Visual Entertainment and Technologies Forum - All Forums

Vehicle Type Skill

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 03:58:08 +0000

We now have skill levels in various fuel, gearbox, and chassis types, to a fairly fine-grained level. My company could heavily specialize in 3-cylinder vehicles, for example.

But we don't have any specialization in vehicle types. There's a general vehicle research skill, and more hidden, there are safely, luxury, and coachwork marque skills, but there isn't an ability to specialize in vans or phaetons and be really good at them.

This suggestion is to add that.

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The intended outcome would be that certain companies would focus on certain vehicle types, and you might have Ford, Chevy, and Dodge be really good at pickups, while Honda and Toyota are really good at sedans.

This would also create an incentive to acquire marques that are good at areas you aren't good in, to make your overall company skilled across a wider set of vehicle types.

The AI would benefit from having some awareness of this, and focusing on types it has some skill at. Because skills develop with experience, that would in turn encourage further AI specialization, and make those AIs attractive acquisition targets (or perhaps dominant independent companies in certain areas).

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See my full list of suggestions at https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4839

Mandatory/Prohibited Types for AI Companies

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 03:52:37 +0000

This is another immersion suggestion - make it possible for maps to mark AI companies as always having particular vehicles in their lineup, or never building them.

This would allow us to require Jeep to make SUVs, for example, truck manufacturers to make vans, Ford to make pickups, and Lamborghini to make sports cars.

It would also allow us to say that Jeep doesn't make sports cars, for example.

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Taken to the extreme, this could result in a lot of manufacturers focusing on a few types of cars, like sports cars historically.

I'm not saying a good scenario design is to have lots of companies doing that. But it would be nice to be able to have stronger focuses, and "always keep an SUV in the lineup" would result in that.

Note that my next thread will complement this, by adding vehicle type skills as an option.

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See my full list of cohesive suggestions at https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4839

Company Restrictions - Fuel Type

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 03:47:50 +0000

This is primarily a role-playing enhancement: Allowing AI lists for maps to specify that a company will only build vehicles with a particular fuel type, or will make at least x% of their vehicles be of a certain type.

The goal is that if Tesla is a company, they will only build electric cars. Same with earlier electric car manufacturers as well as steam car manufacturers.

There might be a minimum percent option, which could be 1.0 for all EV/steam/etc., but 0.2 for a company that should dabble in an area but be willing to pursue the mass market as well. Perhaps that is a way to encourage truck manufacturers to make more diesels, for example.

See https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4839 for my overall list of immersion/late game suggestions.

Allow Wholly Owned Subsidiaries To Share Branches

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 03:44:07 +0000

The macro-level goal of this is to make it more viable to create autonomous (or semi-autonomous) subsidiaries without tanking your sales, and while letting them be a potentially viable concern. Thus making it easier to play as a large, many-model late game auto empire, focusing on managing a subset while your subsidiaries manage the rest.

See my high-level thoughts on improvements to make the late game less cumbersome at https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4839

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Currently, if you spin off a marque, you can give them some of your branches, but then you don't have those branches, and with the branch limit (which I prefer for reducing map-spanning blob companies early game), it isn't realistic for a parent brand to create a Saturn sub-brand with significant reach without also losing a lot of their core sales.

So the thought is that if a parent marque has branches in a city, then sub-marque spin-offs could be allowed to share that branch and sell there (setting their own prices). Likely at the cost of scaling overhead, perhaps +20% branch maintenance for the first one, +40% for the second, +60% for the third, to make it so that having 30 marques sharing branches would not be viable - there would be an incentive for discontinuing marques past a certain point. Currently, aside from that (non-spun-off) sub-marques can become a bit much to manage and make vehicles for, I don't think there's any incentive to discontinue them.

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To be clear, this means if I am GM, and I created a wholly owned subsidiary named Saturn, then Saturn could create their own vehicles, and put them for sale at my branches, at the cost of that maintenance overhead. Versus if they are my own, non-subsidiary marque, they also could, but as the player I'd have to manage everything about Saturn.

