Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game News

A small patch with fixes, including the materials issue, and some goodies, including the race tubular header art for turbos.

[h3]LCV4.2.7 General Fixes & Improvements[/h3]

• Added art for turbo race tubular manifolds [WIP]
  
• Added options to custom paints for relative and global texture scaling
  
• Remade the V60 MPFI / DI manifolds
  
• DRLs now have a toggle button and brightness slider in light controls UI
  
• Fixed issues with material / paint selection menus
  
• Fixed highlights on top of shiny objects in photoscenes with the overcast time of day
  
• Fixed photo scene having excessive bloom by default
  
• Fixed balance shaft setting being sticky on changing of engine configurations
  
• Fixed the model year not updating the stored engine year which resulted in weird engine years
  
• Fixed scaling fixtures along the car axis resulting in a snap to center
  
• Fixed car light sliders defaulting to 0, they initialize with a value of 50

We are still hunting for the car fixture merging bug, that is currently highest on our list of priorities.
We're aiming for another patch towards the end of the week!

Cheers

Lots of important fixes, tweaks, and some new features are coming at you in this latest update to the opt-in alpha of the game.

If you want to check it out and have not opted in yet, you can do so by right-clicking the game in your Steam Library, choosing Properties, Betas, and select the openbeta - 4.2 alpha testing branch.

Making the underlying NA torque curve visible is surprisingly useful. Also... twin-scroll!

[h3]General Fixes[/h3]

• Game engine got updated to its second patch version, UE4.27.2
  
• Decreased game launcher height so it fits on smaller resolution screens
  
• Fixed possible way to fixture nuke two cars simultaneously with undo and cause "jello cars"
  
• Turned off the export cars button from the pause menu as it is a suspected source of car nukings
  
• Fixed fixture state that can result in destroying fixture positions on body morphs
  
• Fixed fixture conforming to the car while it is being dragged around costing lots of performance
  
• Fixed fixture text not respecting the 3D mode non-conforming
  
• Fixtures no longer cut out seams that they are placed over
  
• Fixed cases of extreme bloom when using minimal bloom settings
  
• Fixed not being able to turn off motion blur in settings
  
• Fixed engine family quality slider not updating engine stats if the engine is in a car
  
• Fixed every engine supposedly needing Magnesium Works
  
• Optimized competitor lookup performance
  
• Added some logging to help debug a start up crash
  
• Big performance increase for high-fixture-count cars

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Fully fleshed out stats for the various intake options
  
• Tweaked intake flow limits and made compact intake more viable
  
• Tweaked cam progression tfor more usable range, cam 0 is now = 15, 100 still is = 120
  
• Reduced quality effects on baseline NA torque to make more realistic Nm/L figures
  
• Fixed entertainment weights being way too high
  
• Tweaked all fuel system prices
  
• Added a dashed "base NA equivalent" line to the power torque graph for turbocharged engines
  
• Tweaked flow reductions of all muffler types and catalytic converters
  
• Fixed loudness inconsistency in intake options

[h3]Turbos[/h3]

• Added twin-scroll turbos
  
• Added race tubular turbo headers option (graphics not in yet, but next patch!)
  
• Added much more cam dependence into turbo spool point
  
• Revised intake & header resonance effects to be more realistic
  
• Revised spool behavior based on turbo size
  
• Tweaked compressor map progression to not require as much quality for modern turbos
  
• Tweaked turbo AR ratio progression with Tune slider

[h3]Design, Art, Content[/h3]

• Added a ruler fixture for all your measuring needs
  
• Fixed engine bay sizes on 11_Eu_Super families which were too small
  
• Fixed body material issues with 10scoupe02large and 10scoup02_large_convH
  
• Fixed 10sCoupe02 Series and 00s_Van_Lowroof that got corrupted for 4.2.4
  
• Fixed custom paints having incorrect sizes when applied to scaled fixtures
  
• Fixed very poor performance of Desert Gas Station photoscene
  
• Fixed extreme light strength in reflections in Modern Studio by default
  
• Fixed a bunch of weird / inconsistent seat row limitations for various car bodies
  
• Fixed cloth paint material scaling incorrectly with different objects

[h3]Modding[/h3]

• Updated SteamWrosk SDK to 1.52 and addressed a startup crash
  
• Fixed numberplate material missing from SDK tools
  
• Added Steam workshop / exporter categories for rocker covers, props, and custom paints

Loads of issues and features to work on still before a beta, but things are coming together nicely and the alpha is becoming more playable... and hopefully enjoyable... with every patch.

Thank you to everyone helping out by reporting issues!
Cheers

This patch is a mixed bag of fixes for all aspects of the game and covers many of the things you've run into with the latest update.

[h3]General Fixes[/h3]

• Imported .car files are now moved to CarSaveImport/Imported instead of being deleted
  
• Improved cam / VVL related engine sound changes
  
• Added unit conversion for temperature
  
• Fixed car exporting being broken due to Y2k22 bugs
  
• Fixed UI issues with trying to select / edit lower paint slot
  
• Fixed paint materials not updating the other material editing mode
  
• Fixed heavy duty conrods missing their art
  
• Fixed soft-top material scaling issues in exported cars
  
• Fixed issue with big performance drops for shadows higher than low setting for some players
  
• Fixed performance issues with modern design room
  
• Fixed issue with car importing to avoid weird designer states
  
• Fixed up missing turbo sounds that were not hooked up
  
• Fixed issue with turbos running off the compressor map towards zero efficiency
  
• Fixed issues caused by the right-most clone button in the car manager
  
• Fixed bug where importing cars can result in cars with no engine and broken engines
  
• Fixed clone family button being disabled when variants are selected in engine manager
  
• Fixed displayed seat rows being confusingly formatted in body choice UI
  
• Fixed the uv scale being incorrectly being calculated for the exporter
  
• Fixed disabling photo scrolling breaking image randomization
  
• Fixed paint tooltip not allowing clicking buttons when over timeline
  
• Fixed quality sliders causing issues when slid too fast
  
• Fixed window tint not exporting to BeamNG
  
• Fixed translation mappings for american spellings of colour
  
• Fixed some text fixtures not exporting their alpha channel

[h3]Modding Changes[/h3]

• An Exporter SDK is now available!
• SDK updated to include the numberplate textures

We're continuing to chip away at the big list of broken and missing things tomorrow and next week, plenty more to do! :)

Cheers

The first few days back in the office after the break have been productive and we got a pretty chunky update ready for you to try out. Most of the crashes should be sorted out and a lot of improvements have been made to the turbo calculations and mechanics.

