I'm a 4th year Industrial Engineering Student and I have to pick my final year project at the end of the year and I really like the automotive industry. I went online and searched for factory building games that specifically targets the automotive industry and I came across this game. I just bought the game, it is actually downloading as I type and I just want to say that the detail I saw in videos and the manner in which you implement the efficiency in everything is absolutely superb. I'm really looking forward to playing this game, not just for the fun but to learn more about the production line of the automotive industry. Thanks for a great game.
It would be great to add a throughput or cycle time quick indicador or chart on the game. Sometimes the pie charts at each building's dialog window contradict each other and you have to detect the bottlenecks by eye. A balance chart would make it easier to work with a long production line
so, im a dummy, and im really bad at reading. but, i do love forced tutorials. you should really really get one going for this game. i had a hell of a time even realizing i can have multiple sedans. let alone figuring out that in the research tab, it shows you were you can install your newly researched tech. or, the fact that you had to click on it to activate it for that specific car. i think your game could go alot further if it had a very in depth, voice assisted tutorial. im a bit dyslexic and a bit ADD, so its hard for me to read and read and read instructions. so far im enjoying the game, i hope i get ham into it and go deep.
I've been putting smart junctions on my conveyor in order to separate different features and thought of a usefull mod to the game that would make the life easier. What if, on the slot screen where we turn on/off different features for the slot, a popoup window appeared for every feature, showing what resources that would require? That way it would be much easier to figure out how to arrange slots and smart junctions effectively, using different resources on different slots
WOOOOOO! ! LOVE the reporting!! Good tips too! Would you talk about your theory about designing effective factory layouts? I tend to go straight to floorspace utilization (80%+) and my factories look like I'm playing Tetris. The problem is that I get those resource refunds and I don't have room to put in proper specialized lines to effectively segment unique configurations. So what is the word of the wise for things like spacing between slots, placing sinewy, serpentine conveyors and the best way to utilize stockpiles. And could you review how slots access stockpiles, how far away can the stockpile be to be accessed and is there a prioritization method of which slots have "first dibs" on what's stock is available in the stockpile? Also, I keep running into a challenge with slots that are set to "Prefer Local" resources, they WON'T pick up imported resources until I change the slot to "Any." I can't see any pattern or cause for that because it''s not happening on all of the slots. Any guesses about the cause? Thanks!!
Actually the prefer local bug is a real bug that I fixed yesterday but is not in the game yet, so expect that to get a lot easier soon! It is a real challenge to trade off factory utilization against having room for expansion, but I think its easier now that you can move existing slots. I tend to only worry about floor utilization when expanding into a new zone, as you are paying rent/power for the whole zone anyway, although obviously as lines get longer you need to spend more on conveyors, and they also use more power so...
@@positechgames glad to hear that you got that bug and thanks for the slot placement tips. Being able to move the slots is great, I just pack so much in so not to waste space but it becomes a challenge to take the puzzle apart and build a new puzzle while adding additional pieces. I guess that's why it's called a game!! Keep up the great work!!
I had no idea the value on the feature was the profit on it. I thought was the cost, so I never see the point on adding a rare feature on a car. Just seems weird. With this new perspective it makes all sense! If is still within the price range you should add as many features as possible?
most expensive cars that i produced is marked as Uninstalled Feature and i have a lot of defected cars even do u know how to fix these two problems? thx
Game need disasters like flooding, fire, and stuff. Also when you pause a line, visually it keeps running, it should stop. A little more difficulty would be good also.
You need to ditch specific office space and allow office blocks to go wherever you want. If I want 20 researchers, I should be able to do that and not be limited by office space. It's totally unrealistic to not allow office space expansion anywhere you want. You say to research ahead of the AI, but it's darn near impossible because research is so slow even with the office space maxed out with researches. So, you either need to speed up each research block or slow down the AI because it was ridiculously out of whack... the AI seemed like it was 10x the amount of research even when I had 8 researchers.
Remember there is more than 1 AI competitor so it seems like you get alot of notifications but only 1 AI might have that research you dont need to keep up, choose stuff they dont have once you unlock 2 office spaces you outpace them very fast. And having limited office space is realistic many factorys have small office space compared to production space. Remember in the game you are buy pre existing buildings, office will be say 3 floors of office buildings with all domestic fitting and electrics/water etc production space will have massive high roofs, swarf tunnels, crane space, forklift space etc so its not as unrealistic as it seems.
