CTC - Car Tycoon Challenge #1 [RESULTS]

[Der Bayer]

Car Tycoon Challenge

The CTC (Car Tycoon Challenge) is now ready to go! Build a car according to the needs of the masses and compete with lots of opponents or search for your niché. Keep an eye on the expenses. Guess a good price tag. Sell cars and see if your model can take a big slice of the cake! The awesome thing is: There are no fixed opponents or calculations! All depends on what the other players try to sell and you won't know it (unless you talk about it).

Features

• 15 groups of buyers with different preferences
• (Hopefully) lots of opponents
• Management of engineering, tooling and pricing (tools for estimating engineering and tooling costs will be provided); fixed R&D and distribution cost per sold car
• Insecurity of what the rivals will throw on the market
• A detailed analysis of your pricing: How close to the optimum price tag for maximum profit have you been?
• One single rule: Build a car in 1988 -> build whatever car you want and see how your company would do

Winners in different categories:

• Biggest overall profit
• Most cars sold (with profit)
• Biggest profit per car
• Biggest marketshare per target group
• ... and maybe some more

Current number of participants (Monday 5 p.m. UTC+2): 44

These are the target groups (the number of people in each groups scales with the number of participants, but the share in percent will stay the same):


Now the most important thing:

How do you participate?

• Build a car in Automation (with the right manufacture year 1988) and save it with your nickname as as car name.
• Go to this spreadsheet (Direct Link):
• For each major design choice you have to pay engineering or tooling cost. Depending on what you choose, copy the respective 4 white cells next to the chosen part from the "Template" spreadsheet" to the "Calculator" spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will then calculate engineering and tooling costs for you. (The example in the spreadsheet will be my own entry for the challenge)
• Fill in the other data, your name and choose a price tag for your car into the other white cells in the form on the "Calculator" spreadsheet. Around 2...3*production cost is reasonable for high-volume cars. Small series production cars need to be more expensive if you want to make profit.
• Once you filled every cell of the form, copy the cells from your name all the way down to Tooling Cost and paste the values into a .txt file. Save the file without any manual changes with your nickname as file name, i.e. "Der Bayer.txt" or similar.
• Delete your data from the spreadsheet so that not too many people can see what you built and that other people have space to make their .txt-file.
• Send me the .txt-file together with the car .lua-file in a PM (zip-file would be best) and you're done.
• I'll at least check if the winners cheated (stats, tooling and engineering cost, manufacture year, lua file cheating, ...), so don't try it.
• One car per player only! Your first PM counts, no extra revisions! The challenge will be open for one week (until Tuesday, 2nd of September 8 p.m. UTC+2) and the overall number of entries is unlimited, so take your time.
• Questions? Ask in this thread!

Have fun! Feel free to share pictures of your submitted cars in this thread!


Participants:
Google Folder

Final Results

Participants:

Marketshare per Group:

Total Sales:

Finance Overview:


Biggest Marketshare (with profit)
1. NormanVauxhall (6.74%)
2. Molotov (5.77%)
3. GenJeFT (5.65%)

Most Profit:
1. xwing (6.15 billion)
2. Janekk (5.71 billion)
3. Killrob (4.95 billion)

Most Profit per car:
1. PMP1337 ($171,301)
2. xwing ($116,072)
3. Jakgoe ($39,010)

Compact $:
1. NormanVauxhall (36.4%)
2. Molotov (35.4%)
3. GenJeFT (16.4%)

Compact $$:
1. NormanVauxhall (7.4%)
2. GenJeFT (7.1%)
3. conan_murder (6.5%)

Hot Hatch:
1. Dragawn (9.2%)
2. Zatotm (6.4%)
3. conan_murder (5.7%)

Mid $:
1. lztd15 (6.2%)
2. GenJeFT (6.0%)
3. conan_murder (5.9%)

Mid $$:
1. Janekk (5.8%)
2. mer_at (4.5%)
3. lztd15 (4.2%)

Mid Sport:
1. Dragawn (10.3%)
2. Janekk (6.1%)
3. Zatotm (5.2%)

Large $$:
1. mer_at (6.3%)
2. Luilakkie (5.5%)
3. Janekk (4.6%)

Large $$$:
1. xwing (14.0%)
2. PMP1337 (7.1%)
3. Luilakkie (6.8%)

Trackday:
1. Dragawn (36.0%)
2. 8bs (7.7%)
3. Renowrench (4.93%)

GT:
1. xwing (12.6%)
2. Luilakkie (6.8%)
3. ohm1996 (6.4%)

Supercar:
1. Dragawn (14.7%)
2. Luilakkie (8.9%)
3. ohm1996 (8.8%)

Transport:
1. Killrob (10.8%)
2. NormanVauxhall (10.2%)
3. conan_murder (5.6%)

Family:
1. Killrob (6.4%)
2. Janekk (5.6%)
3. lztd15 (4.5%)

Offroad $:
1. Killrob (25.5%)
2. Fralbjabar (10.3%)
3. NormanVauxhall (6.7%)

Offroad $$:
1. Killrob (10.4%)
2. Fralbjabar (6.6%)
3. mer_at (4.8%)

Price Overview for every player: Google Folder

Grats to the winners and thanks to everyone for participating! I hope you had fun! Please post your thoughts and ideas. Next challenge will start next week!

