Sunday Update

[Drake]

Each factory size will have a number of production lines. Smaller factories may only have 1, larger factories will have more.

As you will design an engine around a manufacture year, its costs of production can vary factory to factory, based on when that factory was tooled. The exact mechanics of this have yet to be set in stone.

After you have designed an engine, and set it up in a production line, there will be a tooling time, where the factory is re tooling the machines to the new engine design.

Sounds good.

Me and daffy have discussed this very topic at great length, we did at one point have planned that to build an engine, the factory would setup a whole set of production lines for conrods, pistons with all unique manufacture parameters. You would have to build a stock of these before you could build an engine.

Therefore you would be inclined to make engines of similar bores and strokes to share the piston/conrod production lines etc.

All of that became a nightmare to managed, the stocks, keeping track of changes becomes a compounded problem.

If you change the quality of a piston, tracking that through the different engines, to then the different cars they end up in. Updating the buyer demographics to manage it. It all became a nightmare to handle, not fun for me to program, and probably not fun for you guys to manage. That would of been a micro managing nightmare.

It is something that daffy and I will probably discuss again.

Yeah, having to manage the production of all the little parts would be too much micromangement.

I do have one idea for a simplified way of doing this. ( I dunno how well it would work, but ill throw it out there anyways.)

What you could do is have an option in the engine design screen where you take an existing design and modify it to create a series of engines.

There could be 3 levels of modification.

Level1: Simple mods like Intake and Exhaust.
Level2: intermediate mods like the top end and Aspiration as well as above.
Level3: Advanced mods to the Bottom end and everything above. (except for block size)

The lower level mods would have a larger % of time and/or cost saving, while doing more advanced mods would have a lesser benefit.

However it would be hard to code unless each level had a set % of savings regardless of how much actual modification would be done. It wouldn't be as realistic, but thats the trouble with simplifying things.. I dunno if it would be worth it.

I still think it would be a handy feature to be able to modify existing designs even if there is no benefit to cost though. I'm sure alot of players would find it easier to make a series of engines instead of building one from scratch everytime.

There should also be an option similar to above except to modify existing stocks of an engine where you send it back to a production line. The lower level mods wouldn't take as long and cost less. Since players will undoubtedly run a surplus of parts like engines it would be useful to be able to modify them.

It would also be useful if a player wants to play as a tuning company and buy engines from competitors and tune them for your models.

I don't think that should be too hard to code would it?

Also a Must have option is to be able to Export and Import part designs to .txt files(or similar). Especially with multiplayer where a player would probably have alot of premade designs since pausing is quite annoying for all the players.

[Deus ex Machina]

import/export isnt just for tuning corps.

GM/Ford or the VW concern (of which the brand is just a part) use the same engine in different cars and for their different brands.

An audi 2L engine is the same as the VW/Skoda/Seat, they even come from the same factory.

[zeussy]

We do have the concept of corporations and brands being different things.

So your company can have multiple brands under its umbrella.

When you first start the game, you will have 1 company and 1 brand.

[RedRiot]

We do have the concept of corporations and brands being different things.

So your company can have multiple brands under its umbrella.

Sounds good.

[Drake]

import/export isnt just for tuning corps.

GM/Ford or the VW concern (of which the brand is just a part) use the same engine in different cars and for their different brands.

An audi 2L engine is the same as the VW/Skoda/Seat, they even come from the same factory.

I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting.

It would be nice to export the specifications for parts like engines to a file that could then be imported in later games. This is especially useful for multiplayer where there would likely be no pausing and designing an engine from scratch would be time consuming. Or just to save good designs for future games

[Deus ex Machina]

import/export isnt just for tuning corps.

GM/Ford or the VW concern (of which the brand is just a part) use the same engine in different cars and for their different brands.

An audi 2L engine is the same as the VW/Skoda/Seat, they even come from the same factory.

I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting.

It would be nice to export the specifications for parts like engines to a file that could then be imported in later games. This is especially useful for multiplayer where there would likely be no pausing and designing an engine from scratch would be time consuming. Or just to save good designs for future games

i have to disagree, i understood that, but wanted to mention another situation where loading a saved engine will be useful.

[Drake]

import/export isnt just for tuning corps.

GM/Ford or the VW concern (of which the brand is just a part) use the same engine in different cars and for their different brands.

An audi 2L engine is the same as the VW/Skoda/Seat, they even come from the same factory.

I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting.

It would be nice to export the specifications for parts like engines to a file that could then be imported in later games. This is especially useful for multiplayer where there would likely be no pausing and designing an engine from scratch would be time consuming. Or just to save good designs for future games

i have to disagree, i understood that, but wanted to mention another situation where loading a saved engine will be useful.

Oh okay, I misunderstood because you mentioned the Import/Export when I was using it in a different context.

Buying parts from other companies, Licensing part designs for your own production and rebranding cars have already been confirmed by the devs. So what you have said above is all possible in the game

Also being able to Import/Export part designs to text would be useful for modding. The engine designer could even be used as a modding tool if it was re-released with all the content when the game is released.

Or Better yet, a "Sandbox" mode in the game where you could design parts/cars and select the tech year and quality and all that then be able to export those designs. It would make creating new car models, or whole companies quite easy.

[Deus ex Machina]

maybe my bad, but english isnt my native language, and sometimes i dont understand my own thought processes

[Drake]

maybe my bad, but english isnt my native language, and sometimes i dont understand my own thought processes

heh, dont worry about it. Your english is pretty good.

[zeussy]

I am wanting to allow a Save and Loading of Car engines, it is something on my to do list for the demo before it is out.

This has many advantages for us,

You can send us a file of your designs, and if they are good or bad

You can upload them to the forums.

You can eventually use them in the game.

[Kev2442]

By reading all of this, I'll have to say :
Be gentle please, or I'll have an heart attack !

[robt100]

I am wanting to allow a Save and Loading of Car engines, it is something on my to do list for the demo before it is out.

This has many advantages for us,

You can send us a file of your designs, and if they are good or bad

You can upload them to the forums.

You can eventually use them in the game.

The only issue with this would be making sure engines made with more modern tech than is available at whetever time frame you are at in the game cant be used.
For example, a v-tec style injection engine in 1958! I suppose this can be restricted in the loading process though.

[Deus ex Machina]

or u just cant build it, maybe with a warning before loading....

[Dasspeil]

We do have the concept of corporations and brands being different things.

So your company can have multiple brands under its umbrella.

When you first start the game, you will have 1 company and 1 brand.

So in essence, lets say my company is Holden, i could have the brands HSV and HDT?