The maintenance scaling perhaps should apply per active marque in general, whether a wholly owned subsidiary or a non-subsidiary marque, but then the AI would need to have some awareness of it so they didn't go bankrupt due to having 53 marques. That is a secondary idea to reduce marque spam.

Auto-Production System Improvement

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 01:51:25 +0000

The current auto production system only references last month's sales, which can easily cause inventory to spiral out of control when demand fluctuates. Here is a suggestion for improving the automatic production system:
Take the average of the actual deliveries from the previous three months, denoted as A.
The player can set a target inventory coverage in months, C (for example, C = 0.5 means the system will try to keep inventory at around half a month's worth of sales).
At the beginning of each month, read the current inventory, denoted as B.
The formula for this month's planned production P is:
P = A + (C × A − B)
Then constrain P to be between 0 and the maximum production capacity.
In this way, when inventory exceeds the target, production is automatically reduced; when inventory is insufficient, production is automatically increased. This avoids both inventory buildup and stockouts without needing to know the current month's orders in advance.

Top 50 All-Time Sub-Category Headers

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:20:05 +0000

Minor bug, left over from back around 2.2 or 2.3 when numerical IDs were introduced.

If you go to the Top 50 All-Time sales and then select a sub-category, it says e.g. "1081 All-Time Sales Until 1956" rather than "Landaulet All-Time Sales Until 1956".

Spotted when I was checking sales charts after making quite possibly my first-ever profitable Landaulet. The market for those tends to be minuscule!

2nd Gear Research Price Lock and No Research Points

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:28:32 +0000

Hey all,

Lock feature at component research is not working like it does with research department. And some of the components needs to be built in order to generate component design skills. Like for example im at 2003 never done a wankel engine and never funded it but its 7.73 however series-hybrid is only 5.74 which i did that once. Same with the phev and dual phev i've been funding them but it wont increase until an engine built.

Thanks

2nd Gear Electric II and any upgrades after it are not unlocking

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:19:59 +0000

Hey all,

Im at 1998 with 322,75 engine, 31,4 Electric layout, 29,90 electric cylinder and 31,41 electric 1 fuel research points but fuel 2 and subsequent upgrades are not unlocking. Is it changed with second gear or is this a bug? Here is my save game file, which is above 1 gb: drive

The 1911 Engine Design Cost Cliff (1st/2nd Gear)

Sat, 09 May 2026 04:31:45 +0000

I just got back from the CFO's office, and the news isn't good. Our straight-8 design costs have skyrocketed...

How to reproduce:

- Start a 2nd Gear game in the year 1910, base city map (or any other). Go to design an Inline 2 engine. Note the rough cost. Switch to Inline 4. The cost is marginally higher. Switch to Inline 8. The cost is marginally higher.
- Start a 2nd Gear game in the year 1911, base city map (or any other). Go to design an Inline 2 engine. It's quite a bit more expensive than 1910, but it's supposed to go up over time, right? Switch to an Inline 4. The cost roughly doubles over the Inline 2. Switch to Inline 8. The cost roughly doubles over Inline 4.

Expectation: Costs go up over time
Not expected: Increasing cylinders goes from a slight difference in cost to a proportional-to-cylinder-count cost in one year

Is this intentional? It might be the pre-1911 years that are the aberration; I see that the 1911 behavior applies in 1995 as well. Checked 1st Gear as well as 2nd Gear; the behavior appears to be the same.

Maybe I never noticed it before because it's my first game being a pure engine-design firm, rather than a vehicle-selling company, and with enough vehicle sales that impact of the increase in engine design costs become, if not a rounding error, low. But when engine design costs are my primary expense, the sudden change is hard not to notice!

2nd Gear Map: Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic

Fri, 08 May 2026 01:19:30 +0000

Two years ago, I released my Great Lakes map, a 2nd Gear exclusive.

