I've been working on the second phase of the Licensing/Contracting system. This new expansion of the Licensing and Contracting systems allow you to purchase or sell produced chassis, engines, gearboxes, or vehicles units.
What does that mean? In the past, if you bought or sold a license, the purchaser had to produce the units themselves. In short they bought the rights to make the design. In the new "Outsource" system, the buyer purchases manufactured units from the seller. Thus the seller must produce the units in their factory. This is handled with the contracting system. When the player or AI purchases units, a contract is generated for the seller, then the seller must fill the contract as they would any other contract.
The finished units are then shipped to the purchaser to be used in their vehicles (or rebadged vehicles themselves). Because a secondary party is manufacturing parts of your vehicle, an inventory system had to be implemented. Thus production of vehicles with outsourced components are limited to the number of components in inventory.
Realistically, many smaller niche manufactures rely on outsourced components. Lotus for instance uses Toyota engines. 80s Rolls Royce used GM transmissions, and the GEO division of GM was completely badge engineering...
Along with the new contract changes to racing, the new system adds some interesting dynamics to the game. You want to run a company like Cosworth? You can now design and sell engines to racing teams and other manufacturers. Want to run a manufactureless company like the failed Visionary Vehicles? You can outsource all your vehicle production/design now. Heck, you want to be the next Allison Transmissions? Make your billions only manufacturing gears in GearCity!
This is the last major feature to be added to GC. Currently I've been working on it for 17 days. I have roughly 10 more days left of work on it. Currently the AI uses the system well. I have a lot of work to display inventory levels, and make sure everything works OK on the player end. I plan to get v1.22.2 done by the end of the month. I will push other medium/minor v1.22.2 features back to v1.22.3. In v1.22.3/v1.23 I will expand the system one step further to allow platform sharing with companies you own a majority share in.
What does that mean? In the past, if you bought or sold a license, the purchaser had to produce the units themselves. In short they bought the rights to make the design. In the new "Outsource" system, the buyer purchases manufactured units from the seller. Thus the seller must produce the units in their factory. This is handled with the contracting system. When the player or AI purchases units, a contract is generated for the seller, then the seller must fill the contract as they would any other contract.
The finished units are then shipped to the purchaser to be used in their vehicles (or rebadged vehicles themselves). Because a secondary party is manufacturing parts of your vehicle, an inventory system had to be implemented. Thus production of vehicles with outsourced components are limited to the number of components in inventory.
Realistically, many smaller niche manufactures rely on outsourced components. Lotus for instance uses Toyota engines. 80s Rolls Royce used GM transmissions, and the GEO division of GM was completely badge engineering...
Along with the new contract changes to racing, the new system adds some interesting dynamics to the game. You want to run a company like Cosworth? You can now design and sell engines to racing teams and other manufacturers. Want to run a manufactureless company like the failed Visionary Vehicles? You can outsource all your vehicle production/design now. Heck, you want to be the next Allison Transmissions? Make your billions only manufacturing gears in GearCity!
This is the last major feature to be added to GC. Currently I've been working on it for 17 days. I have roughly 10 more days left of work on it. Currently the AI uses the system well. I have a lot of work to display inventory levels, and make sure everything works OK on the player end. I plan to get v1.22.2 done by the end of the month. I will push other medium/minor v1.22.2 features back to v1.22.3. In v1.22.3/v1.23 I will expand the system one step further to allow platform sharing with companies you own a majority share in.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski