GearCity 1.14 Progress

[Eric.B]

All the vehicles that I currently have (minus duplicates and missing artwork) have been added to the game.

I shall now add all the accessories and then it's onwards toward bugs!

[Eric.B]

Most of the accessories have been added. There are a few issues with some of them so I will fix that before moving to the bugs list.

Thought I'd give ya'll a teaser:

[Arakash]

Most of the accessories have been added. There are a few issues with some of them so I will fix that before moving to the bugs list.

Thought I'd give ya'll a teaser:

Thanks for the screens. Its interesting seeing such modern cars rendered in Gearcity as im so used to seeing old ones in here .

I think ill try to do some more testing today to see if i can find more bugs before you get going on the bug smashing.

[Arakash]

Forgive me if I'm out of line here but......
It looks like 1.14 is still quite some time off. Is there any chance you could put out a hot fix to the game zeroing out marketing expenditure? I can play around all of the other bugs in the current build but if I can't advertise my cars I can't sell them.

Again, sorry if I'm out of line but I've stopped playing because of this one bug and I miss the game LOL

Just thought id point out a very simple fix to this that will stop you from encountering the bug.
Stop using the lock features, thats what causes it. I was playing games without them today (adjusting it over time like we did in earlier versions). It works fine.
All of the other features, like being able to assign marketing to an entire area by percentage works totally fine and is actually really nice.

[Frankschtaldt]

Forgive me if I'm out of line here but......
It looks like 1.14 is still quite some time off. Is there any chance you could put out a hot fix to the game zeroing out marketing expenditure? I can play around all of the other bugs in the current build but if I can't advertise my cars I can't sell them.

Again, sorry if I'm out of line but I've stopped playing because of this one bug and I miss the game LOL

Just thought id point out a very simple fix to this that will stop you from encountering the bug.
Stop using the lock features, thats what causes it. I was playing games without them today (adjusting it over time like we did in earlier versions). It works fine.
All of the other features, like being able to assign marketing to an entire area by percentage works totally fine and is actually really nice.

Thanks!!! Can't believe I didn't think the try turning those off!!!

[Eric.B]

Fixed research bug when player has no factories or branches.
Fixed turn crash when player has no factories or branches.
Fixed bug in accessories listing which off sets buttons.
Adjusted torque/weight ratio numbers to lower fuel mileage for big vehicles with tiny engines...

[Eric.B]

Fixed a bug in the shipping distance system.
Adjusted engine stroke's effect on torque.
Replaced PS with kW
Torque information is now shown when designing an engine.

[Eric.B]

Fixed bug in Assisted Engine Designer size adjuster.
Fixed bug with resetting marketing expenses when using the "Apply" button while marketing is locked
Fixed bug in the mega menu marketing system applying extra marketing to vehicles not sold in an area.
Fixed a bug in the engine displacement causing weight values to jump greatly instead of smoothly.


I think I fixed a few more little bugs, just forgot to write down what they were...

[Eric.B]

Fixed odd marketing numbers bug.
Adjusted spacing of ratings in the RND system
Rearranged buttons for Car RnD
Fixed bug in the decreasing skills requirement when starting at later years.

[Eric.B]

I've started late game play balancing. I'll start with 1980, get it working great then work my way back to 1900...
Anyhoo here is a few things I've touched on so far:

Adjusted component and vehicle design and unit costs.
Decreased late game factory costs.
Increased factory's baseline cost (will effect you more early on)
Adjusted AI's starting money when founded before the game has started.

I will probably have to adjust the design costs a little more since the sliders do not seem to have as much of an effect in the late game.

[Eric.B]

Fixed bug in AI system which would not assign proper reserves to proper production lines.

