Level 38/39

Nothing really too exciting to report. I'm not up to Level 39. Have been losing a few more races when people have been racing me, since I don't have a very strong setup. Over the past 2 levels I

• won 222 of 229 races (97%)
• increased net income from 1415K to 1544K

Current plan is to move to Level 40 fairly quickly, then camp out for a while and buy City Raceways. I'll probably buy a couple more defensive parts such as Neon Lights and possibly Stage I Fueling Kit, if I start losing too many more races.

Level 37

Moved quickly through Level 36

• won 116 of 116 races (100%)
• increased net income from 1382K to 1415K

Just basically did a lot of racing. I increased my Focus to 5 recently, even though it doesn't specifically help you win races it makes it more convenient.

Level 36

Spent a while camping at Level 35 and decided to move up today.

• won 112 out of 118 races (95%)
  
• increased net income from 829K to 1382K

I'll do quite a lot of racing and get up to Level 40 fairly quickly now.

Level 35

Reached Level 35 and unlocked the Beach-Side Mansion. During the last level I:

• won 71 of 71 races (100%)
• lost a little bit of net income, 830K down to 829K to pay for parts
• did a few street jobs
• saved about 31M to buy Beach-Side Mansions.
  

Will probably spend a few days at Level 35.

Level 34

Reached Level 34

• won 60 of 60 races (100%)
• increased my income from 823K to 830K
• looted 3 more Custom Tuned Gearboxes
  

Decided to spend two of my Skill points on an extra Focus point. I've been doing a lot more racing lately, and that will let me race more frequently, which is good. All things being equal, I think it's better to spend them on Speed and Handling, but, there are a huge number available in the game, so "wasting" a couple here and there can't be all that bad. 600 Skill points are available from completing levels, plus up to 33 available for street job mastery.

Level 33

Still leveling up.

• won 96 out of 97 races (99%)
  
• increased net income from 788K to 823K

Two more levels until the Beach-Side Mansion becomes available. I'll do the NYC street races within the next few levels, I think. My Fuel is currently 190 so it would cost 4 Skill points to get it to 230 so I could do all the missions, but I'll gain 6 Skill points for doing it, so it's a net win of 2 Skill points. A bit tedious for a fair amount of "work" but it'll happen. No rush, though.

Level 32

Did a lot of racing today. During Level 31, I:

• won 97 out of 98 races (99%)
• increased my net income from 773K to 788K

I've been making do with the zero upkeep cars (Clio v6 and Challenger) but clearly this strategy will only go so far. The Ferrari Modena is now available (45/40) and I'll probably have to start buying a reasonable quantity of cars with at least defense 40 to keep up. I'll see how the racing goes -- I have a high net income so I can definitely afford some better cars and parts, but there's no point in upgrading until I start losing more races.

Level 31

Did some camping this week and increased my net income substantially. I did some racing as well and it seems to me as though the payout amounts for winning races were substantially less than they normally are, something like half the normal amount. Also, the repair bill at the mechanic's was about half of what it normally is. In any case, during Level 30 I:

• won 105 of 106 races (99%)
• increased net income from 567K to 773K thanks to the Grand Car Showrooms

I didn't do any street jobs or really anything else. Just camping and racing.

Storm8 Legal Troubles

Unfortunately, Racing Live isn't currently available in the App Store due to some legal action against Storm8. There's a class action lawsuit that alleges that the game accesses user phone numbers through a "hidden and unauthorized method," presumably an undocumented API.

I'd just be guessing as to what happens from here on out, but hopefully it doesn't interfere too much with playing the game. That being said, I wouldn't be too surprised if the whole game gets pulled :(

Here are a few links on this story:

PC World

SF Gate story showing the observed web traffic

Complaint (PDF)

Thread on Storm8 forum

Update (2009/11/11): Storm8 official response

Level 30

Made it to Level 30. In the last level I:

• won 49 of 49 races (100%)
• lost a little bit of net income, from 568K to 567K since I spent some on upkeep for new parts, and I was saving my money for Grand Car Showrooms
• finished Miami Street Jobs Level 1 mastery (+6 Skill points)
• looted a couple more Custom Tuned Gearboxes

I'll be camping for a bit here, but in general I'm still trying to get to Level 40 fairly quickly.

