Auto Modify

[Eric.B]

If I design a part, in a few years, the rating will drop to a low level. That's before the 15 year age penalty mark that you mentioned below. For example, if I push out an engine rated 75, in just a few years, its rated 20-30 overall.

Yes, this is by design. You start to lose rating points the moment R&D is finished. I miss read you and though you were losing rating points while in R&D.

That being said, stat wise a 50 rated engine in this game is average. However realistically 20-30 rated is average when it comes to actually pricing a product people can buy. You can't design a top of the line product and expect it to be the best for decades. Technology doesn't work like that.

To borrow a concept from computers, Moore's law states a doubling of transistors every 18 months. (Meaning every 18 months CPUs are twice as fast.) While the numbers may be different, vehicles are still a piece of technology and the concept of always getting better still applies.

The rate of decline you state is wrong. To test numbers, I built a car with 75 rated smoothness. Simulated 36 months and the rating dropped to 59. That's a 22% decline, or 11% every 18 months. Far slower pace than Moore's law. In 6 years this rating is down to 46. And in 9 years you're at 36. Which is average compared to your peers (Check what they're offering to sell in the Licensing system.)

In that 9 year period overall rating went from 52 to 25. With a 9 year period game, a 25 rated engine is 147th out of 412 engines. 253 of which are newer designs.

At about 9 years is roughly the same time Toyota does an engine redesign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_engines#V8

I'm not talking about using a 1900 model in 2010, and I know that the game does simulate better parts in later years, but I mean I'm finding myself have to redesign a part every 3-5 years, which takes 10 months to research, then I have to take even more time to redesign the car it's going in.

Removing age penalties results in people using 1900 models in 2010. This is why they were implemented in the first place.

Components have a 5-15 year life cycle. This is true in game as it is in real life. I already mentioned real world examples. Each instance of 5.0L Ford engine you mentioned as well as the 5.7 Toyota engine. You design a Great 75 rated engine, and in 10 years it's average, 15 years it's below average.

This is what the modification system is for. Your engineers making new, improved versions of older parts.

Yes, this is what it is for. However it's designed to be used once every couple of years to keep a component "fresh." This is why it has diminishing returns. If you're using it 5 times in one month, it's no wonder you can't keep a component average for a longer period of time.

Again I point to my timeline I gave you of the 5.0L Ford 302 Windsor engine. They made adjustments to the engine every few years.

The reason for the drop is that technology changes over time. New technology (or improvements on old technology) typically makes older technology less reliable. A 1980s fuel injector is the same part as a 1990s fuel injector, however the 1990s injector is much more reliable.



[quote]What I mean is, the modification system only boosts the ratings by a tiny amount, not enough to put out a more reliable part. After a few years, if that part drops to an overall rating of 20-30, it usually has 3 star reliability, and I try to release all of my parts with 4-5 star dependability, and if I try to modify it, I can never return to that, no matter how much I spend.

It may be easier to think of it this way, Modifications = tweaking. Adjusting timing rates, putting hotter plugs in, that sort of stuff. Putting a redesigned fuel filter in to improve fuel flow. Etc. It's stuff to do to prolong the life of your engine a couple of years. If you're looking to increase reliability, use redesign. It will be the same family of engine, same sliders, but with more modern/drastic changes done to it. Will it take few months? Yes, but you have to plan ahead.

What exactly does the age penalty do then, drop the ratings? Because like I said above, my parts all drop massively in rating after just a few years, there's no way it's 15.

Age penalty effects sales of vehicles and any vehicles using components. For vehicles, base designs older than 5 years (without being new year'd) start to receive the penalty. It increases every year. For components it's 15 years.

Ratings decline regardless as time marches forward always. However putting a year or two hold on ratings decline might be something to think about.

If it were 15 years, this wouldn't be a problem at all, but I'm having to modify the parts every 3-4 years, and if I redesign them, it takes another 10 or so months to make a new one.

Sounds like it is working as is designed. Although you can let your ratings go a little lower. With the above mentioned 75 rated smoothness engine, I would do a modification at about 9 years (36 smoothness rating.) In about 3 more years I'd do it again, by 15th year it's time to retire the engine.

And yes, it takes engineers 10 months to do a redesign of an engine. Hell a little video game like this takes 6 years to get to this point.

Would it be possible to add a sort of class system to cars? So if you choose a pickup, you can choose light duty, medium, etc, and that way you can max out all the stars you want, and not be having to tow a ridiculous 32,000 pounds for your mass produced flagship model? It just triggers me to have to get any less than 5 stars

The system does not work like this. Specs of vehicles, such as towing are comparable through all classes of vehicles. They are just weighted differently for the type of vehicle. This is so the consumer has the ability to jump classes based on what they want.

So while you twitch at not being able to get 5-star ratings for everything, you have to come to the realization that 5-star vehicles do not exist in the real world. The F150 is good at towing. But the F650 is better. You could make an F650 level in towing, but people who want to buy trucks (where towing and cargo are important) won't be able to afford it. The game is not modeled around developing hyper-cars, but making the "bean-counter" choices that go into developing real world cars.

So in short, no, the ratings are not developed around the classes. Nor can they be changed to be without a huge multi-year rewrite of a lot of code. We're way to far in development for that.

That being said, don't focus so much on the ratings. The only important rating is the "Specific Vehicle Type" rating. Yes, this rating comes from all the other ratings, but it is the one you should focus on improving and making "5-Star."