After roughly 1925, the cost of everything will go up incrementally no matter what. This is due to inflation, advancements in automobile technology, increase skill requirements, and a decline in production improvements that drove down the costs in int he 1910s and early 20s.

So you will not be able to escape the rising costs of vehicle development.

So then the question is, why are you redesigning your old engine if the new engine design is worse? Your current engine design is only 6 years. It's still a fairly new design. You can easily go another 10 years on that design before you would get a significant advantage of a new engine design. You also have the added benefits of economy of scale with the old design. The price of the old engine has been driven down due to manufacturing it so much and for so long.

Redesigning the engine does not use the old engine as a starting point. It is a new design with the same focus as the old one.

In the real world, companies generally don't start a replacement design until the old engine is about 10 years. Some like the Ford Model T last 19 years. Others like the Chevy 350 go through several modifications and last around 30 years...

The game will start to penalize you for technology at 15 years for components. And 5 years for vehicle designs. From a pure profits standpoint, your best bet is to use your old engine until the ratings of the new engine is significantly better or until the age penalty is effecting you too much. And then you upgrade.


As for when you use modifications. The system has recently been changed. In Default build you can do it at anytime. Some folks like to do it all at once. In Testing build and newer, you are limited to once every couple of years. I personally would time these modifications with new generations of vehicles (do chassis and engine first, then use the refit system on the gearbox to save time). Thus I would spread out my 3-4 modifications of the old engine every 4 years in line with a new generation of vehicle. At 15-20 years old, it'll be time to retire the old engine. In which case you make the new one. Yes, it will be more expensive, everything is. Remember you paid for that old design 15-20 years ago, you have 15-20 years of experience building them. It's using 15-20 year old technologies...

Thank you so much for the fast response. So what im doing wrong is being too early on the new generation of components. But the thing is, if I dont keep doing new designs my skill wont come up, right? Or I just keep my skills from going down by investing money in the RnD? Im playing the new test build, so the modifications come every 2 years, its when I do a new gen of vehicles and refit the old engine with the new modification. Another thing I have a doubt, if I have the minimum skill for, lets say, a subcomponet for an engine, and make this engine, and then if I have more skill, lets say 100 (max) and do the same engine at the same time, the 100 skill will affect the final rating? Thank you!! Keep up with the awesome updates, this game is just awesome.

Originally posted by Kowalski:

Thank you so much for the fast response. So what im doing wrong is being too early on the new generation of components. But the thing is, if I dont keep doing new designs my skill wont come up, right? Or I just keep my skills from going down by investing money in the RnD? Im playing the new test build, so the modifications come every 2 years, its when I do a new gen of vehicles and refit the old engine with the new modification. Another thing I have a doubt, if I have the minimum skill for, lets say, a subcomponet for an engine, and make this engine, and then if I have more skill, lets say 100 (max) and do the same engine at the same time, the 100 skill will affect the final rating? Thank you!! Keep up with the awesome updates, this game is just awesome.

Hey, just a tip, at least in the versions i played, redesigning increases manufacturing requirements, so it's totally fine to do if you are producing in europe or NY, but if you move to South America or other less skilled regions and don't have a super techy factory it's important to pay attention to it. Also, i don't know if i should be "answering" as i DO NOT KNOW (just wanna give life to the forum and maybe start a friendly conversation), but i do share your feeling of my skill having a big impact on ratings, my inner self is almost sure of it, but is totally empirical. Dev's attention to the forum is amazing right?

Originally posted by Kowalski:

Another thing I have a doubt, if I have the minimum skill for, lets say, a subcomponet for an engine, and make this engine, and then if I have more skill, lets say 100 (max) and do the same engine at the same time, the 100 skill will affect the final rating? Thank you!! Keep up with the awesome updates, this game is just awesome.

I can test this, I'll save edit and post the results.

Originally posted by Kowalski:

Thank you so much for the fast response. So what im doing wrong is being too early on the new generation of components. But the thing is, if I dont keep doing new designs my skill wont come up, right?

This is true. Your best designs need to have an overall rating that is higher than skill level for it to go up. I believe in the version you are playing it's designs within the last 10 years. For the v1.23.2 it'll be 5 years. But designed stuff has less of an effect and RnD teams are much more important in the next build.

So for instance if you have a skill rating of 60, you'll need to have engines that are rated above 60 for the skill to continue to go up. RnD Teams only positively supplement the growth. So for instance 25% RnD Team sliders will increase growth rates by 0.1.

Or I just keep my skills from going down by investing money in the RnD?

That is one way to do it. Another, probably easier way is to invest in racing. Design new engines frequently for race cars. At which point, unit costs don't really matter so much.


