Greetings, motorists!

We are very happy to announce that we are partnering up with our friends at BeamNG.drive to run a BeamNG modding contest, in celebration of the amazing partnership they have just announced with Gambler 500!

Through this partnership, we aim to blur the boundaries between virtual and real-life creativity, and we’re inviting you all along for the ride. The BeamNG.drive team, together with the Modding for Dummies community and ourselves, are bringing you the Gambler 500 Modding Contest, so everyone can show us what they’ve got!

We challenge you to unleash your imagination and bring the spirit of Gambler 500 to BeamNG! Make a map, vehicles, props, Automation vehicles or even missions in the theme of the Gamber 500 - now is the time to strut your stuff.


Submissions are open from now until 30 June 2023. The following categories are accepted:

• Vehicles / props, vehicle / prop modifications with accompanying configs
  
• Automation creations
  
• Maps
  
• Gameplay (missions, scenarios)

• Entries must be submitted through the BeamNG mod repository
  
• Each entry must be original and represent the theme of the contest
  
• The quality of the mod and the repo page should be as good as possible
  
• The published mod should be shared in the dedicated forum thread
  
• You cannot continue an older project for this challenge

The winners will be determined by a jury comprising the BeamNG dev team, the Automation team, and the MFD team. We will announce the winners on 17. July 2023, and they will receive the following rewards:

1st place - $300, an exclusive BeamNG x Gambler 500 poster, 3x game keys package
2nd place - $200, an exclusive BeamNG x Gambler 500 poster, 2x game keys package
3rd place - $100, an exclusive BeamNG x Gambler 500 poster, 1x game keys package

Each game keys package consists of one key for BeamNG, one for Automation, plus one for the Automation DLCs. We will also be running a dedicated category for Automation exports, where the best entry in the Automation category will receive:

Best From Automation: $100, an exclusive BeamNG x Gambler 500 poster, 3x game keys package

For more information, please refer to the official BeamNG post here, or you can join the Official Automation Discord here.

We can’t wait to see your submissions and wish everyone the best of luck!

With the last, massive milestone update having been out for a good while now, today we want to share with you the roadmap for the ongoing Supercharger Update development cycle. With the series of updates contained therein, we are bringing the core of the game to feature completion - including lots of things the community has been asking for since the early days of Automation!


As you all witnessed during the way-too-long LCV4.2 development cycle, it would seem appropriate to break up a milestone like this into three smaller, more manageable updates. That is exactly what we're doing for the Supercharger Update, which would be enormous all put together. That way, we will deliver new content and features more frequently, without the long wait until the end of what will likely be a year-long (likely more) development cycle.



We've also given each of the three updates within this cycle a special name; these are the names of some of the cities in the Automation Light Campaign world, and each has some significance to the content of each of the updates.

Keep in mind that anything we talk about and show here very much is WORK IN PROGRESS and may or may not be fully indicative of the final content as it will appear in Automation!

Let's get into it!

---

A summary of all the main points included in this first update of the larger cycle.

In the Ellisbury Update, much of the content we're adding is the logical extension of everything we've added in the LCV4.2 update. It is taking full advantage of all the new systems we created to make engine design a more interesting and nuanced proposition. One aspect of that are the new engine block construction methods and re-thinking how all of the moving parts within the engine - crankshaft, conrods and pistons - interact with one another in terms of reliability and performance.


Up-boring and all kinds of new bottom end options.

Also, we are completely reworking the drivetrain options, with the addition of CVTs, proper racing sequential gearboxes, and the ability to manually set gear ratios if you prefer to do so. Drivetrain types and differentials will be getting a rework too, with a complete rethink of how Automation handles all-wheel drive to better reflect the wide variety of different systems in use in the real world!


The new gearing setup and gearbox options. Still missing here: several new AWD systems.

And finally, the test track system is going to be completely redesigned, from the ground up, with the track becoming a zoomable entity no longer relying on a 1280x720 image as its background, but a massive 8192x8192 texture with tons of detail. That means you will be able to closely follow your car around the track.