It is not too difficult to stay ahead in reaserch if you place 3-4 reasearch labs right from the beginning. There is also an improved lab that yields about 3x the reaserch points (cant remember the proper name right now) but you also need to reaserch for it before you can build it. Reaserch is key in the game, it makes the game a lot easier if you prioritize it.
Hello Cliffsky. You made me aware of putting more defect inspection stations and I may have stumbled upon a bug. I put a performance inspection station after the engine fitting slot. It also had a smart junction to a rework station after that. The cars said "next slot not available" or whatever it says.
@@positechgames Thanks for your reply. I figured that part out (eventually). Maybe you could think about a new slot to pre-inspect parts prior to them getting to the line in order to ensure quality assembly on the line? Benefit could be cheaper/quicker inspection/reworks?
Funny I use those "straight through" intersections for finished cars crossing pre-body fitted cars but for some reason they keep turning in with all the unfinished cars and going through the whole half of production line again. This results in me not sending finished cars out to the showroom and going broke. I'm curious how this dev made such a nice and advanced production line with conveyors crossing and not have any problems.
Where? I don't see that. It should work with smart junctions, but other than that, junctions will always distribute to all outputs equally (as long as the output belts are empty). The usual layout snakes all the way around, but does _not_ cross belts.
If I recall, power does pause, but wages are still paid. The power consumption for a slot only happens when its physically working, so when cars are in a long queue, none of those slots consume power. Thats why the power consumption fluctuates so rapidly. I'd say >250 cars in show room is too many :D
Could you provide some tips how to use discounts efficiently (for missing features, defects, etc.)? I use them to get the car out of my showroom, but I feel like it's hit or miss.
Personally I tend to use them mostly for defects or uninstalled features. The discounts for vehicles being in the showroom too long is really a sign that you need to make adjustments to your production schedule to better match the marketplace.
The discounts you are mentioning are only appicable to defective vehicles. If you want to sell the cars in your showroom you either decrease the price on them, change your production schedule or run advertising campaigns.
Wow, that doesn't sound right. How big is the factory? is it super huge? is it a custom map one? Basically the performance of the game is closely tied to how many routes there are between importers, stockpiles and manufacturing slots. If you do a modded map with hundreds of import slots that will slow the game down. Also that 30% sounds low if the game is lagging, Production Line should be capable of using 100% of any number of cores if it needs to. Is something else using the other 70%? What are the specs?
@@positechgames It is a 200x200 custom map with 100+ importers filled out. I have 8 bodyframe lines feeding 13+ "paint booths", feeding in to other assembly areas, etc. I've never seen the game being able to peg the processor at 100%, but I'm assuming multi threading is working since any usage is symmetrical across all cores. AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (No OC) 32GB RAM Intel 900P PCIe SSD Nvidia GTX 1070 I also tested on my laptop: Intel i7-8750 (No OC) 32GB RAM Samsung 970 Evo M.2 SSD Nvidia GTX 1060 Same problem occurs on the laptop, but I haven't seen any outright crashes. I'll try simplifying the routes. I built all the importers to feed the parts manufacture operation efficiently trying to avoid bottlenecks, but I can see the reasoning about it bogging down the game. Factory layout: imgur.com/a/IkkZhBZ Also, I know in your vlogs you mentioned defect scaling. At a certain point in the game defects begin to show up, but it's close to 30-40% on the initial "hit". I took the advice of pulling cars off during the assembly process and fixing them before they get to the end, but as you can see in the screenshots, many are still leaving the line with defects. I built a massive rework section at the end to counter act this, but the number of defects seems somewhat high. Not trying to criticize the game or anything, but more trying to understand the mechanics so I can play it more effectively. Keep up the good work. I've been addicted to this game for the past 3 weeks now. When I go to sleep I dream about making cars. Very few games are able to keep my attention/interest this long 😂
@@owl007 Interesting., it probably spikes at 100% but not everything in a frame can me multi-threaded (yet!), and task manager is not that granular. Looking at your map, yup it will definitely be the number of importers causing the slowdown. You probably don't need 100, especially with type 2 importers combined with local production and supply stockpiles. In terms of defects, make sure you have upgraded the rework slots, and use a loop with smart junctions to keep feeding them through the rework until no defects are found.
@@positechgames I've taken your recommendations and the game does seem to run better. I have noticed that adding more local production does start to slow the game again. Is it only the importers that slow the game down or everything that's in the factory? Also, I have an idea for you. Production Line: Aviation Edition. With how Boeing and Airbus have been in the news lately, players could answer the question: "Think you can do better?" 😂
Hi, sorry for delay in replying. do you have a save game where this happened I could look at? you can email it to me at cliff AT positech dot co dot uk with an explanation of what happened.
