Source
r/GearCity•
escalation

Mergers and Acquisitions and Interface usage suggestions

Currently I'm playing a game where I'm mostly focused on acquiring companies, raiding their inventory, restructuring them and spinning them off as (mostly) wholly owned subsidiaries. Part of that is because I haven't tried it before, and the other part is because managing really big companies gets complex, and things to streamline that would make that more enjoyable. Spinning them off tends to clear up lists, which is fairly complicated, but does make it easier to focus on the main company.

The update which affected trading components, and the autocommand to block sharing designs was definitely nice.

Some things that I'd like to see (suggestions). I understand that some of these things may be difficult to make code changes for, or you may not be interested in doing, but I'll throw them out there along with the reasoning for each. Most of these are oriented towards dealing with the kinds of problems that come up when your company is large and running multiple marquees. Some are just to find things faster, others are so that as much of my memory doesn't have to be relied on when flipping through multiple screens. Many of these suggestions aren't really an issue until you start getting a lot of data to deal with, but then they are really cumbersome to work through.

I'd like to see my own company at the top of the newspaper stock charts (at least if publicly traded).
Gives a reason to look at it more often, and would just be a nice feature.

​

Use a color to highlight any parts/vehicles that are licensed or outsourced.

Would be really useful when evaluating inventory after picking up a large company with a bunch of models and parts. You can go through them in the upgrade parts and see which can be modified, as long as it's not new, but then you have to remember which is which to discontinue. Having that on the view parts screen would be nice. An alternative might be to label parts with the actual originating company (rather than the company holding them, although the drawback there is that you wouldn't see the company holding it, so I think colors are easier and better way to spot.

Owned vehicles color highlight in branch models list

This would be useful to quickly identify which models are yours and how they stack up against each other in terms of ratings. Alternatively (and probably more difficultly) to have the cars ratings visible on the model list pricing sheet. A filter (on the lower models list) would be a third alternative. Basically, the idea is to be able to see at a glance, how your cars of the same type, such as sedans, stack up against each other in terms of price and rating.

View parts screen filter

Would be nice to have a filter for marquis. Probably a bit more work, but would be really nice when you start getting multiple pages of entries and you are trying to work on a specific marquis line. Would be awesome if you could isolate a marquis rather than burrow through a bunch of pages.

A possible alternate approach would be to have a sort (actually multi-sort) that named them by :Marquis, Model, Year as a form of predefined nametag string on the vehicle screen. This way iterations of vehicles could be found together easily.

Easy way to switch entire company to regional or global shipping defaults

Whether through a map command, or apply to all, or autocommand, doesn't really matter. Basically when checked/activated, it would make all shipping distances a set distance (or just regional/global). Maybe just as an option to "make all branches global" or "make all branches regional" or "standard shipping distance", whatever's easiest.

Once a company gets to a certain size, and a lot of models are being deployed, it's difficult to remember to reset the shipping distance all the time a new vehicle is launched. The game switches to global production instantly when auto-produce is set, so I'm guessing the code is mostly there already.

Company Takeovers info

When a company defaults, and is eligible for acquisition due to bankruptcy, it would be really nice to be able to see the chart where their factories and branches are (as well as how large) before doing the takeover. You can do this with public companies, but companies that aren't listed in the stock exchange are basically blind buys. Obviously if a company has a bigger factory, in the same place as one of yours, you might want to shut yours down before doing the acquisition, since it defaults to the one you own. Ideally put them temporarily into the stock overview at the top when the offer is made, depending on how messy that is to change to, so their assets can be properly evaluated.

If that's prohibitive for code complexity reasons, simply listing where there headquarters are at in the takeover text, would be at least a useful clue. (example: Creditors of CompanyName who's headquarters are in CityName... should we buy the company... would you like to research) .

Option to change or verify the marquee of a newly designed vehicle or component, at least before the turn end. I shudder to think how many times I've put a bunch of parts from one marquee into a car that I forgot to switch from my main company when hitting the build button. Forcing a redesign and delete, or worse, building it and finding that its made from different suppliers that I don't want to mix.

