Are the automation features balanced correctly?

[jbajak]

I'm just wondering, if Automation features are balanced correctly?
In egnine designer I can can change bore, cam type, cam profile, type of injection, type of intercooler, exhaust size, AFR, size of turbo, and many, many other things. In car designer I can change stiffness of suspension, downforce amount, brake types and size, and also - many other things.
But when it comes to details, I have no posibility to set number of air bags, I can't change ABS ECU generation, I can't set number of car audio speakres or add cd-changer, I can't add navigation system, and many other things that I think I should get possibility to set them in more detailed way.

Engine designer is wery wide, but the further we go, we find less configuration options. I think, that features which were written in the early versions of Automation are more complex, than those written later.

What you think about it?

[Pleb]

I think that having options for every possible interior option would be too much micromanagement and would be boring to have to select every time. The engine designer is better as a very in-depth comprehensive game mechanic, more so than detailed interior options. You need to think about whether or not your suggestion improves the gameplay enough to warrant the time and effort required to implement it, and in my opinion, it doesn't really add much fun to the game, and I think it would be a waste of time that the developers could be spending on the tycoon part, or adding more bodies etc..

Also, the fact that the additional interior options were in the older builds, then removed at some point already suggests that the developers saw no point in having the options there anyway.

[Daffyflyer]

Great question! And I'll endevour to provide an answer that explains our design logic here.

The main reason for that is that all those engine design choices have complex and interesting results for the final engine statistics, and have lots of interesting tradeoffs, improving certain aspects at the cost of others, and interacting with other design aspects of the engine.

We've come to the conclusion that most of the design choices that are just spending money to make one stat a bit better are not worth modeling in extreme detail.
For example ABS ECU generation would just be a bit more cost for a bit more safety, no real trade offs.
Number of speakers would just be a minor bonus to how luxurious the car is, for spending a bit more money and weight etc.


Most of the interior choices boil down to a balance of comfort, cost and weight.
Uncomfortable, cheap and light. (cheap budget car interior, dodgy plastic and cloth etc.)
Comfortable, mid priced and heavy. (Maybe a mid range Audi)
Very comfortable and luxurious, very expensive and heavy (think Rolls Royce interior)
Comfortable, Lightweight and Expensive (think supercar interiors)

Right now they don't have descriptions of what items are contained within each package, but they will.

Those are the only really interesting mechanics around interiors, and in our case we decided the best way to handle that without overly complicating that aspect of the game was to just give a range of interior packages. If you want to get ahead of the competition you can research ahead and use more modern interiors.


The gameplay mechanics in car design with the most detailed and interesting tradeoffs are choice of body (size, weight, comfort, handling, cargo space, aerodynamics etc.), drivetrain location and driven wheels, gearbox configuration, suspension type and suspension tuning. Those are the aspects we chose to focus on more heavily, as they're a really complex web of interesting choices with effects on multiple stats at the same time.

Pleb is quite correct, we did have more detailed interior choices, but breaking it down into more options just gave you a more fine grained version of "spend more money, get more luxury" and it wasn't any more fun than just choosing a broader option, and took longer for the player, as well as taking up lots of UI space

[jbajak]

Thank you for your comprehensive answer. I think I understand your reasons. In simple words my question will sound like this: in engine designer I have a lot of buttons, sliders and options, why other designers have less? But now I understand and completely agree with you - 'spend more money, get more luxury' will not make game more fun.

[Pleb]

Ah, I'm sorry. I misunderstood your first question then, silly me .

[Kev2442]

I think the real issue here is the missing descriptions for the interior options. I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out which one comes with which things.
I suppose Basic is cheap cloth, hard plastics, CD radio and minimum airbags required in 2014.
Standard should be better cloth, smooth plastics, CD-MP3-Phone radio and GPS, passengers airbags and such.
The Premium would be cloth-leather or maybe fake leather, fake wood or aluminium panels, touchscreen ECU, more airbags and some security systems like sleeping prevention systems.
Then Lightweight is all about bucket seats, leather-alcantara, carbon etc.
Luxury would have quality leather, maybe massage seats, tree wood, Bose/Bang&Olufsen/Whatever branded audio system with entertainment center, advanced security like collision warning and all.
And Hand-Crafted consists of exotic materials, massage and heated armchair-like seats, fridge, curtains and basically everything RR or Maybach-related.

Am I right or did I get it all wrong ?

[Killrob]

That is pretty much correct Kev!

[Kev2442]

Why, thank you Killrob !
Still, as Basic is lighter than Lightweight, isn't it better for cheap or exclusive sports cars ?
I think bucket seats should be lighter than classic ones, so what's adding such weight ? Rollbars ?
If one goes all full-carbon on the interior panels, shouldn't it be lighter or at least equivalent to Basic ?
Maybe we should name Lightweight as Sport package, and have a new extra-costy ultra-light and ultra-low-prestige option, adding a whole lot of sportiness ?
I'd like to see something like Caterham or Radical for uncompromising supercars.

[Killrob]

The comparison I like to make one I've seen in this video: http://youtu.be/3MDTcXGsjuo
F40 = basic
F50 = super-light
So both exist and there is no arguing that basic is lighter than super-light BUT we probably should call basic "stripped" or something.

[Janekk]

Wouldn't stripped interior be -15 quality basic though? The way I see it standard is something you'd see in mid-low segment European/Japanese car, basic would be something like in soviet bloc/Chinese(?) produced car? I suppose you'd know that better though .

[Killrob]

Bad Chinese replica would be what they aim for (for instance premium) but at negative quality they do have the stuff in them, but were shoddily produced. So that has to do with the quality, not with the package.
The F40 definitely is basic, probably even with some negative quality, but not much. Super-light is very premium in materials and looks, yet light-weight... can't be more light-weight than the air in basic though

[Janekk]

I have to say though I really like idea of description of what goes into package. Would it scale with Q sliders and years or is it too much work? Like you get better materials, more/higher quality speakers and stuff like this.

[Killrob]

I think the notion of a "quality slider" is pretty clear already, it is not a "quantity slider"! So whatever is in the descriptions doesn't have to adapt to the quality setting.