Talk:McLaren F1 GTR Championship/@comment-28531527-20170307104232/@comment-27123099-20170308183725

First off, the difference between a Special Event (SE), and a Limited Time Series (LTS) is that an LTS is very similar to a normal career series, but you can only race it while it's open and available. But, just like a normal career series, there are PR requirements for Cup events which need to be met.

A Special Event, which includes the Gauntlet events (described further down), on the other hand, differ in that they don't overtly have PR requirements, but they feature events that require more skill to accomplish. Standard Special Events play out like a story, with a series of events (stages) that need to be completed each day. New stages are opened up each day during the event and they tend to get progressively more difficult each day as well. Recently, Special Events have started to include a "recommended PR level", which is what it states, just recommended, not required. However, Fire Monkey (FM) has also made it such that if you are not upgraded at least close to the recommended level, then the goals are exponentially more difficult for you. So, often, it's a matter of finding that balance of spending GC on upgrades versus managing difficulty of the goals you are given. On top of that, some goals are fixed (usually speed-related ones) and will silently require a PR level to achieve them.

Now, as for Gauntlets. Gauntlets are a 3rd type of event that allows us to win new cars. A Gauntlet is basically a series of "random" events (called Challenges) with a Boss Challenge thrown in every few events. The normal challenges allow you to select from a few cars and the list of cars changes as you advance through the Gauntlet. The Boss challenges always feature the Gauntlet car though (the one you are trying to win). You gain points by completing each challenge and you get to "bank" those points by winning the Boss challenge. There is a set goal of points to earn and the idea is to complete enough races that you earn enough points to win the car (or alternate prize). The difficulty lies in the fact that while events do earn more points as you advance through the Gauntlet, the challenges become more difficult as well, particularly the Boss challenges. If you fail at a Boss challenge, you may have to restart the Gauntlet from the first tier, losing any unbanked points you may have accrued. On top of that, the difficulty increases with each restart you choose as well.

There are more subtleties involved in all these events that I won't get into here, but I just wanted to give you a quick run-down of the differences. You can look on this page, http://rr3.wikia.com/wiki/Series_and_Special_Events and click on some of the past Special Events and Gauntlets and read about what is required for each one.

Now, as for which event type is cheaper? That's a tougher question. This event was particularly expensive largely because it featured a pretty expensive car. That's one way to gauge how much you might need to spend. If the car is more expensive to buy, it will likely be more expensive to win as well. Not only because the difficulty might be greater, but generally the upgrades will be costlier also.

That said, I tend to find that the LTS's are the most expensive events anyhow. They have a required PR level you have to meet and often, that PR level is fairly high. So, you have to buy a lot of upgrades on the car to be able to complete the LTS. Special Events (including Gauntlets), on the other hand, only have Recommended PR levels. It's been my experience that it's possible to win the Special Events with a PR level below the recommended level, which can save you from having to purchase more upgrades. Additionally, the PR levels of the Special Events are often not set as high as for the LTS, saving GC there as well.

Looking forward to the other events in the release, I think it's safe to say that the Bugatti Championship and Jimmie Johnson Championships could be about as costly as this event. Both are LTS's as well and the Bugatti Championship, in particular, features a car that's just as expensive as the F1 GTR (although, it has an even pricier upgrade tree). The Jimmie Johnson Championship at least features a cheaper car, with a cheaper upgrade tree. So, it should cost less to win than the F1 GTR and Veyron GSV.

The Lamborghini's Legacy Special Event might possibly be won for something in the 300GC range. This has been what I've found to be a pretty standard GC requirement for Special Events recently. We really won't know until we see the event itself first-hand (although Chinese hackers sometimes give us a sneak peek a bit earlier).

Finally, the 12th season of the Gauntlet. This one should not be terribly expensive (though it will be time-consuming, as most gauntlets are). It features the cheapest car of this release, the Cayman S. So, even if you have to throw a lot of upgrades at it, it will still be cheaper than any of the other cars you can win in this release. Fully upgrading the Cayman S costs 296GC, compared to 986GC for the F1 GTR, 761GC for the NASCAR cars, 886GC for the Lamborghini Centenario, and 1,380GC for the Bugatti Veyron GSV.

Hope this helps!