Level 29

Still power-leveling on my way to Level 30.

• won 39 of 39 races (100%)
• increased net income from 565K to 568K
• bought some more Dodge Challengers for the extra zero-upkeep attack
• more Miami Level 1 street races -- almost done
• acquired a couple of extra Custom Tuned Gearboxes. Not really a big deal but every point counts, I guess, and they have cheap upkeep
  

Almost time to start buying those sweet Grand Car Showrooms.

Level 28

Still leveling up quickly.

• won 33 of 33 races (100%)
• increased net income from 545K to 565K
• cashed in 10 Prestige Points for 2.2M (for buying another Chop Shop, and I haven't been spending them on anything else lately)
• sold off some cars that I don't need any more for street jobs
  
• now done 5 of 7 Level 1 Miami street jobs

On towards Level 29.

Level 27

Level 26 was another quick level for me.

• won 30 out of 31 races (97%). Lost one through a payback
• increased net income from 539K to 545K
• bought a full set of Carbon Fiber Hoods (2/4), which is my most expensive car part.
  
• worked on Miami street jobs Level 1 mastery

I'll try to do about a level per day until Level 30.

Level 26

I spent a bit less time at Level 25 than I was planning, but still had a good level.

• won 48 of 50 races (96%)
• increased net income from 431K to 539K
• bought 10 Dodge Challengers to help out on the attack since they have better Speed than Renault Clio v6s
• worked on Miami street jobs Level 1 mastery (approximately 40% done)
  

I'm planning on working up to Level 30 fairly quickly, as long as I don't start losing too many races. The faster I can get to Level 40, where the City Raceway is available, the faster I'll be able to start really ramping up the net income.

Strategy: Gaining an Edge

Clearly, Racing Live is not a game of skill when it comes to the actual race. Your result is determined through some formula that is unknown to the public, but is a function of your and your opponent's Speed and Handling points, cars & parts and number of crew. In order to win more races than your opponents, you need to do things more efficiently than them.

Here are a few good ways of getting an edge over other racers.

Always buy the property with the best ROI
Use a calculator. Lots of people have severely unoptimized City properties. If, for instance, the cost of 2 Parking Spaces is less than the cost of one Used Car Lot, you should buy the two Parking Spaces. It seems obvious but at a quick glance of random people's profiles seemingly 90%+ of people have an inefficient purchasing strategy.

Be careful in choosing who you race
A lot of times people race me who really have no chance of winning. Take the time to look at people's stats before you race them. There's no bonus for winning races against better racers so it's best to race weaker players (just not too much so you don't get a reputation as a farmer).

Use Skill points wisely (in Speed/Handling)
Integrity/Focus/Fuel can be convenient but don't help you win races. Integrity and Focus do help you race more quickly, but quality is usually better than quantity. Allocating the vast majority of Skill points to Speed and Handling will give you an edge over racers who don't do that.

Optimize Car Parts
Many people have extremely poor selections of car parts. I saw one racer recently with 86 Stage III Twin Turbos, who had barely purchased any zero upkeep parts. Those 86 Twin Turbos cost 8170 in upkeep (235,296/day given that he was a Bankroller) and give a total of 430 speed and 172 handling points, plus the purchase price of 860,000. Consider an alternative: buying 86 each of Front Spoilers, Twin Tipped Mufflers and Cold Air Intakes. That would cost 0 in upkeep, give the same 430 speed and 172 handling points and cost a mere 326,000, which is a massive advantage in terms of cost and, most importantly, upkeep. Always max out the zero-upkeep parts first, and then buy the cheapest parts in terms of speed/handling points per dollar of upkeep, depending which attributes you want to focus on.

