Bunch of ideas for general/tycoon/multiplayer parts

General Chat Suggestions
1

Hi everyone. Firstly I’d like to apologize for my english knowledge.
I’m new in forum, this is my first post. Already spent some hours to read other threads, but there are too many… So sorry in advance if something already posted by other people. (I do NOT have any deep experience about real-world car production)

[size=150]GENERAL[/size]
I’m already played more than many tycoon/strategy/simulation games in varius topics. Here are my opinions generally relating to these kind of games:

Short playtime (like Car Tycoon)
Too simple gameplay (like Car Mechanic Simulator 2014)
If AI and simulation complex enought, then left game full of bugs (eg.: Masters of the World - Geopolitical simulator 3)
Game is awesome, but UI and “graphics” is horrible (Carbiz, Gamebiz, Hollywood Mogul)
Game is awesome, but lack of graphics optimization (OMSI)

MAKE IT SLOW, and don’t let player reach 2020 from 1920 after 2 days of gameplay!

Plus there are many games you start to play, where you get the GUI fullfilled with 500 buttons, 90% of them will be available later, and your first think: WTF is this?. Personally I prefer GUIs where unavalible/researchable options are absolutely hidden, and appears only if you researched that thing or reached that specific point of gameplay. After researched, a short hint about it’s usability should be good. (like in Game Dev Tycoon)

[size=150]BUSINESS GAME part[/size]
I don’t want to list all of my “expectations” for the “game of my dreams” but those ones I don’t think you’ll implement in release version. So It’s only a kind of wishlist. Just ideas!

[ul]> Car magazine reviews (monthly, quarterly or annually, depends on planned speed of game)
With readable, relational sentences
With pictures of developed cars (players’ and competitors’)
With scores for individual properties; Eg. comfort, economy, sportiness, etc, + overall; Considering year and competitors’ vehicles
With unnecessary, unreadable filler text to maintain formation of a car magazine[/ul]

[ul]> Scripted 3D visual testdrive animation
Uncontrollable, scripted animation with sound
Similar to NFS Underground 2’s DYNO animation
Selectable test routes, eg. City, Country, Race (related to target audience of developed car)
Dynamic behaviour of vehicle related it’s details (eg. accelerating, braking, swinging, etc)
[/ul]

[ul]> Random events (eg. like in Game Dev Tycoon)
Simple popups, with some options, chosen answer makes influence on popularity/fans/money/etc
For example: reporters, flaw and recall cars, world economy things, customer mails, factory incidents, etc
[/ul]

[ul]> 2D graphic visual about your HQ or Factory
Appearance and style related to current year
“Heroes of Might and Magic”-styled HQ view (with empty spaces and already built facilites) are OK
[/ul]

[ul]> PR section
With option to make different campaigns in different media (Newspaper, Magazine, Billboard, TV, Internet)
Customizable marketing campaigns about it’s content (like in Pizza Syndicate).
Eg.: Campaign to raise Brand’s populatity; for a specific car model; target audience, target region
Option to add extra content to campaing, for example highlight sportiness/comfort/etc; make negative campaign about competitor.
Option to donate XY charity organizations
…Of course, your Magazine advertise will shown in Car Magazine I talked before…
[/ul]

[ul]> Auto Show
3D styled short animation
Option to rent different spaces on show (none, small, med, huge)
Option to make different campaigns on show
(girls, ballons, free gifts, projector, test drive opportunity, lottery for free car(s), poll about what customers think about your cars/company)
Option to chose which of your cars want to bring to show (promote car already in mass production, or test public opinion about your new concept before starts mass production)[/ul]

[ul]> Production cost / selling price
Option to place factory to different regions
Production and workforce cost depends on region
Option to set sell price individually to different regions
Don’t forget about shipping time and cost from factory to retailer
Car retailer suggestion from time-to-time about sale price
[/ul]

[ul]> Market
Option to see marketshare by brands / cars
A kind of statistics and/or influence about used-cars market should be good
Detailed warranty settings for whole brand or specific car
Option to control Car parts prodution to your own, older vehicles
Let player chose when will he/she wants to cancel sales of specific cars (and do not automatically stop it after X time, like in some games)
[/ul]

[ul]> 3rd party contracts
About technologies, engine, chassis
…will explain later, below…
[/ul]

[size=150]MULTIPLAYER PART[/size]
For many gamers the singleplayer game already boring after a short time. Make a good game concept, make an usable multiplayer/mmo mode with VERIFIED ACCOUNT needed, spend some time to fixing bugs, developing new features, and you already have a PAYING playerbase for LONG time!
Pay meant not monthly cost, but online identification imho the best solution to avoid torrent guys.

