How many engines do you use?

[Alterac]

So I've been wondering this for a while. In the game I've only used 3 different engines. I engines(all gone after a couple of decades) flat engines and the V engines.

How many have you guys used?

[Soul Binder]

I'll always be designing and building Inline and V engines with 3-12 cylinders.
Inline engines will always be one of if not the cheapest engines to both design and build especially if you've maintained near constant development and production of the type for years.
V engines similarly never go out of style.
I'm not a big fan of Flat engines in real life and so typically don't often develop them early game. Without years of development and production they don't get the same sorts of cost savings and ratings boost since my engineering team doesn't have the experience with that type.
I will build W and X engines mostly for high end luxury and performance vehicles. I like the challenge of designing them and find them interesting.

As for cylinder count I'll design a wide range of them depending on intended use and time period in game. That said 4, 6 and 8 cylinder designs will always feature heavily.
3 cylinder designs will be limited to times when I want a very cheap and lightweight engine where power is much less of a concern than things like fuel economy and low production costs.
5 cylinder engines while interesting in real life don't really work for me in game. Typically 4 or 6 cylinder designs can fill whatever role in game that a 5 cylinder would fill so the odd cylinder count and fact they are not as smooth operating without extra effort and cost means they are unlikely to ever get any use.
W9 designs get some use by me for mid-upper level luxury and performance vehicles though less common than 12 cylinder engines of whatever sort.
V10 engines may see some limited use but that's often as a specialty "Racing/High Perfomance" engine in very early years before 12 cylinder designs are available. After I've got 12 cylinder technology unlocked V10 engines are in more or less same place as Inline 5 cylinders, other options that can outperform them in one way or another so no real reason to keep designing and building them.
Last the X16 is what I love to use for my ultra high performance cars. Real life there were too many issues needing to be solved that prevented X engines from getting any serious use or attention. At one point though Ford was convinced they were the future and spent nearly 10 years trying to get them to work. Real life technology improvements in other areas allowed for getting the desired specs out of other far easier to design and cheaper to produce V engines and unlike with W engines never really had anyone in more modern times give them another go.

[Fimez]

Theres not much point in me chipping in (only played the demo although ive tried my best to milk it) but i guess i would try and keep it varied even if its detrimental to the final product wethers thats economically or performance wise. i tend to just try and copy real life cars/ engines to see if i can get the same performance or look or both preferably or i try and make a competitor to that car that is distinctly different in design but is similar in performance.

im pretty excited to see the limits of this game as coming from automation there is a huge amount more depth (especially engine size! you can make a 100+ litre engine! wtf!).

i would consider doing the same as otherwise i get bored but thats just me, would also recommend looking into every little car related mechanics that you come across or look for as (for me personally once again) the more i learn the more i appreciate and the more i enjoy the spectacle of said mechanical design,part, car etc. if i hadnt done this i would never have taken any interest in most of the cars i adore so theres nothing to fret about or lose!

Enjoy Gearcity

[flyersfan18]

Same 3 - I, V and Flat. I have tried to use the rotary engine for sports cars but just feels like those 3 are best unless you use some role play element. Also you can use 1 cylinder in the early game. Also the other engines are helpful if you are go for non-auto contracts (boats, planes)

[Soul Binder]

Originally posted by matthew_w_lees:

Same 3 - I, V and Flat. I have tried to use the rotary engine for sports cars but just feels like those 3 are best unless you use some role play element. Also you can use 1 cylinder in the early game. Also the other engines are helpful if you are go for non-auto contracts (boats, planes)

When you say rotary are you referring to actual rotary engines or the much later to unlock Wankel engines?
Big difference between them and the rotary and radial engines that are available early game are more or less only good for airplane contracts.

[flyersfan18]

I think I try both. Like I say never seen a clear advantage over other types. Is like the CVT transmission, is nice that is included for completeness, I try build a few times, never seen it be a smashing success

[Soul Binder]

Honestly there isn't a lot of difference between a number of different things in game.
While there are many good reasons things have been developed and used or not used in real life much of that gets lost in game because it doesn't have all the potential reasons for choosing to use something that might have some real life advantages.

As an example I rarely develop and use Flat engines. Real life in certain vehicles they have made a lot of sense and worked well when other types of engines couldn't have easily been used in same car without drastically changing it.
In game however there is no engine height restrictions and that is one of the major benefits of a flat engine.
Conversely Flat engines by nature are wider and even a couple inches difference in vehicle width can have big impact on performance and fuel economy so anything larger than a small 1-2 liter flat engine despite a small weight advantage over V or Inline layout will likely struggle to reach same performance numbers in a vehicle.