Today, an expansion to that is being released - Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic. Like its predecessor, it is for 2nd Gear only, primarily because I prefer playing it to porting it to 1st Gear.

Download it here! Extract it to your /media/maps folder, so that the extracted folder is named "Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic", and it has two sub-folders, "scripts" and "MapArt". The name of the folder within the maps folder must be Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic! This should be the case by default with most decompression programs, but it is worth checking to make sure it didn't create a nested folder with the date of release. Otherwise Gear City won't be able to load it up in-game.

The map:

Additions

Compared to the Great Lakes map, it adds six states: New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky.

This takes the city count from 90 to 120, and the 1900 population from 34 million to 43.4 million - a significant increase in the potential customer base. If playing with the "Limit New Branches" option (recommended), this also takes the branch-per-year limit from 3 to 4.

There is also a boost to the number of companies, which go from 104 to 114. Competition may now be quite as harsh per capita, but the early game remains an ultra-violent nightmare!

Cities by state/province:

- Illinois: 7
- Indiana: 11
- Michigan: 13
- Minnesota: 4
- New York: 7
- Ohio: 11
- Ontario: 12
- Pennsylvania: 12
- Wisconsin: 13
- New Jersey: 4
- Delaware: 2
- Maryland: 4
- West Virginia: 6
- Virginia: 9

Recommended Settings

It is strongly recommended to play on Normal difficulty, with optional Hard settings. This is because sales have been "flattened" to be closer to historical figures, with the result that compared to what you are used to on the Base Cities map, the early years can be an ultra-violent nightmare! You may well go bankrupt on your first attempt, so don't be afraid to tweak the starting cash to give yourself more of a cushion.

It is my belief that the new production setting has increased the difficulty of the game, especially early on, adding even more reason than when the Great Lakes map was new to give yourself some extra buffer.

Beyond that, each company's starting funds reflect its founding year and longevity, increasing or decreasing its likelihood of long-term survival. To keep these funds as intended, it is strongly recommended to move the AI starting funds slider all the way to the left. This prevents the game from auto-adjusting (read: increasing) the starting funds each company receives. With the default settings, too few companies will go bankrupt.

Disable Founding New AI Companies is also cautiously recommended; without it, new, non-historical companies are generated to keep the minimum at about 35 companies, which is too little consolidation. But with it, you may wind up with one or two companies by the 2010s. Hopefully you are one of them.

Otherwise, it is up to you. I like to play with the benefits system enabled, the option to be fired, limited branches, and the import tax, settings that are defaulted on at hard difficulty, but need to be turned on manually with the Normal difficulty preset.

GNP

Where available, historical province/state and city-level GNP data has been used. Where this data was not available, data has been interpolated from the most geographically and chronologically close data available. In general, this means that the GNP data is more rich the later in the timeline you are playing.

In terms of infrastructure and manufacturing, generally larger cities are more developed.

Infrastructure Development

Thanks to FBS bounty #191, infrastructure now develops at a separate pace from general industrial growth. Historical information has been added on the development of interstate highways, and you'll now notice a major boost to infrastructure as the interstates are developed, starting in the 1950 to 1960 timeframe.

As this information has not yet been integrated for the King's Highway and other provincial highways, Ontario still follows the gradual system of development that the U.S. followed in the initial release of this map.

Have fun!

There may or may not be future updates; maps take time, and so does playing them. It took two years since my last map, so don't expect frequent updates. I'm considering adding a few foreign automakers in the second half of the 20th century to spice up the level of mid-to-late-game competition, maybe as a second AI file option so you could have only domestic, or have Honda, Toyota, BMW, etc. invade the shores later on.

It's also possible that I'll do another map expansion at some point - New England being the most likely candidate, perhaps with Quebec. In theory, the map could expand to the whole Lower 48 and Canada someday... but have fun playing this one first.

IPO'ing again after being delisted

Mon, 04 May 2026 04:58:29 +0000

Uhh, yeah, so my company's financials are not so great...

