Development Costs

[calicoe]

One question about development (engines, chassis...) costs.
Have you considered how to simulate them?
For example, lets say that we design and build a new inline 4, EFI engine.
The target is for general purpose, so we design it to use unleaded 95RON fuel.

Ok, now we want to build a more powerful and with better mileage engine. And we consider several options:
1) Tune our recently built engine, just the electronics: retart the ignition timing (so it will use 98 RON fuel) and maybe increasing the turbo boost. This would be a very cheap option: we don't have to desing new parts, just tweak the electronics and proceed with the regular testings (dyno, lifespan, etc).
2) Use the same engine but updating it. For example, adding direct injection and VVT. As the bottom-end is the same (block, maybe pistons, etc. if they're not underated) we have only to adapt the new parts to the old engine and tune it (injection, ignition...).
3) To develop a brand new engine from scratch. Obviously, it would be the most expensive option even if we don't use state of the art parts (i.e. a bigger block with same technology as the previous one but that needs specific tuning as the specs are completely different).

It's just an example but it's to show how almost all carbuilders work. For example, VAG designs one engine and over it, they build several versions, having finally a wide range of engines with different HP, mileage and price with little cost for them.

The same goes for chassis: it should be cheaper to buid lots of car models (different size/segments, styles...) from the same chassis (returning to VAG: Audi A3, VW Golf, Seat Leon, Skoda Octavia, VW Golf Plus and Touran, Seat Altea and Toledo) than designing 8 chassis for 8 models.

So, will Automation be able to calculate costs in that way?

Regards!

[Killrob]

Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

Indeed we are planning on doing exactly that: looking at "how deep" the changes go and price the retooling and redesign accordingly.
Cheers!

[calicoe]

Thanks!
It's great to see that you're looking at every detail!

[bundyaxl]

Just a little thought about development costs... this would be annoying for the regular game but might work for something like a hardcore or realistic difficulty setting.

Make the engine and car cost more based on how long it takes you to design it. So if you literally spend 5 mins and put it together quick and run 2 or 3 test on it your development cost will be cheaper. Spending an hour or two tweaking an engine and trying different parts, running many dyno tests, possibly even blowing it up several times should increase your development cost.

[WizzyThaMan]

Just a little thought about development costs... this would be annoying for the regular game but might work for something like a hardcore or realistic difficulty setting.

Make the engine and car cost more based on how long it takes you to design it. So if you literally spend 5 mins and put it together quick and run 2 or 3 test on it your development cost will be cheaper. Spending an hour or two tweaking an engine and trying different parts, running many dyno tests, possibly even blowing it up several times should increase your development cost.

This I do not like. That means, younger players or those who like to do things nice and slowly, always end up with more development costs when they do no possess the necesarry knowledge to put together something real quick. Even on any hardcore/realistic settings. There are probably plenty of other options to increase or decrease costs, like multipliers.