While I haven't checked yet to see if the autocommand that prevents vehicle designs from being shared, also prevents mixed origin cars from being sold by the new company, it's a concern. I'm guessing that you'd know that. Either way, if I'm planning a 99% owned subsidiary, that I want to spin off, I don't want to cripple it out the gate.

Rebadge components

A different approach to the above problem would be to simply be able to rebadge components or vehicles. So if my company takes over a competitor, I can basically rebrand their parts to other marquis without redesigning everything. Don't know if that's desirable for historic reasons, or programmatic reasons, but it would be a pretty way to set up a variety of marquees easily, even if there were rebranding fees involved. Also solves the "I forgot to change the damn name" when designing things problem.

Car Design Summary (add car type)

When I design a vehicle, and pull up the vehicle stats at the end of the process, sometimes I forget whether it was a coup or coup 2+2, or a roadster or whatever the original plan was before I started moving all the sliders. If the vehicle type was shown in the summary, along with all the horsepower ratings, towing capacity and other data, it would be useful.

The reason that I would like this, aside from being able to make sure the stats fit my concept, is that I often put the vehicle type in the name. Example: Fireball Sedan. This is frequently useful when looking at other lists, in other parts of the game, which don't identify the vehicle class. Don't recall which screens, off the top of my head (sales charts? or maybe in the branch model list) but I do remember it's often something I want to know and don't have the label to see.

Posted Dec 29, 2019, 3:35 AM UTC

632
escalationOP•

Played a couple more hours. A couple other places where it would be extremely useful to have the actual manufacturers intellectual property owner's company listed.

Vehicle design screen on the icons, possibly at the bottom portion where the icons display. (At the top there is the gold colored component name). This would solve one of the larger problems, of knowing when mismatched components are in use, or a vehicle is relying on parts from other designers than the primary marquee.

Somewhat important for licensed designs, but really important for outsourced/purchased components since you can not only not upgrade them, you may run into production limitations. A different color or tone of border might be even easier to notice.

Also in pretty much all of the specs boxes, such as you see when you click view component.

2
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Thanks for the lists. As mentioned in a different channel and the other threads, unfortunately, you're a bit too late with these suggestions. The vanilla game is wrapping up and work over the last few months is mainly focused on bugs, translations, and documentation. We are aiming for a full release in Q1.

Post release will also mainly focus on bugs. I will attempt to raise funds via the user base in what will be called a "Feature Bounty" system. But this is not guaranteed to lead to any additional work on the game. As it will require the community to contribute money in exchange for my time.

With that in mind, let's go through your post.

I'd like to see my own company at the top of the newspaper stock charts (at least if publicly traded).

The newspaper is mainly fluff, and should be used to see world events. The game tells you when a world event is by glowing the paper yellow. The stocks listed there is filler, for stock details, you should be opening your monthly stock report. Under Revenues > Stock Holdings.

Owned vehicles color highlight in branch models list

Color coding is a possibility, but it gets a lot of push back by color blind players. So I have been reluctant to implement it in places where it's not needed. In the case of viewing your vehicle in the Branch Window competition lists, generally, I don't think the player will have many entries in the list beside the vehicle they're currently selling. Anyway, this is a possibility, so I will mark it down for expansion.

This would be useful to quickly identify which models are yours and how they stack up against each other in terms of ratings.

The gui library does not support multicolumn lists, any adding additional information to the lists is extremely cumbersome and unwieldily, as I have to simulate multi-column lists boxes using fixed width mono-text strings. Also we have to try to minimize horizontal scrolling, as some users REALLY hate that. So this is not an option unless we do a GUI rewrite. (Will need to raise approximately $200,000.)

A filter (on the lower models list) would be a third alternative. Basically, the idea is to be able to see at a glance, how your cars of the same type, such as sedans, stack up against each other in terms of price and rating.