After two reverse stock splits, with my share value at two cents per share, I got de-listed.

With cash dwindling, debts high, and no financial institutions willing to lend me money, I thought I had about as much of a chance of surviving as Spirit Airlines did on Friday evening. With no other options, I pressed the IPO button again, and... was able to find new investors!

It didn't raise a lot of money, but I quickly followed up by selling the remaining 75% of the company, raising a few tens of thousands of precious greenbacks.

I don't really consider it a bug since what are the odds that a player company gets de-listed before it goes bankrupt, anyway? I didn't think that was possible until it happened; always before, I'd run out of cash and been liquidated first. But in this case I had managed to staunch the cashflow bleed by closing everything (while still having a 20-to-1 debt-to-assets ratio, and thus highly negative equity), and that managed to do it.

I'm curious if anyone else has managed to get de-listed?

I managed to do the same thing again after being de-listed a few months later, but the third time was told that an IPO would raise approximately $0, and was thus unable to issue one. I guess the investors wised up on the prospects for my company...

Game fails to save if database is locked, but doesn't notify user

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:45:44 +0000

See for example lines 30904 to 30912:

14:57:48:
Attempting to save database
14:57:48: Pending:

14:57:48:
Exception Occured saving db.
file: C:\Users\gc\programming\Kompex-SQLite-Wrapper\src\KompexSQLiteDatabase.cpp
line number: 423
error: database is locked

In this case the database was locked because another program had a connection to the database open. Probably not a problem for an average user, just for modders.

More concerning is that the UI didn't provide any notice of the failure to save, including for a manual save. It should succeed in 99.99% of cases, but since this is a game that can be played for long sessions, I'd rather know if there's an issue saving than find out the hard way that my progress was lost in that 0.01%.

Logfile - Error Saving DB.log (Size: 4.44 MB / Downloads: 0)

post WW2 sales potential Bug or skill issue (2nd Gear)

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 22:31:27 +0000

I've played Gear city for a while, then got access to the second gear DLC. I would play just as I have before. I know many things are different from the base game. Early game is exactly like as before, big sales making big money. 1930s suck for everyone. (a global depression will do that) 1942 comes around I do my patriotic duty for Uncle Sam. Make even bigger profits, then after WW2 is when everything goes bad. No matter what vehicle I try to make only 1000-2000 will buy it. For example, I could make a sedan that's for the middle class. that is decent for the cost which is around 800 to produce. I then sell for about 1600-1700 If this was the base game I'd sell 10s of thousands of them. But in 2nd gear, damn near nothing. Instead of making millions I lose millions. So I am unsure if this is a bug in some career settings or if I just suck and don't know what mechanic is doing it that was changed or added in the DLC.

Seth 2nd Gear Save.rar (Size: 5.31 MB / Downloads: 1)

Menu UI

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:47:12 +0000

Hi,
Sorting:
First time on these forums but a feature I think is missing being able to sort components by marque in Gear city 2nd gear. The only way I can sort by marque when looking at components is by attempting to clone the components on the design screen. As for vehicles you can't sort by type unless you're in the showroom in which case you can't do anything to the vehicles, and have to bounce back and forth between the view menu and the showroom.

In addition to that Is there anyway to fix the menu resetting after ending production for any vehicle or component? Or maybe being able to end production on than one components at once. Also a button to end production of a vehicle when ending the production of one if its components (Like ending production of an engine to kill off the car its based on) instead of/ in addition to the pop up.

I know i write a bit messy but I hope it all makes sense.
- Komo

Freeze while generating turn

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:25:36 +0000

After my previous thread about a CTD https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4804 I used the save to start from scratch, redid my work on turn one, and progressed one turn at a time through turn 5. This time instead of a CTD I got a freeze on turn generation. Starting a new thread for this one because it has a new log file. 2nd Gear branch, v2.6.0.1

Logfile.7z (Size: 167.83 KB / Downloads: 1)