workers, wages, factories and rivals.

[nialloftara]

Some of these tycoon games go to extreme micro management levels, retirement packages, salery negotiations... how in depth do you think you'll be going in terms of the workers?

Are there ideas for cost benefits to useing the same engine for long periods of time, if so will small changes made to the engine ( fuel system, cams, exhaust) be at reduced cost as the factories are already setup for most of the engine components?

And lastly its a hard idea for me to describe but, rivals? Like ford and chevy with pony cars or toyota and honda with commuter cars, where a competitor in a car class starts almost an arms race with you on some stat, power or economy or cost and promotional material is geared for closer then normal comparison. I might effect the speed at which the car requires updates or face lifts to keep the public from going to your rival. I have no idea where to begin codeing a idea like that but I think having one or even more rivals randomly in the career would definitely help push for innovation on the part of us car builders.

[Killrob]

Micromanagement will be kept to a minimum regarding "normal" personnel. We want to limit this to actually important decisions: there will (probably) be lead engineers you can hire to lead your research or engineering teams for various bonuses (with some RPG elements), and those will make a difference and you'll need to determine their pay, etc... otherwise we'll keep it on a very manageable level.

Yes, there will be big cost benefits to smaller revisions of engines and cars. Retooling will be cheap in these cases. That encourages step-wise evolution just like we see with cars IRL.

The rival thing you mention should come naturally from gameplay and should not be artificially enforced by the game, IMO.

[nialloftara]

Ohh lead engineers! Will there be specializations among them, some better at building or designing certain types of engines or platforms? like if your company has been making pushrods could you hire a specialist in sohc to help you transition while your r+d works to catch up. Not as big a boost to quality as research but enough to give you a boost at first.

Edit: I think that's what you meant by bonuses and rpg elements but judt looking for clarification.

Also thanks for the quick reply. My anticipation continues to grow in leaps and bounds.

[Killrob]

Yes, you understood me right there
Could be anything like +3 Fuel System Techpool, +5 Interior Techpool, or -20% Engine Engineering Time.

[nialloftara]

Thanks for the info killrob, that sounds awesome.

[Frankschtaldt]

Yes, you understood me right there
Could be anything like +3 Fuel System Techpool, +5 Interior Techpool, or -20% Engine Engineering Time.

It would be cool if you could try and lure these lead engineers away from rivals. Gaining advantage while depriving them.
Obviously that would mean you would have to keep your pay levels attractive so you don't get your good engineers stolen by your opposition =)

[Killrob]

Yes, that is planned to be in the game in some way... it's difficult to say how to best make that work, because losing your 2-decades-of-experience star engineer can be rather sour That needs to be balanced nicely.

[KingJanic]

Will there be a limit on special people, like 1 engineer, 1 business guy, 1 foreman, or will it be simply how many you can afford to pay?

[Killrob]

There need to be limits, dynamic or not, we'll see how that goes.

[Bloozed]

We the worker pay change dependant on there they are, e.g labour in China or India is cheaper then Australia or Europe?

[WizzyThaMan]

Yes it will.

[Killrob]

Labor costs will vary from region to region, as does expertise and regional bonuses.

[Absurdist]

Haha, you have a hell of a lot to balance. It's pretty exciting how regions will become more or less viable as the game goes on. A lot of work for you in that I suspect.

One thing that interests me, if you have a game mode where things are, all mixed up in terms of regions and events; you'd need to create a way for the player to see the region where he would want to start in, or invest in. That I think is going to be very hard to do… But amazing if you can pull it off. What excites me about you guys is that you WANT to do all the crazy things that players normally only get to imagine about.

[Daffyflyer]

We the worker pay change dependant on there they are, e.g labour in China or India is cheaper then Australia or Europe?

For sure, that'll be a major consideration in where you set up your company and it's factories.

[Killrob]

Haha, you have a hell of a lot to balance. It's pretty exciting how regions will become more or less viable as the game goes on. A lot of work for you in that I suspect.

One thing that interests me, if you have a game mode where things are, all mixed up in terms of regions and events; you'd need to create a way for the player to see the region where he would want to start in, or invest in. That I think is going to be very hard to do… But amazing if you can pull it off. What excites me about you guys is that you WANT to do all the crazy things that players normally only get to imagine about.

Something like this: http://heritage.org/index/heatmap with less regions, of course, and a similar UI to choose what stats to look at. Might be pretty functional!