Be careful about spending too much on upkeep
There are serious diminishing returns when it comes to creating a good setup of cars and parts. At Level 15, say, If you maxed out with 75 BMW M3s plus all the available cars and parts, it would cost about 72,000 upkeep per turn. You would win almost all your races since you would be maxed out (assuming your Speed and Handling skill points were not holding you back). Let's say you win 95% of your races given that setup. That's great, but it's a large amount of upkeep per turn. Consider a similar set up with 75 Renault Clio v6s, which have zero upkeep. You would still probably win maybe 90% of your races, but save 30,000/turn = 864,000/day as a Bankroller, which is a lot of money for that level. There's not really a "right answer", but consider how much you are spending to win those last few percent of your races.

Camping
You can gain an advantage over those at your level by staying where you are for a long time (by not winning races and not doing street jobs) and building up real estate. You'll be making more income, which can go into better cars and parts than those people who leveled up too quickly and can't afford a better setup.

Level 25

Time for a very, very brief post. Reached Level 25.

• won 34 of 34 races (100%)
• net income stayed about the same
• started Miami street jobs and bought a few new parts so I could do them
  

Time for camping and Chop Shop buying.

Level 24

Reached Level 24. This one was quick.

• won 19 of 19 races (100%)
  
• increased net income from 430K to 431K
  
• finished LA street jobs Level 2 mastery and acquired the Corporate Sponsor Account Card. The 5% off cars and parts isn't much, but every dollar counts
• bought 2 Alfa Romeo Breras for doing Miami street jobs Level 1 mastery and started those
• sold 2 Mini Coopers that I was previously using for LA street jobs
  

I should reach Level 25 tomorrow and then I will mostly likely be camping there for a while, buying Chop Shops.

Level 23

OK, slight change in plans. I've decided to power through Levels 22-24 to get to Level 25 quickly and start buying those Chop Shops. My ROIs are really low and I could use some high-ROI real estate purchases. Right now I'm paying 4.4M for a Downtown Loft (2700/turn) and I could be getting a Chop Shop for 1.1M (4800/turn) if I was on Level 25. I seem to be doing fine in the races (lost 2 out of the last 100 or so) so there doesn't seem to be any reason against moving up.

Level recap:

• won 20 out of 21 races (95%). Lost a close one, fair and square. Got attacked twice but won them both.
  
• increased net income from 425K to 430K
• sold off 2 Chrysler 300C SRTs to save on the upkeep
• more LA street jobs level 2. I just have to Perform Jump Stunts 6 times to finish it off and get the Corporate Sponsor Account Card which gives a 5% discount on cars and parts.
  

Future plans: go through level 23-24 quickly. I'll be "spending" my experience points on street jobs rather than racing, to get the extra Skill points as quickly as possibly.

Level 22

I made it to Level 22 today. Here are the highlights of the last few days at Level 21

• won 49 of 49 races (100%). Haven't been attacked for 6 days now.
  
• increased net income from 400K to 425K
  
• Did a few of those Level 2 LA street jobs, but they give a lot of experience and I don't want to level up too quickly
• sold off 2 Mitsubishi Lancer Evos that I was previously using for street jobs, to save on upkeep

Plans for Level 22 are to do more of those LA street jobs, continue racing and increase my net income to 450K.

Agent screen update

There was new version of the Agent screen. It wasn't listed in the Updates screen but it gives a whole new look. The contents are the same, though.



















I might as well review the various offers on the Agent screen:

Receive cash (10 Prestige Points): the amount is always a little bit more than 4 times your current net income, so it's equivalent to 3 hours 20 minutes if you are a Bankroller, or 4 hours if you are not. This isn't terrible if you're impatient, but you might as well just put the game down for a bit and come back a few hours later and you'll have the same amount of money.

Refill Fuel/Focus/Integrity (10 PP): only for the truly impatient. All 3 regenerate quite quickly. Not recommended.

Unknown Container (50 PP): This gives you a chance at getting one of 9 different zero-upkeep cars (listed with their speed/handling):

Common (55% chance)

• Dodge Viper (23/14)
• Mitsubishi 3000GT (16/15)
• Ford Focus RS (14/18)
• VW Golf GTi Tuner (16/24)
  

Uncommon (35% chance)

• Plymouth Road Runner (30/20)
• Chrysler Crossfire (28/28)
• Ford Shelby GR1 (38/30)
  

Rare (10% chance)

• Infinity Essence (41/41)
• Alfa Romeo 8C (43/47)

(It should be "Infiniti" of course, but I wonder if this is due to issues with Nissan? They removed the Nissan 370Z and Nissan Skyline GT-R from the game.)

