GearCity questions

[peter]

After I played some weeks, I have some questions about the game:

- Is there an easy way to find out which car type are produced in which factory?
I have often the case that one car type is not fully sold. Therefore I want to find the factory(s) with unsold cars, e.g. to reduce the producing line(s) for this car type.
Actually I have to click on all of my factories to find this.
I have now 12 factories for 38 car type. This will increase in the next years.

- Is there an easy way to check which prices my cars had last month?
There is a list which show how much cars are sold this month. And you can show the numbers of last month.
On another list the actual prices are listed.
But if in this month less cars are sold, I like to see the former price, because this may be the reason.

- How can I rename cars?
I found only how to rename the components (motor...).
As I produce really a lot of car types I like to do some renames for helping me to easily identify them.

Greetings,
Peter

[Eric.B]

- Is there an easy way to find out which car type are produced in which factory?
I have often the case that one car type is not fully sold. Therefore I want to find the factory(s) with unsold cars, e.g. to reduce the producing line(s) for this car type.
Actually I have to click on all of my factories to find this.
I have now 12 factories for 38 car type. This will increase in the next years.

If by "car type" you mean car models, then you can use the report system. The report that is probably the most helpful for this is the Operations > Factory report: https://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=g...es#factory

The reports system are web pages, so anything underlined is a hyper link. If you see a factory with inventory (#4 in the picture), click on the name of the city (#2 in the picture) and it will pull up the info for that city, including what you are over producing.

Generally when you get this large, you should be using the district system or auto production to save yourself a lot of work.

- Is there an easy way to check which prices my cars had last month?

Prices as in sales prices? The "City Sales" report (and selecting a city from this report) will list revenues, but not specific sales price. (You can always do the math to get the sales price by dividing revenue by sales). https://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=g...city_sales

There is a list which show how much cars are sold this month. And you can show the numbers of last month.

The monthly report? City sales report, vehicle sales report, district sales report, etc all have this information.

On another list the actual prices are listed.

I don't believe any of the reports list the sales price per branch. The "Total Delivery Cost" report does have an average sales price for all locations: https://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=g...ivery_cost


As for finding previous months' data, at the bottom of most reports is a link that says "< Previous Month" click that link to open the previous month's report. If you want to go back to a future report, use the report browser tools like a web browser (because it is a web browser). In other words, the "Back button" will take you to the previous page you were on.

- How can I rename cars?
I found only how to rename the components (motor...).
As I produce really a lot of car types I like to do some renames for helping me to easily identify them.

This is not a feature in base GearCity. It can be done in the free GearCity: 2nd Gear DLC, but that is currently not released outside of the Feature Bounty System.

[peter]

Many thanks for the informations!
I don’t know the hyper link feature so far. This is really useful.

PS: I don’t use the game with English language. It seems I made translations errors, sorry.

[akosberesi]

I have played Gear City for some time. I think it is an almost perfect game, however, I have some ideas, how it could be really perfect. Its economic and technical simulation is excellent, giving players detailed control over their company – a huge strength. My main concern is the visual side, especially car design, which could be improved to match the game’s depth.

Up to the 1970s, car designs look beautiful, but afterward creating visually pleasing vehicles requires compromises. Since this is also an automotive simulation, and cars are inherently visual, this matters for the experience. I have a few suggestions to address this:

Hardpoints for components: Limit free placement of elements like headlights, grilles, bumpers, and mirrors. Each element would have designated slots, but minor adjustment within the slot would still be possible, preserving creative freedom while avoiding misaligned or floating parts.

Modular bodies: Replace fixed bodies with modular designs (nose, middle, rear), adjusted for era and car type. Elements would always align with the chassis and allow minor customization while keeping proportions realistic.

Era-limited components: Make certain parts (wheels, lights, grilles) unavailable in later eras when they no longer make sense, similar to how bodies disappear over time.

Chassis-based scaling: Ensure body elements scale logically with the chassis. For example, a 1300 mm wheelbase race car shouldn’t end up four meters long just because of the selected body. Motor size could also visually influence the car (e.g., large front engines extending the nose). I think, these can be easily solved by the modular bodies I recommended above. 

Modular logos: Allow company emblems to be assembled from separate elements and used as hood ornaments, reflecting real automotive branding.

These changes could be implemented with the current graphics system, and they would allow beautiful, consistent designs from the earliest models up to the 21st century. This would elevate Gear City to a truly complete automotive simulation experience.

