Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game News

[p]Overall, yesterday's release of the new campaign version went pretty well! However, there were a few issues that we were able to address quickly with this hotfix to send you off into the weekend playing more![/p][p][/p][h3]Al Rilma Open Beta Patch 2 Changelog[/h3]

• [p]Added Company HQ level title tooltip[/p]
• [p]Fixed deleting a factory config causing no production[/p]
• [p]Fixed pipes intersecting on inline engine with centrifugal supercharger and no intercooler[/p]
• [p]Fixed issue where facelifting a model increased current car in production costs[/p]
• [p]Fixed campaign engine selection tab not flashing buttons when clicking next without engine[/p]
• [p]Fixed tooltip on clone variant slot button in campaign mentioning trims instead of variants[/p]
• [p]Fixed missing tyre grip line in acceleration graph[/p]
• [p]Fixed missing graph lines in drag graph[/p]
• [p]Fixed car stats prop not working in photo mode[/p]
• [p]Fixed intercooler not disappearing when no intercooler on centrifugal supercharger[/p][p][/p]

[p]Of course there is more to come next week as we continue to polish and fix up the game.[/p][p]Cheers[/p]

[p]It's been a long time coming - much longer than we had anticipated it would be - but we've finally reached a major milestone in the Al Rilma Update development timeline; the updated Campaign Mode is ready for its public debut! [/p][p][/p][p]An opulent and luxurious sedan, courtesy of sol.[/p][p][/p][p]With this, we are now confident enough to say that the Al Rilma Update is now a beta version - being more or less feature-complete for this update, and not missing key components as an alpha version would imply.[/p][p][/p][p]For those of you who have been waiting for the Al Rilma Update Campaign mode, we thank you very much for your patience, and we hope you enjoy the frankly enormous changes to Campaign Mode! Since it's been quite a while, and many of you will be switching over, here's a quick review of how you can opt-in to the Al Rilma Open Beta version:[/p]

1. [p]Right-click on Automation in your Steam library, and go to Properties. [/p]
2. [p]Go to the Betas tab. [/p]
3. [p]From the Beta Participation drop-down, choose openbeta - Al-Rilma Update Open Beta [/p]

[p]Allow Automation to update automatically, then launch the game! [/p][p][/p][p]As always, this is a beta test - you will likely encounter bugs, some unfinished features and the occasional lack of polish in this version; please comment and leave your feedback on what you find so we can make Automation better for everyone! [/p][p][/p][h3]Compatibility Notes [/h3][p][/p][p]All Sandbox cars from the current public build will continue to work just fine, though their engines will need a bit of re-engineering with the new fuel selection tab in the Engine Designer, and new cylinder head types chosen from the new options. All publicly-listed mod content on the Steam Workshop that is compatible with the current public build will continue to work seamlessly in the Al-Rilma Update. Due to the number of new body families/variants in the Al Rilma Update, we strongly recommend you subscribe to the Legacy Car Bodies mod, as this is where we put all of the old, retired and otherwise broken bodies we remove from Automation; this will at least preserve your existing builds that are on these bodies! [/p][p][/p][p]For Campaign players, note that Ellisbury Update campaign saves will not be compatible with the new version, so finish your existing Campaign games before switching over![/p][p][/p][p]Showcasing some of our updated engine visual art![/p][p][/p][h3][/h3][p][/p][p]Putting in the laps, with AIV's mid-engine sports car.[/p][p][/p][h3]Campaign Mode[/h3]

