Demographic Design Challenge #1 (Deadline: May 06)

What’s DDC?

In the first edition of Demographic Design Challenge your task is to create a model from an already given chassis. You are given a market report and you decide which of the demographics would be the most profitable to focus on.

INTRODUCTION

The year is 1989. The nation of Lewistan, mostly flat and filled with rivers, swamps, forest and of course cities and villages is once again in a difficult situation. Masses of people appear on the streets demanding more freedom from the authoritarian regime. But that’s not the only event that happened that year. A company by the name Camicasi, based in Lewistan, released its 1989 model Camicasi T40, a 2-door Light Delivery Van.

Camicasi T40


Camicasi_-_T40.car (26.5 KB)

The Lewistanian company expected massive sales, as the market had great demand for Vans. First year of production went great, with sales being as expected, however the company struggled more and more. Competitors also saw the opportunity earlier on, releasing more advanced models in the next months. T40 had very little chance against them and the production stopped, leaving thousands of empty but finished chassis.

Lewistan

Flag of Lewistan

About Lewistan

Lewistan is a medium sized country located on the Lion Peninsula. Population as of 1989 is 30,5 milion. The largest city and also the capital city of Lewistan is called Mrugniska with a population of 687k. Mrugniska is a part of Mrugniska-Vilgina Metropoly inhabited by 1,1 milion people. Climate of the regios is mild, there isn’t much variation in temperature thanks to the Ninia Sea, which surrounds Lewistan from the north, south and east. Coastline is filled with small, inhabited islands. In total, there are over 600 of them. The nearest neighbour across the sea is located 250 km away.

Flag of Lageker

On land, Lewistan borders with 3 other countries. Smallest of them, Lageker, is a city-state by the sea, with a small but dense population of 312k. To the north-west Lewistan has a tiny (60km) border with the largest and most influential country of the continent - Malgaria. The longest border of 265 km is with Dalvinia country, similar in size to Lewistan but with a larger economy.

Flag of Daivinia

Lewistan has never had good relations with its neighbours, mainly because of the political system, but luckily Lewistan and Repubic of Daivinia allow for a lot of economical exchange between each other, creating LewiDalviLage economical sphere, even though Lageker limits movement on the border with Lewistan, probably as a kind of political protest. However, Lageker and Dalvinia share free market with no limitation, which creates a weird one-way Triangle where free trade between Lageker and Lewistan is allowed, but only through Dalvinia. Because of the Lagerian Mountains, Such a detour is actually 60km long. Economical trade with Malgaria is almost non-existent, as the great Parliamentar Monarchy puts ridiculous tolls on Lewistanian products.

Camicasi

Camicasi_Logo Logo of Camicasi

About Camicasi

Camicasi is a car producer with 2 medium-sized factories located on the outskirts of 2nd largest city in Lewistan - Karkima. Production there started in 1970, thanks to an investment from regional businessmen.

Target of the company has allways been the low-budget market. First model VF73 released in 1973 came in 3 variations: Family [F], Pony[P], Commuter[C] with minor differences between them. Company ran with a
belief that adding a letter would attract the target demographics more. It worked just a tiny bit, but the company never returned to it.

Company opened a second factory in 1979, thanks to that Camicasi was able to produce 2000+ cars each month. Other models from 1975-1986 have not been too spectacular, however they generated enough profit to make Camicasi the 2nd largest car producer in Lewistan.

PROJECT DETAILS

In 1991 Camicasi will start preparing to build a small factory in Dalvinia and plans to finish it by 1994. Cars which are produced there will be sold on Dalvinian market. Camicasi needs you to design a car on the already produced T40 chassis.

The project needs to be finished before the set deadline in 1994. You have 60 months for design period. Any delay will have negative influence on the sales, as T40 chassis begins to age rapidly and the interest drops.

Camicasi prepared an estimate market demographic share for 1994, luckily they’re really good (almost spot on) with those predictions. Dalvinia has quite a different demand for car categories than Lewistan.

Statements from Camicasi:

  • Camicasi doesn’t need Delivery designs, as T40 model was already being sold in Dalvinia.
  • Camicasi wants to stay within its low/mid budget market, thus production and sell prize of the car will be limited.
  • T40 chassis needs to stay the same, however any body associated with it can be used.
  • The new model doesn’t have to keep the styling of T40.
  • Engine used by T40 doesn’t satisfy Camicasi, you have to design a new one from scratch.
  • Dalvinia citizens respect reliable cars, more reliable cars will sell slightly better in the future.
  • Factory will be ready to start production in 60 months, any delay will decrease sales.