Not sure what you want to filter. The competition lists in the Branch Distribution window already shows only vehicles of the same type as the one selected in the sales list. If you go to world map, select a city, then use the competition browser, there are additional filters which allow you to select by vehicle type or marque.

Use a color to highlight any parts/vehicles that are licensed or outsourced.

It has been requested that I merge the view and modify windows together. Although it will probably require new GUI library to do so well. Color coding is a possibility, but as mentioned above, it gets a lot of push back by a vocal segment of the community.

That being said, the end production system is on the modify window. So I am not sure why you would have to remember which to end production. Cycle through the list on the modification window, When you come across one, hit the "View Chassis" button from the modification window. Verify that it has no vehicles are using it. Then end production of it from modification window. If there are vehicles using it, you can also use the modify vehicle window at the same time.

So workflow wise, I am not sure why having color coded licensed/outsourced units in the View window would improve anything.

An alternative might be to label parts with the actual originating company (rather than the company holding them, although the drawback there is that you wouldn't see the company holding it, so I think colors are easier and better way to spot.

Won't happen, as we don't support multi-column lists boxes. And it would be too much data on the screen for mono-spaced fixed lists that we have now.

View parts screen filter

In general, components tend to merge together, and ownership of components are rarely defined unless the player specifically defines them. So a marque filter will be useless in most users cases.

A possible alternate approach would be to have a sort (actually multi-sort) that named them by :Marquis, Model, Year as a form of predefined nametag string on the vehicle screen. This way iterations of vehicles could be found together easily.

We try to avoid adding additional data to lists. Due to the issues mentioned above.

Easy way to switch entire company to regional or global shipping defaults

World Map -> Districts -> World (First drop down) -> Branch -> Shipping.

Adjust the slider to Global, check the "Vehicles inherit branch shipping distance or district locks." checkbox.

Alternatively, you can use a world district lock (be sure to check the inherit checkbox). OR just use Auto Production for global shipping.

Company Takeovers info

World Map -> Maps -> Competition, select the company from the drop down.

This will not provide detailed info such as production lines, if the company isn't publicly traded, that information is not easily available. (If the company is publicly traded, use the stock report for the company.)

Option to change or verify the marquee of a newly designed vehicle or component, at least before the turn end. I shudder to think how many times I've put a bunch of parts from one marquee into a car that I forgot to switch from my main company when hitting the build button.

If I am not mistaken, spinning off a company that does not own their components does not result in the vehicle design being deleted. They simply produce the vehicle using a one-model royalty free license. They won't be able to use that component for any other design than the one you designed for them.

Rebadge components

Rebadging designs without having to redesign them has been brought up before. And may get implemented in the expansion.

Car Design Summary (add car type)

"Format" button shows the vehicle type. To get back to the designer without breaking anything, just hit "OK" , select either designer, then "Return to the Design Panel". But I will see if I can work it into the Ratings window.

Vehicle design screen on the icons,

Not sure what you mean by this. You want the blue print icons for designs on the View Window? Or you want to change the color coding of the text when selecting components using the vehicle designer?

1
escalationOP•

Thanks for taking your time to reply. Have the game open now, so should assist my memory a bit.

Apologize for not originally making these separate posts, to make them easier to follow, didn't want to spam your forum too hard. In retrospect, it would make some of the specifics easier to manage.

To remedy that, and make things easier to follow, I'm going to break each one down as a separate reply (as separate responses with context). Carve the elephant up a bit, as it were. Applied some formatting, which should help as well.

Hopefully this makes it a bit easier to manage on your side, and should help with clarification (or alternate approaches) without getting too much clutter. I know a lot of this is late in the process, and some may have been suggested before. Certainly no rush to respond, just wanted to sideload my perspectives as a player into your brainpan

1
escalationOP•

I'd like to see my own company at the top of the newspaper stock charts (at least if publicly traded).

The newspaper is mainly fluff, and should be used to see world events. The game tells you when a world event is by glowing the paper yellow. The stocks listed there is filler, for stock details, you should be opening your monthly stock report. Under Revenues > Stock Holdings.

