Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LoSboccacc]

I had a game where it took to 1965 to go bankrupt in Archana.  Not a great place to set up a small auto industry, I basically used the smallest possible engine with the lowest quality sliders and the cheapest parts.

the arahna trick is to sell to luxury car to dallua exclusively until fruinia comes up, then you can just create a variant with manual gearbox and stiffer suspension for their market. alternatively you can sell van internally, these have a reachable budget, but they're not helping familiarity on the top end. the trick there is to overextend with a loan into a medium factory immediately, then survive until market awareness catch up with production

to sell into lux the only trick is to turn around tooling and automation. they're price insensitive but they're also small market, so small expensive run are better than large cheap runs, until you have enough margin that is to open up large dealership networks. you can also engineer shit process and patch it up with Q/A and low wages.


and another tip.. at the beginning you're just build familiarity, your cars aren't veery good, so it's a valid strategy to stay on tiny/contract for your first production run... if you're going to lose money, you're going to lose very little money

[Sensei]

Dev log today. Big stuff includes:
-36 month engineering time discount on your first car in campaign
-UI to see upcoming body type unlocks
-Engine projects on hub timeline
-Add factories to production without creating a facelift (I really want this one)
-Car designer folder/tag organization
-Can move fixtures on absolute coordinates, doesn't have to be on surface of car body
-Transparent windows, interior fixtures coming soon
-Different types of convertibles
They also showed a gif in discord a little while back of customizable engine paints.


On a mostly related note, apparently Mr Regular of Regular Car Reviews judged an Automation competition which I had no idea about.

Anyway I'm actually surprised you can get the loan for a medium factory without going bankrupt on Insane. Loans are so much harsher in 4.0 I assumed you couldn't. However, I'm not sure I've actually started on the regular insane difficulty, usually just either hard with a medium factory or insane+. Back in 3.7 I pulled off a pretty good campaign with land only and no money, but of course that's harder now. I did get off the ground with a >10x difficulty multiplier ($50M and nothing else) but I went bankrupt trying to launch my second model.

[MrRoboto75]

Seems like cars are typed by what they are in addition to the convertible type if applicable.

So my 1940 jeep pickup is a truck and a convertible now.

[EuchreJack]

I love convertibles.  They're the car type I can get good scores without trying.  Like, I'm trying to build an [insert car type here], and its not working out, but then I notice the convertible score is in the 90s, so I switch over and maximize for them instead.

Sensei, what is insane+?  I've been flailing about in regular Insane, and I'd like to see this Insane+

Protip: you can improve your score modifier by playing for less years.  So you can have a less-sustainable business model!  Who cares if your business is 100% guaranteed to be bankrupt in 21 years when the game ends in 20, right?

[Sensei]

Insane+ would be a custom difficulty that's harder than Insane, set up in the advanced settings. Killrob did one of his campaign videos on a harder start by giving himself no money or factories, but some land he could take a loan against. I did a similar campaign. But, this was in 3.7 when factories were cheaper. The ultimate par for insane+ would be a 10x or greater difficulty multiplier (ideally still in 1946 though, otherwise its arguably less difficult just with less time to score).  At this difficulty the challenge is staying alive at all, forget scoring lmao. I haven't seen anyone else do it in 4.0 though, and like i said i went bankrupt by 1960 or something.

I also tried (with even less success) the "DeLorean challenge". Can you keep your company afloat under the same circumstances as old Johnny? That is to say, start in Gasmea in 1975 with only 200 million and no tech, dealers etc. Then try to sell GT cars. Let me tell you I went bankrupt in about the same amount of time it took the real John DeLorean to get so desperate he agreed to a cocaine deal for more money (which turned out to be federal entrapment but by the time that was over his assets were sold off).

[LoSboccacc]

wait wasn't insane+ 7 or more?