TLDR:
Design a fast to engineer model on the Camicasi T40 chassis, which will fit best into the demographics of Dalvinia and will return the most profit.

DALVINIA DEMOGRAPHICS (1994):

CHALLENGE RULES

  • Game Version: Open Beta
    (Stable branch submissions should work, but I won’t guarantee that)
  • Mods: Not Allowed
  • Car Model: 1980 2,5m “E90”
  • Car Model Year: 1989
  • Engine Model & Trim Year, Car Trim year: 1994
  • Production Units: No limits as long as the car meets in-game cost
  • Engineering Time: No limits, however Engine and Trim ET should be as close to 60 as possible, so that production can start immediately after the factory is ready.

CHASSIS RULES

ENGINE RULES

  • Engine layout: Any (no V16)
  • Carburetors: allowed
  • Intake: No race intake
  • Fuel: Premium Unleaded 95 RON
  • Mufflers: At least 1
  • maximum loudness: 50.0
  • Engine emissions: max 1000.0
  • Quality Sliders: -10 to +5

BODY RULES

  • Any body for the given chassis is allowed (Sedan, Coupe, Wagon, etc.)
  • Has to be street legal in Gasmea.
  • No compact (+2/+3) seats.
  • Quality Sliders:-10 to +5 (except the chassis)
  • MAX Aproximate (in-game) cost: 13’500$

TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC

You are allowed to chose the car’s target Demographic from the top 3 demographics with highest competitivness (score).

If all of the top 3 Demographics for your car are not present in Dalvinia, your entry is not valid. Selected demographic has to have at least 60 competitivness (score).

If no target demographic is selected, I will pick the one with the highest competitivness.

:star: BONUS :star:

  • 3 best looking cars (in my personal opinion) will recieve a 5% interest bonus.
  • Car which is the only submission for a certain demographic will recieve a 2,5% bonus.

SCORING FORMULA:

The formula will simulate sales of the model, using a (maybe too complex) custom method.

Details

Market share is calculated similar to Automation, where 60 competitivness cars generate 0 interest, 100 competitivness is the default interest. For this scenario 10% is the default market share (let’s say that Camicasi is quite respected over the border). Any value over 100 is calculated related to a square root, meaning that 200 competitivness wouldn’t give that much more advantage over 130.

Material cost is overall cost (Engine+Trim), available at the summary tab (on the bottom of right panel).Car production cost is calculated also similar to Automation, with predefined PU cost and Labour cost.

Actual production cost is lower, since the chassis is already built.

Car prize is the full car production cost multiplied by 1,2.

Winners will be decided by the highest profit of the model.

Link to a demo spreadsheet

Note: You can edit the spreadsheet after downloading it on your computer.

SUBMISSIONS:

  • Car/Engine Model name: DDC1 - YourUsername
  • Car/Engine Variant name: any
  • Send me your .car file and target democratic through DM on this forum
  • DEADLINE: Wednesday 06 May, 20:00 CEST
3 Likes

:thinking: Looks interesting… :thinking::nerd_face::wink:

Question: What is the official fuel octane rating for Dalvinia?

If there are multiple fuel types then what choices are there and which fuel is cheaper/more popular?

EDIT: Nevermind, lol, I re-read the rules (@ 7:36PM AEST, lol) and it states 95RON… I did a derp! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

A few nitpicks.

  1. Space frame and budget markets don’t mix. If you want cheap, but low production cars, go with ladder instead. (Could be why the T40 failed? :thinking:) It’s going to be extremely difficult to get the car under budget with actual space frame.
  2. Partial Allu still needs presses, but you say this is being produced out of a “small” factory. Some clarification/fluff there might be helpful.
  3. Quality sliders probably should be restricted to have some semblance of sanity, else you’re gonna get -15 spam, with +15 spammed carbs for maximum min/max.
  4. “A muffler” probably should be tightened up a bit. I can go with a single straight through and be legal while still outputting 80db at idle?

Overall, it looks like a cool challenge idea, just needs a bit of tuning up.

1 Like

What about a minimum fuel efficiency requirement?

I don’t think changing to ladder would make sense either tbh. A monocoque is what this sort of car would have had normally

Probably. The thing is that the main vehicle is a van. Apparently this is being produced out of a “small/low production” factory. Ladder makes the most sense to me.

Regarding the Spaced Frame:
The unusual setup is part of the challenge, Ladder, eventually Truck Monocoque would fit better for the original car
But the company wants quick car development times, and cares more about it than Producton Units.

Also, the min/max is a good call
Quality sliders will be restricted do -10/+5
You still need space to work out with the restricted budget

@abg7 No fuel requirements.