Additionally, we will be adding another official track to the game; the very versatile Ellisbury Tri-Oval! With a tri-oval itself and three very different road courses available, this track will test your creations to their limits, and beyond.


A first look at the new and yet unfinsihed Ellisbury Tri-Oval.

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This is the big one that everyone has been waiting for. In the Al Rilma update, we will be bringing in not just superchargers of several different kinds, but also sequential turbochargers and likely twincharging too. As many of you might remember, sequential turbos got postponed in the LCV4.2 update, since that update took so long to deploy, and also because deploying them with superchargers and twincharging makes a lot more sense from a development perspective. But, as promised in all the way back in 2011, here they come!

As if that's not enough for one update, we are bringing back a popular feature from the pre-Unreal Engine days; the scenario-based multiplayer challenges! How does that work, you wonder? Everyone in a multiplayer game will be given the same randomized scenario to design an engine or car for, that must meet certain criteria. Players will have a limited amount of time to complete their entries, which are scored based on how well they perform compared to the requirements. These player scores are always visible in a leaderboard for you to climb in these fast-paced and very competitive challenges!

If you love cringe and want to see how far the game has come, we have some proper ancient video for you from 2013 where this kind of multiplayer existed in the early Kee Engine version of the game. Enjoy... or not. xD

---

The third and final major update of the Supercharger Update will bring much more multiplayer functionality; more on that to come in the following months, but we can say that we have some incredibly exciting plans for this. Additionally, full scenario gameplay will return, as will a comprehensive suite of tutorials for Automation - something that new players always ask for!

Finally, this third update will also see us fully integrate Steam Community Items, including Steam Trading Cards and Achievements into Automation! We have some fun ideas for this, which we will share with you all when the time is right :)


That is a brief overview of what the Supercharger Update is going to look like; what do you think? Let us know in the comments! We encourage you to watch the Little Dev Update at the top, and to follow us on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok for the very latest information. We love to hear from you!

Cheers!

In this patch we are addressing a few important issues found in the big 4.2 update.
Here is the change log for this patch:

• Fixed engine not visually getting added to car on first selection of drivetrain
  
• Fixed the character " in trim names causing car exports to not work
  
• Fixed rebuilt lighting of 10's design room
  
• Fixed factory screen staff employment times displaying incorrectly
  
• Fixed factory production not being limited by staffing correctly
  
• Fixed contract factory behavior for low volume engine production
  
• Fixed pie chart and bar chart not matching campaign expenses screen
  
• Fixed specific Lua error in campaign causing game to break
  
• Fixed error when pausing trims from a previous facelift
  
• Tweaked engine-production-matching graph behavior

• Rebalanced suspension tuning
  
• Expanded race suspension customization

At this point we're all back in office and mostly working on new features for the next big 4.3 milestone - more on that in a coming news post.
Cheers!

With this patch we're addressing a fair few of campaign, exporter, and general issues before signing out for until early January. Overall the launch has gone really quite smoothly and we're very pleased with that. Thanks to all who have been posting about issues all the way through the exceedingly long open alpha / beta phase!


Santa getting his 2022 sleigh 1 trim 1 delivered to him, illustrated by sharcc.

• Fixed having to pay taxes for loan income
  
• Fixed company valuation being off after designing first car
  
• Fixed having to pay for existing starting factories
  
• Fixed new factory build times being incorrectly calculated and issue with factory tooltip
  
• Fixed required-to-operate factory staff not pushing factory construction time earlier
  
• Fixed pushrod rear suspension not showing in the parts list
  
• Fixed UI showing engine factory as needing staff without any factory change
  
• Fixed Lua error when switching fuel octane to one that isn't available in campaign
  
• Fixed FMOD log spam, now only logging a specific error once
  
• Fixed situation getting NaN forecast results which even reloading didn't fix
  
• Fixed UI alignment issue when there are 3 production flags
  
• Fixed inline fuel system intakes not hiding when fuel system is set to hidden
  
• Fixed lua error in specific situation regarding PUs of the selected intake
  
• Updated various outdated campaign texts
  
• Allowing double clicking on model / family in list view to edit project

• Implemented BeamNG 0.27 electric motor parameters
  
• Improved locking torque converter behavior
  
• Added more preconfigured paint colors
  
• Updated digital screens to make use of the new ignition system
  
• Fixed crash caused by long descriptions (long descriptions will be trimmed)
  
