Transmission things

[Daffyflyer]

Yeah, we did experiment with letting you choose each individual gear ratio, but it just wasn't any fun, it didn't add any real extra gameplay or stat tweaking value, it just made it needlessly harder to setup really.

[strop]

The latter half of your queries are generally covered by the graph, that is, of course, unless you mean more precision would be nice.

The former half of your queries have been previously discussed, and as much as I agree with you i think at that point it was decided that it would make the UI too clunky and most people would be OK with the current setup and individually tuned ratios would add little in gameplay value except for tuning nuts (like myself).

... Unless there was an argument to be made that there was an easy way to integrate that option into the UI so it doesn't get in the way of the current "convenience" settings... Like how the suspension ui got presets added?

[oppositelock]

Yeah, it would be nice to have both easy and advanced adjustments. Having worked extensively with gear ratio formulas for my Gran Turismo tuning spreadsheet, I find the current setup extremely limiting. In particular, the ratio spreads are far from optimal no matter what the setting, the lower gears are too far apart and the higher gears are too close together. I'm 99% sure i could get more performance out of the car by playing with individual gears. I think it could be done without cluttering up the UI or confusing noobs.

[USDMFTW]

Yeah, we did experiment with letting you choose each individual gear ratio, but it just wasn't any fun, it didn't add any real extra gameplay or stat tweaking value, it just made it needlessly harder to setup really.

I disagree here completely.

The current setup hinders fuel economy and acceleration as the gears are preset. Transmissions such as the t56 in the camaro etc. are a great example, 5 close gears for acceleration with 6th gear being huge for highway cruising. Has best of both worlds, the current setup does not allow much tune at all, i hardly even change that slider unless the spin is very terrible, i generally only modify the top speed one.

I dont expect to see this changed anytime soon, but i would like to see it changed farther down the road.

[Killrob]

Well, I agree it's limiting, but then what isn't? There's not enough room in the UI on that tab for a similar thing to the easy mode in suspension tuning or turbo setup. I'd suggest you wait and see how it plays with the upcoming update that makes tuning the gearing a lot easier by giving you all the data you need right there on the tab.

[RobtheFiend]

How about; three buttons, a: Standard spacing, b: Close spacing lower gears (with one or 2 overdrive), c: Close spacing upper gears (very tall first, maybe second gear).

[PMP1337]

There should be a transmission builder, like the engine, transmissions play a big part on the cars. That's way some car groups have a single gear box for a bunch of different models. The DSG for example. All, VWs, SEATs, Skodas and Audis. The same gearbox.
Right now isn't to easy to taylor the gear box to cars we are building. Every car can have a perfect gearbox(given the thing we can chose) for each car. It should be that way. Making a gear box should have a engenieering cost for every different setting.

If you are worried about being too complicated, just put template gearboxes available for the noobs to chose from. Can't over casualise the game. That way it isn't rewarding and people will get tired of it quickly. This counts for everything.

[Jakgoe]

There should be a transmission builder, like the engine, transmissions play a big part on the cars. That's way some car groups have a single gear box for a bunch of different models. The DSG for example. All, VWs, SEATs, Skodas and Audis. The same gearbox.
Right now isn't to easy to taylor the gear box to cars we are building. Every car can have a perfect gearbox(given the thing we can chose) for each car. It should be that way. Making a gear box should have a engenieering cost for every different setting.

If you are worried about being too complicated, just put template gearboxes available for the noobs to chose from. Can't over casualise the game. That way it isn't rewarding and people will get tired of it quickly. This counts for everything.

There used to be one... It wasn't good.

And "casualizing" the game could be the secret to success. Look at GearCity, a flop. That was not "casualized" at all. And Kerbal Space Program, a huge success, was very "casualized".

[maffc]

I do like the idea of somehow obtaining gearboxes (either designing them yourself or buying them from other makers) and selecting them like you for the engines, HOWEVER the ever present risk of feature creep needs to be prevented.
V1.0 needs to be completed and released, at the end of the day this is a commercial enterprise. If the game is successful enough and the devs consider a v2.0 then it would be prudent to take note of the feedback from the completed v1.0.
Ultimately the desire for a gearbox sub-system in the vein of the engines may still be a minority one and therefore a waste of development time.