[Eric.B]

Hello, I am no longer working on GearCity. I suggest you read about our the Feature Bounty System, which was a system to raise funds to improve the UI and artwork in an expansion to GearCity called "GearCity: 2nd Gear". https://www.ventdev.com/fbs

However, the Feature Bounty System is coming to a close because the war in Ukraine has prevented my artist from working on it. Thus he has not been able to generate any new artwork which has caused significant delays to my next game. (Because I am having to cover the funds raised for artwork with heavily discounted programming bounties.)

There is an entirely new car designer in the GearCity: 2nd Gear which resolves many of the issues you mention. However, we don't have any artwork for the new system because of the aforementioned war.

Regular GearCity has approximately $30,000 worth of artwork.
To update GearCity's artwork for the new system would cost $105,000 with my Ukrainian artist.
To add all vehicle bodies planned, would cost $780,500.

Much of the availability of older components and choices to the old designer was due to limited artwork and budget.

I suggest reading up on these bounties:
[Postponed] #2 | Vehicle Body Designer Mk2
Artwork Bounties
[$3000] #111 | Vehicle Size Class
[$1000] #112 | Sports Vehicles | Requires: #57, #114
[$1000] #113 | Luxury Vehicles Classification | Requires: #57, #114

Modular logos: Allow company emblems to be assembled from separate elements and used as hood ornaments, reflecting real automotive branding.

Allowing player logos as decals is a possibility. Adding your logos to the game is pretty easy. Convert an image of your to a DDS file, and stick it in the player logos zip file. I suggest reading the modding manual for a detail how to.

These changes could be implemented with the current graphics system, and they would allow beautiful, consistent designs from the earliest models up to the 21st century. This would elevate Gear City to a truly complete automotive simulation experience.

End the war in Ukraine and donate to the FBS and then we'll be able to upgrade the artwork. Otherwise, it ain't going to happen. We only have $4000 in the bank.

[akosberesi]

Unfortunely I am not able to end the war in Ukraine, but I hope, it will be ended real soon. And as the FBS will be opened again, I will donate. Certainly. Gear City is one of the best games around. I also hope, your designer returns well, and you can finish this Mk.2 Vehicle Body Designer, because it will be a real hot stuff.
Anyway, I think, you use too many car bodies in the game, which I think slows down the development, not just of the new body designer, but of the new vehicle classes, aka. trucks, motorcycles, etc. And it may cost a lot of money for the copyrights.
So I recommend, to use just a limited number of body styles instead of the copies of exact car bodies in each era. For example Charriot style in the 1900-1910 era, or streamline in the 1930's. And these body styles could be modified (like you can remove fenders, you can lightly modify the position of the headlight-zone, etc.), however, it is a very good idea that the size and scale of a body are largely determined by the chassis and the engine.
It would also be a very good idea, if the vehicle bodies could be shared between vehicles of different classes (like sedans and coupés). If you really think in more separated body zones, it would be simple: if you want to make a cabrio version of your sedan, you can modify the cabin (you remove the roof), but the other parts of the vehicle need not to be modified. This would also mean, the design elements of the front are not removed. It would also mean, you can start a different class trim (in the standard Gear City you can just start a trim, which is the same class as the original vehicle).

Design elements: modders have the possibility to modify normal elements or to design their own elements, which they may use in the game. My question is: why is this feature just for modders? I think, designing grills, tires, lights, bumpers, and other elements is a very important part of the car industry. These represent marque identity. So I think it should be an integrated element of the game, available to each player. And if the elements would measure themselves automatically to the vehicle body (as it is written in the description of the Mk.2 Body Designer), the result could be beautiful. I would also add start and end dates for each design element - it is quite illogical, why there are charriot-style tires and brass lights still available in the sixties.
It would also be cool, if the design elements would have an effect on the luxury and style values of the vehicle, however, I know, it is another feature. Let's stay at the graphics.
I would still recommend to install three new design elements, which are not included:
- trafficator lights (to the front and back, and also to the size part);
- outside spare wheel;
- back ornaments.
I think it would be much better if car parts could be adjusted using numbers rather than just the mouse. For example, instead of gradually changing the size of a fender with imprecise increments, it would make more sense to have clearly defined values—either remove it, or keep it—so the intermediate steps don’t end up being meaningless.
It would be great if cabin sizing could be more flexible within the limits set by the chassis. The basic unit could be a row of seats: the first row is always the driver, and then additional rows can be added as long as they fit. It would also be useful to decide whether a row gets a door—by default the first row has one, but the others could be adjustable.
I hope, you can soon continue developing the Mk.2 Vehicle Body Designer, and that my ideas could be used as well.