Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game News

The second patch to the openbeta provides a lot of fixes and improvements to the new visual design aspect in Automation. The much criticized fixture manipulation UI has been changed, but is a work in progress and the next patch will sort out more of its issues. It now has small confirm (green), mode switch (yellow), and delete (red) buttons next to it. The default mode is the scale mode, which means that both movement and scaling is accessible here. Rotation will be added to that soon as well, which is still quite janky to use as is.

Here is the full list of changes for LCV4.1.2.

[h3]Fixtures & Design[/h3]

• WIP rework of the fixture gizmo (UI), combining more functionality
  
• Added confirm, delete, and mode buttons to fixture controls
  
• Added transparent material option selectable for cars or fixtures
  
• Added Pillar Trim & Window Trim as selectable fixture paint slots
  
• Relit Train Station scene for improved performance and smaller install size
  
• Relit Old Streets scene to fix dark shadows and added time/weather presets
  
• Fixtures now retain the original material assigned to their slots even if not in use
  
• Switching between fixtures within the same fixture family now maintains materials
  
• Fixed fixture car paint slots not loading correctly
  
• Fixed fixture undo stack being broken
  
• Fixed old mods with depreciated Convertible body type not showing in car body UI
  
• Fixed glass materials missing from fixture material list
  
• Fixed photoscenes not loading with languages other than English
  
• Fixed the same car not being possible to spawn twice in a photoscene
  
• Fixed cars not having visual materials before a panel material is selected
  
• Fixed issue with chassis stick out bonnets on some mod bodies
  
• Fixed carb intakes that could not be painted
  
• Fixed fixture select - hide - deselecting making fixture visible again
  
• Fixed hitting tab showing old car manipulation arrows in photo scene

[h3]Campaign And Sandbox[/h3]

• Fixed bug where signing off a new facelift into engineering would tank sales
  
• Fixed issue where only the latest facelift could change pricing
  
• Fixed cylinder head material all looking the same
  
• Fixed Corrosion Res. Steel panels being in sandbox, replaced with Partial CF
  
• Added description text for Partial Carbon Fiber panels
  
• Fixed Partial CF factory requirements
  
• Fixed body type penalties not displaying / working correctly in sandbox

[h3]BeamNG Exporter[/h3]

• Fixed exhaust material not exporting to beam
  
• Fixed cars being exported to BeamNG with the wrong engine
  
• Fixed missing chassis in BeamNG exports (changed to black, WIP)

There are still plenty more things on our list to fix and add, but we appreciate all the bug reports and feedback!

Cheers

The first patch is here already and there are a ton of fixes in this one, including several major ones. That includes fixes for stability, performance, and usability issues, as well as plain old bugfixes.

Regarding the major crash bug fix, we believe that if this works, that is the end of the now infamous garbage collection bug which has been haunting us for several big updates now. Fingers crossed! Submit your bugsplats.

[h3]LCV4.1.1 Fixes & Improvements[/h3]

• Fixed (potentially) crash bug responsible for ~80% of reported crashes
  
• Repackaged game files for quicker updating process
  
• Fixed wrong sized mid engine chassis, and wrong type rear engine chassis art
  
• Fixed head material not visually changing
  
• Fixed clicking a car in photomode changing its position and rotation
  
• Fixed middle-click camera relocation stopping to work
  
• Fixed some cars flipping underground in photo scene
  
• Fixed fixture slot materials not changing when the material changes
  
• Adapated car paint slots to be selectable with the new fixture painting system
  
• Optimized reflections / texture / shadows performance in new photoscenes
  
• Tweaked demographic coloring in market screen "company bubble" mode
  
• Fixed game score display not updating until you reload the save
  
• Fixed the wagon body desire of Family Utility demographics not displaying correctly
  
• Fixed issue where the wing angle would reset when it should not
  
• Fixed visual issues with Partial Carbon Fiber panel option
  
• Wheel blur now correctly blurs only to one direction radially
  
• Fixed wheel and directional blur costing performance even when their strength is set to 0
  
• Fixed double-clicking models in car manager list view not opening them unless they have trims
  
• Double-clicking paints on fixtures now applies them and returns to viewing the fixture slots.
  
• Added new light materials to the 'panel' list of material options. This is as a temporary (!) workaround for lights not working yet. Use as such and be aware this is temporary.
  