• Fixed "engine is off" warning at idle RPM
  
• Potentially fixed cars getting oil starvation on spawn
  
• Disabled self-ignition on engines due to inconsistent behavior
  
• Made frontal area adjustable in the tuning menu
  
• Tweaked engine inertia
  
• Adjusted steps of various tuning menu sliders
  
• Increased spring stiffness
  
• Increased damper stiffness
  
• Decreased sway bar stiffness

This has been another big as well as challenging year for Automation's development. There are tons of cool things to share with you regarding the next milestone versions, but we'll wait with that till after a bit of a break from it all. We all hope you're enjoying the game and the whole dev team wishes you happy holidays.

Cheers!

A few more quick fixes to address commonly encountered issues!

• Fixed situation where incomplete unusable factories would to show up in factory manager
  
• Fixed bug in cam curve calculations leading to numeric instability
  
• Fixed "do you want to facelift" prompt to only come up once
  
• Fixed issue with trim production tooltip interaction with month ticks
  
• Fixed marketing screen's lower UI resizing when it shouldn't
  
• Fixed issue where trims would have 0% desirability ratios
  
• Fixed trims sometimes losing their drive type info resulting in a Lua error

More to come! :)
Cheers

With the second hotfix we tracked down what was causing the launching issues some of you experienced and fixed them. The game would not fall back to DX11 as required by your GPU.

Also, if you have run into the issue of way too many customers preordering your cars, creating years of wait time, yeah... that is now fixed and working as intended: low-prestige cars will not generate long wait lists, while high-prestige cars certainly can.

• Fixed game not using correct fallback to DX11 when required
  
• Fixed some DLSS settings from not saving correctly
  
• Fixed lua error occurring with very narrow tyres
  
• Fixed minimum seat row body filter not working
  
• Fixed delivery delays not affecting car desirability, giving "infinite" preorders
  
• Fixed crash on markets screen, when selecting desirability on a new campaign start
  
• Disabling UI Blur setting now drastically improves main menu performance

We're keeping an eye on all your reports of issues, of course! More fixes coming this and next week before we wrap up for the year.

Cheers!

In this first quick hotfix we're addressing some of the most common crashes that were sent through the error reporting tool.

• Fixed crash that could happen fetching best company score
  
• Fixed crash in specific market calculations
  
• Fixed lua error on importing some 4.1 cars

Of course there is a lot more to come in terms of fixes as important issues will be addressed asap.
Cheers!

The winner of the Face of the Update Challenge, courtesy of Xepy.
After nearly 18 months in development, we are thrilled to share the LCV4.2 Update for Automation! It's been a challenging development process for this new milestone version, but the result is pretty special!

What's changed? A more accurate question would be, "what hasn't changed?", because this is the most comprehensive update we've ever made to Automation; nothing went untouched! Let's start at the top, shall we?

---

Many turbochargers gives many horsepowers.

The entire Engine Designer has been redesigned, and a lot of the stuff going on under the hood is completely new. A totally new engine simulation model, that accurately models temperatures and airflows within the engine has been constructed, allowing for dramatically improved simulation accuracy, and a much broader window of performance for your engines. This is especially true for turbocharged engines, as we have completely re-worked how the turbos themselves work, making them much more accurate in all aspects, but low-end performance especially. For the first time, we now do a full simulation of the engine at all throttle settings; this is all made possible by moving most of the calculations to C++ from LUA, which has had a dramatic performance improvement.


Naturally-aspirated engine quad-view graphs.


Turbocharged tri-view graphs.

