This game is just getting worse as time goes on

[Vandrid]

I Really think that this game has a great concept. Make your own cars in your own company throughout history sounds awesome, and at one point it was. You didn't need to be a full on engineer to have fun in this game. And now they have lost me. They have opted to go head first into as real as they can get and the trade off is that this game isn't fun for me anymore. I can not figure out what people want in a car. I don't know how to make a good car. I don't know what some of these stats even mean. The new engine revamp has only made it worse. My gosh, you guys do know at one point you were trying to make a game right? You don't have to make everything as real as possible, in fact games that simulate life like thing (check any game that has the word simulator at the end of the title) doesn't make each part of the game realistic. They make those parts realistic enough to pass but make sure it benefits the game. These developers seem to not want to make a fun game anymore, it feels like they want the most complicated car calculator. Nothing in this game feels fun to me, nothing tells me WHY my car is not doing well in its market. This game has already left the station and now they are just doubling down on making graphs and numbers only people in the industry can understand. I don't want a map of my fuel efficiency, I want a game I can understand and play and enjoy.
I don't know why they took this route, but it makes me sad cause I loved this game back in the day and it just took the worst turn for me.

Know that this is all just a personal rant and you can feel however you want about the game. I am not trying to attack the developers at Camshaft, or anyone who enjoys this game. If you enjoy the game as it is now then that is awesome! I wanted to make a critique on how I feel about the game and that state it is in now. I needed a "old man yells at cloud" moment. I know that this is where the game is and with the amount of development time and effort that has come to this point I know my words won't change the game. I just want a game where I can make the cars and the company I want and now I cannot because this is not the game it once was.

[david]

I haven't played the game recently, or the alpha version since early in 4.2.24, for many of the reasons you've mentioned. My biggest complaint is one of yours, when cars aren't selling, the game doesn't tell us why. I've seen affordable and desired cars not sell. There seems to be no logical reasons why 1 car is highly desired, and the next is not desired at all.

My next biggest complaint is how manufacturing and engineering are tied together. In real life they are completely separate. Engineering is often working on a dozen different models for the future while manufacturing changes to a few specific designs every year - all in the same factory.

In game, I've had the most luck with inline engines, although they were avoided like the plague in the crowd I grew up with. I have yet to see a V8 be highly desired in game, let alone sell according to affordability, even with the best fuel mileage and decent HP.

I built many muscle cars back in the '80s without needing to know much about engine specs - all '68-74 models. They were all naturally aspired, had the biggest tires I could fit on back, and were highly sought after. Almost every guy I knew back then was into high performance muscle cars. Yet, the game has very few of those models and building to those parameters in game creates penalties. And those cars are, perhaps, more desired today than they were back in the day - while in game they quickly lose desirability. Ridiculous!

[Tampa Powers]

I think the realism is actually a positive, because it means the information on how to tune engines and such that is available on the internet can be used to figure out how to get better at the game. Similarly to what you might have in Kerbal Space Program knowing some actual orbital mechanics and such being helpful in playing the game.

Granted, yeah it's an accessibility issue, but with the sandbox mode you can play around for a long time to understand how certain things work just by trial and error and then jump into the campaign. I personally don't even give a rats behind about said campaign as games like these are more fun to make your own challenges with in the sandbox I find, but I digress.

Frankly the biggest accessibility issue isn't so much the complexity of engines and cars, but the fact the UI still does a really poor job at conveying good from bad. A lot of important metrics are random numbers that aren't quantified as to what would constitute a good number over a bad one. What the engine designer needs, imo, is a way to set targets for certain aspects like miles per gallon fuel efficiency, meantime between failures in hours, maintenance intervals, the things that are most important about certain types of cars. The difficult, imo, just comes from not knowing whether getting some number higher or lower actually means anything.

Games can be difficult, but as the saying goes easy to learn, hard to master and the learning aspect doesn't refer to a tutorial or easy campaign, it's about how easy the UI is to understand and decipher good from bad. Frankly I'd be happier myself if they'd drop the whole campaign thing focusing squarely on getting the engine designer properly done as well as the car designer so you can just design cars. The whole car factory tycoon part seems like a whole nother game and I think between it all the complexity of the game with all those aspects is a burden on development as the few developers there are being spread thin across all those parts. I assume they are fairly new to dealing with a project this scale so some of that can be forgiven, though I would that the recent improvements are a sign they have learned over the years and development will become more streamlined and focused, because it's getting on a bit.

[Killrob]

This update is a big change for everyone. So many things we've wanted for the engine designer that we finally were able to add / change. We do think that with this big update it is actually easier to make good engines than it was before; there are very few things you need to do in order to make solid engines. The skill ceiling however has been lifted a lot higher with the new game mechanics.

