Game at Launch, What is in? What is Out? - Updated 08/2014

General Chat Developer Questions
1

With a game like Automation, it has so much potential and possibilities and from that fact feature creep comes in.

Feature creep is the constant addition of features to a game during its production and thus never actually releases.
So we have pretty much locked down what is in, and what is out of the game.

[size=150]Features Included At Launch[/size]

Key: Green= Already Done, Yellow= In Progress, Red= To be determined. White= Unknown

Engines

The ability to design engines based on the following configurations:

Inline 3, 4, 5, and 6
V6, V8, V10 and V12
Boxer 4 and 6

Either Naturally Aspirated, Turbo, Twin Turbo, or Supercharged.

Gearboxes

Choice of various gearboxes, 3/4/5/6-speed etc., synchro and no synchro.
Sequential Manuals
Automatics etc.
CVT

Adjustment of final drive and spacing (but not individual ratios)

Various Clutch types
Various Differential Types

The ability to design a broad selection of cars.

With engine placements at front, middle, rear.
Front wheel, rear wheel and all wheel drive configurations.
Different suspension types.
Various types of brake.
Manipulable car body shapes.
Various fixtures, e.g. head lamps, tail lights, door handles.
Different cargo space configurations.

To run a car company

To run A car company with factories, dealerships, research, import and exports in various regions around the world.
Each region has its own unique changing demands, costs and regulations. Including unique taxes, import tariffs and regulations.

Sub-Brands

Other features

Multiplayer Support
Online Car and Engine Gallery
AI Car Companies
Awesome Community (This part is your job)

[size=150]What we want to the game to have eventually (as expansions, and future paid content):[/size]

Lots of cool engines:
W8, W12, W16, W18
Wankel Rotaries
Flat 4, Flat 6, Flat 8
Inline 8
V4
Two Strokes
Diesels
Hybrids
Electric

Motorsport Series:
Run various production and non production motorsport teams.

Being able to drive your cars:
If we ever do this, we want to do it properly, and build
a top quality simulator. This is hard and expensive to do, so will only happen if we are very successful.

2

Sounds good to me zeussy! It’ll be nice to hear some feedback from the engine testing guys. Can’t wait for the car design test to begin! (might get in that one lol. )

3

Looks great!

Its better to get a game with good core features than a huge buggy game! DLCs can rock (sometimes!)

4

@ turbo/W16:

the bugatti veyron has 4 turbos, and its engine isnt really a W (three banks), it has two banks with VWs special VR-design, meaning a V of 15° angle and therefore only one head. so two of these banks, with 8 cyl each, at 90° angle make up this W16.

otherwise i have to agree with Mesa88, its better to have a game that consistently works with a couple of special options removed until they are tested and up to standard, than stuffing and cobbling everything together hoping it might work and nobody notices the reduced quality of the later begun content.

5

Which appears to be a turbo for each 4 cylinders. Smallish turbos to reduce lag I assume.

6

sounds good to me. :slight_smile:

7

@ zeussy: right, but since each cylinder has 500 ccm, that means 2L per turbo, which i think is quite normal, anyway reading the OP again, how about the W8 in the passat (release date 01) iirc they did that one for 1) marketing as they planned a whole family of those engines 2) the 4.2L V8 audi used was too long to fit?

8

You must be a magician, somehow you have actually managed to get me even MORE excited about this game and I didn’t think that was possible. :wink:

9

Zeussy,
I didn’t seen anything in there about transmissions. Do you know the extent of that yet? Will you have things like CVTs & dual clutch, in addition to the more standard auto and manual?

10

fixed

11

Hmm…i think this might be the appropriate topic for it.

Will the transaxle-setups be included in the initial build of the game?

So basically front-engine/rwd as well as rear-engine/rwd layout configurations.
I was just wondering about it. :mrgreen:

12

What about fuel types? It would be possible to build diesel-engine?

Also I would like to ask about engine cooling, it would be possible to choose between liquid and air cooling?

And one more: it would be possible to choose angle between pistons in V engines and pistons “working sequence”?

13

Diesel - Unsure, will defiantly be in the game at some point, might not be at launch though

Air Cooled - Not at launch, probably in a later expansion if we do ok!

V angle and firing order - You’ll probably be able to choose between flat plane and cross plane V8s, thats about it though. firing order doesn’t really make much difference to the engine, and V angle would be almost impossible art wise

14

But, don’t worry. I guess that some modding army should be able to make it.

15

You’d need (slightly) different intake and exhaust manifolds for each and every specific angle, and some tweaking of part placement & animation code. It’s probably actually quite easy, just very time consuming for little gain :stuck_out_tongue:

16

No diesel, :frowning: not that i’m a fan of it but its widely used in current cars and is just a fuel type. Just need to up the compression (diesel pistons or something) and have a different sparkplug :stuck_out_tongue: . I realy hope diesel would be in the game at launch… crossing my fingers.

17

its not just compression (altough the current range ends WAY too low for that. modern diesels use 16-18:1, older, mostly non direct injecting, naturally aspirated ones went up well into the 2x:1);

diesels dont like revs the same way. the most u’ll see is 4.6-5k, with the peak power @ 3.75-4.2k.

sparkplugs? none there; but a heating-plug for cold weather (direct injecting ones) or all starts (rest).

also the make up of the exhaust gasses is different.

18

I know there is alot more to diesel, but it could be done… i hope :unamused:
(and sparkplug was a joke :laughing: )

19

Diesel would be good a lot more to it tho then just changing the compression ratio and change the spark plug into a glow plug.

Diesel engines are timed through the fuel pump which runs at half the speed of the crankshaft much like the camshaft.
Then there’s different pump. Inline, Rotary etc. plus the later model unit injectors or even common-rail these days.
It be cool if it was integrated into the game but a fair bit of work involved.

Oh and @dread_darven i used to live not far from you once upon a time in Ruinen.

Edit: Just remembered as well the piston designs are different which relate again in conjuction with
the different injectors which can also vary and the type of cylinder head if it has a pre combustion chamber or if it
is direct injection.

20

[quote=“Pazz”]Diesel would be good a lot more to it tho then just changing the compression ratio and change the spark plug into a glow plug.

Diesel engines are timed through the fuel pump which runs at half the speed of the crankshaft much like the camshaft.
Then there’s different pump. Inline, Rotary etc. plus the later model unit injectors or even common-rail these days.
It be cool if it was integrated into the game but a fair bit of work involved.

Oh and @dread_darven i used to live not far from you once upon a time in Ruinen.

Edit: Just remembered as well the piston designs are different which relate again in conjuction with
the different injectors which can also vary and the type of cylinder head if it has a pre combustion chamber or if it
is direct injection.[/quote]

are non direct ones even built anymore? (especially for cars…)