New graphs greatly aid in engine tuning, which is far more important now that you have control over the size of your fuel system (for carbureted engines), intake manifolds and exhaust headers. This permits an unprecedented level of tuning to engine outputs, and allows players to target the application of their engines much more easily and accurately. Using the fuel and ignition timing maps can help you tune for the best possible power for high-performance builds, or getting the engine's efficiency exactly right with your gearing for optimal efficiency. More information on how to tune your engines can be found in these two tutorial videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twe1Vo1C17k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8brk07BixA

As you saw above, we've added a bunch of new turbocharger configurations in LCV4.2, including single and twin-turbos for nearly all engine configurations, as well as quad turbos for V12 and V16 engines. Many new fuel types have been added and accurately modelled as well, including ethanol blends, methanol, compressed gas fuels and nitromethane, among others.

---

The bold new world map for Campaign mode, new in LCV4.2.

The big new feature in this update is Version 4.2 of the Campaign Mode. In prior iterations of Campaign Mode, players would be "flying blind" when they were building their entries into various markets; there was no easy way to predict how successful your new car is going to be. With LCV4.2, that changes, as we have added extensive forecasting tools now, to help players make informed decisions about markets and pricing, and have taken a lot of the guesswork out of the process.


Factory staffing page.

We've also had a complete re-think of how factories work in Campaign Mode; each country has a finite pool of workers available at a given wage, so don't build a huge factory in Dalluha in 1946 with the expectation of running three fully-staffed shifts immediately! Careful planning will be needed to make sure you have the right number of employees in your factories at the right time.

---

A fun example of what's now possible with the Advanced Trim Settings tool in LCV4.2 - these also export to BeamNG.drive!



Take your Automation designs to the next level with the Advanced Trim Settings tool in the Car Designer. Alter engine sounds to your liking, and the visual appearance of your designs by changing tire sizes and appearance, ride height, wheel parameters and many more. These changes also export to BeamNG.drive as well!

Note: These changes are visual only and will not have any effect on the performance of your Automation car, or on your exported car in BeamNG.drive.

---

Shinyodd's Super Silhouette build, looking fine in one of the new HDRi photospheres.

We've added a cool new tool in the Photo Mode; the ability to use HDRi photospheres to place your car into an entirely new world of photo locations. What's more, the new photospheres have a pretty major performance increase over the conventional photoscenes, so those with less powerful computers will be able to produce some fantastic results regardless!

---

As fun as the 80s Engine Test Room was to have in the main menu background, it really slowed things down...
As mentioned earlier, we've taken much of the old LUA game code and translated it into C++, which has granted a huge performance increase in the speed of calculations, both in the Engine Designer and especially in Campaign Mode. In many cases, we've seen an improvement of a factor of a hundred or more, which will be welcome for those very complex, late-game Campaign Mode playthroughs!

A lot of attention has been paid to loading times as well in LCV4.2; we've completely changed how Workshop mods are loaded into Automation, so we have now done away with the game launcher as the default option when starting the game.

---

Because LCV4.2 is basically all-new under the hood, all of your cars and campaign saves from 4.1 and earlier will not be accessible. The file structure has completely changed, and we've moved the save directories to %localappdata%\AutomationGame\Saved - this was done to eliminate the issues we've had with antivirus programs and protected folders affecting Automation.

When you upgrade to 4.2, your 4.1 saves are still all there, but they won't show up in latest version.
There is a way you can bring your 4.1 cars into the 4.2 version of Automation, but you need to be on 4.1 and export your cars to make that happen.

1. Start Automation and go into the Car Designer, then export all of the cars you wish to keep as .car files. These will be found in Documents\My Games\Automation\CarSaveExport. You will need to do this for each trim you want to carry over.
   
2. Update Automation to the new version, and subscribe to any mods you want that are compatible with the new version. To find compatible mods for the new version of Automation, go to the Steam Workshop page, and in the bottom right corner, select "UE4_27" from the dropdown menu labelled "Game Engine".
   
3. Once Automation has completed updating, copy the .car files you created in Step 1, and paste them to %localappdata%\AutomationGame\Saved, then run the game.

Do note that none of the engineering (engines and drivetrain) will import, and any bodies and fixtures that have not been updated with the new version will also not import either.

What are branches? Branches of the game allow you to access different game versions through your Steam Library. You can pick which branch to run on by right-clicking Automation in your Steam Library, selecting Properties, then going to the Betas tab, and selecting a branch. Once that is done you need to let Steam update the game.