Thanks. I know where the monthly reports are, and the information is pretty superficial. The game world reason for the suggestion is that it lets me track my company against the 'automotive dow', at a glance. Basically a one click check where I can see if my stocks are doing well against my competitors. Not super-necessary, but I think it adds a degree of immersion and helps the player feel that their company is 'important'. Whether it's worth the effort to change, is another matter entirely. Just something I always wanted to see.

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Well stock price is not a measurement of how well a company is doing. For that, you need to look at market cap. And that would take up a bit more space.

1
escalationOP•

True, in the long term, so if playing fast isn't much point. However if spot checking it on a pretty regular basis (much like the event notepad), you usually see things like companies getting close to splits, then its pretty fast way to keep an eye on trends, without investing a lot of clicks.

As I mentioned, maybe mostly about immersion and feeling part of the game world, people like to see their name in the headlines. At least as long as its not related to a scandal

1
escalationOP•

Use a color to highlight any parts/vehicles that are licensed or outsourced.

This would be useful to quickly identify which models are yours and how they stack up against each other in terms of ratings.

Color coding is a possibility, but it gets a lot of push back by color blind players. So I have been reluctant to implement it in places where it's not needed. In the case of viewing your vehicle in the Branch Window competition lists, generally, I don't think the player will have many entries in the list beside the vehicle they're currently selling. Anyway, this is a possibility, so I will mark it down for expansion.

Understandable. It works, although as long as it remains legible for those players it would be a neutral change from what they have now. An alternate solution might be some form of font change. Color coding with a grey tone might also work.

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Ideally, you'd get another column in the list with an Icon. But this is impossible to do with the current GUI system.

2
escalationOP•

using fixed width mono-text strings in parts screen filters (R&D 'view' submenus)

The gui library does not support multicolumn lists, any adding additional information to the lists is extremely cumbersome and unwieldily, as I have to simulate multi-column lists boxes using fixed width mono-text strings. Also we have to try to minimize horizontal scrolling, as some users REALLY hate that. So this is not an option unless we do a GUI rewrite. (Will need to raise approximately $200,000.)

Thought it might be something like that. Wasnt't sure if the gui would allow hidden fields. Worth a shot. Some more specific proposed solutions to consider, that could work within the existing framework. Not sure if these are major changes or not, just putting them out there, since they are definitely easier than a full gui change.

View parts screen filter. (view parts screen: R&D > View submenus) (vehicle) --> sort by type

An option would be to move the year column to before model and disappend the year from the model string. [Company+model] would become a default, which would allow sorting by model, and have them organizationally grouped by Marquee. Not sure if this can be done without having side scrolling, perhaps the materials cost header could be shortened to "materials", the dollar signs probably provide enough of a cue.

View parts screen filter. (view parts screen: R&D > View submenus) (engine/chassis/gearbox)

Overall Rating = Overall, Material Cost = Materials. This would potentially leave room for a manufacturer or marquis column, enabling sort. (might require truncation)

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

An option would be to move the year column to before model and disappend the year from the model string. [Company+model] would become a default, which would allow sorting by model, and have them organizationally grouped by Marquee.

Not a good idea, because having multiple generations of the same car is encouraged. Having 10 vehicles with the same exact name isn't very friendly. The year is what separates them.

Overall Rating = Overall, Material Cost = Materials. This would potentially leave room for a manufacturer or marquis column, enabling sort. (might require truncation)

While a valid solution for English, it is not a valid solution for other languages. The space I take up is mostly buffer space for translations, which have to fit in the same area as well. I use verbose English so there is room for succinct German.

2
escalationOP•

Megamenu branch lists (clarification)

A filter (on the lower models list)... Basically, the idea is to be able to see at a glance, how your cars of the same type, such as sedans, stack up against each other in terms of price and rating.

