So I'm in a league where I just finished my 1st season and we're in the midst of rolling over, in my first season I had a 14 budget for advanced scouting because I was new to the league. When I look at the budget analysis for all the best teams I notice that they all have 0's for advanced because it's an inherent advantage of being a veteran, so I was planning on gradually weening off of it to something like 10 for the upcoming season..

Anyways, because we're rolling over, I temporarily have all ?'s for potential for all the players, and I actually feel pretty comfortably with it where I could be willing to drop all the way to 0 right away. My question is in regards to incoming draftees and IFAs, if I set advanced to 0 and HS/Col/Int to let's say 15 apiece, will I still see potential ratings for the incoming players or will I see ? potentials for those players too because my advanced is 0?

Does HS/Col/Int scouting budget simply affect the volume of players added onto your list or does it affect the presence and accuracy of the potential ratings

The am. scouting influences the number of players seen AND the validity of their ratings.

Ok, so the potential ratings will still show for incoming prospects then?

For the ones you see, yes.   I often do 20/0 for HS/College(or vice versa).   I don't see 500 prospects doing that so some have ? for ratings.