We will be keeping the existing LCV4.1 version available as a rollback. Additionally, we have opened up a branch of an older LCV4.2 with only the updated turbochargers but not the rest of engine designer revamp, listed as 42_pre_ed_revamp. There are also other legacy versions of the game available to you.

---

That's about it - we hope you all have fun with the new version! We'd love to hear from you too; get in touch here or on our official Discord server, on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, or on Reddit or the official forums. Have fun and enjoy, all!

Some quick fixes to issues uncovered in yesterday's big patch. This should address most of the game breaking ones!

• Switched over to using the new troubleshooting-focused launcher
  
• Fixed crash entering factory on new campaign save
  
• Fixed lua error selecting Dalluha in campaign setup
  
• Fixed lua error when changing turbo count
  
• Fixed suspension weight being 0 or too large
  
• Fixed up a few wrong starting familiarity stats
  
• Fixed front and rear wing angles not being saved
  
• Fixed MCost multiplier not being shown in quality slider tooltip
  
• Made old campaign savegames incompatible to prepare for public launch
  
• Balance changes to muffler selection in engine generation AI

• Fixed info files displaying peak torque at 0 RPM
  
• Fixed rear progressive springs taking compressed stiffness from front springs
  
• Fixed dampers causing the suspension to bug out

This is another release candidate build. Tonight we'll see if this is solid enough or if we need another hotfix.

Cheers!

This is the last big polishing patch before the big merge of 4.2 with the public default branch! We're aiming to get it all wrapped up this week. Pour yourself a drink, get some snacks, and have a read of one of the longer changelogs in recent times:

• Fixed failed car generation not deleting the engine it made for itself
  
• Fixed trimslots that were not in the latest facelift not being able to be unpaused
  
• Fixed factory shifts going higher than supported by engine production
  
• Fixed factories that took 1 month to retool not get their hitpoints back
  
• Fixed forecaster oddites with required vs estimated shifts
  
• Fixed issue where you would not gain 36 months engineering bonus in first project
  
• Fixed cars with missing mod rims not complaining when imported
  
• Fixed a hardcrash from attempting to export a car with a name that is too long
  
• Fixed there being an explosion icon on healthy engines
  
• Fixed factory staff sometimes getting stuck and not increasing
  
• Fixed forecaster to be able to cope with non default margin modes
  
• Fixed specific lua error that could occur on month tick
  
• Fixed issues with steering options with imported cars from pre 4.2
  
• Fixed stopping trim preorders barring deliveries with existing stock
  
• Fixed hardcrash when exporting animatics at any super resolution
  
• Fixed procedural meshes receiving decals
  
• Fixed issue with transverse FWD unlocking

• Full revamp and fix-up of country-themed competitor companies and their lineups
  
• Implemented country-based company starting familiarity ratings
  
• Implemented engine bay filling calculations for turbos
  
• Implemented tech cost multipliers for R&D and in difficulty score calculation
  
• Implemented weight optimization slider into AI car generation
  
• Implemented costs, manhours, and engineering times for turbo setups
  
• Implemented MCost / PU / ET for springs & lifters slider
  
• Car generator AI now uses springs & lifters correctly
  
• Increased turbo oil costs in servicing by 2.5x
  
• Tweaked country tax rates, worker skill, and wage levels
  
• Tweaked how campaign setup works for awareness and dealership levels
  
• Tweaked familiarity gain speed and fixed various familiarity issues
  
• Tweaked pressure slider's effect on familiarity gain in engineering projects
  
• Tweaked prestige bonus for having the latest entertainment packages
  
• Tweaked difficulty starting defaults for campaign
  
• Tweaked how worker hiring speeds & XP gain depend on wages and worker quality
  
• Rebalanced brake cooling costs (ET / PU)
  
