PCTC #1: Packbat's Car Tycoon Challege, 1955 [RESULTS]

[Packbat]

It's in the middle of the Entry Restrictions list (emphasis added):

• Up to two entries per company. These may be either two models or two trims on one model. Teams are permitted, but no player may enter as a part of more than one company.
• Bodies and fixtures from the base game and from Pyrlix's "High Quality Essentials" Steam Workshop Collection circa 2015-12-28 are automatically permitted except Felgen's "1940's/1950's Sports coupe" (which was added to the base game with the latest update). All other workshop mods will be permitted or rejected on a case-by-case basis.
• 1955 or earlier on all tabs.
• Engine reliability > 0.
• Engine Family combined Engineering Time < 90.00 (see below).
• Vehicle reliability > 0.
• Model combined Engineering Time < 180.00 (see below).
• One factory per Model.
• Sticker prices should be set in the Markets tab.

If the engineering time for your model is 115 and the engineering time for your engine is 50, you're well under the limits. If your engineering time for your model is 179.99 and your engineering time for your engine is 89.99, you're under the limits. The team that designs the engine is a separate team from the team that designs the rest of the car, so they each get separate limits to engineering time.

[thecarlover]

Another question, what kind of markup should we set in the market tab? Is it a 10% markup or are we free to choose?

[Packbat]

You are free to choose any markup in the markup tab. The higher your markup, the less attractive your vehicle is to buyers and the fewer can afford it, but the fewer sales you need to break even and the greater your potential profit. How you navigate that tradeoff is 100% up to you.

[thecarlover]

You are free to choose any markup in the markup tab. The higher your markup, the less attractive your vehicle is to buyers and the fewer can afford it, but the fewer sales you need to break even and the greater your potential profit. How you navigate that tradeoff is 100% up to you.

So I can assume that since there's nowhere to fill in the markup info, you'll figure that out yourself based on the price and factory information?

[Packbat]

The markup (in the form "PriceMultiplier=[number]") is saved in the trim files. Once the factory size is set, it should show the same price on my computer as it does on yours.

[07CobaltGirl]

OK,which car is Felgen's 40s/50s Exotic?

[Packbat]

It's been removed from the workshop since the contest opened, but it was a Porsche Speedster-esque rear-engined body under the name "1940's/1950's Sports coupe". If you still have the mod installed in your game, there will be two such bodies in your list of bodies; I remember that one was placed significantly further forward in the room in-game than the other, but I don't know which was which.

[07CobaltGirl]

Whew. That isn't the one I am using. I remember seeing it in the workshop, but I just couldn't remember what it looked like.

[Packbat]

Glad to hear it - looking forward to your entr(y/ies)!

[Packbat]

Bumping this thread with a question: is there anyone interested in entering that hasn't, and could use more time? I would prefer to have more entries, and I'd be willing to extend the deadline a bit to accommodate them.

[koolkei]

well i actually could submit mine right now...

i'm just at the stage where i doubt my life i'm not sure to go with only 1 or 2 cars.

i got one that im happy with, but the other one...... im really not sure.

edit: extra question, extra hassle
to clarify again... (im sorry this is redundant, but i'm still slightly overwhelmed by the rules)
if i submit 2 car trims of the same family, with the exact same engine family and variant. that means:

- engineering cost and tooling cost of the engine are only paid/counted once
- the car engineering time is the full bigger number and a third of the smaller one
- tooling cost is also the full bigger number and a third of the smaller one?
- the max production capacity of the factory is shared between the 2 trims (although im still not sure how is it 'shared', i'm assuming it's comparative?)

is this right? or am i missing something?

also, how do you read the 'break-even' box? like if i get a number of 0.23, does that means i have to sell 23% of my maximum production of said trim?
if so, is this per year or per 3 year?

[Packbat]

Speaking as a contest organizer, I'd love to see both.

Seriously, though: if you think the second car will make a reasonable profit, go for it. It doesn't need to be as good an investment to be a good investment.

[Packbat]

edit: extra question, extra hassle
to clarify again... (im sorry this is redundant, but i'm still slightly overwhelmed by the rules)
if i submit 2 car trims of the same family, with the exact same engine family and variant. that means:

- engineering cost and tooling cost of the engine are only paid/counted once
- the car engineering time is the full bigger number and a third of the smaller one
- tooling cost is also the full bigger number and a third of the smaller one?
- the max production capacity of the factory is shared between the 2 trims (although im still not sure how is it 'shared', i'm assuming it's comparative?)

is this right? or am i missing something?

That's all correct.

To explain shared production: imagine that you have a bar which represents each day's production. If one trim can build 150 cars/day, then each car you build of that trim slices off 1/150th of the bar. If the other trim can build only 100 cars/day, each car you build of that trim slices of 1/100th of the bar. The maximum number of cars you can build is however many you've built when you run out of bar. So if you build 75 of the first trim, that used up half the bar, and 50 of the second will use up the other half; if you build 90 of the first trim, that uses up 60% of the bar, and 40 of the second trim will use up the remaining 40%; if you build 15 of the first trim, that uses up 10% of the bar, leaving 90% with which to build 90 of the second trim, and so forth. What percentage of the bar goes to each trim is determined by which cars you actually sell.

also, how do you read the 'break-even' box? like if i get a number of 0.23, does that means i have to sell 23% of my maximum production of said trim?
if so, is this per year or per 3 year?

Oh, this is something I probably should have fixed but didn't because it was a massive pain: are you typing in the engineering and tooling costs as millions of dollars, or as dollars? If you're typing something like "16.32" into the boxes, you'll get the wrong answer - you need to type "16320000". I think that effectively works out to multiplying the break-even by a million (so 230,000 cars), but I don't have the equations in front of me to check.

[07CobaltGirl]

I am working on an entry. I am in kind of the same boat as koolkei in that I can't decide if the 2nd car is worth submitting. I tried the spreadsheet, and I don't understand the output well enough to know if what I have is a big fat piece of shit (most likely) or decent. In the categories, what should we consider to be a good output for each car? Like, obviously (-$2790) is a bad output for that category, but is $2790 a good output? Should it be $5000? $2000? Not sure what the number means.

[Packbat]

Mmph - that's one of the unfortunate side-effects of the system: the actual winning values aren't determined until the end.

...I'm trying to decide what I can justly say as the organizer of the competition - and I feel a little bad saying anything, given that a number of people have already submitted. That said: I think only one person has taken their one resubmit, and I'd probably be willing to allow them another for unrelated reasons. So I guess I can say this much: When I used the same equations from the spreadsheet I posted on my test cars, the highest score in each category was in the ballpark of ten times the Idiosyncrasy score for that category except in Luxury and Track, where it was significantly higher and much higher, respectively.