Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
We've been hard at work to polish up this version and it is really coming together nicely. So nicely in fact that we're planning to get this final LCV3 version ready for you to try out in the opt-in openbeta branch early next week.
The 1984 Lafayette Mark IV Executive Sedan by Mat.
To see part of what is coming, feel free to check out the two latest Little Dev Update videos:
Another thing worth checking out is a recent Q&A with Killrob, giving some in-depth answers to a few interesting questions.
We'll notify you next week once the new patch goes live on the openbeta branch. Cheers!
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
In the past few weeks we've been working on improving the campaign flow and usability. Also a lot of effort has gone into the underlying backend structure of handling of car and engine projects, making them more solid and in turn less crashy... or that is the end goal! :)
A quality Archanan design by Yangx2.
The UI still needs work of course, but in this Little Dev Update video we are showing off some of the new UI features coming to the LCV3.
We expect the open beta for Patch 7 to start in the next few weeks. Most new features for Patch 7 are implemented and now we're polishing things up.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
Hotfix P2 B190807
Updated trim & engine side-stats aesthetics and logic to better fit new UI style
Trim side-stats now can compare to average of the top 3 competitors
Added post processes to animatics
Added tooltip to animatics button to show a car must be selected
Added unit & unit conversion to wheelbase on car body tooltip
Added pause/stop keyboard shortcuts to animatics. (ESC and SPACE)
Fixed being able to select & move cars while an animatic is running
Fixed being able to move photo scene camera while an animatic is playing
Fixed Animatics not rendering for certain screen resolutions
Hotfix P1 B190806
Fixed 2010s design room not being able to make a new campaign
Fixed issue with mp4 animatic saving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DczrJODQEzA The next big patch for the Lite Campaign V3 version of the game is now available on the public default branch. Note that you can opt in or out of the openbeta branch by right-clicking the game in your Steam Library, Properties, Betas, select the openbeta branch and let the game update.
What game is this, looks awesome?! Presented by nacho.
In this big patch we have many important fixes and quite a few cool new features too! It certainly does feel quite a bit different with the updated UI look. If you were part of the openbeta, you find the latest changes below listed under Hotfix 5.
MGR_99's version of the Merano Titus in full motion in the updated photo scenes.
For those of you who have not been part of the openbeta, here is a quick summary with the biggest changes:
B190805 Big Changes & Fixes
New simplified and performance optimized UI look (still WIP)
New car and engine design rooms selectable from the car manager
Added ability to place several cars in a photoscene
Fixed various memory eating crashes in Engine Designer
Option for intake models on engine to show in the car, export to BeamNG
Added photoscene animatics, can be rendered out as .mp4
Plenty of campaign UI improvements
Lots of general optimization and bugfixes
New car bodies, fixtures, and plenty of fixes
From here we're going to continue to improve the campaign to make it more playable for people who don't know it inside out already. This current patch goes some way towards that already by making it more solid - so you don't have the feeling you need to walk on egg shells. Although there sure is a lot more work to do on that.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
Sorry for the long wait for an update! The team is now all back from holidays, but half of it is caught out and knocked out by a flu wave going though.
A fancy design by nacho, vastly preferable to the flu.
In the meantime we have been working on polishing up the new UI look quite a lot, as well as added quite a few good feature, gotten rid of nasty crashes, and in general added quality of life stuff like tooltips and so on. We just posted a new Little Dev Update video showing what we're working on and talking about where development is headed. The most recent one is from today, showing much of what the new UI looks like:
https://youtu.be/75clZqftsDE In case you missed it, we also posted one about a month ago, talking about all kinds of new features that also will be coming with the next patch:
https://youtu.be/0mPCa5IbAY4 A few fixes to the campaign are needed before we can get the patch to you, but it looks like next week is a reasonable target.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
After many weeks of fixing, optimizing, fixing, adding content, and… fixing stuff that broke again, we do have all the changes rolled into the public branch of the game to serve as a new foundation for the next leap forward in features. Below you find a summary changelog of LCV3 Patch 4 and 5. If you want to see all the changes made, just have a look at the two previous news posts!
The 1990 Vic Reffafi by Flash in the new 10s Design Room photoscene
This is a good point to opt out of the openbeta branch for those of you who chose it only because of some specific fixes and crashes. From here we’ll do some more ToDo list clean-up and add more depth to the factory management in the campaign. As always, these changes will come to the openbeta branch first, but may have their (un-)fair share of bugs.
