automationgame.com

Hi Developers,

When is the next update? And what will be in it? Also can I have an honest answer when the car designer will be done?

Thanks,
Max

Next update, ~1 month (under that hopefully), it will have I6's and completely redone calculations, and a new look (visually).

I would expect the car design, between Christmas and mid-February, basically early 2013.

hey
is the update done and will it be out in the end of the month 30\10\2012 or not

Thanks and good work so far

Heyya! The update is not done yet, but we are in the final stretches of balancing and bugfixing before release. Also we are waiting for the inline-6 sounds to arrive, and got two samples just recently - so they're on their way too.
When exactly we are ready for release is not exactly clear yet, but it's not too far off.

gah im so excited i can't stand it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this including the turbo's / superchargers?

No the next update will be the revamp and inline 6. Forced induction will be the update after that.

Can I please have an honest date when the next update will be done? And will the other updates after this next one take less time then this one? Sorry to rush you guys if I can help in any way I'd love to.

Nope, you can't have a date as we don't know ourselves, we're waiting on some sounds to arrive, some testing to be complete and we've got a bunch of bugs to fix.

We ALWAYS announce a date when we have a firm one, we never know the date and don't announce it, so if we haven't announced it, its because we're not sure ourselves yet.

At this point it seems like it should only be a few weeks away though.

Okay thanks.

I think that the estimated release date of late ‘13/early ’14 starts, at least to me, to sound perhaps just a little bit unrealistic.

Why do I think that? Here’s why:

From engines you still must do: i3 and i5 V6, V10 and V12 flat4 and flat6 so that’s total of seven engines (didn’t count i6’s there nor turbos, superchargers, etc for that matter).

From body styles you still must do at least: 40’s 50’s, 60’s 70’s 80’s and 90’s body styles so that’s total of six body styles (you had one body style somewhat ready to go so let’s call it a 2000’s body style) and I suppose the car designer itself also needs some work before it is done.

So that’s total of 13 major updates for you still to do. Even the early ’14 is "just" 17 months from now, so if you are fine with building the tycoon part of the game in about four months time, you should start pushing these big updates once per month on average from now on. Maybe even faster since I didn’t even count turbos and all the small details (like bugs) that still need work. Not saying you couldn’t build some kind of tycoon system to the game in just four months, but I just wouldn’t believe that you could start to push these fairly big updates once per month on average.

Big update every month would be awesome o_o but that sounds unrealistic aswell

Indeed, this latest update has taken a lot longer than projected, as to provide a good foundation for the rest of the game we've had to pull apart and rebuild quite a lot of the fundamental calculations behind the game, as always though, because updates can be played as soon as they are released, we're not in a major hurry to get the finished product out at the expense of quality. We'd rather take a while about it and give you lots of really nicely polished updates along the way.

One other thing to note is that at this point, all the other engine types for example are a lot easier to do, I6s were much quicker than V8s as they could be built with I4 components and the core I6 stuff probably only took 3 weeks.

I wouldn't be taking the "Early '14" date super seriously either as frankly that's just a vague guess of how long it'll take with the stuff we have projected. It's pretty much impossible to give an accurate release date this far out.

Also, please do bear in mind that as the developers, we probably do have somewhat more of a grasp of exactly what work needs doing and how complex it'll be, so our guesses are likely to be somewhat more accurate than yours. That said, I would not be at all suprised if it ends up more like Q2/Q3 2014.

I just want to rebuild my XJ's 4.0 I6, then I'll be happy till 2015.

Ahh yes, the releases and time frame. I have to agree that it does look unrealistic if you consider things to come out at a pace that reflects what you have seen so far. As Daffyflyer has pointed out correctly though, what you most likely don't see (but will see once the revamp is out), is how much happened under the hood. Honestly, whenever I launch the currently public preorder version I think it's pretty simplistic, shallow, clumsy and just... not good: all in comparison to what we have now of course, not on an absolute scale.

All engine related things will indeed be much quicker to produce from here on out, and won't require much implementation work or testing, as all the fundamentals are there now. So most engines will be made in parallel with stuff that does require more implementation work and testing: the major chunks that are the car designer and the economy part.

This also means that there probably won't be updates like the V8 one with dedicated scenarios and everything after the turbo update (which will be a big one, just like the revamp is, with new features and new scenarios to play). When we move on to the car designer we'll focus on that entirely, and if there is some time to hammer out I5s or V12s in the meantime they will just "come along".

In the final phase (full game closed beta test) before release there will be lots of time for art to be created and polished. We don't need art to balance the game, and neither needs art the game to be bug free for implementation. It'll all come together latest then.

Cheers!