Just some examples of good-ol’-games, imho still have active playerbase: Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Battlefield 2, Quake, Counter Strike, Emergency 4, Age of Empires II
I know, some of them are absolutely different games, but without good multiplayer option, these games would have been forgotten already.

I don’t know yet exactly what kind of multiplayer mode would be good for Automation, but there are some ideas (without deeper implementation ideas)

[ul]> 3rd party part-contracts (online)
Option to buy engines (not licence and blueprint of product but complete manufactured engines. cost/piece) for your car concept.
Option to product/sell engines to an (online) competitor (upload it to online database)

For example: DEVELOPER
You developing an engine in 1960. You can upload and make it available for all players in 1960 or later. When you made your engine (1960) you have X manufacturing cost, but you can set its sale price (per piece) in online market. No matter what year you are in, you’ll get the profit after every sold piece (only in the same game session you developed it!)

For example: BUYER
You’re currently in 1960 and looking for an engine for your car concept. You open the online market and you can buy engines developed before 1961. After every piece of your car sold, using 3rd party engine, you pay for the developer. You can NOT see insights of engine, you can NOT modify this.

Other things:
All engines developed in inactive game sessions, will be removed from database after 1 week.
[/ul]

[ul]> Leaking infos from other players (throught internet), in current Car Magazine
-Online database, for every month’s most successful (most profit gained or most pieces sold) car concepts (top3) (eg. 100years x 12months = 1200 x top3)
-For example if you’re reading “Car Magazine 1980 January”, there will be a footnote about ONE OF THE TOP3 most successful car concepts from same time (1980 Jan), showing a small pic about car, and basic details, cars sold, profits gained, company name, player’s nick[/ul]

[ul]> TURN BASED MULTIPLAYER COMPETITOR GAMES UP TO 8 PLAYERS
Online & Local mode either
Players joining private game session, and playing against each other in campaign mode (just like in single player, but all AI competitor = 1 player)

Option to set MAX round time (eg for 5-10 mins each round). Every player will play it’s round SIMULTANOUSLY with other players. If someone finished round, he press READY button. If every1 ready, then game steps into next round. OR if time exceeds max round time, then forced next round.

So in this case no matter how many players playing in same session, it won’t be longer, like in Heroes for example.
[/ul]

Currently I’m tired so finished writing for now :slight_smile: If possible to modify this post, I’ll complete it later. Until that every opinions and answers are welcome.

2

Good write-up! Many of these things will be implemented in one way or another, step by step… first we need to finish the car designer though. :slight_smile:

3

Wow, good start post! Really like it! Good to see you have put so much effort in it.
I do not want to reply with just 1 simple sentence, as you deserve more effort, so when I get home later today, I will sit down and write a reply to most of your things whether I support them or not, and what the devs already said will be in or out of the game, or somewhat different than you suggested here.

4

That is a good write-up.
Some of your suggestions have already been on here, but most, if not all of them are good ideas.
By the way, your English is better than a lot of the people from America =)

5

[quote=“kotysoft”]

MAKE IT SLOW, and don’t let player reach 2020 from 1920 after 2 days of gameplay!

Plus there are many games you start to play, where you get the GUI fullfilled with 500 buttons, 90% of them will be available later, and your first think: WTF is this?. Personally I prefer GUIs where unavalible/researchable options are absolutely hidden, and appears only if you researched that thing or reached that specific point of gameplay. After researched, a short hint about it’s usability should be good. (like in Game Dev Tycoon)

  • The devs are actually quite eager in GUI usage. They do not want to flood it. They aim to provide you just the right information which you need to progress and show you an option to get more information about it.

[size=150]BUSINESS GAME part[/size]
I don’t want to list all of my “expectations” for the “game of my dreams” but those ones I don’t think you’ll implement in release version. So It’s only a kind of wishlist. Just ideas!

[ul]> Car magazine reviews (monthly, quarterly or annually, depends on planned speed of game)
With readable, relational sentences
With pictures of developed cars (players’ and competitors’)
With scores for individual properties; Eg. comfort, economy, sportiness, etc, + overall; Considering year and competitors’ vehicles
With unnecessary, unreadable filler text to maintain formation of a car magazine[/ul]

[ul]> Scripted 3D visual testdrive animation
Uncontrollable, scripted animation with sound
Similar to NFS Underground 2’s DYNO animation
Selectable test routes, eg. City, Country, Race (related to target audience of developed car)
Dynamic behaviour of vehicle related it’s details (eg. accelerating, braking, swinging, etc)
[/ul]

  • Very good idea. The devs have talked about this though (cant find the topic about it this quick) and they are going to have some animations in there (standard ones) to show the cars performance somehow. I like the idea of selecting test routes to match the target audiences. I’m sure breaking, comfort and other statistics will be in the game.

