Is there any reason you can’t build in a corporate espionage sort of function to get the technologies you don’t currently have researched made available to you through purchasing said tech from a rival and learning from that?
Its certainly an appealing idea, and we haven’t really done anything in terms of ‘dirty tricks’ or bad behaviour by auto companies in the game… yet 
I have been wishing for a market survey sort of implementation so I can find out what sells so I can see where there is a market and where there isn’t. Would be very useful if you can find out about your rivals and what they are producing so you can either take them on, or pick less congested options. A sales chart would be helpful to see what the state of the market actually is and especially what people want to buy.
If researching something that requires other things (electric windows springs to mind as that was my first thought), it would be helpful if either it added the prerequisites so that the production can happen, especially for anyone that is far less aware of the motor industry and it’s workings, or maybe have it as a “training mode” for anyone (myself included) that knows very little about the production cycle so it can help the inexperienced learn the mechanics (doh!) of how the systems inter-relate.
Make loans payable so they can be gotten rid of.
Having a cost of production beneath the showroom cars would be helpful so that you can sell them off faster whilst still not losing money, or even a sell at cost price option would be helpful if like me you end up with a lot of cars because updates have happened and they didn’t get them because they were produced earlier.
A recall option should be thought about being implemented, as it’s actually well known that a variety of manufacturers have recalled models due to being unsafe. (Especially the case when you haven’t been able to develop the smart junction yet and they go for sale despite not wanting them to because you can’t stop it. This would likely have an effect on consumer confidence though…)
Having advisors would be helpful (thinking of Sim City games), then you can try to fix whatever the reason your money is pouring away from you is, or why the production doesn’t have the feature you added to it, maybe because the feature wasn’t added on the manufacturing device in question, which when you’re getting tired, would be a god send provided you have the space for it if it’s not an upgrade of existing equipment (or you don’t have the equipment at all maybe). I have had issues with vehicles missing parts inspite of the fact they were required by the equipment at the production point (how exactly it got past them is beyond me, unless, as I have started to believe, it is a higher level process than the process in use (missing front bumper even though that is specific to the Fit Front Bumper process which I haven’t unlocked yet; Fit Bumpers shouldn’t have allowed it to pass through if not all fittings were present (bug?)).
Lack of information is the big bugbear for me, there’s no cause and effect you can determine from anything, how to solve the situation you face is mind boggling, especially when everything you do takes such a long time to implement. Advice is the one thing I would welcome, and it doesn’t exist yet.
Being able to save games with your own title would be helpful especially because the existing options aren’t overly meaningful to most ppl. That should be an easy change tbh as I was doing such things years ago.
Hi, you can already do a lot of this. You can click on the save game name and change it to whatever you want. Also, you can already set up a discount in the showroom for cars that have one or more ‘uninstalled’ features (ie: features that got added to that model after they had already passed that production slot).
Regarding market data for what sells, although the current implementation could be better, this is already in the game on the market tab of the sales screen (next to showroom). All possible combinations of body style and price point have a box that shows the current number of customers who visit your showroom for that model, so you can see if its a big or small market segment. I do have plans to improve this as its currently pretty text heavy.
Yes, but you can’t see everything that can be made, only what you can, so it’s like seeing only your company (so there’s no competitors?), ignoring everything other manufacturer that exists. Plus, you can’t make any comparison because you see a percentage of your sales, would be nice to have more info, price, features, which rival, etc.
Is the Uninstalled bit coming in the next release? All I see now is for Missing Universal features. 
I still need to put that in, I’ll make sure its on my todo list!
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Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see a suggestion for Sport Tires (to go under the Performance Features tree).
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Someone mentioned a carbon fiber chassis. That seems a bit extreme, but carbon fiber hoods are somewhat common. Although, that’s an aftermarket upgrade. I’m not aware of any cars that come with one from the factory.
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Aluminum Driveshaft for reduced rotating weight. There are some OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) aluminum driveshafts. They also sell carbon fiber driveshafts, but only aftermarket. The carbon fiber ones are lighter, but much harder to mass produce.
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The game has a Wood Dashboard feature. Carbon Fiber Dashboard is potentially another one.
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Stainless Steel Exhaust is a feature on high end cars willing to spend the money to avoid corrosion.
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All-Wheel Drive is a feature that can be added to any car. AWD powers all four wheels all the time, and can adjust the power between the wheels as necessary/beneficial. In 2019 we’re seeing a lot of previously FWD cars coming out with an AWD option, such as the Toyota Prius, Toyota Sienna, Nissan Altima, Mazda 3 AWD, the Ford Edge replaces the previous 4x4 with AWD for 2019, etc. AWD for all cars in the game still makes sense even though the game has an Off-Road chassis. 4x4 is good for off-road driving, but AWD is good for on-road driving. AWD is better at off-road driving than 2WD, but not as good at off-road as 4x4. Also, an off-road vehicle can be designed to use AWD and have a 4x4 mode, but I’m guessing it would cost more. The benefit of only having 4x4 for off-road (and 2WD for on-road) is that it’s cheaper and lighter than an AWD system. AWD could go under the Safety, Driver Assistance, or Convenience trees, since it’s a little of all three.
