I've played pro cyclist last few year, this year I'm doing a team manager run. So I'm not the expert about scouts.
Only in first year in career, but don't seem scouts pretty useless? quick evaluation gives me a 3 -6 potential for example (and sometimes wrong at even that) and that's it.
"So yeah, in the future this rider is going to be either crap,poor,regular or rather good. I'll take my salary that is double of doctors and trainers now. ThxBye!"
Scouts have an expert area, so if you have a scout that is expert in TT and sent him scout a cyclist like Arnaud Demare, it's most likely it will give you an 3-6.
But if you sent a scout expert in sprint, to watch Demare, Jackobsen, etc it's more liely their assessment will be more accurate.
Although, if the team you are playingis under WT and doesn't have a big budget, i'd say keep your scouts to a minimum and go for known riders
Literally the only reason worth hiring a scout for is the intense scouting option for one rider without a contract per season and scout. You'll most likely never learn anything useful from scouting seasoned riders superficially.
You have to do the regular scouting for that rider by February 4th and then you get an opportunity to scout him intensely until early June for 5000€. Once the scout returns, you get a much better idea of the rider's potential (1-4 stars for all specialisations with half-star steps) to gauge their ceiling a lot better. Look for 3 stars and above there to get a rider that can hit the high 70s with some luck.
But, that costs you six monthly salaries for the scout plus a fixed 5k for a single scouting report, so you can only really afford that on PCT level and above, and chances that you scouted a bust that's not worth signing are immense (I'd say 80%).
With a great WT team, you might be able to afford 4-5 scouts to have a better chance at finding a future great.
You definitely should only do this with a rider from your focus region that starts his career as a free agent with a few stats in the 70s at age 18-21, or at least close to 70.
We call these regens. A bunch of them get auto-generated each off-season, and they will form the next generation of stars once the real riders decline, so eventually there will have to be some gems among them.
Edited by cio93 on 23-08-2020 16:41