If you're struggling with the change, I recommend going into it with a fresh mind and have a look at the tutorial videos I posted, illustrating how easy it is to make good engines now (turbo ones can still be a little tricky, as they should!):
https://youtu.be/Twe1Vo1C17k
https://youtu.be/A8brk07BixA

Cheers!

[david]

Originally posted by Killrob:

We do think that with this big update it is actually easier to make good engines than it was before; there are very few things you need to do in order to make solid engines.
Cheers!

I appreciate the response but it doesn't address what I, and customers seem to want from an engine - fuel economy along with decent HP. I've never been able to make a desirable car for family or city markets - always too expensive, though I rarely increase quality sliders.

First thing I do is reduce fuel mixture to 0. I shoot for 20+ mpg with around 100 HP in early years ('47-'90s or so), and 30+ mpg with 300+ HP in later years ('90s and up). I had no problem achieving those in earlier game versions with inline or V engines. In fact, in later years I get much better fuel efficiency with bigger V6 engines than smaller inline engines - which doesn't make sense to me.

The new updates introduce too many new variables for me, making the game less fun, giving me headaches from thinking too much and being frustrated with results.

Neither of these videos considers fuel efficiency, let alone how to balance HP with it. Add the fact that I'm American and your numbers (kw/bar/etc.) mean nothing to me.

For the record, I rarely played sandbox mode and don't play BeamNG. I liked the campaign mode until recently. The game has great reviews so obviously my opinions aren't shared by many (most?). :)

[Vandrid]

Originally posted by Tampa Powers:

I think the realism is actually a positive, because it means the information on how to tune engines and such that is available on the internet can be used to figure out how to get better at the game. Similarly to what you might have in Kerbal Space Program knowing some actual orbital mechanics and such being helpful in playing the game.

Granted, yeah it's an accessibility issue, but with the sandbox mode you can play around for a long time to understand how certain things work just by trial and error and then jump into the campaign. I personally don't even give a rats behind about said campaign as games like these are more fun to make your own challenges with in the sandbox I find, but I digress.

Frankly the biggest accessibility issue isn't so much the complexity of engines and cars, but the fact the UI still does a really poor job at conveying good from bad. A lot of important metrics are random numbers that aren't quantified as to what would constitute a good number over a bad one. What the engine designer needs, imo, is a way to set targets for certain aspects like miles per gallon fuel efficiency, meantime between failures in hours, maintenance intervals, the things that are most important about certain types of cars. The difficult, imo, just comes from not knowing whether getting some number higher or lower actually means anything.

Games can be difficult, but as the saying goes easy to learn, hard to master and the learning aspect doesn't refer to a tutorial or easy campaign, it's about how easy the UI is to understand and decipher good from bad. Frankly I'd be happier myself if they'd drop the whole campaign thing focusing squarely on getting the engine designer properly done as well as the car designer so you can just design cars. The whole car factory tycoon part seems like a whole nother game and I think between it all the complexity of the game with all those aspects is a burden on development as the few developers there are being spread thin across all those parts. I assume they are fairly new to dealing with a project this scale so some of that can be forgiven, though I would that the recent improvements are a sign they have learned over the years and development will become more streamlined and focused, because it's getting on a bit.

I dig your reply. And for you with just making cars I can see where you are coming from. I on the other hand wanted a tycoon game so I think that is where the disconnect is for our points of view.

I do agree with you that the UI tells you so much without telling you anything. If I am just starting a new game at 1946 and want to make a delivery van I have to go through 40+ sliders and tweaks and checks and then just hope I did it right and that demographic will like it. If they don't, okay then I go back to adjust, but sadly I can't easily tell if changing the valve springs is helping or hurting with how much they like the car. And then after I slide enough things around and get something I think they will like I need to set up all the factories with again a ton of sliders that I can't tell exactly what they are doing and then get to the end to hopefully see if all this work will even make a profitable car. Like you said, it is frustrating to spend all that time trying to make something work and not knowing if what you are doing is helping or hurting you.

As with your mention to Kerbal; I can only somewhat agree with you. While understanding orbital mechanics is definitely something you have to learn parts of to play that game, what they don't make you do is set up each of the smallest parts of your rocket just right in order to fly. Strap a tank and an engine on a capsule and you can launch... not well but you can do it. If Kerbal took the same approach as this game we would have to tweak the scale and size of the bell, which propellants it takes in what ratio, turbo pumps and sizes of them, injector ports, bypass valves, cooling and coolant types, etc. All as a load of graphs and numbers and all for just that one part. Then do the same for each other part of the rocket. They kept it simple in that regard,

[Джон Порк]

Originally posted by david:

Originally posted by Killrob:

We do think that with this big update it is actually easier to make good engines than it was before; there are very few things you need to do in order to make solid engines.
Cheers!

I appreciate the response but it doesn't address what I, and customers seem to want from an engine - fuel economy along with decent HP. I've never been able to make a desirable car for family or city markets - always too expensive, though I rarely increase quality sliders.

