01-25-2014, 10:20 AM
First of all, I think we have (almost) the same opinion about what Gear City should be (and is definitely going to be). A business simulation with some but not too much technical details. Automation for me has too much designing and too much technics. I am not a fan of designing hours and hours to develop one single engine. So I think the balance between business and designing in Gear City is almost perfect for me.
Well I think it is quiet difficult to decide what is important for an engine. But I think that you have allready listed the major components of an engine. So I would suggest three more categories at the beginning menue of engine design with not to much options:
Head design (sv, ohv, ohc, dohc)
Number of valves (2 to 5)
Fuel system (single carb, double carb, fuel injection)
I think this would not be too difficult to handle as the differentation is only from low tech (and low cost) to high tech (of course not everything will be available in 1900).
Why I would love to see these things? I dream about playing a multi marque company (like GM or British Leyland) and would love to differentate (correct in English?) the marques with low-tech and high-tech engines at some point. A little example: In the thirties, Morris (GB) owned three other marques: Wolseley, Riley and MG. Morris was the butter and bread marque, but Wolseley hat some special engines, small 6 Cylinder ohc engines. These were also used by MG to create something famous as the MG K3 Magnette Roadster with a 6 Cylinder 1.087 ccm ohc compressor engine with about 120 PS. At the same time, Morris used some really old school sv-units.
(01-25-2014, 02:07 AM)Arakash Wrote: That's a fair and reasonable point you've made. Especially about only two changes.
The main reason i brought up the comparison:
I was wondering, how we (or more more accurately the game designers) would go about deciding what engine feature stays abstracted through sliders and what is directly chosen.
Again lets use the Automation comparison. Im not suggesting we use all or any of that game, or that you would want to, its just a useful comparison as an extreme example.
Major design categories seem to be:
Displacement/layout - Part of which is in Gearcity
Head type/number/design - the category where the valves of your suggestion were
Aspiration system - Part of which is in Gearcity
Fuel system (carb/injection)
Exhaust design
What i was wondering, was if you had valve number, whether it might be equally justified to have carb/injector decision or to select the type of Cam.
Anyway, its just something to think about. As i said earlier, i dont know enough about engines to actually say what is important or not.
Well I think it is quiet difficult to decide what is important for an engine. But I think that you have allready listed the major components of an engine. So I would suggest three more categories at the beginning menue of engine design with not to much options:
Head design (sv, ohv, ohc, dohc)
Number of valves (2 to 5)
Fuel system (single carb, double carb, fuel injection)
I think this would not be too difficult to handle as the differentation is only from low tech (and low cost) to high tech (of course not everything will be available in 1900).
Why I would love to see these things? I dream about playing a multi marque company (like GM or British Leyland) and would love to differentate (correct in English?) the marques with low-tech and high-tech engines at some point. A little example: In the thirties, Morris (GB) owned three other marques: Wolseley, Riley and MG. Morris was the butter and bread marque, but Wolseley hat some special engines, small 6 Cylinder ohc engines. These were also used by MG to create something famous as the MG K3 Magnette Roadster with a 6 Cylinder 1.087 ccm ohc compressor engine with about 120 PS. At the same time, Morris used some really old school sv-units.