[ul]> Random events (eg. like in Game Dev Tycoon)
Simple popups, with some options, chosen answer makes influence on popularity/fans/money/etc
For example: reporters, flaw and recall cars, world economy things, customer mails, factory incidents, etc
[/ul]

This is very good. I really like this idea. OpenTTD had plane crashes, or railroad crossroad accidents. GameDev tycoon had poweroutages and such. So why should automation have something like designflaws or enginepart failures which can occur when you put the quality too low for example? Really good and contributing idea!

[ul]> 2D graphic visual about your HQ or Factory
Appearance and style related to current year
“Heroes of Might and Magic”-styled HQ view (with empty spaces and already built facilites) are OK
[/ul]

Im sure something like this WILL be implemented. Atleast also 3D visualisation of your garages through the years and when you upgrade them when developing car engines and models.

[ul]> PR section
With option to make different campaigns in different media (Newspaper, Magazine, Billboard, TV, Internet)
Customizable marketing campaigns about it’s content (like in Pizza Syndicate).
Eg.: Campaign to raise Brand’s populatity; for a specific car model; target audience, target region
Option to add extra content to campaing, for example highlight sportiness/comfort/etc; make negative campaign about competitor.
Option to donate XY charity organizations
…Of course, your Magazine advertise will shown in Car Magazine I talked before…
[/ul]

Would be silly if advertisement wouldnt be in a tycoon game, would it :smiley:

[ul]> Auto Show
3D styled short animation
Option to rent different spaces on show (none, small, med, huge)
Option to make different campaigns on show
(girls, ballons, free gifts, projector, test drive opportunity, lottery for free car(s), poll about what customers think about your cars/company)
Option to chose which of your cars want to bring to show (promote car already in mass production, or test public opinion about your new concept before starts mass production)[/ul]

Definetly good idea, but has been discussed before. Hard to find though, I’ve looked for several minutes and couldnt come up with the topic. But I can imagine this going to be in there like in Game Dev Tycoon you can get different booths at game conventions.

[ul]> Production cost / selling price
Option to place factory to different regions
Production and workforce cost depends on region
Option to set sell price individually to different regions
Don’t forget about shipping time and cost from factory to retailer
Car retailer suggestion from time-to-time about sale price
[/ul]

Pricesetting will be variable of course.

[ul]> Market
Option to see marketshare by brands / cars
A kind of statistics and/or influence about used-cars market should be good
Detailed warranty settings for whole brand or specific car
Option to control Car parts prodution to your own, older vehicles
Let player chose when will he/she wants to cancel sales of specific cars (and do not automatically stop it after X time, like in some games)
[/ul]

For warranty and price, could be one of the special branding options. Those extra things which can boost brand popularity. Look at Hyundai how they offer 10 year warranty on their engines. The brand just jumped up by new models, engines and those kind of things. So it can really help your company. But it costs extra of course, as you will have failing engines returning and such.

[ul]> 3rd party contracts
About technologies, engine, chassis
…will explain later, below…
[/ul]

Possible to buy engines, parts from AI companies, maybe even other players later on in multiplayer. Been discussed before, cant find the topic this quick (again… sigh)

[size=150]MULTIPLAYER PART[/size]
For many gamers the singleplayer game already boring after a short time. Make a good game concept, make an usable multiplayer/mmo mode with VERIFIED ACCOUNT needed, spend some time to fixing bugs, developing new features, and you already have a PAYING playerbase for LONG time!
Pay meant not monthly cost, but online identification imho the best solution to avoid torrent guys.

The account method they currently have is already quite rock solid and hack proof, if I understood well.

Just some examples of good-ol’-games, imho still have active playerbase: Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Battlefield 2, Quake, Counter Strike, Emergency 4, Age of Empires II
I know, some of them are absolutely different games, but without good multiplayer option, these games would have been forgotten already.

I don’t know yet exactly what kind of multiplayer mode would be good for Automation, but there are some ideas (without deeper implementation ideas)

[ul]> 3rd party part-contracts (online)
Option to buy engines (not licence and blueprint of product but complete manufactured engines. cost/piece) for your car concept.
Option to product/sell engines to an (online) competitor (upload it to online database)

For example: DEVELOPER
You developing an engine in 1960. You can upload and make it available for all players in 1960 or later. When you made your engine (1960) you have X manufacturing cost, but you can set its sale price (per piece) in online market. No matter what year you are in, you’ll get the profit after every sold piece (only in the same game session you developed it!)

