The campaign makes zero sense

[Prussian]

I make a car that's highly sought after in three markets being family and utility, get all the factories engineering times and production evenly setup and I lose all my money. I've tried like 5 times and I go bankrupt every time loan or not. This game desperately needs more tool tips for everything. I feel like I'm doing this right and I lose every single time.

[thegreensteem]

its a huge wip

[Kirby]

It's surprisingly simple when you learn how to play it.

[Killrob]

Quick question about that: did you read all the section title descriptions? If so, what information did you find missing?
I find that often players who have big problems playing the campaign never looked at the already existing explanations for it in the game.

[schaefsky]

EDIT TLDR: some questions and tips to help you figure out what is going wrong.

What difficulty are you playing on? What country are you starting in? Why do you go bankrupt? Is your car affordable?
Especially on higher difficulties you have to set up the dealerships yourself, no dealerships, no sales. Start building dealerships around 1-2 years before your first car is finished. When your first car is finished, start marketing. I think around level 2 is enough in the beginning for dealerships and marketing. Market the stats that are important to your target demographics. At least I think that is how marketing works, that part is really obscure to me at the moment (LCV 4.0). (EDIT) When going for family / utility I also think marketing reputation is more important than prestige.
The country you are starting in makes a difference as to what markets and demographics are available, and I think even on lower difficulties you only have dealerships in your home country.
Before putting your car in production, make sure you add a margin to the sales price in the forecast screen (the actual data in the forecast screen is useless for your first car because you will have no awareness, so it projects no sales). It should not matter much on lower difficulties (never did it on medium), but on insane I forgot sometimes and with lowish competitveness (might result from poor car design or strong competition) the car was sometimes sold at a loss when margin was set to default 0%. Also I think it is pretty important at the beginning that your factory is somewhat occupied (working at > 0.5 shifts), how many shifts is it working at?
The last thing is that high competitiveness must not mean high (enough) affordability for your market, although I think it will at least be a bit affordable when competetitiveness is high. I try to aim for 120 or better competitiveness and >50% (better aroud 70%) affordabiltiy in car design screen. Higher is better, but sometimes not achievable (yet). Below 90 competitiveness and below 50% affordability is usually not good. Those numbers will effectively change through your enginnering and production process and upcoming competition though.

I think the dealership and margin stuff will work very differently with upcoming LCV 4.1.

Go to the Automation Youtube channel for a basic tutorial for LCV 4.0.
Also I recommend searching for KillrobPlays and Markus Plays on Youtube, they have playthroughs of the campaign (Killrob also has ones for older versions, the one for LCV 3.7 I found still helpful after you have a good understanding of the current version to see what parts are different). Found those really helpful.

[Jesse]

Originally posted by Killrob:

Quick question about that: did you read all the section title descriptions? If so, what information did you find missing?
I find that often players who have big problems playing the campaign never looked at the already existing explanations for it in the game.

I agree that there is a lot of information about everything but I also think you need to realize that nobody wants to read a literal novel in order to play a game. It should at least have the option to be a bit more simple but really it shouldn't even be an option, there are not many people who will want to play something so complex. The factory configurations are extremely boring and overly complex. You should be able to configure a few sliders for number of units and have it auto configure the factories. Additionally I've read most of the in game help information and have watched several youtube guides including one (that albeit is out of date for the current version) that was like 2-3 hours long and I believe you made and I still have yet to make a profitable car in the campaign.

[shawa]

Originally posted by Jesse:

Originally posted by Killrob:

Quick question about that: did you read all the section title descriptions? If so, what information did you find missing?
I find that often players who have big problems playing the campaign never looked at the already existing explanations for it in the game.

I agree that there is a lot of information about everything but I also think you need to realize that nobody wants to read a literal novel in order to play a game. It should at least have the option to be a bit more simple but really it shouldn't even be an option, there are not many people who will want to play something so complex. The factory configurations are extremely boring and overly complex. You should be able to configure a few sliders for number of units and have it auto configure the factories. Additionally I've read most of the in game help information and have watched several youtube guides including one (that albeit is out of date for the current version) that was like 2-3 hours long and I believe you made and I still have yet to make a profitable car in the campaign.

This is a niche product for a niche market. And if you find it too hard, then you can always lower the difficulty of the game.

[MSgt Peterson]

I'd just play on easy to medium, make only one model that's sought after and make a 200HP+ engine and run with it for your entire run. I've done that, making a beetle like car and it sells quite well. I know that's not exactly great help and not very detailed but it's pretty fools proof unless you do something nuts lol

As for the game itself, I'd really like to see things that make it simpler or easier like telling me my model is 50.5 in drivability. I'd rather have a rating system or a percentage system that compares my rating to a well known, successful car of that generation rather than give me vague numbers. There's no reference material whatsoever in the game to base any of your stuff on. I still think there should be some very basic wiki for cars and whatnot for each decade. Nothing complex of course, just basic information. I know I can look stuff up but for a game like this? Some basic reference material should be in the game.

[schaefsky]

Originally posted by MSgt Peterson:

I'd just play on easy to medium, make only one model that's sought after and make a 200HP+ engine and run with it for your entire run.

Might work but you will likely overpower your grip in the beginning especially with cross ply tires.