Not sure what you want to filter. The competition lists in the Branch Distribution window already shows only vehicles of the same type as the one selected in the sales list. If you go to world map, select a city, then use the competition browser, there are additional filters which allow you to select by vehicle type or marque.

Looking at this now. Functionally, the goal is to be able to see the price and ratings of my cars, and especially cars of the same model together, when I adjust them in the branch chart on the mega-menu (which is the only practical way of dealing with more than a handful of branches)

A checkbox that applied the marquis selection (in the top half) to the bottom half would make it possible to compare my cars against each other (or even cars of a specific marquis). Effectively when checked it would hide the competitors vehicles, making it easier to set up the pricing on my cars relative to each other.

A solution that would give a similar game-play purpose, would be to add overall rating to the top half of the branch menu (if scrolling can be avoided)

As far as space concerns, perhaps it could replace merge trims (unless its actually something useful in a way that I've overlooked. Seems like it can put cars with very different ratings at the same price point, so not sure how the game engine uses it. Maybe should be a separate question?

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Use the districting system in the world map to manage multiple branches.

Then use the "Competition" window while you use the Branch Distribution Window. That will allow you to filter the competition anyway you want, while at the same time manage the prices of your designs.

A checkbox that applied the marquis selection (in the top half) to the bottom half would make it possible to compare my cars against each other (or even cars of a specific marquis). Effectively when checked it would hide the competitors vehicles, making it easier to set up the pricing on my cars relative to each other.

You shouldn't really be pricing against any specific marque vehicles outside of the vehicles in the same class as the selected model. So other than narrowing a list of models down to 2 or 3, I don't see the benefit.

A solution that would give a similar game-play purpose, would be to add overall rating to the top half of the branch menu (if scrolling can be avoided)

Overall rating plays very little importance in selling a vehicle. You should be using the Buyer Rating Breakdown Table when determining ratings, prices, and sales of your vehicle against the competition. The bottom competition list is purely for a quick price to sales view. If anything, I should be removing the ratings that are there, as they are ambiguous.

As far as space concerns, perhaps it could replace merge trims (unless its actually something useful in a way that I've overlooked. Seems like it can put cars with very different ratings at the same price point, so not sure how the game engine uses it. Maybe should be a separate question?

Merge trims is a very useful tool if you're managing vehicle designs with lots of trims. It uses the percentage difference in material costs to set the difference in sales price. And can easily cut the work load of setting trim prices down by (n-1)/0.01 percent.

1
escalationOP•

You shouldn't really be pricing against any specific marque vehicles outside of the vehicles in the same class as the selected model. So other than narrowing a list of models down to 2 or 3, I don't see the benefit.

Using a standard chassis or two, and adding various combinations of engines and gearboxes seems to work pretty well for getting a lot of models out, targeting different market segments, without spending a fortune on research and development.

Not quite as cost effective as buying out crashing companies, and getting body styles and components for pennies on the dollar, but definitely an efficient way of getting production lines filled and focusing on expansion. (It's a bit of a hassle later when you want to diversify, but making entirely new designs can get expensive really fast.) At any rate, take three or four variants, add two or three generations of development, and that's a large number of models being fielded.

Throw in a few buyouts and takeovers and it's not that hard to rack up a lot of vehicles in the same class. In a 300 AI game, where the player has multiple pages of sedans, for instance, this can be a problem.

At the moment it is really difficult to know where your new car stacks up against other variants in terms of price/rating scales, which makes it hard to coordinate a manufacturing strategy with a decent price spread. The price suggestion (numeric) tool seems to be more closely tied to materials cost and/or anticipated sales. This doesn't necessarily match up to the number of available production lines I have going on at a given time.

Overall rating plays very little importance in selling a vehicle. You should be using the Buyer Rating Breakdown Table when determining ratings, prices, and sales of your vehicle against the competition. The bottom competition list is purely for a quick price to sales view. If anything, I should be removing the ratings that are there, as they are ambiguous.