It sure feels good to finally be able to get this massive list of important fixes over to the public branch, especially all the game stability related things, which should be a big improvement for many who had been struggling with seemingly random crashes of the game.
Here is the summary list of the most notable fixes and improvements since the previous public build from March 20th.
New Content & Tweaks (Patch 4+5 Summary)
New improved paint system, with simple and advanced mode
Implemented familiarity mode. Visible on item tooltips. Toggle with Alt-key
Added many new car bodies, body variants (including Lord Gaben requests)
Added many new fixtures
Added new themed number plates
Added GPU driver detection to launcher, warning about outdated drivers
Added 10s Design Room photoscene
Added a darker 90's-ish variant on the modern studio photoscene
Added paint sorting by Name or Hue
Softtops & Trays can now be painted
Implemented the effects of production flags (limited / no mass production)
Implemented interest rate dependencies on loan conditions and financial situation
Updated factory information for tooltips and comparison tooltips
Updated general look of sliders
Added button in photoscene to directly open screenshot folder
Reimplemented and improved sandbox car cost estimation
Tweaked gearbox weight scaling (don’t get heavy as fast with more torque)
Rebalanced the cost of R&D, making the lower levels more attainable
Added Debug Menu, open with F9
Much improved photoscene car movement controls
General Fixes (Patch 4+5 Summary)
Fixed issue throughout the game that could cause random crashes
Added code signing for better compatibility with anti-virus software
Fixed a whole load of campaign related bugs (yes, bad ones)
Fixes for many many car bodies and fixtures
Fixed and tweaked many familiarity synergies
Suspension choice no longer allows choosing incompatible designs front vs. rear
Fixed suspension ride height weirdness in campaign cars, causing stat fluctuations
Fixed issue where the car would "forget" its power distribution and become RWD
Fixed various items not having the correct production limiting flags
Fixed grid mode car manager not working for sandbox
Tweaked interior weight scaling with quality
Fixed display issue that could show negative months signing off projects
Fixed Engine Factories not correctly finding their production flags
Fixed demographics not growing depending on their demographic type
Game Optimizations (Patch 4+5 Summary)
Disabled framerate smoothing with VSync, as that was causing low FPS
Fixed various small and medium sized memory leaks
Optimized calculation performance for campaign play
Optimized updating of UI with ongoing calculations, more responsive
Optimized loading of fixture thumbnails
For anyone who has had stability issues with the public build, this one should alleviate most of your issues. Give it a go and let us know if things are working as intended. :)
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
Note for RC3: A quick Saturday patch to get rid of the weird issue the RC2 build had with headlight fixtures and the remaining tooltip inconsistencies. This hopefully is our final release candidate for this update. Give it a go and see if there are any bigger issues that need addressing asap. :) Cheers!
In today's patch we have a lot of under the hood fixes and optimizations for you, along with a new improved car paint system. Also we have optimized campaign calculations and database handling. It should play a lot smoother and make the game more stable as a whole.
MGR99's design for the Merano Dalius
The plan for this update is to have it in openbeta for a few days and then put it onto the public branch. There are so many fixes and improvements since the last public build, we want to get it out to you as soon as possible. Have a look at the changelog below and give this version, available on the openbeta branch, a go!
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
In the fourth big patch for the LCV3 update we have all sorts of changes for you. The big ones for campaign play are the familiarity view mode which colors selections according to how familiar your company is at producing them. That will show how different parts are interconnected, giving you some expertise even at engineering components you never engineered before.
For the car builders / designers among you, this update features a new paint / materials system that now allows you to have pained special materials like chrome (yes, you can make golden chrome cars now, until you get punched by someone), and colored carbon fiber. Also the update brings some awesome new car bodies (including special request by Lord Gaben), and more fixtures to go along with them.
Please note that as was stated in the most recent Little Dev Update, your campaign game saves will no longer be compatible with this new version. We release it to the openbeta branch first, so that you can switch over to the default branch and finish off your campaign in the coming days before this update is merged with the default version.
The 'Di Inferi Prototipo Dieci', by Miurena.
B190425 Hotfix 3
Reimplemented and improved sandbox car cost estimation
Tweaked gearbox weight scaling (lighter at higher engine torque)
Fixed issue with body quality slider causing freeze crashes
Fixed photo mode only showing car first time you load it up
Fixed turbo journal bearings not being selectable
Fixed crash happening when closing Automation
B190424 Hotfix 2
Added Debug Menu, open with F9
Added option to debug menu to show/hide fixture names on tooltip.
