So this is obviously not really relevant to development of the game, but I think is too related to go in “off-topic”.
I’ve been watching loads of videos about tanks recently (Tank Chats series on YouTube at the Bovington Tank Museum) and it struck me how similar military arms races / contracts etc. are to the kind of competition and innovation in Automation.
Some tanks are great, but are let down by an unreliable or underpowered engine. Some have great armour but are too slow or too costly to produce. Some take too long to reach production and find their weapons are already obselete.
There is also the matter of the ridiculous engines in tanks - 1200 horsepower diesel electric V12, anyone?
I don’t know how the main gameplay would work particularly, whether it would be that you are competing for military contracts; or whether it was part of a more expansive turn based strategy game like Civilisation or something (the latter would probably be far too ambitious or complicated).
But games like World of Tanks are extremely popular, and I bet a fair few military strategy players might be interested in a game like Automation that is focused more on the tech tree / industrial capacity, and leaves the battlefield maneuvers to AI.
What’s so ridiculous about that? Not only does it power the whole thing, it also allows to have all the power on demand, all for a price of a few electric motors and a generator? Most of the heavy duty machinery is diesel electirc, trains, ships power supplies and sometimes propulsion, huge dump trucks that work in craters or whatever those are called.
Plus, there’s the fact that you eliminate a costly and complex drive system (Differentials, clutches, etc.) in favor of simple electric motors. If it’s good enough for a train, it’s definitely good enough for a tank.
Look it’s simple. If we’re not going to get rotaries and radials and two strokes and diesels and hybrids for a long ass time how on Earth would something that’s been in development for like 8 years as a car company tycoon game turn into a tank game
I didn’t mean ridiculous in a bad way, but in a glorious way!
Yes I know it’s not going to happen, I was just thinking how cool it would be. Maybe if I’m lucky someone will mod tanks into the game on the Steam workshop!
A) Its impossible to have more than 4 wheels
B) Its a suggestion thats as stupid as asking for semi trucks or motorcycles
C) This is a CAR company tycoon game. Now tell me, what car company makes tanks regularly and not during war time.
To be fair, building engines for the military isn’t a terrible idea if you’re new to the game, but if you have been following the development for awhile, you’d understand why they can’t make stuff like that for the game when there is so much “normal car” stuff still needing to be developed. An engine and car designer this in depth takes a very long for a small team to make, and adding tanks would mean basically starting from the ground up all over again.