[Remaggib]

I'm sure you've mentioned it somewhere or another, but will there be an option to turn down the number of AI competitors? Only reason I ask is that by 1913 my wife's computer takes literally 40 seconds to a minute to end turn, and that's on months that aren't quarterly. Feel free to delete this or move it if my post shouldn't be here

[Eric.B]

I'm sure you've mentioned it somewhere or another, but will there be an option to turn down the number of AI competitors? Only reason I ask is that by 1913 my wife's computer takes literally 40 seconds to a minute to end turn, and that's on months that aren't quarterly. Feel free to delete this or move it if my post shouldn't be here

Yes, there should be a range of options. From 10 AI to ~500ish.
In 1.13 there is 200AI of which only about 60 are operating before 1930.

I'm not sure if selectable AI will be ready for 1.14, we'll see.

[Sebastiano1942]

1.14 will be different game with much more options ,can we know approx. when can be done 1.14 ? and how much job you have to do so far.

Thanks

[Eric.B]

1.14 will be different game with much more options ,can we know approx. when can be done 1.14 ? and how much job you have to do so far.

Thanks

1.14 Full Beta (Early Access) will be the full game minus whatever is left for me to do in the suggestion parts of the forums and some artwork.

1.14 Open Beta will have the same restrictions as before (1900-1930 years)

ETA is roughly 1 to 1.5 months from now. I'm a little over halfway done. Working on balancing the economic data and AI in the late game.

[Sarchez]

ETA is roughly 1 to 1.5 months from now. I'm a little over halfway done. Working on balancing the economic data and AI in the late game.

Sleep is overrated. Work work work!
Am really looking forward to the early access, so I can build a Morris Mascot, with a badass V12 engine!

[Eric.B]

It's been a while since I updated so here it goes.

I've been working on balancing issues such as starting money, production line growth rates, costs, employees, etc. As of right now I'm pleased with 1900 and 1980. I'm about to check 1930 and 1950 to see if the interpolation between 1900 and 1980 provides good results for 1930 and 1950...


Also I've done significant improvements and bug fixes to the AI. Found a real nasty bug in the AI system that prevented the AI from selling from reserves. This means the AI was charging much higher prices than it really needed to, to compensate for the over production of vehicles. Needless to say, repairs to this bug has allowed the AI to reduce its prices 200% more...

I've also added another 100 AI to the game and enabled the AI amount selection when you name your company. For slower computers you may want to choose less AI.

Difficulty and amount of AI now effects AI's starting money. The money is to compensate for lack of competition.

[Arakash]

I've also added another 100 AI to the game and enabled the AI amount selection when you name your company. For slower computers you may want to choose less AI.

I dont know if youve mentioned it before, but when you say that slower computers will have problems with high numbers of AI, do you have a rough idea of what kind of computers might have a problem?

If you dont have a clear idea of that, what kind of computer are you testing with? that might give a rough idea.

[Eric.B]

I've also added another 100 AI to the game and enabled the AI amount selection when you name your company. For slower computers you may want to choose less AI.

I dont know if youve mentioned it before, but when you say that slower computers will have problems with high numbers of AI, do you have a rough idea of what kind of computers might have a problem?

If you dont have a clear idea of that, what kind of computer are you testing with? that might give a rough idea.

Single core speeds are what make the difference with Gearcity, as GC is not threaded, and even if it was, it wouldn't help much since most of the AI interaction is via the database. My understanding is that SQLite can only be written to one thread at a time. Which would probably create a bottle neck.


As such, my AMD Phenom 9550 averages roughly 45 seconds a turn with 200 AI and no player data. With 300 AI the same CPU does averages about 2.5 minutes a turn. This is a medium end, 8 year old CPU.


With my AMD FX4300, 200AI averages about 25 seconds per turn and 300AI averages roughly 40 seconds per turn with no player data. This is a medium quality CPU that is about 3 years old...

With less than 200 AI, the turn times are barely noticeable, but the early game is realism is noticeable. With 300AI just about every city has at least 5 companies in it, and ALL vehicle types are filled. This is not the case with less AI, although I expect the companies to be stronger fundamentally with less competition.

As I get the rest of the game settled, I'll go back to optimizing turn speeds. Dumbing down the consumers and limiting the AI choices in car design will probably go a long way into bringing down the turn times.

[Arakash]

Thanks, that cleared it up quite a bit.