They still give a decently fast "rule of thumb", and a global number makes it easier to do a quick compare of its development state, and how your tech design/standards stand up against the competition. Also a good cue that it might be time to retire the car, without having to analyze whether its obsolescence issues or just highly mistargeted market pricing. Example: If a car is rated at 15-25 and your baseline is around 50, it's a reminder to retire it or redesign it, or lower the price. If the cars have a wide spread in the same model year, it's usually because one is luxury oriented and the other is cheap and fast to manufacture. Anyhow, I find it useful.

Overall rating plays very little importance in selling a vehicle. You should be using the Buyer Rating Breakdown Table when determining ratings, prices, and sales of your vehicle against the competition. The bottom competition list is purely for a quick price to sales view. If anything, I should be removing the ratings that are there, as they are ambiguous.

That's good in the early game, on higher difficulty levels, or in situations where you want to really analyze a vehicle for optimization. Unless you run into problems, or want to really push a car hard, then it's pretty superficial data in the later stages of the game. When I've got 3 cars, that information matters a lot. When I've got 100+ and my main concern is having enough surplus production capacity to handle the next wave of cars, it's pretty low on my priority list.

As a player, when the game gets large and international, I'm mostly looking at production/sales figures combined with the overall rating from the mega-controller because it gives me a pretty comprehensive overview, and shows me where I might need to dig in deeper.

Merge trims is a very useful tool if you're managing vehicle designs with lots of trims. It uses the percentage difference in material costs to set the difference in sales price. And can easily cut the work load of setting trim prices down by (n-1)/0.01 percent.

Alright, good information. So works off of baseline per-unit profit levels, more or less. Can see where that would be useful for some play styles.

Do those numbers get fixed after its unchecked, or do they revert to previously set numbers? I can see doing this to set baselines and then phasing out cars with inordinate production costs relative to quality, for instance.

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Overall rating plays very little importance in selling a vehicle. You should be using the Buyer Rating Breakdown Table when determining ratings, prices, and sales of your vehicle against the competition. The bottom competition list is purely for a quick price to sales view. If anything, I should be removing the ratings that are there, as they are ambiguous.

That's good in the early game, on higher difficulty levels, or in situations where you want to really analyze a vehicle for optimization. Unless you run into problems, or want to really push a car hard, then it's pretty superficial data in the later stages of the game. When I've got 3 cars, that information matters a lot. When I've got 100+ and my main concern is having enough surplus production capacity to handle the next wave of cars, it's pretty low on my priority list.

Not sure how it's superficial, it's literally line by line the formula used to determine the sales of your vehicle.

Do those numbers get fixed after its unchecked, or do they revert to previously set numbers? I can see doing this to set baselines and then phasing out cars with inordinate production costs relative to quality, for instance.

Not sure what you mean. If you click merge trim, it merges all the trims in the list with their base model. Any changes you make will be applied to all the trims of that base model. If you uncheck the box, the list goes back to normal. The changes remain.

1
escalationOP•

Easy way to switch entire company to regional or global shipping defaults

World Map -> Districts -> World (First drop down) -> Branch -> Shipping. Adjust the slider to Global, check the "Vehicles inherit branch shipping distance or district locks." checkbox. Alternatively, you can use a world district lock (be sure to check the inherit checkbox). OR just use Auto Production for global shipping.

Alright, cool. Missed this change. Pretty deep in the system, but I'll explore it and watch the tutorial. Thanks.

1
escalationOP•

Company Takeovers info (during the creditors sell company popup)

World Map -> Maps -> Competition, select the company from the drop down. This will not provide detailed info such as production lines, if the company isn't publicly traded, that information is not easily available. (If the company is publicly traded, use the stock report for the company.)

This is really cool. Now that I think about it, I probably have seen it before and forgot about it.

Might be a nice addition to have a button/hyperlink that links directly to that (and perhaps another for their stocks sheet) if they are publicly traded, directly on the notification popup where it asks if you'd like to research the company. Think this might be a nice 'user friendliness' feature for several reasons.