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Performance Swaybars could potentially be installed in the Fit Front Axle and Fit Rear Axle slots. There aren’t any performance suspension options at the moment.
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Powered Mirrors (specifically not “wing mirrors” since this could include the rear view mirror as well). This would require a servo.
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Driver Memory Presets. This is where the car remembers the seat, steering wheel, and mirror positions for multiple drivers. Each driver can push a button and they will automatically adjust to the position that driver prefers them to be. This feature would require Powered Seats, Powered Steering Adjustment, and Powered Mirrors (if powered mirrors are added) to be researched first. If Powered Mirrors wasn’t added, I suppose Folding Wing Mirrors would have to do.
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Chrome Wheels as a Car Design feature.
BTW, shouldn’t White Leather Seats under Car Design have a requirement for Leather Seats research? Otherwise these would just be White Seats and Red Seats.
Yes fair point regarding seats. I haven’t enabled this as a requirement yet, because I struggle conceptually with the idea of something in the design tree being dependent on something in the technology tree, because I wonder if that may be confusing for the player… but then obviously it looks wrong for it not to be dependent. What do people think about these conflicting problems?
Also thanks for the feature suggestions. I would definitely like to add a LOT more, but am worried about the UI getting too complex for new players. I likely need to improve the tutorial and help first…
My thoughts regarding the seats:
- IMO I think it’s fine to have a first column item as a requirement, especially an inexpensive one. A second column item would be far more difficult. There are no other requirements, and I suspect most people will have researched Leather Seats before they build their first Car Design Studio anyway.
- Alternatively, in this case, I think it would also be fine to change it to remove the word “leather” and call them White Seats and Red Seats. Then they’d be either cloth or leather.
I think Design options can be totally dependent on the other tiers.
These days vegan seats are a popular option, so it may date the game a bit to suggest that leather == luxury anyway?
These days vegan seats are a popular option, so it may date the game a bit to suggest that leather == luxury anyway?
I think pretty much everyone these days accepts that “leather” includes a broader category that includes both real and faux leather (aka pleather). Vegan seats are designed to feel similar to leather, despite actually being made from polyurethane. The term “vegan seats” is only intended to specify that no real leather is used. So, if leather is specified, then they could be all real leather, all faux leather, or some of each. If vegan leather is specified, then they’re saying zero real leather is used.
Regarding the Parking Sensor and the Reverse Camera as currently listed under R&D, I thought I should mention that at in my experience, reverse cameras are far more common than parking sensors. There are a huge number of cars that have reverse cameras that don’t have parking sensors, and I suspect that all cars that have parking sensors have a reverse camera. So, perhaps the reverse camera should be listed first, instead of second? Or perhaps they could be unrelated to one another, and parking sensors would be a prerequisite for lane departure sensors?
Another idea for the future is NV Reverse Camera, or Night Vision Reverse Camera. IRL it didn’t take long for them to add night vision to the reverse camera. Unfortunately they say they can’t upgrade the cars with regular reverse cameras, so buying a whole new car is required.
Interesting. it certainly makes it simpler if we can use leather as a ‘catch-all’ term. TBH I’ve had 2 cars with leather seats and the leather feels so smooth and pure its almost synthetic feeling anyway
Sensors came first, they’ve been superceded by cameras because they are cheaper to install, especially when the car already has a big screen for the infotainment system.
10 years ago there were no reversing cameras, but sensors were available as an option on a lot of cars, and standard on some luxury cars.
Sensors came first, they’ve been superceded by cameras because they are cheaper to install, especially when the car already has a big screen for the infotainment system.
10 years ago there were no reversing cameras, but sensors were available as an option on a lot of cars, and standard on some luxury cars.
I think what I was trying to say was that the two aren’t really related. There are cars that have parking sensors that don’t have backup cameras, and cars that have backup cameras but don’t have parking sensors. There are also cars that have both.
Indeed. Mine has both, and the sensors are great for telling you that you are close on the sides (for example), whereas the camera is just one view, where you have to reply on your own judgement. They are cool, but frankly the sensors save my ass more often than the camera does
here are my few thoughts.
Second floor, (lots of companies move between different floors)
deployable side steps.
corporate buy outs (why not buy a company that is failing get its technology and then possibly fix that factory to work more effeiecnetly)
espionage
special discount days / hours
my mind has gone blank again.
I don’t know it this has been suggested, or if it would even be feasible, but I’ve never liked mechanics that work on a ‘keep piling buildings on top of each others’ way. In many games this happens with power and/or, just like in PL, research capacities. I don’t think is fun, nor realistic nor practical that you increase your power/research output by just piling up one building after another. I get this works as a limited space challenge, which fits well with the overall philosophy of the game, but have you considered changing the system to a research based one? So you would place one (or a couple) research office/power plant (they might have a tier 2 variant like they do now), and then in order to increase their output you need to keep researching their particular research branch. Or maybe you could just upgrade indefinitely the mentioned buildings (paying money of course), since I reckon my idea would need a complete rework of a whole gameplay mechanic, including interface etc. and it would be a rather big change.
TBH I’m not very confident you’re willing to make such dramatic rework and I totally understand that so, would it be possible to mod it?