• Rebalanced market volatility
  
• Fixed Footprint+ / Footprint- marketing not being hooked up
  
• Fixed creating a facelift removing some company value
  
• Fixed production units not being added to car total from brake cooling slider
  
• Fixed steering quality not affecting comfort correctly
  
• Fixed turbos not experiencing mechanical stress correctly

• Added description for Factory Shifts graph in car project
  
• Added tooltip display of each marketing category's costs
  
• Added missing PU/ET numbers to quality sliders
  
• Added various new icons replacing placeholders
  
• Added a calculate button to the forecaster screen
  
• Added 2 buttons in photo manager to reset camera settings to default or last loaded setting
  
• Added list of dis-/advantages to springs & lifters slider plus its description
  
• Added display of price perception desirability penalty for target demographic in hub
  
• Added sales chart to trim sales tooltip
  
• Added a copy-to-all countries button for marketing choices on marketing screen
  
• Updated campaign welcome texts
  
• Updated various descriptions / tooltips and eliminated missing ones
  
• Polished up start menu news and socials links, fixing some UI scaling issues
  
• Smaller gearbox gear counts are now unlocked until the list would overflow
  
• Fixed and tweaked map zoom and detail levels
  
• Fixed negative stock levels showing as zero and sales graphs disappearing in hub
  
• Fixed factory production tooltips not updating correctly in hub calendar
  
• Fixed campaign setup top bar not updating correctly
  
• Fixed oddities in factory warnings and sales for paused factories in hub
  
• Fixed car and engine side stats formatting for non-English languages
  
• Fixed full lineup mode button getting stuck
  
• Fixed tooltip description of blue sales bars on markets screen of car designer
  
• Fixed factory list in hub not being sorted in meaningful way
  
• Fixed forecaster screen items not updating when entering forecaster first time
  
• Fixed hub calendar not showing model car profit correctly
  
• Fixed quality tooltip jumping up and down as you drag slider
  
• Fixed marketing tab not working with high minimum awareness settings
  
• Fixed setting up a factory throwing you back to the engineering tab
  
• Fixed drivability stat not shown correctly in car manager after generating a car
  
• Fixed issue with sorting of trims in the main campaign hub
  
• Fixed financial report not coloring income green
  
• Fixed issue where you'd only be able to increase deposit %
  
• Fixed issue display of competing trims in side stats demographics
  
• Fixed inconsistency with factory refresh underfunded alert pop up
  
• Fixed side stats demographics sorting being weird when mixing pin and target
  
• Fixed reset all camera settings not resetting all settings
  
• Fixed the desirability tooltip on hub calendar being incorrect
  
• Fixed UI interaction issues with hub stock manager
  
• Fixed the engine ET shown in car engineering not being the current value
  
• Fixed no engine production warning getting confused with multiple facelifts
  
• Fixed factory production / shifts not correctly being limited by staff availability
  
• Fixed top bar not updating engine model name after switching engine
  
• Fixed pausing production not switch icon to confirm it has done that
  
• Fixed downforce aero graph having switched colors for front / rear

• Implemented progressive springs
  
• Added ability to export several trims as configurations of one car (configurations must be exported unpacked with the same mod and car name)
  
• Added electric powertrain swaps
  
• Added ability to export cars preconfigured as EVs (add !ev! to the car's description)
  
• Added manual gearbox whine now depending on trim year, quality and tech pool
  
• Added new main jbeam part
  
• Added more data to configuration files
  
• Added off-road mode to active sway bars
  
• Added that parts of cars now can ignite from collisions
  
• Added fire simulation adjustment sliders
  
• Added BeamNG physics aerodynamics and buoyancy modifier slider
  
• Reworked engine friction
  
• Split fuel tanks and transmissions into separate jbeams
  
• Twin-tube dampers now lose effectiveness under fast movements due to aeration
  
• Active springs now export with adaptive sway bars
  
• Increased damper stiffness
  
• Tweaked steering wheel lock
  
• Increased race final drive tuning range
  
• Fixed leaking parameters in suspension jbeams
  
• Fixed cars getting more flammable with higher safety
  
• Fixed leaking parameters in body and fixture jbeams
  
• Fixed leaking parameters in coilovers

If no big issues pop up, this might very well be the release candidate build that becomes the new normal for everyone. :) Let us know how it plays and if you run into any game-breaking issues.

Cheers!