How are you comparing the sales? Model vs Model Globally? Model vs Model Locally? Or just looking at your marketshare charts? Also how are you comparing the vehicles? Overall ratings? The overall rating is not very important when it comes to sales. You should be using specific vehicle type rating or compare the individual ratings of the vehicles in the showroom.

Some reasons why your sales can be low are 1) bad fuel type choice. Different fuel types have popularity values as well. 2) Low engine smoothness rating (Important for high luxury vehicles types). 3) Your vehicle is too slow. There is a sales penalty if your vehicle is too slow. 4) Your design is too old. (After 5 years, sales will start to decline unless you update them.)

Marketing will help some, but it really depends how much competition there is in a location.

Anything more than that, you'll have to send me the save game so I can look through your company and provide you feedback. http://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=troubleshooting:steam_installfolder#sending_a_save_game

I'm comparing the prices, sold quantity, and ratings (both overall and type) on the Branch screen. The story is the same whether I look at any specific city or any region as a whole.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1428998739

Fuel is gasoline, so shouldn't be a problem.

2, do you mean it's important in how it contributes to the rating, or does it have a hidden effect in addition to the rating?

3 is likely a problem. The car is woefully underpowered, but the ratings claimed power wasn't very important, and my sedans using the same engine don't seem to have a big problem selling. Do you mean that having a low speed is a detriment above and beyond the impact it has on a car's rating? If so, are different types of cars impacted differently? How can I tell where the cutoff for speed is, and how much of an impact it will have?

Showroom comparison:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1428998660

I emailed you the save too, just in case there's something going on that isn't apparent. Thanks for taking a look.

I'm not too concerned with this exact model, but there's clearly something going on that isn't apparent to me and I want to make sure I understand the mechanic causing it so it doesn't happen to me again.

In my simplistic user expectation, the Type Rating represents the quality of the car, and something that's cheaper and higher quality shouldn't struggle like this.

Thanks for the save game, but there is no need for me to look at it. The information is right there. The top speed of your luxury sedan is 11kph. Or approximately 6 mph. There is a minimum speed limit the consumer wants for a vehicle's type (based on the performance importance of the vehicle type.) Most people can jog faster than your vehicle's top speed. So it no wonder everyone is buying the car that is 5 times faster. :) (If you use the advance designer there is a giant red warning text in the bottom center of the designer.)

I also see in the background of the second picture that you are using a Single Cylinder engine. This will also be bad for a luxury car, because single cylinder engines vibrate a lot. They have a low engine smoothness rating.

Put in an engine worthy of a $3200 ($100,000 in today's money) price tag and you'll get more sales. I suggest something like an i3 or i4. Right now you have a microcar engine in a tank. :)

Thank you. I'm still not clear how a player would know things like this, though. Coming to you every time seems like a pretty hard to scale approach. :) Should I design every car in an advanced editor and assume that every red warning is a deal-breaker, even if the car rating is high? I'm just not sure if it's an isolated thing or there are many different ones. You mentioned smoothness, but are there others? Where can I find what they are?

I'm also not sure how come the same pathetic engine and lack of speed was not a problem for my sedans, which are still selling like hot cakes?

If you are open to it, I'd recommend having things like this directly tank rating (e.g. have a separate "Penalty" category with a high weight where things like this would go). IMHO, when the game tells me the car is good through rating, tests and reviews, but the car is actually crap, which is then reflected in sales, that's bordering on a bug.

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

Thank you. I'm still not clear how a player would know things like this, though.

In the advance designer you are given warnings that specifically says the vehicle is too slow. It's in Giant Red Text plop center on the screen by the ratings.

In the assisted designer one should be careful about adjust the sliders too low for wealthy demographics. I do not believe it gives you a warning specifically, but it's an uncommon problem unless the player detunes the assisted designer.

Should I design every car in an advanced editor and assume that every red warning is a deal-breaker, even if the car rating is high?

The key is reading. If giant red text says "This vehicle is too slow for the type of vehicle it is." Then your vehicle is too slow.

Other than that read the help buttons. There is a few hundred of them in the game, they tell you these things. In fact the help button for engine smoothness specifically says:

Smoothness rating is a measurement for how quite and vibration free this engine is. Smooth engines are important in luxury vehicles as well important in providing maximum power to the crankshafts.

And then the Luxury ratings help buttons in the vehicle designers specifically say:

The luxury rating combines the suspension comfort of the chassis, the smoothness of the engine, the ease of use of the gearbox. As well as the comforts, styling, materials, physical size, and technological advancement of the vehicle's interior and exterior. More luxurious vehicles demand a premium over non luxurious counterparts. As such certain demographics will expect higher levels of comforts. Customers in this demographic do not mind paying a little extra for vehicles with higher luxury ratings. Additional luxury features will increase vehicle weight which will reduce vehicle performance and harm fuel consumption.

Anyway, luxury ratings isn't your problem. Just thought I'd point to all the information that it's in the game. It's around 50,000 words.