For example: BUYER
You’re currently in 1960 and looking for an engine for your car concept. You open the online market and you can buy engines developed before 1961. After every piece of your car sold, using 3rd party engine, you pay for the developer. You can NOT see insights of engine, you can NOT modify this.

Other things:
All engines developed in inactive game sessions, will be removed from database after 1 week.
[/ul]

  • Not too sure about storing that data. Would require the devs to buy servers to keep the data and make the game read it. I think just hosting it yourself, locally, server or dedicated server is good enough. Different gamemodes can be interesting, as you could add like, 3 engine makers and 3 car designers and they need eachothers products to sell cars. Co-op would also be very nice, so you can share stuff with your companion and he will offer you his engines, while you make the cars that have those engines in their :slight_smile:

[ul]> Leaking infos from other players (throught internet), in current Car Magazine
-Online database, for every month’s most successful (most profit gained or most pieces sold) car concepts (top3) (eg. 100years x 12months = 1200 x top3)
-For example if you’re reading “Car Magazine 1980 January”, there will be a footnote about ONE OF THE TOP3 most successful car concepts from same time (1980 Jan), showing a small pic about car, and basic details, cars sold, profits gained, company name, player’s nick[/ul]

[ul]> TURN BASED MULTIPLAYER COMPETITOR GAMES UP TO 8 PLAYERS
Online & Local mode either
Players joining private game session, and playing against each other in campaign mode (just like in single player, but all AI competitor = 1 player)

Option to set MAX round time (eg for 5-10 mins each round). Every player will play it’s round SIMULTANOUSLY with other players. If someone finished round, he press READY button. If every1 ready, then game steps into next round. OR if time exceeds max round time, then forced next round.

Turn based not going to happen. Also read this topic about some multiplayer things: automationgame.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3433&p=26757&hilit=turn+based#p26757

So in this case no matter how many players playing in same session, it won’t be longer, like in Heroes for example.
[/ul][/quote]

I hope that pretty much answers all your questions :slight_smile:

6

Awesome ideas ! i relly like the car show and the car magazine idea.

It would be also great if we could design our own Company-logo for our cars. but thats Off-Topic i think :mrgreen:

Anyways , great post ^^

7

nice written. i’m have some ideas to scripted 3d drive simulation:
windows showing actual car data :
engine (here is already one used in manual engine test)
chassis (suspension, brakes etc.)
misc ( part’s like um… this part that defend engine from being damaged from bumps [can’t remember it’s name])
and color’s would inform about problem’s:
green: none
yellow: minor don’t affecting car performance too much
red: high impact on car performance or dangerous
car testing option"s:
offroad: mostly test car suspension
offroad extreme: more mud and bigger bumps than in normal offroad
city: mostly test car brakes
city extreme: higher traffic and sharper turns
map’s:
City: not too sharp turns and high traffic (city and city extreme map)
Woods: mood, not too much place for car (offroad and offroad extreme track)
grassland: big empty place with small bumps (offroad track) (this would be funnier if you would actually be able to drive your car)
nowhere: straight road somewhere in desert special: no traffic (offroad, city, offroad extreme and city extreme track) (again this same as grassland)

8

hah, a digital map of the Ring, you know, Nurburgring, that would be a good benchmark

9

To be honest - i dont think the Ring is a good benchmark for the performance…
The Nordschleife is a legendary race track, no doubt, but there are better ones for performance. I would suggest Hockenheim GP or even the good old Top Gear Test Track - you have values for loads of other cars for that one and you can really compare. The Top Gear Track is good for performance testing - but i would say its real shit for racing

10

I would prefer a track where nobody has any values for comparison. :wink:

11

I agree with Der Bayer. It would be much easier to just have an “Automation Test Track” than to have to put a real track into the game. There would probably (don’t quote me) be licencing fees involved, as well as having to simulate the track itself.

12

well it doesn’t matter, the basic idea is the same

13

Great topic. Nice ideas that would offer a great gameplay and realistic experience.

Another idea, now talking about production costs, for instance, in the Drivetrain section, if we change the spacing for each gear, that would change the entire gearbox, so as a manufacturer, i would have to manufacture 2 different types of gearboxes, and i would have to add that to my stock of gearboxes, and it would increase my stocking costs, the same like the engines, and other parts that in the future we would be able to design. What do you think?

14

The idea of having items in stock an managing said stock is very old-school in a bad way and thus, we’re not going to take that approach. The reason for that is that would be a micro-management heavy aspect which, in a best case scenario, makes the game do what the player wants it to, but most often not. It doesn’t add much in regards to “making important complex decisions with significant consequences”, which should be the prime focus of the management aspect of any tycoon game. The only items that will have a stock are engines, as that makes sense because you can sell them without a car too.

15

Good post! +1