• [p]Added Headquarters Level - You can now grow your company's headquarters to increase various capacities in terms juggling more engineering projects, R&D, marketing, and handling logistics. All for a monthly cost and upgrade cost, and with the downside of becoming less nimble. [/p]
• [p]Added Headquarters AddOns - HQ Addons give your company various benefits like baseline R&D, quicker engineering, or reduced material costs. All for a cost: build cost, running cost, and taking up precious logistics points.[/p]
• [p]Added Company Logistics - Your company has a certain capacity to handle the logistics of running factories. Factories and HQ addons use logistics points to run. The more factories and addons you have, the less supply chain efficiency you get. Upgrading your HQ gives you more logistics points to use.[/p]
• [p]Implemented the ability to sell factories from the factory manager[/p]
• [p]Improved functionality and layout of the campaign top bar[/p]
• [p]Improved main hub UI with more direct access to important information[/p]
• [p]New car project UI flow to make it more straightforward and intuitive[/p]
• [p]Added tutorial texts throughout the new car project flow[/p]
• [p]Improved display of tech levels and tech data on R&D screen[/p]
• [p]Added new car body unlock design "tech" which is driven by the design studio HQ AddOn[/p]
• [p]Added a financial transactions list panel to finances tab[/p]
• [p]Expanded and improved regulations overview panel[/p]
• [p]Removed R&D lab costs, now part of the HQ costs[/p]
• [p]Changed default alignment of engineering projects to always start right away[/p]
• [p]Removed minimum shifts sliders from factories, now always minimum 0.5[/p]
• [p]Increased effective factory sizes in terms of efficiency making multiple trims[/p]
• [p]Improved logic for engine production alignment with car production[/p]
• [p]New and improved campaign settings in advanced campaign setup[/p]
• [p]Improved difficulty score multiplier scaling with starting year[/p]
• [p]Improved and rebalanced market volatility options for campaign setup[/p]
• [p]Tweaked economic class designation of various demographics[/p]
• [p]Doubled the effective strength of marketing on awareness[/p]
• [p]Significantly increased competitor awareness for their company size[/p]
• [p]Fixed negative techpool campaign settings not working for engines[/p]
• [p]Fixed outsourcing factories to not have higher pricing with more variants[/p]
• [p]Fixed tech not unlocking on the right month when facelifting[/p]
• [p]Updated and improved campaign welcome texts[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Gameplay Changes[/h3]

• [p]Tweaked bonus drivability factor from electric variable power steering[/p]
• [p]Improved how affordability is affected by car running costs[/p]
• [p]Tweaked comfort base values for suspension types to make it less design dependent[/p]
• [p]Fixed fuel availability penalty calculations for lower octane fuels[/p]
• [p]Changed how low-stat penalties work in desirability calculations, now use market stat averages[/p]
• [p]Added various stat dependencies to both wheels and driver assists quality sliders[/p]
• [p]Increased springs material costs, ET, and PU to balance their new quality progression[/p]
• [p]Tweaked (lowered) strength of body type effect on practicality[/p]
• [p]Increased safety gain with positive chassis quality[/p]
• [p]Increased chassis quality and suspension quality effect on comfort stat[/p]
• [p]Increased effect of qualities (chassis, suspension, brakes, driver assists) on sportiness[/p]
• [p]Implement New Demographic "Offroad Sport", got rid of "Delivery"[/p]
• [p]Added aero quality, undertray, and active aero dependency to comfort stat[/p]
• [p]Implemented body type bonuses and penalties for various stats[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Engine Art & Car Bodies[/h3][p][/p][p]The new grm_caravel_75 body family![/p]

• [p]Added new bodies grm_caravel_75[/p]
• [p]Added two families of van/truck bodies, unlock in '66 and '86[/p]
• [p]Added new carburetor visual models[/p]
• [p]Added 9 new tail light families[/p]
• [p]A massive amount of fixes and improvements to exhaust headers[/p]
• [p]Fixed piping issues with compound turbo pipes intersecting with the engine[/p]
• [p]Fixed various issues with 72_eu family of bodies[/p]
• [p]Fixed submerged text on intake manifold twin V 60deg[/p]
• [p]Fixed numerous car bodies with missing camera bounds[/p]
• [p]Fixed weird piping on twincharged V16[/p]
• [p]Fixed various belt configurations, avoid running through themselves[/p]
• [p]Fixed intake not despawning selecting variable intake and twin charger[/p]
• [p]Tweaked lighting to reduce bloom on white objects in various design rooms[/p]
• [p]Fixed V12 twincharged setup issues with intersecting pipes[/p]

[p][/p][h3]General Fixes & Improvements[/h3]

