I’m sure there will be a little bit of repeat here so apologies in advance (we don’t want to post repeat topcs, we’re just lazy), I’m sure some of this is already in the plans. Hopefully I’ll have some new ideas here.
I know someone mentioned the idea of suppliers for the tycoon game.
I would like to see a bit of this from both ends. The ability to purchase parts from suppliers, making per piece price go up but no need for high initial investment and safer for recessions… I would imagine this is already on the list. Also I would like a possibility to play as a supplier. Selling individual car parts to engines to bodies. Perhaps even building a whole car but for another company or brand (heard BMW outsourced some lower end SUVs). Most likely most players would like to make and sell cars, but also supplement their income with some extra sales of just parts. Back in the day our local Ford engine plant used to supply parts to a local Chrysler vehicle assembly plant for example. These days it looks like the car companies are mainly doing assemblies and using suppliers for components, my company supplies almost every major auto manufacturer in the world from Ford and GM to Daimler and Volkswagen to Honda and Toyota and many others.
So now to get to my point of field expertise. Working in the auto manufacturing industry I see this every day. I work for a supplier to specializes in aluminum casting which hires a company that specializes in CNC machining, and then we sell the part to the auto manufacturer. It doesn’t need to be extremely elaborate, probably not gonna be much fun playing as a CNC expert only but what I would like to see is the ability to focus development in certain directions. We should have research focus on components (blocks, heads, injection…), as well as other car parts (transmissions, brakes…), and manufacturing processes. For example, I would like to see a focus on casting (also add casting as a special manufacturing requirement that needs a foundry building), machining/CNC machining (should start with machining>NC machining>CNC Machining), forging, stamping, assembly(improvement for a whole engine, extra bonus for using best components) and so on. So if I invest more money into my foundries for example, my casting quality will go up and price will go down giving me an edge in the industry. If I have the best castings in town at a reasonable price, other car companies might want to buy those components from me. Same can be said for CNC, a company might make everything but just pay your company to CNC machine their components and perhaps you may be buying something from them at the same time.
A supplier system would also be cool if you are focusing on exotic sports cars. Maybe you can shop around and buy the best tech from various suppliers that specialize. You could even become a tuner company something like Hennessey or Shelby where they will just buy a whole good car like a Viper or Mustang and they will change the engine and tune it to a sports car. Specialized suppliers that do only CNC, or only casting can be AI controlled. Could be too much but perhaps AI controlled suppliers can even go a step further and sell raw materials… your foundry will need to buy iron or aluminum ingot to cast blocks and heads for example. Raw materials could be bought at various quality and price levels, maybe introduce specialized alloys, again, doesn’t need to be to complex (quality slider system), so better steel could just boost things like rust resistance and strength a couple points, but nothing too dynamic.