[Daffyflyer]

We built a gearbox designer, but it never really could be made into an interesting gameplay mechanic, most of the choices just were not that important to the overall car and made things a bit complex in an unfun way. There will however be at least a decent range of gearbox types available (dual clutch sequential, single clutch sequential etc.).


Whilst I know some of you would like all the detail in every possible aspect, we kinda have to pick our battles as to what is most interesting being complex. Plus we also have to actually get the game finished at some point within our lifetimes

[JussiE]

I'm not sure about the actual Transmission designer. I don't know if it would be that nicely spend time on creating that for the developers or for me to design the box when I play the game.

What I'm missing here is the ability to have some kind of a system close to the engine families. Typically car manufacturers have only few different gearboxes in production. Basic 5-6-speed box that handles only low amount of torque for basic cars. Maybe automatic/DSG-variation of this. More advanced boxes for more powerful models and maybe some fancy super box for extreme cars.

At the moment we can tailor the box to be perfect for every car. That would justify this system in my point of view. You could choose either to design a new box for the car and have engineering and tooling costs for it or to use the some old non-perfect box for your car to save some money. Of course on top of this use should still be able to variate the top speed of the car (End gear ratio) individually.

Another good design decision is the maximum amount of torque that the box can handle. For this we of course would need the electronic limiter for maximum torque for the engine model we are putting in car.

How this could be created nicely game play wise that is something I don't know.

[PMP1337]

I feels like a lot of my suggestions or things I say seem like "I want it and I want it now". The only thing I want right now is the steam integration so that the developers get money and the community grows. All the other things are things that can be made after the tycoon is presented. I seriously hope that developers don't just stop improving the game after the tycoon is working with no bugs. If you want a long lasting influx of new players you need a stable community, and that doesn't happen if you don't add things(for free) over the time. I think developers should note down interesting ideas for later use.
Right now what matters is steam and then the tycoon.

And "casualizing" the game could be the secret to success. Look at GearCity, a flop. That was not "casualized" at all. And Kerbal Space Program, a huge success, was very "casualized".

But in KSP you get tons of design freedoom. While in Automation the only real freedom you have is in the fixture placement. Everything else feels like ordering from the menu in a restaurant.

[Daffyflyer]

What folks seem to be missing here is that this is something we have literally already built a prototype of.

We MADE a gearbox designer and it just didn't make for a good gameplay experience.

I know that lots of you want the most detail possible in every single aspect of the game, and I can understand that sentiment, I was the same when we started this project. The fact is though, to be a game that is actually acceptably playable as a tycoon game, you have to make simplifications. You use the detail where it's most interesting, and then make simplified but mostly realistic controls for some of the things you need to remove complexity from. That's why you don't design your own intake ports, or your own cam profile, or specify the wishbone lengths of your suspension.


We will absolutely continue to improve Automation after release, and considering how long we've been committed to development I see no reason why anyone would suspect otherwise. But that will mostly be in the form of tweaking and refining the existing formula, making things work better, look better, play better etc. Not major changes to the fundamental design process of cars.


Please understand that sometimes what seems like the best solution game design is not always the best. We had to build prototypes to realize that.

[oppositelock]

Alright, I hate to keep annoying you guys, I get what you're saying about keeping stuff simplified and I can appreciate that. This is something I cobbled together which I think might keep everyone happy. You'd have to shrink it down a bit and add a couple lines to support eight speed boxes, but other than that I don't see why this wouldn't work. Using the "easy" sliders would automatically calculate the ratios, you'd keep the second to last gear at a constant 1:1 and pivot all the other ratios around that including the final drive. After the user gets the ratios in the general ballpark he wants, he can click the left and right arrows to customize each gear. It's not complicated, nor does it take up a lot of space in the UI.

[WizzyThaMan]

But in KSP you get tons of design freedoom. While in Automation the only real freedom you have is in the fixture placement. Everything else feels like ordering from the menu in a restaurant.

What is it that you want? Realistic calculations to represent real life things? Or freedom with fantasy/impossible to real-life stuff?

I'd pick the realistic one, with a nice gameflow and something that doesn't take me two hours to produce my first car, really.