automationgame.com

Anyone play any other games with in-depth car designers? Even just customization stuff.

I've always spent more time customizing cars in Need for Speed than actually driving, and that's really what I liked about Automation. Anyone have suggestions for PC?

Thanks

Can't say I've seen much else for PC.

In terms of customization my favorite has been the Forza series, as it's usually got pretty detailed mechanical mods including engine swaps and such, plus some nice wheel/bodykit/painting stuff.

GearCity? *cough* somewhat *cough*

There is still Automations competitor Cars Inc. It does have a Car customisation tool, maybe not as shiny or choiceful as Automation, but it works quite good too.
Cars Incorporated

Gear City
And yeah there is... GearCity. Also a competitor, but it feels a bit overly complicated, and the car design is not so intuitive.

thanks i want to see how other games handle compared to automation
oh btw gearcity is awesome if automation would be at least this same awesome that it would be game of the year

So what is it you like the most about gearcity?

every thing excluding slightly hard to get menu scheme, wheels is freely mounted on body (not prefixed making change to make mistake), and my gearboxes aren't usable. all other looks good detroit like style, mostly gearcity is remaked version of detroit (i like DOS game so almost this same style is thing i very like, but no worries automation also have this "thing" making it good for DOS games fan's like me)

Gearcity is a pretty solid tycoon game when you get the hang of it. I agree with your point on their forums though Killrob; its near impossible to know how good/bad your engine/car design is with their star rank system. Also the engine and car designer sliders are flippin awful for designing and you really have no clue whats considered good/bad. Seems to be somewhat pot luck.

i sure hope automation won't feature gazillions of arbitrary sliders and awfully counterintuitive menus when its finished.

besides, why do i have to place wheels manually, when there is really only one proper place to put them at the end of the axle and they therefore end up being offset?!

Thats my main issue with it, you have a quintillion of sliders and buttons and very little explanation to everything. I tried around 5 times to play the game and only managed once to sell a handful of cars in just about 10 years of gameplay.

I hope that Automation will be way better in this, and i already know it will be better. We have a Killrob

Biggest advantages of automation compared to gear city is that that you will be sure that damnd gearbox will work

I'm going to give gearcity a try. but i definitely like automation's designer better. gearcity looks like the standard tycoon game which is cool and all but being able to design your own engine from the ground up (along with other parts i hope) is what will set automation apart from the competition.

Be careful gearboxes almost never fit in your car so Gearcity can really drive you mad

I messed around with gearcity for a while on sunday. overall i thought it was an ok start to the tycoon side of the game. there were several things i strongly disliked:

going back in forth from the map to the office to manage my factories, branches, etc.
the graphical car designer for adding features is terrible. Automation is miles ahead already here.
all the sliders for designing the cars. at least allow us to type in a number.
the lack of providing an estimated sales price for your car or at least a break even number that includes all the overhead, design budget, etc...

i'm going to work with it some, see if i can get a successful car company going.

Automation indeed is on a way higher level already. You have a gameflow that makes sense and is intuitive. I felt quite helpless in the game, best example of it is from Kubastach.
You make a gearbox and a engine but it almost never fits because of the weird process and lack of information.
Cars Inc is a bit easier to understand and less overloaded. Good for a quick game, but atm it lacks of long time motivation.
Automation gives you in this state a really big game depth already, while still being somewhat easy and intuitve. I just hope that Caswal, Robert and Andrew develop and make a really great Tycoon Mode, but with the german standards and precision of Robert it should be no Problem to make it great.