Buying this unknown container is probably one of the few Agent offers that is worth it, especially if you are at the very early levels, and 1 car makes a big difference. If you have 50 cars though, 1 good one is not going to make much difference to the big picture. Unfortunately they didn't come out with this unknown container option until I had reached Level 15, so I haven't tried it out myself.

Add 1 Crew Member (20 PP): Don't even think of doing this. You can easily find crew codes through browsing other users' profiles or by searching online. Here are a few sites with crew codes:

• Racing Codes
• Racing Live Codes
• Uber Game Codes

Change your Name (30 PP): Lots of people change their name to their crew code, or some variant of it. I'm not sure how effective it is because I haven't done it, but presumably it works, since lots of people do it.

Change your Class (50 PP): It seems to me Bankroller is the best class, since the game revolves so much around money and you get more of it if you are a Bankroller.

Reset Your Account (Free): This is not a bad idea if you're not too far into the game and you realize you have made some big mistakes in allocating Skill points or you have a poor race record and want to start fresh. You will not be able to get the special offer cars again, though.

Level 21

I reached Level 21 today. Here's what I did during the level.

• won 34 out of 34 races (100%), almost all through attacking. I'm only getting attacked about once a day now
• increased net income from 357K to 400K/turn
• worked on some of the LA street jobs Level 2 mastery (about halfway done)
• sold off nearly all of my Mini Coopers and replaced them with Renault Clio v6s, which have slightly better stats
• sold my BMW M3s to save on the upkeep
• sold 100 Neon Lights to save on the upkeep (6K/turn)
  

I've been trying to cut costs even more and more. I'm down to 3% upkeep, which seems insanely low, but I'm not getting attacked much and generally winning when I do, so it doesn't seem to be a problem yet. I will probably repurchase the Neon Lights at some point, since they are quite good value ($60 upkeep for 7 Handling points) but break-even is not having them for only about 4 days (I lost 650K through selling them at half-price, and the upkeep is nearly 173K/day).

Goals for Level 21 are to continue building up the City, and work on LA street jobs Level 2. I want to get to Level 25 fairly quickly since the ROI is getting quite low on my City properties now, and the Chop Shop becomes available then.

Forums

There are a couple of good Racing Live forums on the web. Chances are, you've already been to them, but if not:

Racing Live Community Forums

This is the official forum, run by the game developer, Storm8. There are some Storm8 employees on there as moderators and it is possible to get the odd official response. You need to register through the game to get a free account here. Click on Settings on the home screen in Racing Live, then the Storm8 tab, and create a user name & password.

iMMOForums: Racing Live

This is an independent forum. There are a lot of great guides to the game stickied. It's definitely worth reading them all. There's a terrific spreadsheet which helps you analyze your setup and figure out where you improve things. You need to register (it's free) to download the spreadsheet.

Level 20

I powered through Level 19 in a day doing street jobs and a few races. During this brief level I:

• won 11 of 12 races (92%, the loss was a misclick against an obviously superior opponent)
• increase my net income from 352K to 357K
• worked on LA street jobs level 2 (about 1/3 done)
• bought 10 Renault Clio v6s and sold 10 Mini Coopers (I'm replacing all of the Mini Coopers since the Renault Clio v6 has better stats and they both have zero upkeep).

Plans for Level 20 are to buy the Fuel Storage Silos and some Porsche 911s. I'll see how the racing goes at Level 20 to determine what cars and parts I'll be buying.

Level 19

I moved up to Level 19 today. At Level 18 I did the following:

• won 43 of 55 races, all after being attacked (78%)
  
• increased my net income from 221K to 352K (about 2 weeks of camping)
  
• did a lot of optimization of car parts
  
• finished up the LA street jobs level 1 mastery (got 6 skill points)
  

I stayed at Level 18 for quite a while but I will go through Level 19 a lot faster. My goals are to finish the LA street jobs level 2 and try to win a few more races. The Porsche 911 is available at Level 20 so I'm curious to see how many more races I'll lose at that level with the same setup as I have right now, given that people will be racing Porsche 911s (attack 35) against my M3s (defense 27), Clio v6s (defense 21) and Coopers (defense 20). If I start losing too many races I'll buy some more Handing parts.