With how things are going at the moment it looks like we're going to be able to shift focus towards implementing the remaining LCV4.2 features starting next week, as this version becomes more and more playable.

Damage to the turbo is now granular and not just on/off.

[h3]Turbo Fixes & Improvements[/h3]

• Revised turbo spooling characteristics, giving more realistic spool curves
  
• Implemented granular surge and mechanical stress models to turbos instead of being on/off
  
• Added cumulative surge and mechanical stress info into compressor map
  
• Turbo headers now affect temperature resistance and wastegate flow before boost creep
  
• Turbo quality now affects temperature resistance of turbos
  
• Fixed numeric stability issues in the turbo calculations
  
• Fixed a calculation issue with having an intercooler that is too small for the required flow
  
• Fixed calculation bug with having no intercooler

[h3]General Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed the biggest sources of reported crashes with several fixes
  
• Fixed crash caused by texture fixtures
  
• Fixed game crashing when changing trims too quickly
  
• Potentially fixed instance of "fixture nuking" in connection with changing photoscenes
  
• Fixed cloning a trim not making a trim slot in some instances, causing cars to be broken
  
• Fixed inconsistency with landing position in model selection when reentering the page
  
• Fixed instance of infinite loading icon in the car designer
  
• Fixed changes to settings not applying and resetting to default values
  
• Fixed graphs flickering their data while scrubbing with the mouse
  
• Huge performance improvements to car & engine managers & car body selection UI
  
• Added missing material cost dependency for all quality sliders
  
• Fixed issues with family quality not affecting ET, PU, and M$
  
• Fixed car parts that need a factory addon pointing to engine factory magnesium works
  
• Fixed mid transverse unlocking in 1920 instead of 1962
  
• Fixed ignition timing not updating calculations
  
• Fixed issue with VVL unlocking based on family year instead of variant year
  
• Fixed tire profile calculation inconsistencies
  
• Fixed engine fill factor not showing

[h3]Art & Design Changes[/h3]

• Added brake caliper rotation to advanced trim aesthetics
  
• Added wheel size matching buttons to wheel sections of advanced trim aesthetics
  
• Added mirror / locked icons to spawned fixture UI & improved fixture UI layout
  
• Added option for 1- or 2-wide spawned-fixture list, with optional fixture indexing
  
• Added lock fixture hotkey
  
• Fixed poor performance of 10s design room
  
• Fixed DCOE race heads inconsistently spawning with airbox pieces
  
• Fixed v60 MPFI/DI race throttle per cylinder missing trumpets
  
• Fixed some incorrect airboxes loading when changing from turbo back to non turbo configs
  
• Fixed paintable engine meshes to correctly support anisotropic materials
  
• Fixed fixture glass materials appearing faceted when put on rounded surfaces
  
• Fixed fixture glass materials not working nicely with ray-tracing
  
• Fixed z-fighting and overlapping geometry on Rim 100U
  
• Fixed dirt/wear values for car materials defaulting too high
  
• Fixed exhaust lod material issues that caused header plates to flash between colors
  
• Fixed double intakes spawning on 60 degree blocks with turbos and TpC
  
• Fixed roof not being paintable on Stylish_SUV_09_ELWB_V5 body
  
• Fixed fixture thumbnails sometimes having other fixtures in reflections

[h3]Modding Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed rim mods not appearing in game
  
• Fixed SDK fixture thumbnail generator throwing warnings while simulating
  
• Moved mod tools files that shouldn't be directly editable into a sub-folder
  
• Added fixture preview file naming convention settings to the SDK thumbnail generator
  
• Added an option to skip duplicate GUID checking in the modding SDK

Thank you all for reporting the issues you're finding! In case you wonder how to do that, either use our Steam Forum thread here, or our discord server.

Cheers!

Things seem to be reasonably stable for now and mostly working. That is not to say there aren't heaps of little and large issues! Those will have to be addressed in January when development and patching will continue at a rapid pace.

We have compiled a smaller final patch to send you off into the holidays with a new LCV4.2 version.

[h2]LCV4.2.3 General Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed default tire sizes not being correctly applied when selecting a trim body
  
• Fixed some missing turbo audio and rebalanced volumes
  
• Fixed engine sound not changing when the engine switches to its VVL cam
  
• Fixed boost / vacuum gauge not behaving as expected on dyno tests
  
• Regenerated body tables for the AI (for when it tries to generate cars)
  
• Fixed wheels not defaulting to linked / matched sizes
  
• Fixed issue with layering when using a car paint on a fixture
  
• Fixed changing between psi and Bar not changing boost values on graphs
  
• Fixed logic in how safety packages fall back when changing years
  
• Fixed twin turbo crossover pipes coming out of the engine bay
  
• Fixed default rim size selection not working correctly
  
• Fixed global paints not saving
  
• Several fixes to the modding SDK
  

And now, unless everything explodes, we're signing off for the year... it sure was an exciting one in good and bad!

We wish you all the best for the next one,
Cheers!