I'm just not sure if it's an isolated thing or there are many different ones. You mentioned smoothness, but are there others? Where can I find what they are?

Essentially every rating matters. Some more so than others. Look at the "Importance" stars for the vehicle type you want to build and then design the best components for that. The Assisted designer helps somewhat, but it is not perfect, specially in early years.

Luxury cars require more luxury, so don't use the cheapest engine in the game. They're also bigger vehicles, so they require bigger engines.

I'm also not sure how come the same pathetic engine and lack of speed was not a problem for my sedans, which are still selling like hot cakes?

Sedans have lower luxury importance ratings (the gold stars) and are for poorer demographics than luxury cars. Hence they have lower engine smoothness requirements.

Sedans are also generally lighter, as they have less luxury features and are smaller vehicles. Weight has a negative effect on top speed. Your Sedans may have been slightly faster.

If you are open to it, I'd recommend having things like this directly tank rating (e.g. have a separate "Penalty" category with a high weight where things like this would go).

If you read the latest announcement, the game is in feature freeze. Beyond what is in the ticketing system, no new features are being added to the game.

That being said, vehicle performance already effects the vehicle performance ratings. Case in point, the vehicle in your picture has a 9/100 for performance. Performance of the vehicle shouldn't effect luxury ratings, etc. As that would not make sense. As for overall ratings, it is just an average of the ratings. And Specific Type rating is just a weighted average of the ratings.


What will be coming is a complete breakdown of the consumer AI values for you and your competition. That may help clear up some of your miss understandings post vehicle release.

IMHO, when the game tells me the car is good through rating, tests and reviews, but the car is actually crap, which is then reflected in sales, that's bordering on a bug.

Well no, the car isn't crap, it checks off all the boxes people want in a luxury car. Except, it's just too slow. It's plain as day to see in the comparison window, in the ratings window when you're designing the car, in the warning panel if you were in advance designer, and dare I say common sense when you see 11kph/6mph as the speed. :)

Anyway, you're on a build that is 4-6 months out of date. I believe I have made some tweaks to the Assisted designer in that time. I tried duplicating a super slow car to give you a quote for the advance designer warning, but it I couldn't. And it is eating up too much of my work time.

(And forgive me if I seem a little terse, late night, and dealing with headaches getting SteamWorkshop implemented!)

Originally posted by Eric.B:

What will be coming is a complete breakdown of the consumer AI values for you and your competition. That may help clear up some of your miss understandings post vehicle release.

That would be very useful! I'd suggest replacing the overall rating and type rating in the branch window with the consumer score if those ratings together with price only partially determine how attractive the product is for the customers.

I also want to clarify why I'm posting, especially suggestions and opinions rather than solely asking for practical answers to help me figure out the game and enjoy it. I'm not trying to insult or start an argument and the last thing I want is to have you spending your time writing lengthy posts to prove I'm wrong and should know better. I am hoping that I'm helping you by sharing my experiences as someone coming in and trying to learn the game that you have been living and breathing for years and know all the ins and outs.

I think the game needs it, because it is a fantastically envisioned, lovingly executed, deep game that deserves epic success. But it is hindered by poor usability and confusion, which is not solely the result of complexity. I really want to enjoy it and appreciate it in may ways, but playing it is painful, at least for now. Ironically, this is similar to the luxury sedan design we discussed in this thread: fantastic in so many ways, but... 11kph. :)

If what I'm doing is not helping, let me know, and I can keep my posts to utilitarian requests for advice. The game is already good in many ways and there will always be a segment who enjoys it, of which I likely will be a part once I figure everything out with this board's help. But I think that segment is small and many people will give up. I don't know anyone else that I could recommend this game to in its current state. Even folks I've recommended Capitalism Plus to...

So, again, I want to help improve the experience for a new player. If for some reason this is not possible or what I'm doing isn't something you find helpful, let me know.

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

Originally posted by Eric.B:

What will be coming is a complete breakdown of the consumer AI values for you and your competition. That may help clear up some of your miss understandings post vehicle release.

That would be very useful! I'd suggest replacing the overall rating and type rating in the branch window with the consumer score if those ratings together with price only partially determine how attractive the product is for the customers.

It won't be replacing either of these ratings, as they serve a purpose. Nor will it be displayed in the lists and what have you, because the consumer rating is different for different cities/demographics/etc.

It will simply be a break down of the formula and your vehicle results. No more no less. Expect the page to be fairly long and dynamically generated at the player's request.

I also want to clarify why I'm posting, especially suggestions and opinions rather than solely asking for practical answers to help me figure out the game and enjoy it. I'm not trying to insult or start an argument and the last thing I want is to have you spending your time writing lengthy posts to prove I'm wrong and should know better.

Don't worry, I was insulted or starting an argument. I was just appoligizing for the snark " and dare I say common sense when you see 11kph/6mph as the speed. :) " I get snarky when I'm tired and/or frustrated. :)

And I don't mind long replies, I do it quite frequently.