• [p]Fixed 'calling static mesh on static mesh component but mobility is static' error on play[/p]
• [p]Fixed sandbox new car/engine prompt ignoring selected company[/p]
• [p]Added fixture depth for 2D fixtures[/p]
• [p]Fixed a memory leak and resulting crash[/p]
• [p]Fixed engine orientation changes not resulting in exhaust headers changing meshes[/p]
• [p]Fixed being able to access car if engine doesn't fit after adjusting stroke / bore[/p]
• [p]Fixed gearbox location not updating after changing engine size[/p]
• [p]Fixed thumbnail generation for small cars with more appropriate FoV choice[/p]
• [p]Fixed fixtures teleporting when opening car from main menu to photoscene[/p]
• [p]Fixed engine designer not resetting properly after leaving[/p]
• [p]Fixed AWD Viscous, OnDemand, Helical all have same engineering time & weights[/p]
• [p]Fixed Advanced Boost twincharging supercharger not working correctly[/p]
• [p]Fixed superchargers not having production units or material costs[/p]
• [p]Added a keybind option for part familiarity mode hotkey[/p]
• [p]Fixed quality comparison tooltip sometimes choosing the wrong engine family[/p]
• [p]Fixed non-mirrored extra wheel fixtures showing mirrored on initial load of car[/p]
• [p]Added standard parameters to car clay paint, like car paint[/p]
• [p]Fixed error caused by missing HQ data to in sandbox code[/p]
• [p]Fixed issues with track sim acceleration calculations[/p]
• [p]Fixed issue with start / finish line and sector time line offsets on Narnilla track[/p]
• [p]Fixed test track simulation speed not going below 1 properly[/p]

[p][/p][h3]UI Improvements[/h3]

• [p]Made all engineering times in tooltips and calculations consider familiarity[/p]
• [p]Added display in demographics tooltip for body type penalties[/p]
• [p]Added running costs breakdown to detailed stats[/p]
• [p]Added rename prompt for cloning engines / cars[/p]
• [p]Fixed wrong icons being used for demographic special stats[/p]
• [p]Fixed R&D UI to be able to better handle negative techpool[/p]
• [p]Improved clarity of car and engine manager UI[/p]
• [p]Combined chassis type and chassis material into one section for clarity[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Car & Engine AI[/h3]

• [p]Much improved, higher desirability competitor cars[/p]
• [p]Improved AI to pick better engine configurations and capacities[/p]
• [p]Improved car generation AI's optimization of car handling algorithm[/p]
• [p]Fixed car generation AI not applying tech pool to engine variants[/p]
• [p]Fixed brake pad choice not working right in AI car generation[/p]

[p][/p][h3]BeamNG Exporter[/h3]

• [p]Fixed distant fixtures causing wide chassis in Beam[/p]
• [p]Fixed softbody export having no proper collision between cars[/p]
• [p]Improved how the weight distribution slider impacts beam exports[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Some more engine glamour shots![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]As with any major development milestone, our task over the coming weeks will be to collate all of your bug reports and issues, and work through them to make Campaign Mode play as well as possible. There are also still some areas elsewhere in the Al Rilma Update that are still very much work-in-progress, so we will continue to work on those too as we make our way to the inevitable public release of the Al Rilma Update.[/p][p][/p][p]As always, we look forward to all of your feedback on this new update, please comment and leave your feedback for us here, or in any of our community hubs below.

Cheers, and enjoy![/p][p][/p][p]Onward and upward, with chiefzach2018 and Ivan's hillclimb special![/p][p][/p][p]DiscordOfficial ForumsRedditYouTubeInstagramBlueskyTikTok[/p][p][/p][p](Post header image courtesy of NOSshot)[/p][p][/p]

[p]Hello everyone!

We've been hard at work on getting Campaign Mode for the Al Rilma Update ready for its debut! With all the work we've put into it so far, we figured it was a good time to add in some more features to Campaign Mode. There's a lot to go through here, so we decided it was time for a new Little Dev Update.