• Fixed an issue where mirroring for fixtures close to the centerline wouldn't work
  
• Fixed snap to center-line not working for 3D fixtures
  
• Fixed an issue where the cutout of a 3D fixture wouldn't mirror
  
• Fixed old car drag gizmo showing up randomly
  
• Added key bindings to tooltip of 3D transform widget (Move/Scale/Rotate)
  
• Made fixture translation and rotation sensitivity adjustable
  
• Made fixture scale no longer affect rotation sensitivity

We still have a ToDo list of epic proportions, but let us know how it goes.
Cheers!

Speedy cover art by titleguy1.

The long-awaited LCV4.1 milestone is now available on the opt-in open beta branch!
If you are keen to try it out and don't mind experiencing more bugs than usual, you can opt into the current version via your Steam Library by right-clicking the game, choose Properties, Betas, select the openbeta branch and let the game update. No password required.

While this update should be compatible with your cars, engines, and mods, we recommend you make a backup of your sandbox database with all your cars and engines in case you want to go back to the stable version. You find that here:

\\Documents\\My Games\\Automation\\Sandbox_openbeta.db

A beefy truck by Yangx2 (using mods).

This update does pack a punch with lots of big additions and changes to both campaign and the car / engine designers, the latter especially on the visual side. The following is the condensed list of features and changes.

[h3]LCV4.1 Campaign Features[/h3]

• All new sales model and market simulation
  
• More in-depth dealership mechanics
  
• Implemented preorder sales of cars before and during production
  
• Improved hub calendar UI [WIP]
  
• Implemented competitor companies with specific company profiles
  
• Revamped credit score calculations and financing
  
• Added a first project engineering time reduction for quicker start
  
• Factories can be added to productions without a facelift
  
• Factory deterioration and car stocks now affect company valuation
  
• Revised all factory plot, build, and add-on costs
  
• Added a labor cost dependency on shift range and shift count
  
• Added manual control of car sales prices (to dealers)
  
• Implemented automatic overdrawn-account loans
  
• Added a car bodies unlock overview on the R&D screen
  
• Added an engineering times multiplier option in the campaign setup
  
• Market volatility scaling options added to campaign setup
  
• Additional market information overview modes
  
• Added a yearly finance report as a news item
  
• Revised falloff of body age penalty, more in early years, less after 2000
  
• Added an HQ country bonus to company prestige and reputation
  
• Added forecaster access during engineering and production
  
• Added marketing options for secondary and special stats
  
• Cars can now run on more premium fuel when built for lower octane ones
  
• Added button to delete all campaign saves

[h3]LCV4.1 Sandbox, Art, & Misc Features[/h3]

• Implemented 3D fixtures
  
• Added ability to turn on a car's lights [WIP, coming in next patches!]
  
• Player defined headlights, brakelights, etc. (BeamNG compatible)
  
• Added transparent windows controls (BeamNG compatible)
  
• New engine block [done] and engine head art [WIP]
  
• Implemented basic engine visual customization [WIP]
  
• Suspension and chassis rework [WIP] partially completed
  
• Merged fixture and car paint systems to allow custom fixture paints
  
• Implemented car and engine tagging system in managers
  
• Added new convertible roof type selection and stats
  
• Implemented car stats comparison tool for side stats like for engines
  
• Added a control to reset fixture materials to their defaults
  
• Added highlight to paint sections on car to show what will be painted
  
• No more fixture reloading when going from designer to photo scene
  
• Major improvements to fixture UI material loading performance
  
• Added reset morph button to trim designer
  
• Added a CTRL-drag mode to slow down fixture translation / scale / rotation
  
• Added Shift + C free-roam camera
  
• Hold down arrow keys to continue moving fixtures after a small delay
  
• Added mod banner to rim selection UI
  
• Added option to menu to disable automatic camera rotation
  
• Main menu screens now full height to see more trims/engines in managers

[h3]LCV4.1 Other Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where moving the car in a photo scene halves the fps
  
• Fixed issues with high DPI windows settings
  
• Fixed issue with tire size controls
  
• Fixed test track sectors ordering incorrectly
  
• Fixed prestige and reputation marketing not working without sales
  
• Fixed text boxes reaction to decimal separator in languages where it is not "."
  
• Fixed fixtures causing errors in beam, slowing down loading
  
• Plus tons of little fixes and improvements here and there...