[LoSboccacc]

anyway, report from my last arhana game: https://imgur.com/a/wURGYla


started in luxury, with space frames cars, I've refreshed and rebuilt these all the way to the end in the initial small factory.

comes fruinia, I branched in premium / family p adding models to the luxury family

in the 80s I built two more engines, an alu v8 and an inexpensive i4, both ten year prototypes

comes gasmea I moved the family p line into a medium factory of it's own, converted all engines to mfi and three way cat.

after I took a large debt and branched multiple lines in their own factories. got a convertible in a small factory (mostly a failure) a budget premium in a medium (which went to corner the whole premium market), a utility premium in a medium and a family car into another medium. i4 engines came from a medium 2, with tooling and engineering slanted toward quantity. luxury line staied in teh initial small 3

in the 2000 I got another debt and pushed everything into medium 3. the i4 factory was extremely strained, but I just dumped money on the project and tooling to let it keep up.

I was pushing around 7k car a month, with my largest volume in premium budget and my largest revenue from premium

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'll take some model pictures later

[EuchreJack]

Good job!

[Sensei]

I decided to make a Challenge Thread on the Automation forum to see if anyone else pull off the DeLorean thing (I might try again, but so far, I can't). I don't know if it will get much though, people over there don't care much about campaign mode, since most of the contests and stuff there have been going on since before campaign was around I think.

15000 is not bad at all for starting with a small factory, I must say.

Has anyone else here been playing with BeamNG? I did a couple videos in the Let's Play thread, and Fishbreath did one too (with some practice he destroyed my time).

[MrRoboto75]

I fiddle with beam but it runs like pure unfiltered ass on my comp.  Even with only one (automation) car and a fairly small map it'll have stuttering fits every now and again.  I could throw times at you but I couldn't record the drive itself.

[Sensei]

Ah yeah, that will be an issue. You can try turning the settings down, but Beam is still a very CPU heavy game, so there's not much to be done unless you can decrease the physics tick rate. I have a powerful computer and it still occasionally slows, such as when there is lots of tire spin.

[EuchreJack]

I decided to make a Challenge Thread on the Automation forum to see if anyone else pull off the DeLorean thing (I might try again, but so far, I can't). I don't know if it will get much though, people over there don't care much about campaign mode, since most of the contests and stuff there have been going on since before campaign was around I think.

15000 is not bad at all for starting with a small factory, I must say.

Has anyone else here been playing with BeamNG? I did a couple videos in the Let's Play thread, and Fishbreath did one too (with some practice he destroyed my time).

I thought the DeLorean challenge was start with 50M, no starting tech.  I started like that in 1977.  My submission still counts, right? 

I've designed a GTO, but I'm wondering what to design as a second, cheaper trim with only access to Coupe body type.  My idea is to have the GTO and a cheaper engine variant and trim, just in case.

[MrRoboto75]

Ah yeah, that will be an issue. You can try turning the settings down, but Beam is still a very CPU heavy game, so there's not much to be done unless you can decrease the physics tick rate. I have a powerful computer and it still occasionally slows, such as when there is lots of tire spin.

No, I've done the homework on it, I'd need a proper hardware upgrade I'm sure.

[EuchreJack]

...I'd do better on the DeLorean challenge if I didn't suck at designing anything in the premium side of the charts.  I think the big problem is that premium cars suffer more from slow engineering than their more utilitarian cousins.  A good people-mover is a good people-mover, but an old prestigemobile is just junk.

Eh, if I'm gonna go bankrupt, I'll try the Cizeta-Moroder V16T Challenge instead...

EDIT: Success!  I've sold TWO V16 Mid RWD GTO Premium cars.  Basic Insane difficulty, starting in 1988, build a V16 engine Mid RWD car.  I decided to skip the turbo, instead showcasing the very best power obtainable by a Naturally Inspired engine.  Since only 17 of the Cizeta-Moroder V16T were ever sold, I figure my two sold is probably comparable.  Plus I still got some money.

[MrRoboto75]

hmm, I don't think I ever got the V16 DLC.

I'd rather build I4 city shitboxes usually.