Fixed semi-spaceframe factory addon requirements
Fixed / re-added missing photomode button to car designer
Fixed tooltip for fuel availability, now 75% or below shows in red
Fixed head quality not affecting octane requirements
Tweaked block and head material familiarity synergy groups
Fixed Boxer 6 broken familiarity synergy groups
Fixed issues with some familiarity tooltips
Fixed familiarity colouring for 30+% familiarity
Compounded tire type and tire compound for familiarity
B190412 Hotfix 1
Added 90sLuxurySedans
Added missing Kammback version of 70sUSCoupe
Added fixture button for tow hitch, re-added missing tow hitch
Fixed missing RWD gearbox textures
Fixed issue with UI timeline acting weirdly and blocking some UI selections
Fixed some issues with familiarity not accumulating for the correct items
Fixed / improved familiarity synergies
Fixed color swatch ordering to be sorted by name
Tweaked interior weight scaling with quality
Fixed plastic material being white in BeamNG exports
Removed broken, accidentially released 70sSupercar until its done
Changed 00sVan to unlock in 85
Fixed Van tag on 70sPanelVan
Improved Fixture Stamping UVs on 80s Vans and 2010s Coupe
Improved morphing behavior of wheelarches
Photoscene car movement controls now suck less
Fixed teleport to car functionality in photoscene
Improved lighting on car thumbnails
B190411 New Features
Added code signing for better compatibility with anti-virus software
Implemented familiarity mode. Visible on item tooltips & toggle by pressing Alt-key. The colors still don't quite work in the listboxes, will be fixed tomorrow!
Implemented the effects of production flags (limited / no mass production)
Implemented interest rate dependencies on loan conditions and financial situation
Reworked the paint system
Softtops & Trays can now be painted
Added fixture non & transparent window material as an option
Added a darker 90's-ish variant on the modern studio photoscene
Added a 00s Small Hatch body
Added a range of 00s/10s sport coupes (special request by Gabe Newell)
Added wings/lights/vents/grilles to suit the sport coupes
Replaced some of the gearboxes with better looking ones (transverse front)
B190411 Art Fixes
Reworked all morph positions on 10sSedan02Large family to fix melting issues.
Reduced 70sUSCoupe_Small rear chassis length by 20cm to avoid clipping
Reduced 70sUSCoupe rear chassis length by 10cm to avoid clipping
Reduced 70sLuxury_Cor family's rear chassis by 15cm to avoid clipping
Removed side trim from 00sPonySmall
Increased 90sSUV maximum wheel diameter
Fixed weird paint lighting issues on the sides of cars
Fixed 2.7m wheelbase McLaren-esque body weight issues
Fixed 10sSedan02Med4dr having no passenger box
Fixed missing second seat row in 60sSUV
Fixed 1995 Coupe body has an issue with its coupe variant, front bumper
Fixed 60sSedan05 family front bumper being split down the middle
Fixed 60sVan from melting when selecting a different variant
Fixed wonky morph on rear right wheel arch for 70sCoupe02
Fixed rear morphs on 80sLMP
Fixed missing bits of body at the front bumper of 00SedanCompact-Coupe
Fixed pinched morph on 60sSedan02, fixed whole family bumper painting
Fixed 60sSUV from exploding when you try and morph it, added second seat row
Fixed 10scoupelarge from chassis clipping in the rear
Fixed 90smidcoupe off-centred wheel and added nose morph
Fixed 10Roadster_Large-FB fixture tearing on front of bonnet / windshield
Fixed 1945 people mover body being "melty"
Fixed 70sCoupeLarge02_Sedan_ being a coupe, instead of a... Sedan
B190411 General Polish
Added nicer country selection to markets tab of trim & hub
Added keyboard controls: Space or P to pause, x or + for faster, z or - for slower
Added tooltip to time controls to tell you about these keys
Suspension choice no longer allows choosing incompatible designs front vs. rear
Improved appearance of trim stats on details & test-track sub panels
Redid how the paint thumbnails are generated, for better readability
Improved fixture thumbnails through better lighting
Sharpened up horizontal & vertical sliders for better contrast
Added Max and Min awareness to dealership screen, disabled unfinished items
Added better tooltips to engineering pages of car and engine projects
Added tooltips to engine / car project items on 3rd tab
When selecting existing engine, changed the button text to "Select Variant"
Fixed wrong icon for number of engines produced by factory
Improved the engine designer's default camera position
B190411 General Fixes
Fixed the economy randomizing itself every time you load your save
Fixed car import errors for some database versions, implemented better handling of that
