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.
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.
Flag of LewistanLewistan
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
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
- Chassis needs to be identical to the T40 chassis:
- Quality Slider: 0
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.
BONUS
- 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.
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
Looks interesting… 
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”
)
