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Which engine do you design in 1900?
#1
While chassis and gearbox are quite easy to design in a way they do perform reasonably good, designing an engine is quite hard.
The per capita is very low in 1900, so engine prices should be as low as possible.

Most times i end up with an 1 hp single cylinder engine with very low sliders (except fuel efficiency) which gives excellent MPG and reasonably good reliability, but it feels somewhat gamey. Even with the "too low power penalty" an 100 MPG engine produces 25 MPG in any car. And there is no need to invest a single buck to fuel efficiency in gearbox or car as that will not increase the MPG with such a low power engine, making the car even cheaper.

There seems no point in designing an 10 hp engine as its still abysmal in power but price, reliability and especially MPG are much worse. Even for microcars 10 hp are way too low to give any benefit over 1 hp.
You would need to design an >25 hp engine but that is extrem costly to produce and limit the target market to the few very wealty.

How do you design your first engine?
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#2
I usually start with a decent 3.0l to 3.2l inline 6 with around 45HP in case i get lucky on some military pickup contracts and design a inline 3 with ~10-15HP for a phaeton.

The 1hp single-cylinder is a real weird thing. Fuel efficiency is so good, price so low and the "too slow" debuff seems to have no to very little impact on sales.

It's a cheat Smile

I'll build single-cylinder engines with 1 hp from now on.
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#3
Just make sure that it moves, otherwise you'll sell 0. That being said, I think the base speed in 1900 is around 5mph. So if it goes 3mph, you'll be losing 40% of potential sales. You get into the 1980s where base is around 60mph, and a 1mph car would be a huge flop.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#4
Yeah but with that single cylinder you can basically build every sort of car for around 190 $ production costs and flod the market with 799 $ cars which will get horrible reviews but sell like crazy.
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#5
(06-15-2016, 02:06 PM)Cerberus23 Wrote: Yeah but with that single cylinder you can basically build every sort of car for around 190 $ production costs and flod the market with 799 $ cars which will get horrible reviews but sell like crazy.

Only because it takes a while for the AI to fill the markets. Eventually AI will prefill the markets before the game even begins. Tongue
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#6
(06-11-2016, 03:44 AM)Nuvag Wrote: While chassis and gearbox are quite easy to design in a way they do perform reasonably good, designing an engine is quite hard.
The per capita is very low in 1900, so engine prices should be as low as possible.

Most times i end up with an 1 hp single cylinder engine with very low sliders (except fuel efficiency) which gives excellent MPG and reasonably good reliability, but it feels somewhat gamey. Even with the "too low power penalty" an 100 MPG engine produces 25 MPG in any car. And there is no need to invest a single buck to fuel efficiency in gearbox or car as that will not increase the MPG with such a low power engine, making the car even cheaper.

There seems no point in designing an 10 hp engine as its still abysmal in power but price, reliability and especially MPG are much worse. Even for microcars 10 hp are way too low to give any benefit over 1 hp.
You would need to design an >25 hp engine but that is extrem costly to produce and limit the target market to the few very wealty.

How do you design your first engine?

The game really does not care about horsepower. It's more or less used for calculating top speed only.

Now what the game really do care about is torque. Fuel efficency is higly dependend upon torque, weight, and size (aerodynamic drag). Both chassis size and body size make a huge impact.

And after Eric nerfed torque output, designing engines with high torque is even more crucial.

So my first engines are basicly 2-stroke tractor engines (extremely long stroked). What type depends on wich difficulty I play on. On my current hard game i started with a S3 (Tech limitations on hard means a straight is your only viable option). Most sliders all the way down, the need to finish it in 3 months without breaking the bank was a priority (main focus was to keep the design cost down, part cost was secondary). Why 3 months you may ask. Because thats when you need your first car to be designed, to contest in all the first season racing series.

I might post a picture of the settings when I get back to my home computer.

The engine did not break any records, but was decent enough. And far better than most of the rubbish the AI designs. The AI really sucks at engine and gearbox designs, and often uses gearboxes capable of only handling a fraction of the torque the engine it's paired with puts out.

Another thing, engine size sliders should always be kept at maximum. This gives you higher HP, better reliability, better cost and only slightly higher weight. So design your engine first. Then make the chassis fit the engine, not the other way around.
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#7
Here is the first engine for my current hard game.
   
That engine got used in 2 designs. A Phaeton which was really crappy and destined for a short lifespan, but it had short development, and gave me sorely needed revenue.
   
The other was a crappy sportscar, since i was short on development funds I had to develop this as slow as I could (it won 00 Vent Championship wich was it's main purpose).
   
The SportCrap went into sales Dec 03 and was discontinued Feb 07 and was the highest selling car at the time, with 41590 cars sold.
   
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#8
(06-22-2016, 05:09 PM)Shepherd Wrote: The SportCrap went into sales Dec 03 and was discontinued Feb 07 and was the highest selling car at the time, with 41590 cars sold.

That's quite a fast and rapid expansion for hard mode and with a sports car. Hopefully it'll be solved with established history for the AI. Wink I assume you didn't have much competition in the markets/segment.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#9
Derailing the thread a little bit now, I just posted above to show that it is possible to sell cheap engines and vehichles without the need to over engineer them.

But yes it's a very rapid expansion, that is the strategy. And I am not only selling sports cars. But I am barely breaking even in the first years because of heavy reinvestment (building factories mainly).

       

No I had decent competition, but it's not that difficult to dominate the AI. The AI is dumb as a dodo, only a handfull of AI companies actually does something that makes economical sense.

       

And hard really isn't that hard. The AI behaves just the same as in Normal and Easy mode. The only difference is lower starting tech, less cash, lower initial ratings. So it takes just a little bit longer. Once you get past a certain cash flow you really have no competition.

I do know that writing a good AI is extremely difficult. And getting one like this with a plethora of choices to make, to behave "humanly" certainly is not easy. So I am not critizising the AI, just saying that there is some room for improvment.
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#10
15,000 units a year in 1907 is still pretty good considering that the AI starts out with nothing and expands much more slowly than the player. Comparing it to historical numbers it's more than real life. Oldsmobile Curved Dash was the best selling vehicle pre Model T. And it only moved 19,000 models between 1901 to 1907.

So the AI isn't really the problem. (Although I agree it can be better.) The ability to expand super rapidly is. (And I bet most of that is due to insanely cheap cars.)

Anyhoo when I remove the empty world vacuum with pre-history. Your expansion rate will hopefully slow down a bit without my need of going in and balancing things. Smile
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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