Would also be a really helpful link button to have in the broker window as well

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Reports are html pages are can't interact with in game objects. Also it's very difficult to jump from one room to another with the intent to open specific data. So sadly, you can't open this map from anywhere but the world map.

2
escalationOP•

Spun off vehicles (one model license)

Option to change or verify the marquee of a newly designed vehicle or component, at least before the turn end. I shudder to think how many times I've put a bunch of parts from one marquee into a car that I forgot to switch from my main company when hitting the build button.

If I am not mistaken, spinning off a company that does not own their components does not result in the vehicle design being deleted. They simply produce the vehicle using a one-model royalty free license. They won't be able to use that component for any other design than the one you designed for them.

Thanks. Good info and good solution regarding the spun off vehicles. I didn't have an easy, intuitive way to check this, and was concerned about the impacts. Does it work both directions?

This does leave the problem of designing a vehicle, and having the wrong marquis branding on the vehicle itself. I suppose this can be resolved by creating a new trim under the marquis, if the player is click happy (like I tend to be). Still a pretty expensive mistake, if cashflow is tight.

A confirm dialogue (after the build click) that says something like "Boss, please sign the production orders for [Marquis] [Vehicle Type] [Vehicle Name] [Vehicle Trim]" -- [accept]/[reconsider]" (where reconsider closes the popup) might be a nice touch to prevent this particular mistake.

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Thanks. Good info and good solution regarding the spun off vehicles. I didn't have an easy, intuitive way to check this, and was concerned about the impacts. Does it work both directions?

Yes, once a vehicle is designed, it sticks with the components unless they were outsourced or licensed. In which case, I believe we generate a new contract for those components.

This does leave the problem of designing a vehicle, and having the wrong marquis branding on the vehicle itself. I suppose this can be resolved by creating a new trim under the marquis, if the player is click happy (like I tend to be). Still a pretty expensive mistake, if cashflow is tight.

Part of the reason why folks have asked for a rebadge option. But yes, as of now, you'd make a new trim or new generation, and make no changes other than the marque. Should cost about 2 months and 20% development costs.

A confirm dialogue (after the build click) that says something like "Boss, please sign the production orders for [Marquis] [Vehicle Type] [Vehicle Name] [Vehicle Trim]" -- [accept]/[reconsider]" (where reconsider closes the popup) might be a nice touch to prevent this particular mistake.

Modern UI design says you should avoid popups if possible. I've even had a person threaten to kill me if I don't reduce the amount of popups in the game. For some reason it really ticks off some folks... Either way, a pop up for this isn't a solution. An easy way to undo the mistake is a better option.

2
escalationOP•

Seems like a bit of an overreaction on the part of the player, just the same, safety first.

Ability to undo, would be cool, and probably less dangerous :)

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Seems like a bit of an overreaction on the part of the player, just the same, safety first.

Out of 70,000-80,000 people who have tried the game, you can imagine I have gotten a few crazies over the years.

Ability to undo, would be cool, and probably less dangerous :)

By undo, I mean the rebadge system.

2
escalationOP•

Rebadge components

Rebadging designs without having to redesign them has been brought up before. And may get implemented in the expansion.

That would be sweet! Hopefully it makes the cut. It's really easy to get deeply involved in tweaking the sliders, and getting everything just right, then click done and realizing too late that you made it for the wrong marquee.

As a general mechanic, has some interesting implications as well. Probably should be some costs involved, 'setup fees', especially if its already in production or came from an outside company. I like this a lot. Would make tearing down companies and creating subsidiaries considerably easier and more interesting.

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

I don't think there will be any costs associated with rebadging. As it will simply be selecting a new marque from a drop down, and that's it. No duplicate models or anything. One has to use the Trim or New Generation system for those.

2
escalationOP•

I don't think there will be any costs associated with rebadging. As it will simply be selecting a new marque from a drop down, and that's it. No duplicate models or anything. One has to use the Trim or New Generation system for those.

