Bias, reputation and irrationality

General Chat Suggestions
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The subject of this topic sort of anticipates an upcoming part of the tycoon as it mainly concerns the marketing system. I’m sure Killrob and the other devs have thought about it, but I figured I’d share my view about how to replicate the little bias and irrationalities that often

One important aspect I think is having the possibility to capitalize on a successful model by marketing the replacement as coming in the continuity of the previous one. Marketing a car as an older one’s replacement would have a (significant?) bonus in awareness among the top demographics of the previous one. The bonus would be proportional to the reputation of the previous model. Keeping the same name would even give an additional bonus as this is an established name. Of course, it’s only beneficial if your previous car was a success, if you advise a car as the follow-up of a blunder, you’d be driving the customers away.

Keeping a streak of success across various iterations of a model range would also yield a bonus to model reputation, and the bonus would increase with each successful model. However, should you fail to deliver, the backlash would badly hurt the model reputation (and the dive in reputation would be much bigger than the increase because building a reputation takes times while destroying it just takes one well-placed blow) and even to the brand itself if you fuck up big time. Homermobile-tier blunder would even kill-off model names forever, encouraging you to start fresh.
To a certain degree, design choices should also factor in this; if your big success is a FWD hatchback, and you market its follow-up as a rear-engine 4-door saloon, it will harm the model reputation. The more prestigious the demographic, the more particular they are about the identity of a model range. Ideally? even things like engine configuration could factor like if your sports car is known for its boxer engine, building a V8-powered follow-up might be (then again the M3 got way with switching from I6 to V8, so…)

On another front, I’d like to see some market bias, be them region-related (some prefers saloons over hatchbacks), period-related (post-10’s will like SUV cars), and tech-related, like in 80’s Europe, the fun demographic would be very attracted to how many valves an engine has, and having 16 valves over the other’s 8 would give a significant desirability bonus. Another example would be a 00’s American muscle car, where the most desirable valvetrain would be modern OHV and a DOHC setup would, in turn, have a desirability malus.

As a side note, I think FWD cars should have a big malus in the muscle demographic, I shouldn’t get so easily 100+ competitiveness with a FWD saloon, even if its four-pot turbo fires 230hp in 1984.

And finally, a question, am I missing a way to make my cars count as competition for the others in sandbox?

2

If you want your line-up to compete in the markets, you’ll need to create a competitors pack. For that, you need to export your models as a car company. Then go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Automation\GameData and create a folder with any name (e.g. Discovolante_competitors) then create a folder inside called tycoon, inside that create another folder called companies and inside that folder you place the exported zip file with your cars. Then, when you start up the game check in the main menu, under competitors that your pack is active.

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Indeed that is what we have planned. As models in the game only run for 5-10 years on average, there needs to be a mechanic to carry over the built up image to a new model at least partially. That will be solved by the marketing tab that doesn’t exist yet.

Agreed, but not in the direct sense of that. It should carry the spirit of the model to the next generation, not necessarily tech-specs. This is achieved by your company having a reputation and awareness in every demographic that is tracked separately.

100+ ratings wouldn’t be easy or even possible if the competition was strong. In practice a RWD car has ~10% higher score in that category already. That is quite a lot considering all the other factors also making FWD cars disadvantageous.

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[quote=“Sillyworld”]

If you want your line-up to compete in the markets, you’ll need to create a competitors pack. For that, you need to export your models as a car company. Then go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Automation\GameData and create a folder with any name (e.g. Discovolante_competitors) then create a folder inside called tycoon, inside that create another folder called companies and inside that folder you place the exported zip file with your cars. Then, when you start up the game check in the main menu, under competitors that your pack is active.[/quote]

I see, although ,I kinda wanted to see how the various trims potentially cannibalize themselves…I’ll just make an excel spreadsheet that’ll calculate it for me

[quote=“Killrob”]

Indeed that is what we have planned. As models in the game only run for 5-10 years on average, there needs to be a mechanic to carry over the built up image to a new model at least partially. That will be solved by the marketing tab that doesn’t exist yet.

Agreed, but not in the direct sense of that. It should carry the spirit of the model to the next generation, not necessarily tech-specs. This is achieved by your company having a reputation and awareness in every demographic that is tracked separately.[/quote]

Sounds great!

I really don’t think it is; muscle demographics are arguably the most irrational, so a FWD car should have at least -50% desirability right off the bat.

I made two cars in 1985, one is a quite sophisticated FWD 5-door saloon with a 1.8 turbo 4-pot making 232hp. With a 10% markup, it scores 102.3 in Fruinia’s muscle demography
The second is a cruder 2-door coupé with a 5.3 V8 developing 327hp. With the same markup, in the same region, it scores 122.2.

HOWEVER, the FWD saloon has a desirability of 1012 whereas the proper V8 muscle car has 951, it only wins because it’s cheaper, but what it tells me is that the muscle demographic is more attracted to a FWD saloon whose 4-pot makes 100hp less than a proper hairy-chested RWD muscle, that doesn’t sound right.

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A big issue with that demographic right now is that the current competitor cars for those demographics aren’t super great.

But, if you ask me, I think removing the muscle and pony car demographics all together might be something to try, or at least reducing their number, since from my POV they are pretty much just a different way to make Sports and Family Sports cars.

It’s also one of the few demographic categories with 4 price divisions, but unlike the sports car demographics for example, those divisions aren’t that far from each other in terms of price point.

There is the argument that those cars are more focused on straight line speed instead of cornering, but I think it’s just too much of a niche to warrant its own demographic, or at least too much of a niche to warrant 4 different demographics.