I'll start by saying I was disappointed this morning to find the Veneno in Stage 1 of the current time trial. Another attempt at the organizers to get more people to spend on upgrades on the high end cars. The 911 RSR is obviously next. Anyway, since my Veneno was completely untouched I thought it would be fun (and perhaps helpful here) to get a PB unequipped and then try again fully loaded.....here's what I found.
Factory stock, best I could run in the Silverstone TT was 1.36.554 (Global rank 1487th) I tried maybe 20 full or partial runs but wasn't seeing any significant gains at that point so it was off to the garage. I'll guess if someone works at it 1.35 is doable in the stock version.
Fully upgrade....which by the way costs (sit down first) R$ 6,832,2000 AND 2106 Gold Coins (and I'll get back to this) after about an hour of running I had gotten down to 1.27.574 (currently 17th Global) - 9 seconds quicker fully upgraded. PR on the car went from 70.3 to 86.
After you get over the top speed difference, one thing I noticed was the significant change in brake points. I didn't run any events between upgrades (too busy driving the DMC) and my first attempt fully loaded made it one turn (off course). My second attempt was better, ran off on turn three. One thing I know is I didn't learn much from my first runs unequipped. This is important because if you're using ghost mode to compete again faster players, if your cars don't match in PR then everything changes. Now I think the ghost challenges are helpful, but it's of greater benefit to have someone who is only slightly quicker than you (hopefully you're in equally equipped cars and not against someone fully loaded who is slow).
Back to the upgrade costs.....using current exchange rates with EA, the upgrade costs translate into $347 (ouch). Or. translated into Murc$, is about 700 laps around Brands (about 12 hours). Now unless your maybe say a $tockbroker, $347 is enough money to convince this off season golf pro to spend a few mornings each morning down at the mine. Does anyone actually pay this kind of money for this game? We are talking about upgrades to one virtual car used in online races. Wow!
Something else, Maximum service does not make a car any quicker than partially serviced. Although my current quickest time came with a freshly serviced car, it knocked out one only .100 slower that came with a car almost ready for service (I had one green service pip as I started and the car was completely used on finishing). My opinion...don't feel like you need to service your car every time, it's of no help (my PB was .300 ahead nearing the end and I actually gave up time through the final two turns).
Couple of other tips that might help (this site has been great, and I only started using the game again this fall after I found this site and several of the ahem, tips). I keep reading about people reloading pips and waiting for repairs/upgrades - time travel fixes everything. It seems they have broken the rearward time travel, but forward works great and it so quick and easy. I took my Veneno from stock to fully upgraded in the time it will probably take for me to write this post - I'll admit I hesitated on the last two engine upgrades R$ 1,573,000 and 655 GC - but thought this might be a useful comparison for some. While mining, I never pay to reload - it takes about 20 seconds to move forward a couple of hours and be back on the track racing. I don't know of any way of earning 2 GC in 20 seconds.
One final bit of advice.....probably the best thing I ever learned on the old forum....it's not how fast you go into a turn, it's how fast you come out!
Back to the mine.