Originally posted by MSgt Peterson:

As for the game itself, I'd really like to see things that make it simpler or easier like telling me my model is 50.5 in drivability. I'd rather have a rating system or a percentage system that compares my rating to a well known, successful car of that generation rather than give me vague numbers. There's no reference material whatsoever in the game to base any of your stuff on. I still think there should be some very basic wiki for cars and whatnot for each decade. Nothing complex of course, just basic information. I know I can look stuff up but for a game like this? Some basic reference material should be in the game.

There kind of is though, when you click on the market competitiveness card in the car designer it shows yout the average values of the top 3 cars in that particular demographic. So you at least know if 50.5 drivability is good or bad in that particular market. Same for all the other stats. Works well enough for me, of course on higher difficulties you need some cushion because the competition does not sleep.

[Kirby]

i'm playing a campaign on easy, and it is very easy.
I reccomend playing a bit of sandbox, so you can know how to make competitive cars that will sell, a lot of it comes to the competitiveness stat and affordability.

[schaefsky]

Oh, and if you make a family car there almost always is a delivery van version body available. Make a trim with basic everything, hard long life tires and a somewhat economical engine for the delivery demographics and you should make an easy fortune with the family / commuter / city and the delivery markets with one car model, two car trims and one engine model alone.

[MSgt Peterson]

Originally posted by schaefsky:

Originally posted by MSgt Peterson:

I'd just play on easy to medium, make only one model that's sought after and make a 200HP+ engine and run with it for your entire run.

Might work but you will likely overpower your grip in the beginning especially with cross ply tires.

Originally posted by MSgt Peterson:

As for the game itself, I'd really like to see things that make it simpler or easier like telling me my model is 50.5 in drivability. I'd rather have a rating system or a percentage system that compares my rating to a well known, successful car of that generation rather than give me vague numbers. There's no reference material whatsoever in the game to base any of your stuff on. I still think there should be some very basic wiki for cars and whatnot for each decade. Nothing complex of course, just basic information. I know I can look stuff up but for a game like this? Some basic reference material should be in the game.

There kind of is though, when you click on the market competitiveness card in the car designer it shows yout the average values of the top 3 cars in that particular demographic. So you at least know if 50.5 drivability is good or bad in that particular market. Same for all the other stats. Works well enough for me, of course on higher difficulties you need some cushion because the competition does not sleep.

You are correct my good sir, it can be difficult in the beginning since grip is usually a big pain to deal with though I've found it easier with modded frames like the fallout frame that allows large I engines and large tires.

That is true. Be neat if they released a historical campaign with historical companies that released real models.

[Jesse]

Originally posted by shawa:

Originally posted by Jesse:

I agree that there is a lot of information about everything but I also think you need to realize that nobody wants to read a literal novel in order to play a game. It should at least have the option to be a bit more simple but really it shouldn't even be an option, there are not many people who will want to play something so complex. The factory configurations are extremely boring and overly complex. You should be able to configure a few sliders for number of units and have it auto configure the factories. Additionally I've read most of the in game help information and have watched several youtube guides including one (that albeit is out of date for the current version) that was like 2-3 hours long and I believe you made and I still have yet to make a profitable car in the campaign.

This is a niche product for a niche market. And if you find it too hard, then you can always lower the difficulty of the game.

It's not really though, any car person would love this game if it were approachable, the niche market of people that care to nerd out about factory settings is hopefully a statistical zero. Also I'm exaggerating about my success, I have made profitable cars with the default settings but have never played long enough to see it because the logistics of getting factories configured for a second line of cars to be produced simultaneously makes me give up every single time.

Originally posted by Kirby the god of destruction:

i'm playing a campaign on easy, and it is very easy.
I reccomend playing a bit of sandbox, so you can know how to make competitive cars that will sell, a lot of it comes to the competitiveness stat and affordability.

I've got 636 hours into the game, mostly in sandbox but at least 100 of those hours is in the campaign mode and the campaign mode still makes very little sense to me. The sandbox mode of this game stands on its own especially with the beamng export options but the campaign mode is basically unplayable IMO.

[VaderDFXB]

Originally posted by Jesse:

the niche market of people that care to nerd out about factory settings is hopefully a statistical zero.

You'd be surprised then. Gear City is another current game about automotive manufacturing and fiddling with factory settings. I personally don't like it, but Killrob has repeatedly said the campaign is the primary focus so you'll have to accept that fact whether you like it or not.

There's a reason I've suggested adding a campaign mode where you solely design cars and don't have to muck around with factories and whatnot since I know I'd find that more fun and less tedious.

[Killrob]

A question from me would be: Would those of you who have had bad experiences with the campaign due to its general user unfriendliness play a series of proper campaign tutorial scenarios? We know about the campaign's current flaws and accept all those as part of the process of fleshing it out until it can be polished up more. That unfortunately means for many it is just too difficult / unrewarding to play at the moment.

[VaderDFXB]

Originally posted by Killrob:

A question from me would be: Would those of you who have had bad experiences with the campaign due to its general user unfriendliness play a series of proper campaign tutorial scenarios? We know about the campaign's current flaws and accept all those as part of the process of fleshing it out until it can be polished up more. That unfortunately means for many it is just too difficult / unrewarding to play at the moment.

A campaign tutorial is a good idea. It would probably help alleviate some of the issues players have with it at the moment especially if it did a good job explaining things without being overly complex or overwhelming. Step by step kind of thing.

That being said I'd still prefer more of a focus on the sandbox...I know, broken record.