New car body design GUI

Interested to know your thoughts…

effectively its a mini tech tree that draws points from design studios instead of normal research offices and centers (so you can research a tech/process and a body design at the same time if you want).
I think this achieves the goal of regulating to some extent how rapidly you can research a new body style, and also adds a new facility to place in office areas to make for interesting layout choices. Plus it makes it easier to find where the body research items are.

Researching body design in the main gui unlocks the design facility for placement. The research button tooltip shows progress in both design and main tech research.

I was also thinking it might be a cool place to later add researchable special car paint colors etc?

Good idea on the paint colours, could also move body upgrades like spoiler, alloy wheels, sports bumpers and maybe even sunroof/panoramic roof to here too.

And possibly have an interior design studio to come up with interior upgrades like leather seats, sports seats, better quality dashboard.

I’ve said this before, so at the risk of sounding likea broken record, having a “quality level” for different components would help to differentiate from competitors. It’s no use having a top of the range car that feels like plastic, just the same as a high quality car pitched at the budget end is going to sell poorly. Quality level would need to be made up of different elements such as raw material quality, design quality and build quality, all of which combine to give the overall quality of the car.

Good point on the spoiler. I’m not sure if I want to pillage too much of the tech tree for this, but we could definitely go with aesthetic upgrades in here.

This one likes this idea.

I hope there will be something to keep people from erasing the studio once everything is researched.

Indeed. I haven’t worked out a decent way to prevent that yet, although we will be adding a bunch of new car bodies, so there will be a fair bit to research eventually.

Estates and MPVs perhaps?

I posted thison your vid #40

I think that there can be enough vehicle types by release. You have Compact, Sedan, SUV, Offroad, Sports car now, I could see adding Hypercars (Lambo Style), Muscle Car (Camaro/Mustang), Luxury (Like Bentley and Rolls Royce), Pick Ups, Ute’s, Minivans, Microbus (VW), Microcars (Mr Bean) So the removal of the design center is really not going to be in your best interest until way late in the game. By then you may be at the end of the line so to speak on this play through.

As for colors, I think they should be design unlocks too. I would love to see metallics, neons, and these insane colors from Dodge in the 70’s rickcarey.com/color-names/

But I Still think you should have the design studio to create the model style, you choose and during the time it takes to make the clay model it accrues the points, once it hits x points, then the design is done, and you have to send it to the research engineers to turn it into actual plans, thus keeping the research need. I could see 3-4 different animations for the design studio, one starting with the blocks of clay, then with the top design of each body style cut in the clay, then different stages of animation until its complete…

is an MPV that much different to an SUV? there are so many terms these days, and now people talk about crossover SUVS…argh! :smiley:

Multi Purpose Vehicle (MPV) is almost the same as a All Purpose Vehicle (APV) used for a wide range of different things on normal roads and on off-road. They are high cars with much inside space for many people that sit high and has a good view on the roads.
EG: Chrysler Voyager, Mitshubishi Space Wagon, Renault Scenic MPV, Honda Jazz

SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) is a sportive usercar in the basis a conford familycar with the looks of a off-roadcar. SUV are luxer and bigger than offroad vehicles and most time they are toggled 4 wheel driven. The most time they are not used offroad.
EG: Hummer H2, Volkswagen Touareg, Kia Sorento, BMW X5.

I think MPVs are also called “people carriers” in the UK, since they usually have space for up to seven people. Examples for the full-size variants available in the UK would include the Ford Galaxy, Volkswagen Sharan/SEAT Alhambra and the Chrysler/Lancia Voyager. Mid-size MPVs would be the Citröen Grand C4 Picasso, Ford S-MAX, Renault Grand Scenic, BMW 2-series Gran Tourer and the Volkswagen Touran. In the U.S. and Canada they’re called minivans but I think they only have larger variants such as the Voyager, Toyota Sienna, Chrysler Pacifica and Dodge Caravan. MPV segment is losing some ground to 7-seat SUVs in Europe though since a lot of people prefer the styling on SUVs and you get higher ground clearance.

Crossover used to indicate that the SUV had a unibody frame and drove more like a regular car, compared to other SUVs that were built like trucks. These days though, even the latest L405 Range Rover uses a unibody so crossover is more or less interchangable with “compact SUV” or city jeep. Examples include the Range Rover Evoque, BMW X3, Audi Q5, Volkwagen Tiguan and Toyota RAV4.

In-game, I guess the current SUV could be considered mid-size, and the 4x4 can be considered full-size SUV.

A couple of suggestions:

Make SUV a design requirement for the 4x4 AWD SUV. They are similar bodies and you should have made a SUV first before a 4x4 one. This is similar how you have the sports cars.

Add a pickup truck and then a 4x4 and/or crew cab version of pickup trucks.