Auras (Grand Prix Story)

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  Auras are a game mechanic in many Kairosoft games that give a temporary buff to characters that makes performance exceed their norm. This is illustrated with a coloured effect around them.

In Grand Prix Story, drivers gain the effect of auras. They can not only be used for temporary buffs that improve elements of the current game, but can be used to effect certain items that can be carried over for future play-throughs.

Overview

When a driver gets an aura, they get a coloured effect around them and a speech bubble reading "Aura active!" pops up near them. The colour of the aura shows the level of it. The effect the aura grants is greater per level:

1. Blue
2. Pink
3. Silver/White
4. Gold/Yellow

The level of auras a driver will obtain is based on their stats. Starting off, you'll see mostly blue and rarely pink auras, but as you train them and they naturally improve their stats, silver and gold auras will begin to show. Your starting driver should start seeing gold auras when there stats average about 100 each (600 total). Even when a driver is seeing a higher auras however, some of the random auras may still be of a lower level.

Usage

Auras doesn't offer a constant buff; instead it can be used for improving the results of several normal tasks once:

• Repair of vehicles can be sped up to near instantaneous with an aura. You can activate this effect by selecting the vehicle you want repaired from the driver's "Repair" option. Good if you have a very damaged vehicle you plan to use for a race coming up soon. However, this is generally a poor way of spending an aura as there are much more effective uses
• Research also can be hastened with aura use, but is again a very poor way of spending it.
• Building a vehicle for a lower tech team is easier and less likely to have bad mishaps when trying to construct a high class vehicle. When constructing vehicles with a team already good enough to build them, you'll see greater improvements past the regular specs than usual.
• Installing parts is also easier and more effective for the driver's team and are likely to see parts' difficulty be lower in the pre-install menu. 
• Races can be affected in one of two ways. In the pre-race qualifying, the aura will improve the driver's skill for the race and very likely to see them in pole position. Otherwise, during the race the aura can be activated and give a short boost of performance that can bring them ahead of the pack.
• Training is a good target of spending auras on starting off as it improves the regular stat increases received from it. Since higher driver stats brings the appearance of better auras, using it will accelerate the growth towards getting better auras. Auras become almost vital later on as many training methods will always fail without them (advanced training methods obtained from sponsors can also solve this however).
• Upgrade is the best target of spending auras and is what can improve the stats of items brought into future play-throughs. Since all vehicles or parts installed upgraded are effected, the increased buff can have some nice long term improvements. Each colour of aura increases the regular stat increases by 50% more than the previous; starting with blue at 150% improvement, pink at 200%, silver at 250%, and gold with 300%. The increase amount is unaffected by the tech stat of the team upgrading. Gold auras are the best to use overall for this process since the vehicles and parts can be carried into a future game, and can result in "gold vehicle/parts" with persistence. While this improves stats, it does not speed up the process of upgrading as it does with research.

Obtaining

Auras appear in the downtime between races. There are several ways for a driver to obtain an aura:

• First time placing in a race is the most common way to gain auras in the beginning. As long as the driver finishes in the top three they should obtain an aura of their current highest possible colours when appearing back in the shop. This also does include Grand Prix only races. If both of your drivers place for the first time, it will be the higher place that will receive it, not both. In this way, if you want a specific one of your drivers to receive it, it's a good idea to put the other driver in a lower performance vehicle for the race to make the other more likely to be ahead.
• Winning a Grand Prix will award both drivers with their highest possible auras afterwards and is the most common way to obtain auras in the later game.
• Randomly may lack good reason behind it but is still the least common way your driver can obtain one. Generally tends to be the lower of the possible aura colours your driver may have and usually as the driver is working on something in the downtime. Usually drivers will receive this aura twice a year around the same time. For instance, a driver may obtain a random aura In Y7 M3 W2 and Y7 M8 W4. Assuming the auras were used around the time they appeared, the next auras will most likely appear around Y7 M3 and Y8 M8 or M9.

Making "Gold" Vehicles/Parts 

"Gold" is an adjective for vehicles or parts describing one upgraded with only gold auras. Vehicles or parts upgraded this way and at Lv. 6 have the highest possible stats it can. It can result in some very powerful items as many that are higher class can see a stat increase of +30 while with no aura would only result in +10; resulting in +100 more than normal after all five upgrade levels.

You want to be careful when planning to make gold items or dealing with things you eventually want to make this way in a future play-through as Lv. 6, the max level, is taken with priority for carryovers so don't let them go past Lv. 5 until you are sure you can finish applying gold aura upgrades to it. If you are unable to complete it in one play-through, as long as your vehicle/part is better than what is currently in the carryover library for it and not maximum level, you can choose it when starting a new game and finish it then.

A good idea is focusing on your first play-through to just one vehicle and one part. Once these are complete, you can work on branching out. Banana Car or Duck Car are both good vehicle targets as they are only C class, so still simple for a starting team to construct. They can also complete the first two Grand Prix quite easily with full upgrades, along with both having nice other effects to help out. While both higher grade, a Superchrgr or V12 Engine fully upgraded can be helpful on cars at any point in the game; the Superchrgr also being a nice choice for being a later sponsor reward when not carried over.