Photo Scenes Note: We have ripped out quite a few of the older (and lower quality) photo scenes and packaged them as a mod called "Legacy Photoscenes". This saves a lot of space for players who don't want or need them, while you can download the pack as an "official" mod from the workshop if you wish to continue using them.

[h3]Outlook[/h3]
In the coming weeks we are going to frequently update the game as we address the various issues and exploits still present and polish up this version before it is merged with the default branch, after adding the last missing bits and pieces supposed to make it into this version. Once done, we're off to working on LCV4.2, which focuses on improving and rebalancing a lot of game mechanics and revamping turbos.

We hope you will enjoy and look forward to seeing all the amazing new things these features will allow you to create.
Cheers!

It has been two months since the release of the LCV4.0 milestone and its emergence from open beta. This means we’ve had plenty of time to dig into that big list of features that is planned for the upcoming LCV4.1 milestone. In case you are wondering about other coming milestones, check out this video.

The Clarion Vianta in old London town with transparent windows.

Here just highlight a few of the upcoming features of that version:

[h2]Campaign[/h2]

• Completely new sales model, dealerships, and marketing mechanics
  
• A whole bunch of improvements to the campaign hub and other UI
  
• Ability to add factories to existing productions without facelifting
  
• Quicker campaign start and adjustable engineering times

[h2]Sandbox, Art, BeamNG[/h2]

• Visual engine customization
  
• Big rework of chassis and suspensions
  
• 3D Fixtures, movable and adjustable without being limited to the car
  
• Adjustable transparency for car windows
  
• Several new awesome photo scenes and photo scene UI
  
• Car and engine tagging and organizing in sandbox
  
• Added depth to choice of convertible types
  
• Custom definitions of what lights on the car do, export to BeamNG

There is a lot more to it than that though, and as always we have been showing off the progress towards the next milestone on our YouTube channel. If you haven’t already, check out these videos to see what awaits you in this next big update and how the implementation of the new features is coming along.

[h3]LCV4.1 Planned Features Overview Video (June 18th)[/h3]
https://youtu.be/gs2PX7ea2N0
[h3]Progress Update 1 (July 9th)[/h3]
https://youtu.be/wb76mrDAuFU
[h3]Progress Update 2 (August 12th)[/h3]
https://youtu.be/fvoTBD4WvY4
We are aiming for a first open beta of the LCV4.1 around mid to late September at this point.
Cheers!

Quite a bit delayed, but finally the Lite Campaign V4.0 is here, releasing into openbeta. A new, more stable game engine version, much more fleshed out factories, tons of polish, UI improvements, and lots of fixes await you in this big update. Have a look at the summarized change log below.

The LTS Mercury, designed by Ezdmn.

After a pretty long openbeta phase and 17 patches to that branch, this version has now been merged with the "stable" or "default" version of the game and everyone has it. If you have been part of the openbeta you can choose to opt out now (which won't change anything about the game in that case) by right-clicking the game in your library - select properties - betas - then choose to opt out.

Due to the major game engine update to UE4.24, mods will have to be updated by their creators to be compatible with the new game engine version. Updated modding tools are already available.

[h2]Main LCV4.0 Features & Fixes[/h2]

• Update to a new game engine version, UE4.24
  
• Added finances page in campaign hub, and pie charts. Yum!
  
• Fleshed out factories, add-ons & functionality
  
• Implemented factory building and tooling degradation
  
• Car and engine build quality, recalls event system with multiple choice
  
• QA, worker wages and experience affecting build quality
  
• Lots of UI and quality of life improvements
  

[h2]General LCV4.0 Features & Fixes[/h2]

• Improved load times by up to 5x (!)
  
• Improved campaign hub calendar UI and functionality
  
• Improved FPS in car / engine designers and project UI
  
• Improved car and engine preview thumbnails, option in settings menu
  
• Improved UI animations and prettier, more consistent looks
  
• Added pause menu to sandbox and campaign (ESC)
  
• Added launcher option to select / deselect all mods
  
• Added various car bodies
  
• Overhauled factory tooling costs depending on chassis type, material, and panels
  
• Fixed a lot of campaign functionality and made it more reliable
  
• Fixed various issues with photoscenes, their controls and settings
  
• Fixed issue with fixture undo / redo stacks
  
• Fixed various issues with morphing and fixture placement
  
• Fixed issue with some small engines stalling in BeamNG.drive
  
• Tons of little fixes and polish
  

Cheers!