So, again, I want to help improve the experience for a new player. If for some reason this is not possible or what I'm doing isn't something you find helpful, let me know.

And thank you for the feedback. I don't mind it, but keep in mind you're on version 1.23. The game is currently on v1.23.4. So you're about 6 months behind in updates. We're also only one major build away from release, so features are extensively frozen at this point. So not many suggestions (if any) will make it into the game.

Speaking of, what is exactly the intended purpose of rating and type rating? I thought initially they determined how good the car is from a customer's point of view, but that's not the case, since there are additional variables like speed that can make a high-rated car disliked. So what do you use them for?

And snarky or not, you are right that it's common sense that a luxury car doing 11kph is crap. The problem is that common sense isn't always a very good guide in games because no game is a perfect representation of reality. This is exactly why a game needs to tell the player what's good and what isn't, giving actionable feedback to player actions. In this case, the feedback wasn't actionable for me, since it wasn't clear that speed was the problem. That's where your formula breakdown report will help. What happened was that I thought the 1HP sedan I built in the tutorial
was also utter crap, but the customers didn't care at all even though common sense says they should've. Since that decision was handsomely rewarded with profits and Best Car accolades, I would never have thought to suspect it when the lux flopped.

That's why I really like the formula breakdown. For anything going catastrophically wrong in the game, there should be a way for the player to investigate why it's going wrong. I really hope that someday the game will have a big enough following for the community to generate thickly populated wiki pages and guides, explaining things like this in detail.

But to get there will require more players and getting more players will require them to learn the ropes more easily, IMHO. Maybe if not in the release, then in V2 or a Paradox-like DLC/update.

OK, I won't bore you repeating the same thing over again, but while I have your ear and DLC came up: I know you said you are not a fan, but you also liked the idea of adding military ground vehicles. I would definitely pay extra for GearCity:Iron Fist. :) And since armored trucks and tanks are not that drastically different from regular trucks, they would hopefully fit in well with the existing system. I say you should think about it. You've spent a lot of time and resources to build GC to where it is now. A DLC like this could provide the funding to take it the rest of the way to awesome.

You know what I'm gonna do with that luxury sedan now, right? I'm not going to leave it and build a sports car instead. I'm going to spend some more to improve the problem component and make a killing once the improved version hits the market. ;)

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

Speaking of, what is exactly the intended purpose of rating and type rating? I thought initially they determined how good the car is from a customer's point of view, but that's not the case, since there are additional variables like speed that can make a high-rated car disliked. So what do you use them for?

The descriptions should be in the help buttons. But essentially overall rating is a rating for the "Ultimate" car. Perfect in every category. It is used directly in the consumer/buyer ratings.

The specific type rating is all the other "star" ratings for a vehicle weighted by their importance into one rating. This is not used in the consumer rating, but represents the effects the non-spec'd ratings effects on the consumer rating. You use this rating to compare your vehicle to other vehicles in class.

The problem is that common sense isn't always a very good guide in games because no game is a perfect representation of reality.

We attempt to model reality as closely as possible within the technical and financial resources at my disposal. :) So for the most part things should be close to common sense in the game. :)

That's why I really like the formula breakdown. For anything going catastrophically wrong in the game, there should be a way for the player to investigate why it's going wrong. I really hope that someday the game will have a big enough following for the community to generate thickly populated wiki pages and guides, explaining things like this in detail.

I've already got a thick manual for v1.11, and I plan on implementing two more thick manuals in our official wiki (www.wiki.gearcity.info). I am just waiting to finish the game first. :)

Anyway, slow vehicles are a bit harder to do in the newer builds. So you probably won't run into this problem again. But I may throw in a warning popup like 0hp engines do with the assisted engine designer.

OK, I won't bore you repeating the same thing over again, but while I have your ear and DLC came up: I know you said you are not a fan, but you also liked the idea of adding military ground vehicles. I would definitely pay extra for GearCity:Iron Fist. :) And since armored trucks and tanks are not that drastically different from regular trucks, they would hopefully fit in well with the existing system. I say you should think about it. You've spent a lot of time and resources to build GC to where it is now. A DLC like this could provide the funding to take it the rest of the way to awesome.

Do a search for "Expansion" and you'll see my take on it. We may eventually end up with some military vehicles. I am not sure if it will be paid or not paid however.

As for DLCs, I really dislike them. But if paid mods ever comes back to Steam, I know the main 3d artist would be interested in making several vehicle type packs.

You know what I'm gonna do with that luxury sedan now, right? I'm not going to leave it and build a sports car instead. I'm going to spend some more to improve the problem component and make a killing once the improved version hits the market. ;)

Design a new engine, make a trim of the luxury vehicle and then stick that new engine in it. You can then discontinue the old luxury car. (RnD->Modify Vehicle->Trim). That will shave off some development costs. (Don't forget to make sure the engine will fit in the chassis before designing it!)