Inspired by the Lotus Elise development video I shared in another thread, I came up with some crazy ideas for the Grand Campaign.
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Subcontracting - I think this could be consolidated into a single slider in the yet to be finished “production & distribution” tab. In the lite campaign, component prices are primarily determined by their type, quality, and process optimization (with some variability based on project funding and schedule pressure). However, the way it is designed currently pre-supposes those components are manufactured in-house. In real-life, many parts are sub-contracted (Joyson = airbags, Michelin = tires etc). A subcontracting slider could alter total material costs in the following way: a car that is 100% subcontracted has no components built in-house. Your company just “nails everything together” so-to-speak. This drives parts/materials costs down (a lot), but has the effect of increasing the probability of production delays and recalls. For example, your car was originally slated for release in August 2012, but due to supply chain issues the release date has been pushed to January 2013. Alternatively, your car goes on sale on time, but one of your parts suppliers was caught using child labor (negative reputation), or your airbags are faulty and explode rather than inflate (recall). Swing the slider completely the other way, and your company is responsible for every part. They even make their own tires lol. Parts/material costs skyrocket. Somewhere in between is a happy medium depending on the type of company you’re running and the type of car your building.
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Regional Regulations - I’m pretty sure this is coming, as evidenced by the existence of an emissions stat and a minimum safety requirement that varies by region. Taking things a bit further, there could be a maximum loudness regulation, engine size taxes etc. While the safety and loudness stats are naturally hard limits, emissions could go either way (either a hard limit or taxed like engine displacement). So you can still sell your 8.4-liter 645-horsepower V10 supercar in a region that taxes high displacement engines, but the take rate won’t be as high compared to regions where no such tax existed.
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Engine Market - The infrastructure for automatically generating car designs and AI engine tunes lends itself well to the creation of a dedicated “engine market”. Here, engines from existing manufacturers can be purchased “cheaply” without incurring the cost of designing and tooling your own engine and factory. While I’m sure this has been suggested before, and contracting out your own designs is a nice feature of the Lite Campaign, I’d like to take it a step further. Should you decide to buy an existing engine, the engine family and variant should have a soft lock on it (much as it does now for the engine family once your design is completed). The soft lock can be removed, but doing so would mean an increase in the cost per unit depending on which parts/sliders are modified. As an example, changing anything in the exhaust tab or the fuel required/fuel map on fuel system tab, would have a nominal increase in cost/unit. Changing anything else would incur a large financial penalty depending on the level of re-engineering involved. Switching back to subcontracting/outsourcing though, what if the manufacturer you’re buying the engine from goes bankrupt or has a supply issue of their own? This is one of the opportunity costs of completely outsourcing your engines to save money - supplier risk.
I know it’s a lot but I’m curious as to your thoughts! Would these changes make the game too realistic and less fun? Or would it add to the immersion in an interesting and exciting way?