And regarding the muffler, “at least 1 muffler” rule stays
but maximum loudness is now 50

And for Aluminum presses:
Chassis itself was produced from a medium factory but panels (and body) are formed in the small one.
It’s a little derp from my side, but:
Let’s say that the term “small factory” is not really associated to “Automation [game] small factory” and there are actual Aluminum presses out there.

For the budget:
I want it to stay that way, If I increase it to 16000$ for example, I’m pretty sure majority of the submissions would be in “Premium Budget” category.

Is Dalvinia RHD or LHD?

I need to install windscreen wipers and I want them to swing the right way, lol!

All countries in the region drive with steering wheel on the left.

1 Like

1994 Camicasi Caspian


It may look boring but Fleet buyers like that in a car…

Target Category: Passenger Fleet

Synopsis: Budget, no-nonsense, fuss free all-rounder designed to make a Fleet buyer go beige with envy!

This concept will give Camicasi a foot in the door of the Dalvinian market without having to challenge the major players in their primary markets. The Caspian will buy Camicasi enough time, and profit, to develop next generation monocoque designs that’ll be able to go toe to toe with the best the Dalvinian market has to offer.

The design team would recommend that the next generation design incorporate a simple trailing arm rear suspension. This would allow for AWD variants to be economically introduced, which would broaden the appeal (and market share) of the second generation Caspian.

Yours Faithfully

The Bogliq By Design team

6 hours left for submissions

1 Like

Submissions are closed

2 Likes

RESULTS

The Camicasi department of strategy has gone through all of the entries.

  • This is the one. - said owner of the company Boris Borisovic

But which car is “the one”?

:1st_place_medal:

1st Place

CAMICASI CASPIAN by HighOctaneLover


Photo provided by: The Bogliq By

When we saw the calculated profits out boss had to take a drink to really understand , that once deemed “Unusable” and “Pointless” chassis can actually be made into something profitable.

Caspian is made for Passenger Fleet market, however Bogliq and Camicasi decided to make the model a Family variant. Luckily the decision was made quite early and it had no impact on the profitability of the car.

TOTAL PROFIT: 120,20 MLN $ in 8 years

:2nd_place_medal:

2nd Place

CAMICASI O40 by Mikonp7

O40

O40 screams “Take me anywhere”. This Offroad variant was quite a surprise for our strategy department. The design is future-proof, it will still look awesome in 10 years. The whole car just taunts the driver to go out there and drive in the mud.

Unfortunately, Daivinia has a low amount of dirt and offroad patches, only in the north near Lageker Mountains and in the rural Mid-South. This means the demand for this type of car would be ultra low, factory calculated that the demand wouldn’t exceed 200 cars per month for the whole market! And remember we only get a small part of that.

TOTAL PROFIT: 4,46 MLN $ in 8 years

That’s all folks!
Yeah, we end the challenge on just 2 submissions, Luckily Camicasi found the candidate for its draft with a decent enough recovery of the chassis.

Let me know what could have been done to attract more participants :slightly_smiling_face: It might be that this kind of challenge is just too similar to standard Automation campaign. For the next edition (if there is one) I will try to make the market much more diverse, with no inspiration from the standard Automation markets ( let’s say the market would be “exotic”:stuck_out_tongue: )

2 Likes

Thanks @Deska for this competition. I really enjoyed the challenge of making an existing design profitable for a new market. In particular I enjoyed that you started with flawed choices instead of the usual obvious ones.

Even if I’d come last I’d have thoroughly enjoyed the process, since my boundaries were pushed and I had to work around personal biases to get a, IMO, decent end result.

Here’s the car file for anyone who’s interested in how the Camicasi Caspian was engineered:

DDC1_-HighOctaneLove-_Passenger_Fleet.car (39.8 KB)

I liked the use of the Automation segments; they’re easy to understand, follow and provide an identical yardstick which weeds out terrible ideas, lol

But, if your idea doesn’t properly fit the categories, then I’d not have any issue with them not being included.

Finally, the competition was set in Open Beta, which disables all the mods. Since the competition had design as a parameter, I suspect some were turned away from competing because they felt they were unable to make a decent car using only OEM fixtures and bodies…

I look forward to the DDC round 2 and I’m excited to tackle the challenge of something truly exotic, :rofl:

Woops. I forgot to post my pics from the car.

Well this was fun tho. Next time i would suggest a more realistic base.
Spaceframe is not really something for a daily car.

Picture dump




1 Like

That might be an understatement; in fact, there were only two entries, and yours turned out to be much more profitable than its one and only rival - which explains why it won so easily!