Racing Live Glossary

Here are some definitions for Racing Live abbreviations and terms that people use on message boards or in-game comments. Post a comment if you know any other terms and I will add it in here.

attack = to initiate a race by clicking the race button

bc = Broadcast = send a message to everybody in a crew. Not very useful, since many people don't read Broadcasts, and once you have a large number of crew members there will be a lot of Broadcasts, and since you can only see the last 10 it is easy to miss one. In general these are used for exchanging crew codes.

build = how skill points were spent. For instance you could allocate your skill points mostly to Focus and Integrity and use that to do a lot of races quickly, or do a build heavy in Speed and Handling to win more races but less frequently.

camping = deliberately not gaining experience points (leveling up) and using income to buy more and more real estate. This is a good strategy to increase your cash flow but it can be boring since you are not racing.

crew = other players you have recruited or that have recruited you (it makes no difference who recruits who). The only effect this has is that it lets you use 1 car that you own to race with. Whether your crew members are level 1 or 200 makes no difference to your races. You can use 5 crew per level (i.e. level 20 = 100 crew members = 100 cars).

estate = a player's collection of City properties e.g. Parking Space, Used Car Lot, etc.

farming = Repetitively racing one other racer for their money. Different people have different definitions of what constitutes farming. Some consider even 1 unevenly matched race (i.e. crew of 100 vs crew of 10) to be farming. Some consider 3 or more races in succession to be farming. Personally I consider farming to be racing the same person over and over in more than one session by using links (as in the comments or from previous races). Farming is certainly within the rules of the game, however most consider it unethical (at some level) and there is the risk of getting multiple paybacks from people and their clan/crew members.

mb = message board

min-maxing = a generic strategy for RPGs involving doing the most or least of something to try to gain an advantage. For instance, putting all Skill points into one category, or running on as little upkeep as possible to maximize cashflow and investing it all into real estate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-maxing

pb = Payback. This is a bounty system where you can give a reward to a racer for beating another racer. You will also see people saying on comment pages that they will "max pb" somebody, in other words, put somebody on payback the maximum number of times possible in a day (25 times) and encourage their crew members to do the same.

PP = Prestige Points. These points are available through special offers (such as installing other Storm8 games) or can be purchased for real money from Storm8 and can be used to purchase various things: money, cars, change class, change racer name, etc.

RE = real estate = a player's collection of City properties

reset = to clear one's account including all stats, and return to level 0. Note that the promotional cars are one-time offers and will not be available after a reset.

RL = Racing Live

ROI = Return On Investment. This is a general term referring to the income gained per dollar spent on a City property. For instance when you buy your first parking space, the cost is 3000, and income is 50 so ROI would be 50/3000 = 1.667%. ROIs for properties decrease since the price increases by 10% of the original cost for each one that you buy. As you increase the number of properties of a particular type, ROIs will decrease significantly. For instance, if you had 200 Parking Spaces the next one would cost 63,000, giving an ROI of 0.08%.

Save mode = equivalent to camping.

Scarecrow = a good car that will appear on the racing list so as to hopefully trick people into thinking you have all good cars.

First Post

I thought I would start up a blog about Racing Live for a few reasons, namely to:

• discuss strategy
• find and post good links to other Racing Live sites
• discuss my own progress in the game: to infinity Level 200 and beyond!
  
• answer any questions that I can from new players
  
• discuss updates to the game
  

Also, there don't seem to be many other blogs specifically focused on this game.

Right now I'm at Level 18, which isn't too far into the game. I camped at Level 15 for most of August and September, increasing my net income from about $5500/turn at the start to over $200K/turn at the end of it. Unfortunately, before camping, I sold everything, which had me racing the Ford Escort for a long time, and I racked up a lot of losses. It's going to take a while to improve my racing record to better than break-even, but I have a good cash position and a good defensive build right now so it's just a matter of time.