Fixed issue where specific materials couldn't be used on a body more than once
Fixed suspension ride height weidness in campaign cars, causing stat fluctuations
Fixed bonnets turning grey when hidden instead of disappearing
Fixed rare loading issue with some mods that stopped other tasks from completing
Fixed issue with the test tracking braking test and tires bursting due to downforce
Fixed modifying a new engine family through a trim slot not updating its family
Fixed sequencing issue in project managers
Fixed some chassis part options still referring to "Tameness" as a stat
Removed broken title tooltips from car/engine project tabs
Fixed future factory size name not showing correctly in factory overview
B190411 Balance Tweaks
Fixed and tweaked many familiarity synergies
Rebalanced the cost of R&D, making the lower levels more attainable
Rebalanced how the brake fade calculations factor in 'disc size', now not linear
B190411 BeamNG Exporter Fixes
Fixed issue with bonnets disappearing for exported cars in BeamNG
Fixed carbon fibre being weirdly bright and shiny in BeamNG
Fixed issue with specific cars hovering above the ground in BeamNG
Next up are the addition of the factory and tooling hitpoint systems that make your factories wear down over time. That will factor into not only retooling time and cost, but also your cars' production quality and with that your company prestige, reputation, and in future production batch recall rates. Alongside a lot of fixes and further polish, obviously.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
This week's big patch comes with a mixed bag of fixes and additional content. As you can see the changelist is slowly shifting towards more polishing rather than straight up fixes - which of course is a good thing. That doesn't mean we're out of issues to tackle of course... let me check... there are "just" ~150 items left on our ToDo list for this update. With most things not even being on there.
The new photoscene! Car by LS-Vehicles.
Plenty more impovements and fixes coming your way! Anyway, here is the changelog:
B190321 Art Fixes & Additions
Added Canyon photoscene
Added several of 80s vans
Added 2.6m wheelbase version of 2010s coupe
Added 70sBL20-35_4dr and 70sBL20-35_5dr car bodies
Added a few 60s sports car fixtures, and modern round headlights.
Added sunroof/window option to fixture UI
Unified car & fixture paint thumbnail generation
Fixed chassis poking out in rear with 00sSupercarLarge
Fixed 10ssedan02small body family chassis issues
Fixed fixtures cutting holes slightly offset on 10sSUVHuge_02 family
Tweaked reflections and ambient occlusion in the car design room
Removed a factory that was not supposed to be in the isle of skye photoscene
Fixed missing texture for front Solid Axle Coil suspension
Fixed the 1955 pickup and 40s Jeep Ute being labeled as a "SUV"
Fixed the 10sSedanSmall having the wrong body
Fixed incorrect (very high) weight for 90SUV_5dr
Fixed too short engine bay of 10s_Full_Cor
B190321 General Fixes & Improvements
Tweaked how wide V engines to be a bit narrower in the bay
Changed trim/variant/family/model grid items to use textbox as title
Added tooltips to fixture paints with icons (trim, bumper etc)
Improved graph in hub, more useful scale and axis
Added tooltips to car project & engine project factory items and panel
Added tooltips to plot selection buttons
Improved plot control UI, disabling if they're not usable
Added difficulty score multiplier info to campaign end screen
Photo manager now actually takes 1080P and 2160P photos as stated
Trims overview now picks best scoring demographic by default after cloning
Reduced font size on hub graphs
Added tooltips to summary items on 2nd panel of factory
Fixed scenarios list being empty, all tutorials and scenarios are back
Fixed issue which prevented upgrading to a huge factory
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
Note:This patch, including its two hotfixes, is now on the main public branch of the game. Enjoy!
Today's patch is a bit smaller than what we'd like it to be for two reasons. Our lead programmer was knocked out by an "it's just a flesh wound" accident and spent a few days in hospital (now recovering), while our other programmer spent a full week on drastically cleaning up some of the structures of the car and engine project code, unifying them as much as possible in the process. The latter won't be visible to you, but will save us from lots of issues in future and make changes quicker. The former will just leave a big scar.
MGR_99's rendition of the Merano Verdini.
Despite that, we're continuing to fix and polish up the LCV3, and here is the changelist for today's patch released only to the openbeta branch of the game for now.
