Hello everyone. I don’t know if this has already been suggested but I think it would be fun to optionally start the game just as an engine design and manufacturing company that sells engines to other manufacturers. You could also include the ability to make engines for race car teams.
For typical street engines you would target reliability, running costs, and passing emissions standards. While for race engines you would have to adhere to the limits for whatever league or division you are developing for. Requirements for both categories would change from year to year and you would have to update and/or redesign your engines for that particular model year.
For instance from 1947 to 1953 Formula 1 engines were limited to 4.5 liters for normally aspirated applications or 1.5 liters for forced induction. From 1954 to 1960 displacement was lowered to 2.5L NA and 0.75L forced induction. Fuel type was unrestricted from 1954 to 1957 and then mandated to run 130 octane aviation fuel from 1958 to 1965. Similarly street engines have gone through a variety of changes in emissions standards and fuel type restrictions over history. These changes would keep you creating new designs for different applications from year to year.
Racing engines, while not high production, could prove to be a great advertisement for your company and boost the sales of your street engines. Or could potentially ruin your reputation if the engines are either not used by winning teams or prove to be too unreliable for race use.
Anyway, that’s just a thought I had while playing Automation. I realized that I enjoy designing engines much more than whole vehicles and would love to see a way to make engines exclusively.
Cheers to everyone at Camshaft Software for making an already unique and different type of game.