How will the game determine if a car is good looking?

[moebius]

Hi all

I'm convinced this question has been asked before but I have a searched a couple of times but couldn't find much, I'm assuming, because of wording.

We all know there are some people out there in real life who buy cars just for their looks. Consider this scenario, I'm a car company that is strapped for cash and I need to make sales without a lot of cost to me. So I design a family-sized hatchback that looks really really good but the internals are cheaply made so I can save money. I'm interested to know if, when the tycoon part is finished, how will the game know that I'm catering for a specific market of people who only want a car to look good and don't really know/care about it's reliability or quality?

[maffc]

You are correct it has been asked before, however the answer is it won't.
1 - the Devs do not want to stunt anyone's creative impulse and force them to design cars in a certain way.
2 - it is very difficult to programmatically determine what is good looking.
3 - one persons idea of what is good looking is not another persons. If everyone shared my opinion of a good looking car, Nissan would not be able to give away a single Juke yet they sell loads of the ugly buggers.

[Daffyflyer]

It will however, know how old the base body you've chosen is, so if you're building on some 80s blocky thing in the 2000s, your sales will suffer from how dated it is (as well as it's poor safety associated with it's age)

[moebius]

Ah ok, thanks guys.

Sorry for the repeat question but I hope you don't mind a follow up question...

If I do use cheap parts to save money, is the customer aware of this from the outset? Or will they know over time as the car needs more repairs?

[WizzyThaMan]

Cheap parts tend to be more cheap looking. So I guess a part of the users will know when buying or not, others will found out through repairs.

@Daffy: What if I use an old body, with todays standard safety, just to make a retro looking car? Should we be penalized for that?

[Kubboz]

@Daffy: What if I use an old body, with todays standard safety, just to make a retro looking car? Should we be penalized for that?

I'm not Daffy, but AFAIK, the idea is that the old body cannot be made with todays standard safety, due to the pillars being not thick enough, the bumpers being not bulky enough, etc. However, there will be separate retro looking modern bodies and you won't be penalized for using them.

[WizzyThaMan]

Oh thats good then. Thanks Kubby!