Enjoy![/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]As always, we'd love to hear your comments and feedback, and answer any questions you might have![/p]

[p]With today's patch we have another bunch of fixes that helps us bridge the gap to campaign being done. Lots of fixes and polish all-round, but compared to how much has been done on campaign in the meantime, this seems small in comparison! We are taking several big steps with the campaign that we didn't originally intend to put in the Al Rilma update, but deem it worth adding now to avoid the confusion that comes with half-finished systems interacting. More on our progress in the coming week![/p][p]But for now, here is the chunky changelog of Patch 8:[/p][p][/p][h3]General Fixes[/h3]

• [p]Fixed a crash in the test track sim[/p]
• [p]Fixed engines with high idle speeds being untestable on the dyno[/p]
• [p]Fixed a lua error cloning an engine in a sandbox car[/p]
• [p]Fixed lua errors when regenerating an incomplete manually created car[/p]
• [p]Fixed loading of additional cars into photo mode not working[/p]
• [p]Fixed MPV demographic choice showing as Pony Budget in Steam rich presence[/p]
• [p]Fixed incorrect spawning of turbocharger components and downpipes in certain configurations[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• [p]Added Dalluha Salt Flats top-speed test track (Note: the track sim doesn't get the correct speed / acceleration values yet, making cars under-perform, we're investigating!)[/p]
• [p]Improved simulation of CVVL, significantly improving fuel economy[/p]
• [p]Implemented forced induction weight calculations[/p]
• [p]Fixed emission optimization slider bug where the range was 0 to 9 instead of 0 to 100[/p]

[p][/p][h3]UI Improvements & Fixes[/h3]

• [p]Added leaded fuel ban year to show in regulations UI[/p]
• [p]Added keybind for "Duplicate Fixture In Place"[/p]
• [p]Made fuel availability desirability penalty display consistent with other penalties[/p]
• [p]Made small improvements to the photoscene props UI[/p]
• [p]Changed settings button to be a pause menu button in challenges[/p]
• [p]Fixed creating an engine in a car not using the car's target demographic / region as default[/p]
• [p]Fixed twincharging having its avd. boost controls hooked up the wrong way around[/p]
• [p]Fixed car and engine name fields not being prefilled[/p]
• [p]Fixed not being able to see engine graphs fitting an existing engine in a new car[/p]
• [p]Fixed comparison stats between trims not updating until a recalculation happens[/p]
• [p]Fixed morphing not updating tire width UI[/p]
• [p]Fixed previous setup's comparison lines dissapearing for front/rear wing angle sliders[/p]
• [p]Fixed tooltip for power units selection in the settings menu[/p]
• [p]Fixed emissions graph mode in car design not showing region year unlock data[/p]
• [p]Fixed "Locked Fixture" not changing its icon correctly[/p]
• [p]Fixed detailed stats title header always saying "Drivability" for all stats[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Introducing the Kompact 1996 body family - six wheelbases, forty-two variants and lots of morphs![/p][p][/p][h3]Content[/h3]

• [p]Added new grm_Kompact 1996 unlock car bodies[/p]
• [p]Fixed driveshaft clipping through chassis tunnel in various situations[/p]
• [p]Fixed issues with DCOE centrifugal supercharger configuration intake manifold[/p]
• [p]Fixed turbos not being correctly rotated in various configurations[/p]
• [p]Fixed V and boxer engines spawning twin DCOE mount when using single DCOE[/p]
• [p]Fixed cast mid single turbo issues with non-turbo exhaust connecting pipe[/p]
• [p]Fixes to clipping issues on boxer engines with compound turbos[/p]
• [p]Fixed too large downpipe on 1 of 4 turbos of a quad turbo setup[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Multiplayer[/h3]

• [p]Fixed kicking a player from the lobby not working correctly[/p]
• [p]Added steam rich presence string for being in a multiplayer lobby/game[/p]
• [p]Added ability to join a multiplayer game via the friends list[/p]
• [p]Fixed issues with UI flow when finishing a multiplayer game[/p]

[p][/p][h3]BeamNG Exporter Fixes & Improvements[/h3]

• [p]Improved automatic clutch to avoid synchro damage[/p]
• [p]Exported cars now select a maximum of 20 breakable fixtures (largest are prioritized)[/p]
• [p]Fixed cars exporting 10 to 15 % overweight[/p]
• [p]Retuned engine inertia[/p]
• [p]Improved strength of live axle rear[/p]
• [p]Retuned export damping (slow vs fast, bump vs rebound)[/p]

[p][/p][p]As always, we welcome all discussion of fixes, features, and bugs... especially new ones you find![/p][p]Cheers! [/p]