Of all the things that we've discussed, this would be one of the coolest to see. Aside from the originally stated purpose, it would make strategies like regional focus much easier to do, and give a lot of flexibility to the company. Also has the benefit of making it relatively quick to assign models to marquis that you intended to sell, spin-off, or even convert to parts/model resellers (although I don't really like the last approach much because its often counter-productive). Probably other applications which I haven't thought of yet.

The reason for the cost suggestion is mostly to avoid over-exploit, and realistically would have some kind of supply chain costs. On the other hand, that may be more detail than is needed, and would complexify the code.

Either way, I think the ability to meaningfully restructure in this way (and fix mistakes) would be pretty helpful, especially in the later stages.

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Well, if there is a cost, it won't be much. Possibly dollar amount per existing inventory. But for the most part, it's just replacing an ID number in the vehicle's entry to the database. The real problem is where to stick it in the GUI. Etc.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
escalationOP•

Car Design Summary (add car type)

"Format" button shows the vehicle type. To get back to the designer without breaking anything, just hit "OK" , select either designer, then "Return to the Design Panel". But I will see if I can work it into the Ratings window.

That would be really nice. Format process is pretty risky, especially after a long design thinking out process. Usually I want this info when I'm naming the car, but it's also nice, in terms of immersion, to have handy when looking over the specs

1
escalationOP•

Vehicle design screen on the icons

possibly at the bottom portion where the icons display. (At the top there is the gold colored component name). This would solve one of the larger problems, of knowing when mismatched components are in use, or a vehicle is relying on parts from other designers than the primary marquee.

Somewhat important for licensed designs, but really important for outsourced/purchased components since you can not only not upgrade them, you may run into production limitations. A different color or tone of border might be even easier to notice.

Not sure what you mean by this. You want the blue print icons for designs on the View Window? Or you want to change the color coding of the text when selecting components using the vehicle designer?

Where existing blueprint icons are. (Design vehicle -- select chassis, select engine, select gearbox) Currently the icons have the the part name in gold in a text overwrite at the top of the blueprint. At the bottom of the blueprint graphic (overlayed text), I'd like to see the manufacturing companies name. Seeing something like

This way when I'm doing a vehicle design and see a part with a default name such as "c-k-32", I immediately know whether its a part owned by my company, one of my acquired companies, or if "michigan electro" or another outside company might abruptly stop/limit producing parts at some unknown point in the future. As CEO this is fairly vital information.

If that's not practical for space reasons, a solution which would be 'next best' would be a tag which occupies less space which clearly marks components, Outsourced or Licensed, where applicable.

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

Ah, gotchya. Might be do-able. I will add it to an expansion ticket.

Although, I would really like to overhaul the entire designer GUI system. We'll see.

2
escalationOP•

Ah, gotchya. Might be do-able. I will add it to an expansion ticket.

You're awesome. I feel bad about burning so much of your time, glad that at least some of the feedback is useful for you. Your responses have certainly been helpful for me, and the game has been the source of much entertainment.

As a small thank you, I just purchased another copy of your game and gifted it to someone I think will enjoy it.

Although, I would really like to overhaul the entire designer GUI system. We'll see.

Sounds like a major project. Will be interesting to see where you go with it, if you decide to take it on.

1
VENTDEVVENT Owner/Developer•

You're awesome. I feel bad about burning so much of your time, glad that at least some of the feedback is useful for you. Your responses have certainly been helpful for me, and the game has been the source of much entertainment.

Don't worry about it, I consider it part of what you paid me for. Although I am not particularly a fan of Reddit formatting for long posts.

As a small thank you, I just purchased another copy of your game and gifted it to someone I think will enjoy it.

Thank you for the patronage!

Although, I would really like to overhaul the entire designer GUI system. We'll see. Sounds like a major project. Will be interesting to see where you go with it, if you decide to take it on.

It will probably be bundled with an overhaul of the car designer artwork. At around $200,000 bounty. Which I think will be out of reach considering we only have about 1000-3000 active players.

2