B190315 Hotfix 2
Fixed BeamNG Exporter producing cars that can't be loaded in BeamNG
Added new car body 70sBL20_35_2dr
Added safety confirmation for deleting projects
Fixed (probably) the issue of you not being able to select a project region in the LCV3
Fixed issue of model/family data not being properly given to all trims/variants
Fixed not being able to rename facelifts
Fixed selection of demographics for trims from hub
Fixed factory names not saving
Fixed issue with 60sSUV_SWB being in the wrong car body family
Removed descriptions being that of "Compression" everywhere
B190314 Hotfix 1
Added Steel & Window Material as options or fixture paints.
When a trim or variant needs updating / fixing, it now flashes the edit button
Fixed the preset fixture modes not showing on the fixture paint UI
Fixed issue with autosave not saving correctly in some situations
Fixed cars from old version not being able to be imported anymore (openbeta issue)
Fixed (for real now.. hopefully?) trims and variants renaming themselves
Fixed issue with deleting and then creating a new facelift not updating data correctly
Fixed facelift where not changing engine showing original engine engineering time
B190313 Improvements
Tweaked factory load management AI to more evenly split shift load
Improved savegame naming and timestamps display
Polished up some campaign UI (Model / Family project managers)
B190313 Fixes
Fixed campaign difficulty issue, competitor strength was reset to 50% on new game
Fixed issue with brake quality slider effect on brake fade being broken
Fixed high factory cost on upgrading / retooling factories after 2+ uses of factory
Fixed engineering time table in car summary engineering times
Fixed issue with how mods are processed, to make loading more reliable
Fixed loans not being visibly added to your current money until month tick
B190313 Art Fixes
Fixed number plates looking black
Fixed melting issues on 80s190 family
Fixed 90s Flatnose people mover body causing game crashes
Fixed ute tray holes from fixture stamping on 90spickup family
Fixed up some lighting and redid some materials in the canal photoscenes
Fixed material inconsistencies between raised and lowered car lifts in design room
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
Note: B190304 is now also on the default public branch.
In today’s first patch for the Big LCV3 Update we are dropping some major changes, both visuals and gameplay related. Of course there are plenty of fixes too, including some to address launcher issues some players were having.
New lighting, reflections, and design room styling.
As you can see we have changed the car design room to be terribly 70s, which will be one of the several styles of design rooms the game will feature era dependently. More will follow soon-ish! :) The new lighting / reflections (thanks to titleguy1) and look of the cars should more than make up for that accurately depicted poor taste though. Now you can design beige shitboxes in their natural habitat!
B190304 Fixes
Fixed mistakes with grouping of engineering times in engineering table
Fixed issue of extremely long safety engineering times
B190301 Visual Facelift
Major lighting rework in car design room for much better paint reflections
Design room now 11/10 on 70s styling scale (different eras coming)
B190301 Improvements & Changes
Now the game allows you to make engine projects without factory
Widened track width of 100+ bodies to make engine bays wider, tyre width more realistic
Made V engines a little less tall in general
Made V engines quite a lot wider (across the V)
Improved pearl paint settings and shine slider progression
Rebalanced quality slider effect on ET, PU, Cost, widened viable range
Changed finances graph to be operating income/expenditure graph
Flipped ordering of variants in engine projects manager
B190301 Content & Art Fixes
Added 60s muscle coupe / roadster body
Fixed various car bodies with melty distorted bones bug
Fixed lighting/shading issues on 90sFlatnose_Cargo
Fixed smoothing on 90sFlatnose
Fixed very short wheelbase on 10sSport
Fixed a few bodies where chassis would stick out of rear in some cases.
Fixed issue with the cap used at the ends of the bumper bars
B190301 General Fixes
Fixed issues with launcher many players had (thanks Eddy BT!)
Fixed issue with sandbox markets selecting multiple regions
Fixed issue with changing a family without properly invalidating / refreshing its variants
Fixed and added loan options
Fixed issue with UI displaying previous instead of current choice in factory
Fixed engine size widget being pinned to the top not bottom on family designer
You will not get the update automatically yet because we have not been able to properly test it yet (with your help!), hence why we at this point reintroduce an open beta branch you can opt into if you want to get improvements, fixes, and... new bugs... earlier!
In order to opt in to the branch simply right-click the game in your library, properties, betas, select the "open" branch from the betas drop down and wait for the game to update.