A copy of a post I made concerning laying out a design brief for a car, with the example being the Luxury Premium market.
"Obviously, Automation with the Unreal engine has the big advantage that you have this wide open sandbox - but, at some point you have to actually sell your constructions. So, with the latest iteration of the campaign due soon, some ideas and principles to practice with:
You might think you have a fantastic car; heck, you might actually have a fantastic car.
But, if it costs beyond what people can afford, you won’t sell any of them, and equally, if the market has moved on because you took too long designing it, you won’t sell them.
When you are designing a car, if you follow the order the game presents things, you don’t actually get to these key elements until the very end of the process - the markets screen.
Now, don’t be put off because it’s this huge load of boxes with names and numbers and stuff, and you haven’t got a clue what any of the icons at the bottom mean.
The first thing to check, is which country are you looking at; it defaults to Gasmea.
Next, is the two numbers below it - margin, and price.
Margin - this number is the amount, in increments of 10%, of the production value of the car, added to the production value of the car, to give the “for sale at X” price. (because it is per car, it can be deceptive, and you need to have an idea for how many cars you expect to sell; a 10% margin on 2 million cars will likely be viable and make a profit, but a 10,000% margin on 1 car will almost certainly be a loss)
Price - this is the amount people will have to pay in order to buy the car, and is composed of the materials/labour required to build the car, and the overheads involved, and your margin.
Obviously, these numbers are kind of important. Even more important though, is to look at what the situation will be like when the car goes on sale; you have to remember it takes time to design a car (real world, typically 3-5 years) and so, you need to consider the lifespan of the vehicle as it is on sale, as well as what your competition will be like at launch and the time after; remember, some of these markets have 40+ competitor cars in them.
It is no good merely being competitive with the cars already on sale when you design your new car - take that approach, and your car will be out of date when it goes on sale. That is not good. You want at least 110% AFTER adjusting for markup and the lifespan of the car’s on sale time, as that will mean it will still be competitive when the replacement becomes possible.
This can be checked by adjusting the trim year at the top - just remember to put it back before you start revising the car, as options available change over the years.
The most effective way, is to do market research. Automation has 60 demographics of car/van/pickup buyer, tracking differences in best part of a hundred variables. (see the detail stats screen for the whole lot, not just the 14 displayed at the top left side)
One of my preferred markets is the luxury premium market - this, in my view, is one of the best markets to target; low competitor count, with the richest customer base, with really simple design briefs.
First off, a deeper look at the market:
Hover your mouse over the luxury premium box in the markets page. The left panel is about how suitable your car is, the second panel is about the market itself.
With the luxury car market, the 1st priority is comfort with 35.8%, the 2nd is prestige with 31.8%, and 3rd is safety, with 14.8%. After that, there’s only that they like big multicylinder engines (which you were doing anyway to get the high prestige) and they like a bit of drivability, and they like a large size. (which with the first 3, you were going to end up with anyway)
So, you only actually have 3 elements to worry about - and they are all easy elements.
Comfort - this is how nice the car is to the occupants; they don’t want to be suffering with a loud, harsh engine note, they do want to have a lovely spacious and luxurious interior, they do want the car to do as much for them as possible, they want suspension that floats over the road; you get the picture.
What this means for us? Big, quiet and yet melodious V12 or V16, Automatic gearbox, luxury/hand made interior, soft suspension. Oh, and 4 seats - don’t do 5, that’s less comfortable.
Prestige - this is a complicated set of factors that could be summarised as what you would put on the Top Trumps cards; it’s how impressive the car is, it’s how advanced it’s materials are, it’s how big and powerful the engine is. Basically, a load of stuff you were going to build up anyway. If you really struggle, just whack up the quality on something important.
Safety - people like the idea of car crashes not being dangerous. This is aided by having an awful lot of metal to use as energy absorbing material, and so, just put in the advanced version of the latest decade and you should be fine. (you can save costs by using a lower grade, but remember this is important for how good your car is percieved, so cut costs elsewhere really)
Drivability - as long as it isn’t boat like, it’ll do. And given some of the luxury cars over the years… No one is expecting a sports car here.
Engine - as said, earlier, they like big, and they like lots of cylinders, which you already did for the comfort boosts.
You could probably design an ideal luxury premium car by accident - there are three general methods on how to design a car; one is to do what you feel is right (with practice you’ll get better at knowing it) 2 is to identify what each option you have at each stage does and how it impacts the overall vehicle, and 3 - fill all the component slots until the market screen opens up, select a market, then build whatever things increase competitiveness, and try not to sacrifice affordability. (it’s no use having a brilliant car that no one can afford)
The same process works for any other market - you identify what market you want to target, then you figure out how many cars you can sell, and for how long you can sell them, and in which markets, then design the car.
There will be times when one car and one trim will adequately cover multiple markets - there will also be times when you will need to add extra trims to better cover other markets; just remember to check through profitability - it is not much use adding another trim if not enough demand is present to be worth the extra designing time and factory costs.
I know the mathematics is likely boring, but, if you bear with it, it means you get reliable income, which means you can fund all the crazy stuff that you actually became a car designer to do. :)"
