Version 1.10 released. Highlights and changelist

Here are some of the more noticeable changes in todays update:

3) [Bug] Fixed crash bug when dragging a conveyor belt off the map.

I know a few different people encountered this and reported it. Along with a few other crash bugs, this one should be properly dealt with now!

8) [Optimisation] Some route-finding optimisations for large factories.

I had a few people send me HUGE factories which was very helpful for tracking down some CPU and even GPU bottlenecks. These should be much better now, and although this is not the final optimisation by any stretch…it should run much smoother with big factories in 1.10.

10) [Balance] Component prices now vary based on demand.

They always had this, and in the graph for the historical prices you could see them bump around, but now there is less random volatility, and it climbs more sensibly based on demand. This only applies to components, not raw materials, but essentially if you start buying a LOT of car doors, then the price will climb as you struggle to find enough suppliers. This should be acting as a gentle nudge in the late game towards you manufacturing your own components wherever possible. The effect is possibly a bit too subtle for now. Feedback welcome.

11) [Balance] The market value of car features decreases over time.

This includes the ‘base car’ which is initially valued at $16,000. Over time, the ‘fair value’ of this, and other features will slowly drop, depending how high tech they are. This is designed to encourage you to ramp up production, and also not to get left behind too much from as technological POV. It takes a long time to kick in, but I’m interested to know if people feel its effects eventually and what they think of it.

15) [Feature} Loans are now usable.

This is very experimental for now. Loans take a long time to pay back, and are quoted as a daily interest rate, yet you pay back hourly (otherwise the lump sums will be a bit scary). The payback and interest is accounted for under expenses. Let me know if you find the loans useful, too good or too bad a deal, and if you use them.

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Hey Cliff,

Regarding the devaluation of Car Features I’d like to point you towards a discussion MaN1aC and I are having over here:

Design based Production Line

There I suggested that each Car Feature could have something like a desirability-index for a certain budget segment (Low End, Mid End, High End etc) and that in turn influences how much Customers would be willing to buy a car with certain features being installed. And that desirability-index could change over time depending on market events, newer features superseding older ones, etc.

There’s a lot to read into because Man1aC and I tried to think it through to the end.

Hey Cliff, was the asset editor removed on purpose in this update? It’s not in the patch notes, but it’s not in the game any more. I used it for the “Make Roof” station, since the input and output are right beside each other and it ruined the flow of my production. Any plans on putting it back or modifying the “Make Roof” station so input and output are not right beside each other? Thanks!

Edit: After a quick dig around the game files I just modified it back through the text file for the “Make roof” station. If anyone wants to know how to do it for themselves, scroll down to the “[Tiles4]” section and change the YOffset to “-1” instead of “0”. That will make it the same footprint as make doors and you can separate your input and output. Thanks for making this so accessible, Cliff!

Just looking at your screenshots there I can see some issue with the loans. 2/3 loans available will have higher interest accumulated hourly than the payback. So this will put you in a very steep spiral into bankruptcy if you’re accumulating 50% more debt hourly than you are paying off. I’m hoping (for the people who do take loans) that this is just an error in the way it is displayed.

Looking forward to seeing the other improvements in action!

Well big loans are kinda like a mortgage! (and that situation is very common in mortgages). Interest is only payable on the remaining amount, so over time, the repayment will over take the loan amount, its just at the start of a loan period the interest does seem high.
I guess now loans are an option I should reduce starting balances for some of the missions

yes I did read that, I need to get the concept of different markets for different cars in there at some stage, and then I’ll be addressing that.

Looking at it a bit closer I suppose that the “payment” listed is the amount of money deducted that is applied toward the principle, and the “interest” is the amount deducted toward the interest. So your on-hand cash balance would be reduced $2065 per hour (for the first loan listed) and that grand total is not shown, rather the breakdown of that deduction. Maybe that $2065 figure would be good to show?

Yup, good point

Danke!

The loans are quite useful!

On the first level / small map, I used it to expand from a single production line to branching the long parts into a dual track. The three machines that you need (those that take 50+ seconds to run) are about 350k to purchase, but conveyors and such add another 100k, and then there is the increased investment into materials until you actually sell the car… Let’s just say that I started with 450k in the bank, and had 20k left by the time the production line was going to run. If it weren’t for taking out a small (150k) loan, I would have gone bankrupt on materials purchases to supply the production line. Doubling the output of my factory doubled my profit per hour, which easily outweighed the debt repayment.

Speaking of balance: the first level could probably start with 100k-200k less money, so you need to get a larger loan to fund a dual track production line. That should still give you 100k-200k to spare after you finish setting up a simple production line.

Cool. I figured starting amounts would be able to come down, but I had not taken the step to reduce them yet, but will do by the next update

Lack of time forced me to skip a few versions, and now when I try 1.10 I have to say WOW! Such an improvement.

Decreasing base car cost is a good feature, but you probably have to figure out a way of balancing the car sales more. It´s realistic that the sales go up and down but the way it works now is frustating. Wait…wait…wait., and then most of cars get sold with little/no adjustment on the price.

Most of the game element have a time value and I think car sales should have it too (hidden or not). If you sell you car at base cost it should be sold within a resonable amount of time at a minimum profit (Component purchase prices+1%). Maybe 4 seconds is a good number (without upgrades), with the possibility to decrease it later with upgrades.
As you increase the price/profit the sale time should scale up/down.

A suggested formula is: Profit percentage+4=Car sale time
So for example:
1% = 5s
10% = 14s
25% = 29s
-1% = 3s
-2% = 2s
-3% = 1s
(lower than -4 is 0.1=instantly sold, unless you/someone else figure out a better solution)

Early game a higher profit works as we doesn´t produce as many cars and the cars would be sold roughly at the same pace as they are produced.
Mid-game we are starting to get forced to produce components locally to profit from the cars as we getting an increased production.
Late game when we usually produce everything locally and selling car at minimum profit we have to keep upgrade our cars often and upgrade our sales departement (when it´s implemented) to sell more cars.

A fully upgraded factory with all the upgrades on the car and locally produced components should have a max total profit at 5%/car when sold at base car 0 profit price (1% base profit+4% from producing components locally). Assuming that the base price have dropped to 10000, this means 400$ for each car. This amount should be enough to cover wages, electricity, rent etc. and still have money left to invest in new slots.