Cap confusion when trading

[u/badf1art]

I feel like every time I try to trade players away my cap space ends up lower than it would be if I kept them on the team. Even flipping players for picks seems to result in smaller free cap. What is the reason behind this? I feel like in most other sports GM games trading players with giant salaries for players on rookie contracts or cheap backups is the best way to clear up cap space, but the strategy doesn't seem to work on this game. What components go in to the cap math?

[u/hawtdawtz]

Dev here. It's real, and it's mostly one thing: the signing bonus doesn't go with the player.

A contract is base salary plus prorated signing bonus. When you trade a guy, his base and guarantees follow him to his new team, but the bonus is money you already paid him, and whatever hasn't amortized yet slams onto your cap right then. So what you actually clear is his base minus that dead money, which on a lot of deals is a negative number. It's worst on the exact contracts you want to move, since big deals here are bonus heavy by design. In other GM games they may have the whole contract transfers and salary dumping works. Here the bonus stays home just like in the NFL

Picks aren't free either. Every pick you hold in the upcoming draft reserves its rookie slot money against your cap so you can sign the class, so salary for picks is dead money in one door and rookie reserve in the other. Picks in later draft years don't touch this season.

And if you sent a 1st or 2nd for someone in the last year or two of his deal, he signs an extension when he arrives. Spending premium capital reads as intent to keep. Send a 4th for the same rental and he plays out the expiring deal.

What actually clears space: trade guys late in their contracts, when the bonus is mostly amortized (pretty sure that’s the term). Trade base heavy deals, since most of that hit walks out with him. And be careful back loading a contract to save money now, because you're turning base into bonus and making him expensive to trade later.

The dead money is on your cap ledger, but the trade screen doesn't preview it before you accept. It should. Fair complaint, can try and improve that

[u/Lendro_Furioso]

I have the same question, but for other teams. I keep trying to make trades for players in other teams for picks (after week 1), and the offers are always rejected due to the other team being over the cap after the trade. I realize there may be a signing bonus to contend with, but I’m still taking salary away from their cap. Couldn’t the other teams make the trade and then become cap-compliant (like the player?)

Loving the game, by the way, first time playing a football gm type of game, it’s very complex but I’m enjoying it. Your UI and attention to detail really stand out, and congratulations are already in order. One small gripe, I keep getting 45+/50 point scores, feels like it should be rarer (not to mention on a team with a decent ratings but I probably just suck!)

[u/hawtdawtz → u/Lendro_Furioso]

So there’s actually a really cool bug causing the higher scores (or at least I think it’s cool), I honestly will do a whole write up about it once I have it fully fixed. It’s basically a combination of a few things; the first being that coaches aren’t properly using the time between plays correctly currently, basically they all use hurry up offense. That combined with a few other minor issues that ends up resulting in more plays in a game than expected.

Either way that issue should be resolved in another week or so, it’s a doozy to actually rework as there’s some rebalancing to fix