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Sorry if this has been discussed, but how are interiors going to work. Are we just going to have options under model designer and just check boxes off like leather seats, nav, soft touch dash, etc. Or are we gonna be able to actually model some aspects of the car like the steering wheel?

That one

Cool

I forgot to ask, how in depth or how detailed will you guys go?

Addressing earlier questions about this, they pretty much answer this. As long as it fits luxury and safety. Think about open windows/airco/climatecontrol and traction control/ABS/Electronic Stability Program (ESP)(or DSC, Dynamic stability control) and such things. You start off with standard things for that era. 1950 has completely different standards, no seatbelts, head rests, etc. where 1990 comes with some standard stuff, like those seatbelts and headrests, but also windowheaters for example.

I personally think this should go as deep as engine and car designer go. You can research a lot of new tech to give you that advantage over your competitors. But also luxury things to get high luxury standards for your car, like an in-car phone or TV screen and a simple/average/good/really good audio system, cruise control, auto-carlights, auto-wipers, armrest etc. etc. etc.

Also of course, there should be options for the trimming inside the car. Wood/Plastic/Leather/Suede/Cotton fabric are good viable options.
Seats too, to directly answer your example. Leather and fabric seats, but also bucketseats for your sport- or exotic cars.

Very probably it won't go too much in-depth. It does not make much sense from a gameplay point of view to be able to choose every single component because they all need to be balanced out and the effects of every single item change over time (like AC is pretty much standard today).

The way it currently works in closed beta: We have three selections of interior packages: Interior (from basic to luxury/handmade), Safety Equipment (from none to advanced) and Entertainment (from none to luxury). The components in these packages change from decade to decade. For example a radio will be in the entertainment luxury package in the early years but in the standard package today, a seatbelt will be advanced in the 60s but basic safety equipment today. You will probably be able to read which components are in which package per decade in the description window. And you will be able to unlock future decade packages earlier by researching them.

To me, this seems like a slight problem. You could end up with players getting 1990s tech in the 1970s. If this is implemented, I suggest that you should only be allowed to get future tech if you are in the last few years of the preceding decade. For example, you can only unlock 1980s tech from 1975 to 1979. Any earlier than that, and the game would be too easy to a player with a huge R&D budget.

Well, the game plans to allow researching tech 15 years ahead (so 1995 tech in 1980). The downside is that the totally new stuff (as opposed to free quality) needs more money to PRODUCE to be reliable. And that huge R&D budget needs constant financing.

That seems a bit far ahead, but I have full confidence that the devs will make it work perfectly.

One click on the quality/tech slider actually means 2 years of tech progression. Of course it will be somewhat exponentially more expensive to research more and more future stuff.

The "decade packages" become better year by year, just the items in them (i.e. the package description) will probably change every 10 years.

Seeing the video KillRob posted yesterday, I'm wondering how good this interior approach will be the way it currently is.

From a maybe not so valid, but interesting view, you could say that with the engine and car designer, you get a lot of freedom, while the interior gets restricted quite a lot into just packages. Nevertheless people buy a car also for what the interior has to offer (maybe even more than what engine?) A lot of people want airco, MP3 player, etc. and a car that just drives comfortable, instead of choosing between a 1.4 or 1.6 engine with less or more horsepower. Of course there is a difference between the male or a soccermom for that matter, but the point here is that interiors do matter as much as aesthetics or an engine.

The current packages pretty much make a package which goes for a certain era. Not a bad approach, I think. But I think it would be much better selecting the parts you want in the car individually like you do with those safety options (tameness it was?) like ABS, TC etc.
The reason for this is that sometimes, I dont want some things included in the current packages to be put inside a car. I think making individual selectable options, with values contributing to Prestige and/or Luxury will do the job much better. BEcause sometimes, you want that one thing included in the car, but now it forces you to include that more expensive luxurypack. Imagine willing a normal package, with airco, CD/MP3 player and windowheating, but I also want auto-headlights. The normal package doesnt offer that, so I have to upgrade to a luxury pack, where I get a TV, a big subwoofer, digital display and climate control instead of airco, making the car more expensive than just adding one single option.

Also, with the current packages offering things, and changing by either R&D or the era, it is quite vague when, what package will include what type of luxury things. By making checkable things becoming available at a certain year or after R&D, you know what you are selecting much easier. Plus listing them alphabetically, or even getting categories in like Personal (for airco, climate control etc.) Entertainment (TV, Radio, speakersystems) and Automatics (auto-wipers, -headlights, -climate control, etc.) makes it a nice, ordered list for players to find and select things from.

According to the amount of work involved, I would guess copying the way to list is created for the ABS, TC, etc. and adding it into that entertainment part, is do-able. Then code-wise adding the variables and % amount of how it affects the 5 main factors (Prestige and others) is also do-able.

This would give this part a much more 'complete' feeling.

I definitely agree to whole post!

What can be definitely hard to implement but what also could be interesting would be the ability to define standard equipment and optional equipment for certain car model. Maybe even to create option/equipment packets. That way you wouldn't need to create billion models just to cover separate engine/equipment combinations.

Of course that would be much more complete, but it also would be a complicated mess to implement, balance and maintain. Also that approach, which we thought about first but decided against for exactly those reasons, would be rather user unfriendly and add very little real meaningful choice to the game mechanics compared to the unlockable packages.

The "I want a CD player but no window heater" situation becomes meaningless with the packages, you just choose the general level of quality / gadgets instead. Having individual items (radio, AC, etc.) would mean that we have to model and track their effects throughout the years, make sure the progression is right with some items becoming obsolete... presenting it all in a transparent, user-friendly way - just thinking about that gives me the shivers.

So no, considering it all I am 90% certain that we have chosen a better way than "individual part choices". They'd add too much pain for too little gain.

Fair enough. I see what you are saying, and indeed the tracking of the effects over the years for when things become obsolete or less interesting and such, is way too much a pain in the ass.

Presenting this userfriendly though, could just be adding a certain year per item, when things become outdated. Maybe work with colorcodes like in engine and car designer. Green is brandnew, yellow is normal to be in the car at that certain year, (orange: lasts only 1 - 3 years) red would mean that its outdated, like a cassetteplayer in 2004 for example.

When you add years of outdating to every individual item, you don't have to track their effects that heavily. You could make a couple different, static, models for those, like:
- Gradually decrease from 19xx to 19xx/20xx
- Stay equal over the years, until a new part is invented that makes this one obsolete(Cassette/CD player)
- Stay equal over the years, until a new part is invented that then gradually decreases it (airco/climatecontrol, Wipers/auto-wipers etc.)
- Gradually decrease to a level and then become equal (Radio for example)
- Stay equal from the point it gets introduced, as current tech doesnt replace it yet (Electric windows, for example)

And probably a couple more. This way, with like 5 or 6 models, you can cover pretty much all the gear. Targetgroups then always have 1-3 wishes to put in a car, changing by the era, to boost sales up a bit if your car actually has (one or more of) these things.

It doesn't always have to be complex. This can be a simple addition to the game which touches more than just the designer and how much 'p3n1s' a man has down there
This could actually be a nice dynamical and more in-depth part of the game, which weights as much as designing an engine or car does.

That way of doing it sounds rather decent actually. I would like to point out though that this basically boils down to the "packages of relevant stuff" that we have right now. Don't forget that we have decade-based packages with different content: the luxury stuff unlocks first and the standard/basic last and that for each decade.