[p]As many of our Mac players noticed, the long-discussed MacOS version of Automation did not make its return with Al-Rilma Update Patch 7. Why is that? Unfortunately, a number of reasons led us to make the difficult decision to end development of the native MacOS version of Automation. This was not a decision made lightly, nor was it a decision that was entirely ours to make either. In the following we want to share with you in some detail the factors and circumstances that led to this point, as well as an alternative path forward.[/p][p][/p][h2]Why are we choosing to stop development of the MacOS version?[/h2][p][/p][p]Well, there are five main reasons why:[/p]

1. [p]Ending Support - Apple recently announced that when MacOS 28 arrives in 2027, Rosetta support will be ending. For those that don't know, Rosetta is the technology that runs behind the scenes that translates the x86 code that PC applications need to run (and is used on virtually all PCs since time immemorial, practically) on Apple's ARM-based processors. This causes a serious issue for Automation - and indeed nearly all games developed on Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) specifically - in that UE4 relies on Rosetta to run quickly and efficiently on MacOS. Without Rosetta, Automation will become unplayable as a native MacOS application.[/p]
2. [p]Rendering Pipeline - In the current version of the MacOS build that we've worked on for patch 7, we have encountered several rendering pipeline issues for Automation that are nested deep in the game engine. These are causing screen flickers and frames rendered with inverted vertices ("spazzing out") for a brief moment whenever you edit your car. Further investigation has shown that we likely wouldn't be able to fix this ourselves and that the only supported cure currently would be switching the game over to Unreal Engine 5. Releasing the MacOS version with these issues would be unacceptable.[/p]
3. [p]UE5 Unviable - Transitioning Automation to Unreal Engine 5, at this point in its development, is not a viable option. We've done several game engine changes with Automation throughout it's 14+ years in development, from switching from our own, homemade game engine to UE4 in the first place, as well as several UE4 version updates following. We can tell you that this is a time consuming and often frustrating process. There are a lot of wildcards involved that can absolutely foul up any timelines you may have for the transition, and as anyone who has been in the community for long enough will tell you: things break in the transition, mods stop functioning, and players are likely to lose most, if not all, of their existing saves in the process of an engine switch. We've already promised to the Automation community that the switch to UE4.27 that we made in 2022 would be the last engine switch, and we have found no compelling reason to break that promise.[/p]
4. [p]Mod Logistics - Even in case we were able to somehow solve the rendering bugs in UE4, there would be one issue we could not solve effectively for the MacOS version - that being, UE4's need to have Workshop mods "cooked" for each operating system. We would need to build out our Software Development Kit (SDK - the tool our modding community uses to take their raw 3D models, convert them to a usable format for UE4, and then upload them to the Steam Workshop automatically) to allow modders to create mods for MacOS Automation in addition to PC Automation. That doesn't magically happen for the 600+ mods that already exist on the Steam Workshop for Automation; they would need to be re-cooked and re-uploaded to the Workshop to work with MacOS, and that re-cooking process might very well end up breaking those same mods on the PC side. Not an ideal situation at all because this would effectively create a two-tiered mod system, and introduces the possibility that popular mods might never make it to MacOS at all, if their creator is no longer actively modding for Automation.[/p]
5. [p]Maintenance Costs - Maintaining the physical infrastructure on our end to build and test on MacOS is a not-inconsiderable ongoing expense, especially in terms of developer time that could be spent on improving the game instead. We are a very small team for the size of the project as is, and it goes without saying that we would rather focus our efforts on what gives us the most benefit in delivering Automation to you, the player, as best as we can![/p]

[p]None of these issues, except for #1, are unsolvable admittedly, but to put it simply, it's just not a good use of our time to finish development of the native MacOS version, only for it to just stop working (probably for good) in less than two years.[/p][p][/p][h2]So, what now for Automation on Mac?[/h2][p]Well, something we have found over the last little while is that Automation runs more or less perfectly on Parallels! We found it was just as stable as the PC version and that it ran largely the same when comparing performance on comparable PC and Mac hardware. Additionally, you get the added benefit of running the PC version of Automation, which allows full, unfettered access to the Steam Workshop and all of the mods on it, and also not having to worry about any of the issues we've just discussed with Rosetta support ending.[/p][p][/p][p]We understand this is very disappointing news for some of you, and we hope that you can understand the difficulty of making this decision. We look forward to welcoming our Mac players on Parallels now, and far into the future![/p]