.

-edit-
just having a nosy at a Tier 2 start, curious as to whether the very meh sponsor payments were bugged from T3 or normal (they seem normal, yet know i had a 350k/race fixed in T3 and im getting 200k/race or lumps in T2) and noticed that the default for T2 has qualifying, so they must have changed the rules early on.

edit 2 - done a race and new fixed sponsors offering 250k, 300k and 500k, that last one over 14 races too. Odd cos my sponsorship rating is higher than Not-Ferrari was (im 4 star, they were 3 when i looked earlier), but guess i'd been unlucky with the other 2 fixed offers and ended jumping on the high lump-sum offers (£4m & 5-6m iirc) which were nice, but im 400k down even if i win my 1.6m win bonus, and i just got screwed on the last lap by a backmarkers who'd held me up, moved over for the blue flag, and yet divebombed me and put me side by side with 2nd who then went by me.
 
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:eek:

Sega are pumping money at this. Just seen an advert for it during FP3 on SkySports F1

Good. :D

Deserves to do well. I've sunk 96 hours into it so far. Just moved Predator racing into the World Motorsport Championship.
 
It does deserve to do well, it's well priced I feel for what it is and offers plenty of depth to get stuck into. Devs being open to modding is great too, I haven't tried the official names mod but for those who really love f1 it probably improves it loads for you.

Had my first couple of first places in season 1 euro as garuda, mainly down to pit strategy as it's taking me ages to upgrade cars.

Oh is there any way you can take your car from season one into two? I redeveloped on my old save and ended up with a car worse than season one with no cash to improve it :(
 
Looks like I'm going to finish second in the consructors with Archer BMR. I got RR as suggested and as he had no points started at the front of the grid for a few races. I think he's now won 4 straight.

Sometimes I can't upgrade any car parts, they are all as reliable as possible... what to do than?
 
Some great tips here, I've restarted season 1 three times due to schoolboy errors (forgetting to renew contracts, hiring the wrong drivers etc) but still go back!

Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but the game supports widescreen 3440x1440 nicely. I do notice that sometimes my fps can be low 20's when I start the game but a quick reboot and it's back to 95+, this is on a 980Ti.
 
European racing series now has banned refuelling and added qualifying :D

makes it really easy for me lol not much strategy to worry about and far better than the reversed grid crap.
 
Spent my second season at Kitano, was pipped by a single point in the last race and ended up third in the constructors. Not too bad a turn around after taking over a sinking ship who slipped to seventh with poor staff, car and drivers. I've now got a much better starting point in season 3. Better car, one of the best young drivers on the grid as my second. This year should be good. :cool:
 
Is there anything I can do to not need to fill up with fuel so often? Most times the softer tyre will get to 10 laps and most times my fuel wont go above 10 laps... so why would I use the harder tyre?
 
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