Cart Racing

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Starting at level 15 your hobo can participate in the city cart races. These races are run every half hour down Suicide Hill. Carts and parts can be purchased using tokens instead of cash. When you first start out, you will have 1,000 tokens with which to by a cart and some parts if you wish. Only a cart is required to start racing.

There are thousands of different cart/engine/wheels/shell combinations. The general rule of thumb is that the more expensive carts and parts will make you go down the hill faster. The initial 1,000 tokens that you have are not enough to win purchase are cart that will win first place, but they are enough to get you started until you have enough built up to buy your next upgrade.

There are three ways to gather more tokens: racing, sponsors, and the token market.

Racing

You have to sign up for each race individually. You are only allowed to compete in six races every reset. Everytime you compete in a race, you will win tokens no matter what place you finish. Even in class 1, finishing 10th nets you 75 tokens. After the race has be run, you will see a message in your Living Area telling you what place you came in, how many tokens you won, and how much your racing skill has increased. More on skill later.

Since you earn tokens every time you race, you should sign up for all of your allowed races every reset. This way you will be earning as many tokens as possible, which will put you closer to being able to afford that band new part.

Don't get discouraged if you never place above 9th or 10th place. In no time at all you will have good enough parts to be in the middle of the pack and earning tokens twice as quickly.

For a listing of the prizes for each place in each class, click on the Winnings Table on the right.

Sponsors

Sponsorship is the next way that you can earn tokens. Each reset your sponsor will give you the agreed upon sum to help you out in your quest to be the greatest. In class 1, only the 7/11 will sponsor you. They will give you 50 tokens per reset. New sponsors are not available until you go to the higher classes. The great thing about sponsors is that they never take away their funding if you under perform. A listing of the available sponsors and how much they give you can be found by clicking the link on the right.

Token Market

The last way to collect more tokens is to buy them on the open market. The token market is where your fellow hobos come to buy and see tokens. Tokens in HoboWars go for much lower prices then points do. Tokens can usually be had for around $10 each. This is a great way to quickly collect enough tokens to buy your next cart as long as you have some spare cash laying around.

Later in the game when you have more tokens than you know what to do with, or you are consistently coming in the top of your class you may want to sell those tokens to buy some new weapons or armor. The token market is the place to go to turn those tokens into cash.

Even with the cheapest cart, if you use all of your races a day (12) and come in last in every race (75 tokens), you will be making 1,000 tokens a day when you add in the amount that your sponsor gives you. If you sold these tokens on the market at $10 each, you would be making an extra $10,000 a day. Not bad for level 15. Now What?

Now that the tokens are flowing like water (or you at least you have a cup full) you may want to buy upgrades for your cart. These parts are a good investment for two reasons. First, every part you buy should help you to place higher in your races, which will earn you more tokens. Second, you can sell your old parts for a portion of their original cost. You can not do this with your old carts. When buying carts try and save up for the very best one that you can get because chances are that you will be using it for a long while.

Parts

There are three types of parts that you can buy: Motors, Wheels, Shells.

Each part has a main area in which it helps your cart. Motors primarily help AC, Wheels primarily help handling, and shells primarily help speed. I say "primarily" because every part other than the cheapest ones also has an effect on the other atributes of your cart. It can either help or hurt those other areas. This means that as you buy the more expensive parts, there is no clear-cut best part. It all depends on which area you want to improve your cart. The high-end parts all involve trade-offs such as the shells shown below.

How do you decide what version of the same part is the best one for your cart? Well, you need to know what each of the part attributes do for your cart.

Attributes

The racing in HoboWars does not quite happen how you would expect. Each cart has a minimum speed at which it runs the course. This is the AC for your cart. The speed is then the maximum speed for your cart. Durring the race your speed will be somewhere in between these two. How close you stay to your maximum speed depends on the hardness of the course, the handling of your cart, and your skill as a driver. The higher both your handling and your skill are, the larger percentage of the race you will be moving at your maximum speed.

In the early classes, the hardness of the course is relatively low, so handling and skill do not play such a large role in the outcome of the race. As you progress through the classes and the courses get harder, driving skill and handling become much more important. Handling can be bought, but skill must be earned.

Tips for finishing higher in the standings

There are a couple of ways in which you can increase your chances of finishing towards the top of the list. The most popular way of increasing your standings is to take advantage of the limits of the races. Each race can only have 10 hobos in it at a time. If the number of hobos signed up to race in your class is not a multiple of 10, then there will be one race that does not have ten racers. In these races it is impossible to come in 10th. If you find yourself in one of these races, you are gauranteed to win more tokens. Since you are put into races in the order that you sign up, signing up in the last minute before the race is set to run will mean that your chance of being in one of these smaller races increases.

There are two problems with doing things this way. The biggest problem is that a lot of hobos know about this trick and use it. This makes it hard to be in a small race, because there is an influx of hobos signing up just before the deadline. If you are caught in this situation, you are likely to be in a full race, and it is more likely that the hobos that you are racing against will be experienced and have fast carts.

The second problem with signing up for a race just before the deadline is that there is a chance that you won't make it into a race. While there is a maximum number of hobos that can be in a race, there is also a minimum number. This minimum number is 5 hobos. If there are not enough hobos to race, then they are automatically signed up for the next race.

This is the reason why sometimes you will not race when you thought that you had already signed up. There just weren't enough hobos signed up to run one more race. This also happens a lot in the very top classes where there are few hobos that are even eligible to race.

If you race at times that are not the peak playing hours, then you have a better chance of missing the rush to sign up before the deadline.

The second way to improve your place in the standings is to be selective about which races you sign up for. You will notice that when you go to sign up the length and hardness of the course is listed. Knowing what your cart is good at, you can choose to only compete in the races that you will do well in. If your cart has lots of handling and a lower top speed, then go for the courses that have a higher hardness. If your top speed and AC are your strong points, then enter in the long and easy courses.

In the first class, the races are very easy. In these races, speed and AC are much more important then skill and handling. As an example, in the following table, cart 1 always beat cart 2 even though cart two has a higher skill, AC and handling. The speed is what matters.

Cart AC Speed Handling Skill

Cart 1 19 66 15 8

Cart 2 23 63 19 26

Note that this is only true for the first class. As the classes increase, so does the difficulty of the courses.