That being said, for the most part, getting perfect skill points is near impossible. At around 60 skill points you'll be able to unlock most things at the minimum available time lines.

Another thing I have a doubt, if I have the minimum skill for, lets say, a subcomponet for an engine, and make this engine, and then if I have more skill, lets say 100 (max) and do the same engine at the same time, the 100 skill will affect the final rating?

Ratings are only calculated at design time. (When you hit "Build It".) So increasing your skill points after an engine has been designed will have no effect on that engine.

Originally posted by Ghost7600:

Hey, just a tip, at least in the versions i played, redesigning increases manufacturing requirements, so it's totally fine to do if you are producing in europe or NY, but if you move to South America or other less skilled regions and don't have a super techy factory it's important to pay attention to it. Also, i don't know if i should be "answering" as i DO NOT KNOW (just wanna give life to the forum and maybe start a friendly conversation), but i do share your feeling of my skill having a big impact on ratings, my inner self is almost sure of it, but is totally empirical.

To add on to this, very recently I have made changes to manufacturing requirement's effects on production amounts per month. Making this rating much much more important than in current builds.

That being said, remember, unless you make a new generation or new trim with the modified component, you will still be using the older revision in the vehicle.

Another suggestion, if you have lots of money sitting arround, or can afford a expense, you can make "prototypes" (a strategy i actually learned in the forums, just make a engine gearbox chassi or vehicle with the worst design rating (the stars and number in reverse order confuse me, just make it as expensive to design and check the rating, is either righ number low stars or vice versa), it'll imptove significantly your skills, at least in the build I'm playing on. I just don't knoe if they stack, but from what the develepor said i fell lile it would be logarithmic diminishing returns, so i would make 2 or 3, see how much the skill goes up, and decide if you should keep doing it.

Originally posted by Ghost7600:

I just don't knoe if they stack, but from what the develepor said i fell lile it would be logarithmic diminishing returns, so i would make 2 or 3, see how much the skill goes up, and decide if you should keep doing it.

If I'm not mistaken, rates cap at 0.4 growth per turn with the current build. So they wouldn't stack above that value.

Wow so much info, thanks a lot. I managed to get to year 1960 with a lot of money. I have so much money, coming from 12 years old cars still being sold that I made a new car and I'm selling it by half the money I need to produce it, trying to make the AI go bankrupt. I can sustain this strategy for years. Is there a way to make all the AI go bankrupt?

Originally posted by Kowalski:

Wow so much info, thanks a lot. I managed to get to year 1960 with a lot of money. I have so much money, coming from 12 years old cars still being sold that I made a new car and I'm selling it by half the money I need to produce it, trying to make the AI go bankrupt. I can sustain this strategy for years. Is there a way to make all the AI go bankrupt?

You can not make all the AI go bankrupt. After a certain amount of companies go out of business (or are bought out by you) the game will generate new companies to take their place. Thus preventing a empty game world.

Be careful with these tactics. I will be introducing anti-competitive lawsuits in the near future. :)

Ok, so I understand that there is significant inflation in the game, but what's been confusing me is why there's inflation for new designs, but not for existing designs. It makes it somewhat difficult to compare.

Originally posted by Trifler:

Ok, so I understand that there is significant inflation in the game, but what's been confusing me is why there's inflation for new designs, but not for existing designs. It makes it somewhat difficult to compare.

Select the "Component/Vehicle Inflation" check box under "Options 2" before starting a new game. This is enabled by default on harder difficulty levels.

Originally posted by Eric.B:

Originally posted by Trifler:

Ok, so I understand that there is significant inflation in the game, but what's been confusing me is why there's inflation for new designs, but not for existing designs. It makes it somewhat difficult to compare.

Select the "Component/Vehicle Inflation" check box under "Options 2" before starting a new game. This is enabled by default on harder difficulty levels.

Ah, I see. Thanks. Is there an option to turn inflation off completely?

Originally posted by Trifler:

Originally posted by Eric.B:

Select the "Component/Vehicle Inflation" check box under "Options 2" before starting a new game. This is enabled by default on harder difficulty levels.

Ah, I see. Thanks. Is there an option to turn inflation off completely?

Completely, no. Everything would be stuck at 1899 prices. You could disable economic fluctuations, and that will get rid of booms, recessions, and depressions. That makes inflation a bit more linear. And if you wanted to do some modding, you could make most of the other inflation systems in the game more linear as well. But hard coded inflation can not be edited or removed.

If the engine designs get cheaper to over time because of scale... why do manufacturing requirements go up so much with modification of an in-production design above a new engine?