Curious about NPC Driver Income....

[AskingBard93116]

So... How to explain? I got the base garage in LA (where I ended up starting from...) and now I have 3 drivers and 4 (or 5, not sure without opening my game) trucks as well as 2 chip van trailers. Average income for each of the drivers are under $1k since expanding to the DLC. Now, the 3rd driver is rated 0.8, and I don't expect their income to be over $1k as of yet, but the other two are pre-DLC hired drivers and their income had been increasing to the point that they verged on bringing in between $1.5k and $3.5k income per trip and was taking jobs in all 3 states. Now they are earning between $363 and $1.1k a trip for only California deliveries. There has been only one or two deliveries that have taken them to AZ or NV, which earned them around the $1.1k income. I have tried a few different methods of leveling them up but if I change from balanced leveling, it takes far longer to level up than if I leave them on balanced. Ratings are 3.8, 2.5 and the newest driver is only 0.8. Right now I bring way more income than all my drivers combined (averaging around $50k to $60k as I take the long haul options that are over $100k per trip).

How can I get my NPC drivers to earn more money?

~~{Yes I know I can install a money mod and have $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0000,000+ as quickly as I could want...but....I really don't want to and I shouldn't have to!}~~

Edit 1a: spelling/grammar tweaks!

[Aziz]

Full on long distance. 3 drivers here, all go over 1000, more often 1200 miles. Each brings at least $6k per trip.
The max distance they can actually with my current dlc set and garage in LA.
From there at least one point per each category so it's unlocked for them.

[Steve Pitts]

Firstly, ignore their ratings it is a meaningless measure - what matters is their level (which like the player driver's is based on an underlying XP value) and you can see that by counting their skill pips (at least until they reach level 36).

Secondly, there is no ready way to speed things along. Until their skills improve they will bring in a lot less money than you can - if nothing else because the jobs they take are randomly generated as and when they complete a delivery, whereas you can take the most lucrative of a whole raft of other randomly generated jobs.

They develop skills in the same way as you do, so need the XP bonuses opening up, but if you start them off on Balanced then that happens pretty much automatically.

As to why their incomes have dropped, when did you add the trailers to the mix? I would try marking them as private and see if that improves things. What do you mean by 'pre-DLC'?

Full on long distance. 3 drivers here, all go over 1000, more often 1200 miles. Each brings at least $6k per trip.

Don't agree. Your drivers may be bringing in larger per trip figures but what matters is per diem. If you put multiple points into Long Distance before points into High Value, Fragile and two in Just-in-Time then all you are doing is hauling low margin cargoes across increasingly large distances, thus stunting both driver development (which benefits from the bonuses to the other skills) and revenue.

[AskingBard93116]

As to why their incomes have dropped, when did you add the trailers to the mix? I would try marking them as private and see if that improves things. What do you mean by 'pre-DLC'?

I added the first trailer before I purchased the other states available (which is what I mean by "pre-DLC") and the other DLC I have added are the Heavy Cargo, Forest Machinery, Special Transport, and Volvo Construction Equipment. These I do not think effect the jobs that NPC can take but not 100% sure. Both trailers were added after I noticed the drop in income initially and thought that it might help them finding better jobs. No such luck!

[Madkine]

Trailers will generally hurt drivers incomes by restricting available jobs. As Steve said try setting the trailers to private for a while and see what happens (noting they'll need to finish their current jobs before it makes a difference).

NPC drivers will always earn much less than you do, but their value is in bulk. Once you have a bunch of them you'll earn more money than you can ever use.
For that reason I only have 3-4 hired drivers in my current games. (and a much reduced income setting)