I’m starting two player lists: a wait list, and a repeat list. New players join the back of the wait list. After finishing, you join the repeat list. We’re going to prioritize new players first, and only use the repeat list when the wait list is empty. You can, of course, abstain.
Wait List:
- B4nditOo
- abg7(?)
- Markus248
- LoSboccacc
- lukerules117
Repeat List
- SenseiB12 (will remain on the bottom of the list)
Turn 1: SenseiB12, 1946
Well, I don’t see anybody with strong opinions about who should start, or how we should start, so I guess it falls to me! First I’m naming our company: Automation, Inc. It’s nice and neutral, for whatever aspirations we may have. [spoiler]normal or turbo lmao[/spoiler]
We are a Gasmean company, and we’re established: we have baseline Level 2 dealerships, +1 tech, and $200M in the bank. The automotive world is our oyster.
It also falls to me to make our first car. You might assume that since I did pretty good in my other Let’s Play, I’m going to make something super optimal. Nah, I’m going to follow my true Gasmean spirit! (And probably make a car with a lot of room for you guys to improve on later.) Well, we have a medium factory, and our Level 2 dealerships will us a maximum of 40% awareness. So, I should pick a demographic where 40% is enough to buy all of our output, which will probably be around 3000 cars.
Looking at the demographic sizes in the market screen, there are 10,992 Family Premium buyers. That sounds like our market.
What do they want? Easy to drive, safe, comfortable, and BIG (6.4% size preference is a lot). Well, obviously I’m going to pick the 3.1m body.
Every true Gasmean knows there’s only one way to build a car! Ladder frame, all steel, solid rear axle to handle the RAW POWER. Don’t worry though, we’re high-tech! We’re going to give it independent front suspension.
Speaking of RAW POWER, we’re going to get a really high-tech engine- a V8! Even out of character, I’m pretty sure this is a big deal for a consumer engine in 1946. We’re going to want it pretty big, of course. There’s no replacement for displacement!
Engine
https://i.imgur.com/A8rHY2o.jpg
86mm bore, and 112mm stroke gets us all the way to 5.2L! When they see that badge, they’ll know this is a real de-luxe car. Of course it’s got pushrods (how else do you make an engine?) and, well, it’s got so much torque it’s liable to make too much power for the tires, so it’s just got one carb and a little exhaust pipe. That’s all you need, really.
Oh, it also needed heavy duty conrods. This limits our RPM, but RPM is no replacement for displacement. When it’s got mufflers on, it makes a little under a hundred horsepower, but it’s smooth.
The car itself is RWD (how else do you build a car?) with a manual gearbox. It’s got two speeds, high and low, and the low speed runs up to 50 miles per hour. It’s sitting on 18-inch wheels and staggered tires, otherwise it’s a little hard to control. Since we only have drum brakes, part of the purpose of the huge wheels is just to get decent brakes on it. Even I have to admit, decent might be stretching it for our current braking tech. Trying to stop a car this heavy on four drum brakes is ambitious.
Somehow, this counts as a Sedan rather than a wagon.
It’s also got Premium interior (5 seats), a radio, and Advanced safety (seatbelts). I put a little extra quality into the interior, and the steering, since it’s a premium car after all. I think people will like it! In fact, anyone who doesn’t is a coward who can’t handle the power, or a poor person who can’t afford the 600 pounds of cast iron that go into our beautiful engine.
Market Scores
This is with Hetvesia turned off, we don’t actually have dealerships there.
https://i.imgur.com/vdVYpXh.jpg
I’ll name it the Atlantis, because it’s the size of a whole city and handles like a boat. The engine is the Bullshark V8, which keeps the nautical theme, and the variant is the 52L-46, for a 5.2 liter, tuned for Luxurious driving, signed off in '46.
Lastly, I added a convertible trim. I wanted to do a utility but the scores were just too awful, and I couldn’t stop it from oversteering without comically small front tires that gave it 0.34g cornering.
With a little extra funding and cutting the corners on reliability, I can get the car and the engine out of engineering in five years. I’m also going to use my position as a company founder to make a little bit of an aggressive decision for us:
Factory
https://i.imgur.com/C7zLV75.jpg
We can upgrade our factory to Medium 2 before we even start production. If I do this, we avoid having to stop production while we upgrade. I could maybe have upgraded it to Medium 3, but that would require an engine factory upgrade as well, and we’d be in a tight spot after spending that much money.
Our company valuation is $1.6B. This means we can comfortably leverage a lot of debt, but upgrading both factories to Medium 3 would be about $1.4B, even before tooling costs. However, I think we can safely afford the total cost of this project. I will, however, be taking out a large loan.
With our first (massive) vehicle signed off, it’s time to start engineering. Everything is going smoothly, our loan is covering 99% of our costs.
However, in 1949, two years before the debut of the Atlantis, I’ve decided to start spending some money on marketing. Upgrading our dealerships to level 3 as well as running some advertising will cost us about 5 million dollars between now, and the time the car actually launches. I think this should be worthwhile. People are going to know how great our car is before they’ve even driven one!
July 1950, we’re only a few months away from launch, and factory construction is well underway. Despite putting some money into Company Prestige marketing, we don’t seem to have actually gained any prestige. I could have sworn Killrob said that’s what company marketing does, is it bugged? We’ve also lost some company valuation, down to 1.4B from 1.6B earlier. This might be because of the interest value of our loan. It also might improve as our factories finish construction, it was 1.3B a couple months earlier. We’re also losing money, but we’re not even close to using up all of our cash on hand, much less damaging our credit rating. A tip for you: we can go into a LOT of negative money before it causes problems.
Hub Screen
https://i.imgur.com/j21E63J.jpg
Now, you may have heard some rumors about how I’m spending Automation Inc’s money, and I want to assure you they’re totally false. The money I’ve put into marketing is all legitimate, and I don’t know why our prestige hasn’t improved. Those women visiting my office are just from the marketing company. Also, Killrob is a completely legitimate business partner.
Uh, it looks like I’m going to have to be away from the company offices for a while until I can get this all sorted out. B4nditOo, I’m nominating you as acting company president! Make sure the launch of the Atlantis goes smoothly! The pension funds cabinet key is in the fountain our front, but, if anyone asks, you don’t know where it is!
Edit: Here’s the save file. That’s kind of the most important part, isn’t it?
Automation_Inc_Autosave.zip (773.9 KB)
) , I managed to diffuse risk of crippling fines and settlements that would bring the company down.
As the replacement engineering came up with three Poseidon trims:
