I personally think aesthetics SHOULD matter, but I agree that having a computer judge beauty will lead to cookie-cutter designs. Your options would either be:
randomized visual cues that the designer would have to try to meet. You could set a randomized target shape for each body panel. Maybe the designer has to do market research to see what buyers want- this could be shown in as a rough sketch and some descriptive text. Leave it to the player to translate the model to 3D. This could then allow the player to make a few concept cars and then the computer could “score” each concept on how closely they meet the target. This information would give the player direction for the final production vehicle. Once a model has been on the floor for a few years and is ready for a refresh maybe marketing could stop by and say something like “people want a bigger grill, wider fenders, blah blah”. Unfortunately if this is randomized there will inevitably be some UGLY combinations! If you take the time I would imagine you could set “limits” for what combinations look good and prevent something like the Aztec from coming to fruition
Let the other players judge cars. I don’t think it would be too much of a burden to make a player rate aesthetics of a car 1-5 based on a few snapshots or something? What if after a major event (concept car unveiling, production release, etc) there is a required minute time-out where you need to scroll through and rate 10 cars based on pictures. It seems like there is a TON of interest in this game so I am sure there will be more than enough users to do this. I think if you set a time limit and a quantity requirement it would prevent people from scrolling through and blasting the same rating over and over! You could also award unlock parts or something for rating other’s designs to give some incentive.
Of course the car designer could set standards for cars. Example:
You wish to aim for middle aged men, who would like a sporty car. You conduct a research to that group, and it proves that they do not want a 4 door car. So it has to be 2 door (checkable either through the base model used, or the amount of doorhandles on the car? I would say the last, as you then can use any model.) It has to look quite modern, so no box shapes (ofcourse in a certain era) (could add a value to check for smoothness (not sure anymore if windtunnel will be in? I forgot!) so it checks aerodynamics) and it should contain a spoiler/ double exhausts.
This way you can set standards that particular group wishes to have at that point, and you can still have your freedom designing. Doesnt mean you have to follow them and that you wont have success if you dont follown them. It could actually be a hit! But it increases the chances of making a popular model for that target group. This way, aesthetics are taken into account, but dont require a ‘teaching a robot to love.’
Small other example:
Soccermoms would like a spacious car with 4 or more doors. So if you come with your hot hatch with 2 door only, it wont be a hit of course for the soccermoms! Minivans or estates are more the type of car to aim for then.
Rough idea:
Another thing could be, that some sort of safety is taken into account. Lets say, visibility, so you need large or multiple headlights (fog lights or such?) and large enough taillights. Also extra indicators could matter. Though, there should be some sort of check maybe that a car doesnt turn awkward just tossing 20 headlights and taillights in?
Aesthetics will not matter. The reasons for that have been given in this thread. Having randomized limits or have other players judge the designs does not solve the core issue of forcing players to build cars they do not personally like.
Practical and somewhat aesthetic things WILL matter in the sense that sports car buyers will probably gravitate towards low slung 2 door coupes etc. but they won’t know/care about the morphing of the body, the headlights, vents etc.
I’m sorry guys, but it’s just not possible to have a reliable way of judging the looks of cars that actually agrees with real world tastes, it’s just going to be infuriating to players attempting to judge what the computer likes. I know many of you are convinced that it’s possible, but I don’t see a way as it’s even hard to quantify the attributes of a good looking car, never mind convince a piece of software to judge them…
On topic of the fixtures, it should be possible like in the engine designer challenges, to get minimum requirements, like the amount of doorhandles or exhausts placed on the car? Not trying to convince you or push you guys, but just trying to point something out that already has been implemented. Im not sure the way the game sees what fixture has been placed or if it even can see it like doorhandle_1a, doorhandle_2c etc. Note that these requirements should only be some sort of advice towards the player, thus not restricting them, but the advice will be random, based on the targetgroup, year, and other variables.
Not sure if this was already suggested but anyways; my idea would be that you could have a simple slider for the cars aesthetics, like these quality sliders that we already have.
You can use the quality sliders on the Fixtures and Body Tabs for that. They both give you +1% Prestige per click. So basically doing research on fixtures and bodies makes your designs “better”.
I suppose you could do a slider like this: Trendy car <-----> Good looking car
Going either way will make the production of the car cost more, but instead leaving it to the middle would not accumulate any extra cost. Then you can do a trendy looking small car for the hipsters, good looking Grand Tourer for the rich people, and a dirt cheap plain looking car for the ones that only need car to travel from A to B.
I suppose this would at least add more depht to the immersion of the game. And also is not too hard to implement?
[quote=“FordManFromHell”]I suppose you could do a slider like this: Trendy car <-----> Good looking car
Going either way will make the production of the car cost more, but instead leaving it to the middle would not accumulate any extra cost. Then you can do a trendy looking small car for the hipsters, good looking Grand Tourer for the rich people, and a dirt cheap plain looking car for the ones that only need car to travel from A to B.
I suppose this would at least add more depht to the immersion of the game. And also is not too hard to implement?[/quote]
In theory this is easy to implement, also it’s pretty good compromise. But i rather prefer this:
Option A:
1 slider, basic car or trendy, basic car = cheap, standard sales trendy car = slightly higher cost and man hours but better sales
Option B:
2 sliders Look and trendiness, better look = more man hours but better sale in all groups trendy car = higher cost but greatly higher sales in “basic” customers
Option C:
3 sliders Look, Trendiness and style better look = more man hours but better sale in all groups trendy car = higher cost but greatly higher sales in “basic” customers classy car = higher cost and man hours but better sales in all class and greatly better sales in rich customers
(if there mistakes, i’m sorry, i don’t know too much english words so i used google translate)
I dunno, I think that’s straying in the too complicated to work zone. For sure there are trendy hipster cheap cars that look great. Sometimes the fixtures look great but are of a low quality. That’s really hard to communicate with just sliders and really I don’t think worth the time to implement. Which would be mental to do it right I imagine.
I think this sort of thing should be “implied” rather than physically a thing to deal with. The quality sliders are good enough I think to inform the player of how good his/her fixtures are. And it makes sense to base it off say tech/experience type stuff which is what I can see is happening.
You’d also run into a problem I think with having the fixtures connected with looks very quickly. You can’t just have more fixtures = better, as it’s a shockingly bad thing to encourage the player to load his car up with a thousand door handles or lights. And once you decide that you don’t judge the fixtures with a set value like that, then you need to establish how to judge them. And there are so many problems with judging “looks” that have already been covered.
I think, make the player put basic fixtures on his car, Vents for cooling, front and back lights, door handles etc etc, stuff that cars need… Apart from that, let the player be the one to set his own standards, perhaps punish them for putting 80 door handles on the car. But then with that, what’s the point? If the player is doing that, then, as obtuse as it is, that’s what the player wants to do. Might as well let them do it.
It would be virtually impossible for the game to be able to judge a car’s looks anyway, who is the game to say whether your car looks good or not?
Also, it would be pretty pointless for the devs to implement such a thing anyway. For one, it would add a huge chunk of time to the development phase, and two, all the feature would do is penalise people based on the player’s own personal tastes and how he/she thinks their car should look. and where they choose to place their fixtures.
It just wouldn’t add any value to the gameplay really. It would also cause people frustration when they get a ‘bad review’ on a car that they personally think looks great.
[quote=“pleb”]It would be virtually impossible for the game to be able to judge a car’s looks anyway, who is the game to say whether your car looks good or not?
Also, it would be pretty pointless for the devs to implement such a thing anyway. For one, it would add a huge chunk of time to the development phase, and two, all the feature would do is penalise people based on the player’s own personal tastes and how he/she thinks their car should look. and where they choose to place their fixtures.
It just wouldn’t add any value to the gameplay really. It would also cause people frustration when they get a ‘bad review’ on a car that they personally think looks great.[/quote]
[quote=“Juno8”]This could have potential in it I mean it would bring in some realism into it seeing where the biggest trend for the design of the cars could be or you could set the trend or not follow it…this idea might have a great lot of potential…