Something like the CVT has an even harder time in game. The big reason for CVT real life is right there in the name Continuously Variable, but the game can't model that so instead you still have a preset number of gears. In the end you wind up with a more difficult and expensive to design component that doesn't offer any real gains in performance or economy and in fact is likely heavier meaning it potentially costs you performance and economy.
Believe it was one of the later additions to game and Eric mostly added it because a number of players had asked for their inclusion. Don't quote me on that though as I might not be remembering correctly.

[Eric.B]

Originally posted by Soul Binder:

Honestly there isn't a lot of difference between a number of different things in game.

The main problem is missing variables in the game. That's mostly my fault since some of it I just wrote off early in development and thought I could best substitute them with exponential costs rather than implementing the variables and the data. Some of it was just oversight. In my defense, there is a lot of stuff in GC that I had to keep track of, forgetting to implement a few niche things I think is forgivable. And I would have never finished the game if I went back and added all these little things.

I hope to remedy some of that with the Feature Bounty System. Most of these big issues will be discounted. IE, I'll be cutting what I consider my hourly rate for GC in half or more, to hopefully get these implemented.

Using your example, flat engines, one major advantage of them is that they're not as tall as other engine types. There is no "height" requirement for engines in the game. That's a feature bounty. As you mention, they tend to be wider. Right now the game uses a fixed variable that adjust the width modifier. That' works OK, but when you get into V's, there are many different banking degrees which affect height and width. So cylinder bank angle is a feature bounty. (Flats being 90 degree banks...) So that will remove the much of the width's fixed variable affect, and we'll base width and height mostly on stroke and cylinder angle.

Flats also benefit with making more weight lower to the ground. That's a feature bounty too, but it won't be discounted.

With respect to CVT's, it's a hard balancing act. They have been around forever, but the technology for them was not mature for most of the automotive industry. The problem is, the game does not have the ability to improve technology, we have a static variable value for all tech. The hackish solution is to make "stages" as you see with electric and turbos. There is a feature bounty to add dynamically improving values to sub-components. That would allow CVTs to be not so good for early years, but improve to be very usable in modern times. Likewise, I have a ticket to change researching, so that instead of just improving your skills at "Gearboxes", you will focus on specific sub-components, which will improve your ratings with those designs. That was suggested by many users in the past, but I had database issues with doing that. I believe I have solved those though, so it's a feature bounty.


Then there are whole bunch of things you don't mention. Two-stroke is nerfed in the game, because it is overpowered without emissions standards. Folks make too large engines because there are no displacement taxes, emissions standards, and fuel economy standards. You can pick an economic car type, but use a truck chassis, (which should make it a full size), unibodies are used for many different type of vehicles, etc. These all have discounted feature bounties which hopefully we can get funded, and I can improve the game some post release.

[Deez_Noots]

single cylinder engines are pretty good for a 1900 Phaeton, you don't need a powerful engine and minimising costs is essential

[ee]

I usually start in the 1950s, 1970s or 1980s, and I pretty much try to use 4-cylinder boxer (flat 4) engines for most of my cars that are sedan class or larger (eg wagon). Sometimes, supercharged or turbo flat-2 are suitable for base models of these medium sized cars too, especially if manual 5-sp or 6-sp.

2-cylinder engines have been iconic in the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBEILK9T2Xc It's kind of puzzling why we aren't seeing any of them in today's modern hybrid cars.

I find that I-3's are the most economical to build and make, and if with enough displacement, can be good in simple sedans. V-4's seem to be as cheap to make as I-3's (though take slightly longer or more $ to design). I use V-4's in cheap low end cars, often where chassis dimensions are too small for

For smaller cars with weight class on the order of subcompact, 2-cyl, 3-cyl, or wankel are the norm. In real life, I think Wankel might be very efficient at idling (very relevant for city driving mpg). Because they have such a wide range of RPM's, they are very good for low power demand at lower rpm operation---which imho makes the well suited for automatics, where they can be pretty efficient at low speed coasting, as well as idling.

I don't do I-5 but go straight to V-6, and that is about the highest cylinder count I do. My gasoline V-6's are almost always designed for sports (but also make it into large cars like luxury, van, suv). Diesel V-6 target medium weight cars; they are very good for low gear count transmission eg 4-sp manual, or 2-sp auto w/ OD.

So for all cars combined, I'd say I'd rank them:

H4, H2, I3, V6, V4, wankel, I4, 1cyl (from most popular to least used).