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[EuchreJack]

For the record, you get 100x score with zero money but a small plot (and thus equity).

Also, I think it's impossible to get a game going without land or money.  The game over screen appears in Month 2.

[Duuvian]

I hadn't thought of trying to extend the loan period, doh. I saw the field showing cost of the loan explode when I tried that for things like an engine factory before, so I kind of forgot to try it on the starting car since I usually do the shortest loan period as it's default and I became accustomed to keeping it there. I'll give it a try next time I do some Automation.

I agree about tiny car factories, they really are not ideal. Unless I'm so strapped for cash that I can't afford the upgrade from Tiny plot to Small, I always take at least a small plot so I can upgrade the factory size later. The other reason I start with a Tiny factory is because it's only about $3mil if I remember correctly, and the market is Archea is pretty small so it's easy to over produce at the start. Archea mostly buys budget cars that can't be made for enough profit with contractor engine costs, it's hard to design one without an engine factory that will make much money.

There is one use for tiny factories though: they make a good starting factory for concept or prototypes of models that you tanked the sliders on to engineer faster. Facelifts seem to go much faster and cheaper than the initial engineering on a new model.

I usually scrape up enough cash for an engine factory by around 1950. Going from contractors to a small engine factory is a big savings on production costs though so once it's affordable the sooner the better.

For advertising, I do that eventually once there is some cash for it. You can also get a lot of free advertising that isn't useful for a while if you advertise for markets that don't exist yet; for example Pony. There are a few Other type advertisings in the dropdown menu that apply only to markets that don't exist yet in the nation selected, and if you put advertising into them they are completely free. The % increases on the nonexistant markets increase over time so I think it works. I don't know if when the market opens if it reverts to the set value; I don't recall noticing if it did. It seems like it's probably a bug but I guess it could be that the company you are playing as contributed to the development to the market culture that later emerges, enough to be a favored brand by the customers of that market.

[EuchreJack]

There is actually an exploit to get started with no money and no factory/land.

You put a small factory on a larger size plot, then the bank will give you 100% loan coverage. It's a bit of an exploit, but somewhat realistic since their risk of your default (factory & design tech) is offset by the large collateral (the land). Land is good, my friend.

I proved it with a Huge Plot and Small Factory, but ran into a quick default because my car sales didn't exceed my expenses with the loan repayment.  Probably a smaller plot size would work better. Maybe Large Plot, Small Factory? And better car, of course...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Duuvian]

Oh, does the larger plot instantly become equity as soon as the project is signed off? There was a bug that was fixed a few versions ago that made it so just having the plot assigned to an unsigned off factory would give your company value to put against the loan, this looks like that sort of but different.

Once I have cashflow I do tend to invest in land plots to increase the factory size with time, however the obstacle after the first engine factory is medium factory that can make cheaper steel chassis instead of the aluminum (or fiberglass if I can figure out what that's actually useful for) limitations of the small and tiny factories. That is a big cost to afford early on and stands a good chance of overproducing. IIRC I don't usually build a medium steel car factory until the late '50s and since it's Archea I make budget cars in it. I'd probably start it earlier but the finances; although a new market opens in the '60s so that helps with the overproduction as well perhaps, though I think they use a higher octane fuel than Archea, as Archea starts with the worst octane and increases over time to leaded and then at some point to unleaded I'd guess without doublechecking. Mediums are where you can start adding more trims to the model in the same factory without hefty production reductions as well so that's kind of nice. Small factories can do two or maybe three while mediums could make a few more trims IIRC without being hampered much by it.  I do wish the factory would prioritize the trims that are selling best instead of splitting them down the middle. I can't recall if a single trim can be paused in a model in a factory with multiple trims, or if it shutters the whole factory, and I haven't checked if it cuts shifts for the underselling trims while keeping shifts for needed inventory.

What's your thoughts on engineering multiple trims at once on projects that are not your first car? I'm not sure what the best process is on that; I do both one trim models and models with 2 or 3 trims. What do you think would be better in a situation with two available small factories: two models with one trim or one model with two trims, assuming they are equally suitable to the targetted demographics? I think if they have rougly equal engineering times (I think it uses the highest out of the trims but not sure) it might be better to do one model with two trims. Plus you can copy the first trim and make minor changes and even keeps your fixtures from the first one, a nice time saver.

[LoSboccacc]

d inventory.

