It was mentioned in the news post of the first lite campaign open beta (on Steam) that we are planning on a 2-stage release for the Lite Campaign update. Currently you are playing the first version of the Lite Campaign, V1. This is mainly about getting the major bugs out of the game and adding a few more necessary tooltips and quality of life features.
Once this is completed we will take another week to develop more Lite Campaign features for the Lite Campaign V2 release. This is because we want the Lite Campaign to be as interesting as feasibly possible for the next long wait for the next update, which will be the port of Automation to the UE4 game engine.
A crude draft of the simple marketing option and its possible UI layout.
There are plenty of things that could be added in a simplified variant of what it will be fully fleshed out in the grand campaign, but with just one week of development time before moving on to the UE4 conversion we need to limit what gets put in. This is where you come in. Having played the current Lite Campaign V1 open beta, which TWO New Features would you like to see implemented into the Lite Campaign V2 before we move on?
For balancing reasons we do need at least one of the two “money sink (MS)” options.
Simple Marketing (MS) - Word of mouth only gets you that far, you need to invest money to increase awareness. The market awareness screen gets a simple UI for running different levels of advertising in the different regions. You target car characteristics like “Drivability” or “Comfort”, affecting the demographics in the region that care about those. You can also influence Reputation and Prestige.
Simple R&D (MS) - In order to stay ahead of the curve you must invest money into R&D. The simple tech pool model into which you place points at the setup remains and acts as a lower limit from now on. Via a simple menu in the “hub area” you can continuously invest different levels of money into “tabs” of the car & engine designers, which slowly gets you more tech pool to unlock new tech or improve component quality.
Additionally you can select one of the following features.
Simple Callbacks & Production Quality - Implementing callbacks makes tooling quality and QA threshold significant aspects of your car production. Callbacks are handled in batches of cars having individual callback chances. When a flaw is discovered and requires a callback, you are presented with the estimated scope & severity of the callback and options on how to react to it, or not. How you deal with it affects reputation & prestige and thus can have significant short- and long-term effects on your company.
Factory Maintenance & AddOns - Adding the feature of factory tooling quality depreciating over the years of production, depending on the utilization of the factory, adds a lot of necessary compromised you need to make. This is true especially when combined with the above Callback & Production option. The maintenance aspect makes the then unlocked secondary factory addons useful and relevant too, giving you more options for how you want to operate as a manufacturer.
Engineering Familiarity - Engineering specific design choices makes them quicker to engineer thereafter, making your company an expert in specific designs after reusing them over and over, giving your company a “style” you will perfect over the years. Technology familiarity overlaps, too. For example, if you have spent a lot of time making 2-barrel carbs, then the 4-barrel carbs won’t be magic to you, but MPFI still will.
Loans & Finances Screen - Basically no car company in the world would function properly without being able to take out loans or tracking their finances in detail. With this we would implement a dedicated finances screen where you can track your income and costs in more detail. The option to take out loans will help you bridge hardship or expand quicker into a booming economy.
We hope you find these options appealing and have a lot of fun with the Lite Campaign till we release the UE4 version of the game.
Cheers!
