Hey there,
3) It seems to me that the only difference between the "Production" and the "Production+Storage" classes of buildings is that the latter can be switched from production to warehouse and back. With the prices not that much different for similar sizes, is there any advantage I'm not seeing to choosing the plain "Production" ones?
Yes. Production+Storage facilities tend to be larger than just Production ones, therefore, for the same physical space you can have either more storage space, or more production lines installed. For example, the largest Production+Storage building has 8900 sq. m. available, whereas the largest Production building has 8500 sq. m. available; so you can push some more production lines onto a P+S building.
4) Is there any limit to how many of each item a warehouse can hold, or only a limit to how many different items it can hold?
Yes there is a limit on the stored volume. I don't know exactly how each item is calculated, but for example I have a 8900 sq. m. storage building where I store only steel (yes I need that much steel, my monthly usage is about 180k units). Anyway, it holds ~425k units of steel
5) Does one need to leave lots of pathways between the buildings? And how can one tell if supplies are going to have trouble getting from one building to another?
No, you can fill up the whole map if you want.
6) When you get offers on, or start researching, chassis or engines, does it matter whether you select small, mid-size, or luxury car? Or is the body the only part where this makes a difference?
For engines, AFAIK, no. For chassis, yes. I had in the past situations where the research guy wouldn't want to research a 15HP chassis for a small car, but accepted researching a 15HP chassis for a middle-ranged car.
7) Any insight on the best way to split the advertising budget? (Me, I just took a wild guess and set every branch to 30%/50%/20%.)
I use 50/40/10 in all my branches.
Actually, reading from other posters, It seems that I'm on a different sales methodology.
I price my cars usually 2.5X the building costs for small cars, 3X for middle-ranged cars and 5X for luxury limousines. It's 1906 now and I grossed about $40m last year, selling about 1500 cars a month, being 1100 small cars, 350 middle-ranged cars and 150 limos - I sell only one of each model at a time.
Also, I have lots of branches across all countries (5+), and I offer a 20% discount for dealers in each region. Still, I spend no more than $3k on advertising. Surprisingly, even grossing as much as I said before, my market share never leaves the 3-4% mark, albeit my company image is always "very sunny"
8) With parts, what numbers are better or worse? I have presumed that: for body, less weight is better; for chassis, more carrying capacity is better; for engine, less weight is better, more HP is of course better, and cylinders and RPM and cubic capacity are not really important. Is this right?
Yes, CCM and RPM are of no real usefulness. Anyway, you'll always want to match a chassis with a compatible-powered engine -- no need for a 15HP chassis when all you have are 8HP engines. Also, it's important to keep an eye on the total weight, body included. Especially in the beginning, you can build cars that actually yield faster maximum speeds with a combination of voiturettes + chassis 5hp + E 2 cyl 4 Hp, because they are very lightweight (the engine weights only 66kg), than if you were using any 10hp + 8hp engine. Top speed sells, keep that in mind =)
9) Any reason to not give a prototype the maximum number of gears possible?
I don't seem to find any reason, too.
10) Is there any point to test driving a new model? I find it awfully tedious, and I don't learn anything about the prototype from it.
No, only if you want to practice for a race event...... What makes no sense at all, again, because race events are a steal: Your competitor's times are always > twice of your lap times.
Anyway, the test drive doesn't tell you nothing about your cars except for the actual maximum speed.
That's all I can think of for the moment. Or at least I'll make myself stop thinking of new questions now.
P.S. Someone upthread asked if there are any new games in this genre in the pipeline. I know of one independent developer--well, a one-man freeware outfit actually--who is working on one. The author of GameBiz and GameBiz 2--bare-bones games yet strangely addictive--is in beta on "CarBiz:Megacorp". His
website has a link to the game's forum and other information.
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I can't think of any other else, apart from Detroit, but then Detroit has the issue of being way too easy, even in the hardest difficulty level.
Anyone willing to spend some free time in starting a project like this? I have some ideas, I can code and I can do gfx...
Seeya
Fowler