First thing I do is reduce fuel mixture to 0. I shoot for 20+ mpg with around 100 HP in early years ('47-'90s or so), and 30+ mpg with 300+ HP in later years ('90s and up). I had no problem achieving those in earlier game versions with inline or V engines. In fact, in later years I get much better fuel efficiency with bigger V6 engines than smaller inline engines - which doesn't make sense to me.

The new updates introduce too many new variables for me, making the game less fun, giving me headaches from thinking too much and being frustrated with results.

Neither of these videos considers fuel efficiency, let alone how to balance HP with it. Add the fact that I'm American and your numbers (kw/bar/etc.) mean nothing to me.

For the record, I rarely played sandbox mode and don't play BeamNG. I liked the campaign mode until recently. The game has great reviews so obviously my opinions aren't shared by many (most?). :)

The game has a whole tab in the settings menu for various measurements.

Dont go for 100+ horsepower in all your cars unless you're building luxury or performance cars. 75hp is plenty in the 40s and 50s if you focus on small to medium sized cars.

Imo making efficient cars is now easier, i recommend watching the NA tuning video on the official automation youtube channel.

Earlier today i managed to make a car with a 1.2L i4 with around 35hp and top speed of just over 100km/h (about 65mph) that used about 8.5l/100km (about 30mpg) with 85 octane fuel and 1946 tech. Given it did weigh only 800kg (about 1700 pounds) and was geared for maximum economy.

[MegaMatrix132]

I cant get enough of this game. For me its the realism and complexity that keeps me putting so many hours into.

[RiftHunter4]

Originally posted by Vandrid:

I can not figure out what people want in a car. I don't know how to make a good car. I don't know what some of these stats even mean.

The meanings of the stats haven't changed in a long time. The calculations have been tweaked over time, but the meaning hasn't changed.

Reading these replies, I think there is some misunderstanding of how the game works. The devs aren't really making the game harder, they're giving you more options by adding some realism. The game can't tell you exactly how to increase the desirability of your car because there are so many options. The different market segments don't have hard, set specs for a desirable vehicle.

Ultimately the new variables give you a lot more tuning options that you couldn't do previously (even if real world companies did them). The game kind assumes that you understand what the parts do and what a realistic spec/performance target looks like. If you struggle with that, watch the videos, join the discord, and use the Ai car generation feature to learn what specs you need.

My other advice is be selective with the quality of your campaign cars. Most of the players I see who struggle make their vehicles too good. People can't afford the Mona Lisa of cars (except for maybe the hypercar segment). It doesn't need to be perfect. Find areas to cut costs.

[eririnturtle]

Originally posted by Vandrid:

I Really think that this game has a great concept. Make your own cars in your own company throughout history sounds awesome, and at one point it was. You didn't need to be a full on engineer to have fun in this game. And now they have lost me. They have opted to go head first into as real as they can get and the trade off is that this game isn't fun for me anymore. I can not figure out what people want in a car. I don't know how to make a good car. I don't know what some of these stats even mean. The new engine revamp has only made it worse. My gosh, you guys do know at one point you were trying to make a game right? You don't have to make everything as real as possible, in fact games that simulate life like thing (check any game that has the word simulator at the end of the title) doesn't make each part of the game realistic. They make those parts realistic enough to pass but make sure it benefits the game. These developers seem to not want to make a fun game anymore, it feels like they want the most complicated car calculator. Nothing in this game feels fun to me, nothing tells me WHY my car is not doing well in its market. This game has already left the station and now they are just doubling down on making graphs and numbers only people in the industry can understand. I don't want a map of my fuel efficiency, I want a game I can understand and play and enjoy.
I don't know why they took this route, but it makes me sad cause I loved this game back in the day and it just took the worst turn for me.

Know that this is all just a personal rant and you can feel however you want about the game. I am not trying to attack the developers at Camshaft, or anyone who enjoys this game. If you enjoy the game as it is now then that is awesome! I wanted to make a critique on how I feel about the game and that state it is in now. I needed a "old man yells at cloud" moment. I know that this is where the game is and with the amount of development time and effort that has come to this point I know my words won't change the game. I just want a game where I can make the cars and the company I want and now I cannot because this is not the game it once was.

but there is a game that try to be as real as possible, if i'm not mistaken ZUSI 3 - Aerosoft Edition is one of them. i believe there is more game that want to be real as possible without simulation in their title. imho the one that have simulation in their title do it for the sake of selling/justification.
btw +1 to realism, it is a positive thing for me too.

imho what i take is you just want more info on how or why things happen not less realism i believe.

[Killrob]

Originally posted by eririnturtle:

imho what i take is you just want more info on how or why things happen not less realism i believe.

The UI giving more relevant information and providing more help in your decision making sure is a very important factor in all of this. It is also super tricky to do because we can't know what the player is aiming to do with the current build. I think that is one of the biggest challenges with making Automation.