What's your thoughts on engineering multiple trims at once on projects that are not your first car? I'm not sure what the best process is on that; I do both one trim models and models with 2 or 3 trims. What do you think would be better in a situation with two available small factories

I tend to do cars in a loop: model engineering for 5 years, goes to factory set A, mk2 trim for 3 years, goes to factory set B, year 1 of the mk2 trim I create another 5 year model, and pin that to factory set A. I always try to keep loans repayment at 36months, with enough margin so that the car can repay the loan by year 3. you usually have more market than production capacity, and running the old trim for loner than what it takes to repay the loan is what really push your margins.

[EuchreJack]

I typically have to create multiple trims to get one small factory up to full production, past pre-orders fulfillment.

I also find it easier to create multiple trims at the beginning. This often helps me find the "ideal" model.

The tricky thing is pre-orders.  I typically have one factory that cycles between the new models/trims to work down the pre-order list, as successful models typically take 1+ years to work down the pre-orders, and they get stale over time.  I'm also debating increasing the pre-order amount above 10%, to hopefully bring the number down and the initial profit up.

[Duuvian]

d inventory.

What's your thoughts on engineering multiple trims at once on projects that are not your first car? I'm not sure what the best process is on that; I do both one trim models and models with 2 or 3 trims. What do you think would be better in a situation with two available small factories

I tend to do cars in a loop: model engineering for 5 years, goes to factory set A, mk2 trim for 3 years, goes to factory set B, year 1 of the mk2 trim I create another 5 year model, and pin that to factory set A. I always try to keep loans repayment at 36months, with enough margin so that the car can repay the loan by year 3. you usually have more market than production capacity, and running the old trim for loner than what it takes to repay the loan is what really push your margins.

Good idea. I hadn't thought of that, I turn the engineering time down to 25%. The loop would make long engineering times less of a problem. Do you take points in body research at start or research it with funds? I had thought with a 5 year engineering it would have an old car body penalty without body unlocks, so I usually go for shorter if I didn't pick car body research unlocks at the start.

[LoSboccacc]

I don't know well enough how research works, but I think the future part engineering extra cost is still there, so I avoid using tech to unlocks future item such bodies. besides I think that the body penalty was reduced for non premium demographics.

anyway I usually put points on the items that cost more on the engineering sheet like safety, fuel system, chassis. my cars are pretty competitive even at zero research tho, so I focus a little more budget on marketing

game is also fairly easy unless you do foot gun things like starting with absolutely zero money and zero plots like it's not uncommon for my first project to pull in a billion

speaking of which is there a challenge going around? how are you starting from nothing? (i.e. is it a legit start or just padding equity with land plots before the project?)

[Duuvian]

I don't know, maybe we should start one. I usually drop engy time to 25% so that's a lot against the 100x. I also try to get dealerships in home country as high as possible.

To do a 100x start you will probably need a small factory plot also, and a first car model that will get enough pre-oders to pay for the engineering and factory construction. I usually start with a tiny factory (make sure to do aluminum body). The next time I set up a game I can screenshot the game start pages to show what I take to get 100x.

Hmm, maybe the future tech penalty is what made me think fiberglass was a bad option. It seemed more expensive than aluminum and took penalties in safety (and I think worse production units) in exchange for being slightly lower weight. If that cheapened price per unit after the tech year I could see a use for it.

[LoSboccacc]

ah if it's just 100X you can have 2 small plots at start. let me see

edit: apparently the most viable 100x option is 150% copetitor competitivedness and a small plot/factory for cars, with contracted engines https://i.imgur.com/bkmZoap.png

edit2: leaving aside the no money start and 100x difficulty, the 150% on competitor competitiveness is awesome it makes the game super tense skirting bankrupcy and planning 5 year plans has been a blast so far, quality issues can legit kill you and so every other system of the game gets tied together beautifully


edit3: so it's basically won now https://i.imgur.com/mJNEFyA.png one can always do better I guess the problem is now surviving the slog to the end

[EuchreJack]

Idea: Single Engine game.
Challenge: Create one of each body type with the single engine.

[LoSboccacc]

with variants I hope

[EuchreJack]

with variants I hope

...I guess that would be acceptable

You can also make new variants, but you have to use the same one engine for the entire game.  And occasionally scream "One Engine Man!"

[LoSboccacc]

I was more thinking about the great unleaded barrier 

heck can even be single model constantly refitted, factories will happily produce older retrofits if asked nicely, the only real issue is that you won't be able to use previous retrofits in new car models while the curret version is under engineering, so you'd have to synchronize all car releases, which is quite an annoyance.

[LoSboccacc]

ooof the new beta is out and 100x is an entire new challenge

Spoiler (click to show/hide)