[Sebulba09]

An overview of the car bodies to the respective target groups would be nice to have. Especially for compact and mid range. Or is the missing of the marketing department that part of the challenge?

[Kubboz]

An overview of the car bodies to the respective target groups would be nice to have.

Huh? What do you mean, if I may ask? It's not like any of the bodies is assigned to a target group, if that's what you are asking about, the buyers only look at the stats that are in the preference sheet.

[nialloftara]

A very fun challenge, here's mine the "Outrider", sure to be populating the supermarket parking lots of a town near you soon.

[Kubboz]

I see you're basing it of the sexiest Automation body

[shawa666]

The Champlain Caniapiscau SM 1998

Caniapiscau SM 1988-1.png (743 KiB) Viewed 7458 times

[Sebulba09]

An overview of the car bodies to the respective target groups would be nice to have.

Huh? What do you mean, if I may ask? It's not like any of the bodies is assigned to a target group, if that's what you are asking about, the buyers only look at the stats that are in the preference sheet.

So the classes are seperated by utiliy stats and wheelbase? Or by all stats? e.g. there aren't any offroad bodies and so you could make and high-end AWD-mid-engine car with a big ride heigt and it will be in the Offroad $$ target group. and if you lower that car to the ground + change the tires it will become a trackday car?

[Kubboz]

In a nutshell, yes, the target groups are separated by all stats. For example, a car that is very cheap, both to buy and to run (so it needs to be pretty small) and somewhat tame naturally belongs to the Compact $ group, and the car that additionaly has a lot of utility and offroad ability would naturally belong in Offroad $ group.

However, it is very fuzzy logic like, and kinda dependant on competition. With no proper Compact $ cars, a Offroad $ car would be pretty popular in the Compact $ group, as it would be cheap to run and use. Only if some Compact $ cars are introduced, the Offroad $ car's market share in the Compact $ group drops, since the need for all the wheels being powered and for the special tires and for the lifted body would make it more expensive to buy and to run, and thus outbested by the proper Compact $

Note that it allows for some niches. For an instance, you could build an "Offroad $$$" car, with luxurious and prestigious interior, etc., but with some offroad capacity as well, causing it to compete both in the Large $$$ group and the Offroad $$ group. Obviously, it would not sell as well as dedicated singlegroup car in a single group (since it would be more expensive than a proper Offroad $$ car, and less prestigious and comfortable than a proper Large $$$ car), but the market share would still be enough to make a nice profit when combined, in theory.]

Also, NOTE TO MARTIN: The cooling airflow slider position is not loaded properly. change it and restore to former position for the actual stats.

[Sebulba09]

so each car is competing in all target groups at the same time and the customers 'buys' only after the stats. stric criterias like 'max. 2 seats' or 'only turbo' or 'only AWD' or '2m wheelbase' didn't exclude an car from an target group.

[Kubboz]

Yes, what you have said right now is absolutely correct.

Also, this is the car I submitted:

[nialloftara]

Car tycoon challenge now renamed the estate tycoon challenge.

[shawa666]

so each car is competing in all target groups at the same time and the customers 'buys' only after the stats. stric criterias like 'max. 2 seats' or 'only turbo' or 'only AWD' or '2m wheelbase' didn't exclude an car from an target group.

Yes.

[PMP1337]

Car tycoon challenge now renamed the estate tycoon challenge.

If that body wins more than 2 categories the game needs balancing.

[Janekk]

My entry:


Front grille makes it look a bit too modern I think.

Car tycoon challenge now renamed the estate tycoon challenge.

If that body wins more than 2 categories the game needs balancing.

It's not that great at everything, you can only get up to 225mm wheels in front. That's why I went with hatchback.

[nialloftara]

Car tycoon challenge now renamed the estate tycoon challenge.

If that body wins more than 2 categories the game needs balancing.

It's not the body it's the build, you could turn that into a power wagon or a rock crawler or a grocery getter or even a luxury barge. it's about what you put in it, not about the looks.