Thank you for making awesome game being playing only few hours and thing really annoying me is constant price changes every 2 minutes I have to go and change price for my car as sometimes my car makes 18k profit and sometimes my car losses 5k with same price dont really understand it
That is because you have been spending a lot or investing into assets. I had the same confusion, dont react immediately to price changes if you are building something. Finish your construction and let the time pass for a while so you can see the real impact on your finances.
I'd love to see a way to see how much you can save by making your own parts. It is implied, but never detailed. For intance, I'm making ebausts, which take 2 steel, each of which is about $60, while an imported part is $408. Beyond the material cost, what about capital, wages, etc? I don't know where to find that information. Great game Cliff!
We don't explicitly make ALL of that information available, mostly because it changes so much depending upon utilization. For example, if a slot is manufacturing chips, and they are sued at the same (or faster rate) than production, then the cost/unit is much lower than if that same slot is frequently paused because of oversupply and a lack of export room. In an ideal world, you always check the component chart data to ensure there is never overproduction of any items, and that manufacturing slots are never idle. You can see the current resource-component costs of each feature if you hover over those items in the car design screen.
I'm a 4th year Industrial Engineering Student and I have to pick my final year project at the end of the year and I really like the automotive industry. I went online and searched for factory building games that specifically targets the automotive industry and I came across this game. I just bought the game, it is actually downloading as I type and I just want to say that the detail I saw in videos and the manner in which you implement the efficiency in everything is absolutely superb. I'm really looking forward to playing this game, not just for the fun but to learn more about the production line of the automotive industry. Thanks for a great game.
Thanks :D
If you want to really get into it, check out lean and 6 sigma manufacturing processes.
We really need a search functionality in the research menu.
coming soon!
It would be great to add a throughput or cycle time quick indicador or chart on the game. Sometimes the pie charts at each building's dialog window contradict each other and you have to detect the bottlenecks by eye. A balance chart would make it easier to work with a long production line
so, im a dummy, and im really bad at reading. but, i do love forced tutorials. you should really really get one going for this game. i had a hell of a time even realizing i can have multiple sedans. let alone figuring out that in the research tab, it shows you were you can install your newly researched tech. or, the fact that you had to click on it to activate it for that specific car. i think your game could go alot further if it had a very in depth, voice assisted tutorial. im a bit dyslexic and a bit ADD, so its hard for me to read and read and read instructions. so far im enjoying the game, i hope i get ham into it and go deep.
Good tips!
You forgot to capitalize "Early Stock Consumption". Let me know if you want me to post this on the forums.
I've been putting smart junctions on my conveyor in order to separate different features and thought of a usefull mod to the game that would make the life easier. What if, on the slot screen where we turn on/off different features for the slot, a popoup window appeared for every feature, showing what resources that would require? That way it would be much easier to figure out how to arrange slots and smart junctions effectively, using different resources on different slots
Fanstatic job! Amazing!
WOOOOOO! ! LOVE the reporting!! Good tips too! Would you talk about your theory about designing effective factory layouts? I tend to go straight to floorspace utilization (80%+) and my factories look like I'm playing Tetris. The problem is that I get those resource refunds and I don't have room to put in proper specialized lines to effectively segment unique configurations.
So what is the word of the wise for things like spacing between slots, placing sinewy, serpentine conveyors and the best way to utilize stockpiles. And could you review how slots access stockpiles, how far away can the stockpile be to be accessed and is there a prioritization method of which slots have "first dibs" on what's stock is available in the stockpile? Also, I keep running into a challenge with slots that are set to "Prefer Local" resources, they WON'T pick up imported resources until I change the slot to "Any." I can't see any pattern or cause for that because it''s not happening on all of the slots. Any guesses about the cause?
Thanks!!
Actually the prefer local bug is a real bug that I fixed yesterday but is not in the game yet, so expect that to get a lot easier soon! It is a real challenge to trade off factory utilization against having room for expansion, but I think its easier now that you can move existing slots. I tend to only worry about floor utilization when expanding into a new zone, as you are paying rent/power for the whole zone anyway, although obviously as lines get longer you need to spend more on conveyors, and they also use more power so...
@@positechgames glad to hear that you got that bug and thanks for the slot placement tips. Being able to move the slots is great, I just pack so much in so not to waste space but it becomes a challenge to take the puzzle apart and build a new puzzle while adding additional pieces. I guess that's why it's called a game!!
Keep up the great work!!
I had no idea the value on the feature was the profit on it. I thought was the cost, so I never see the point on adding a rare feature on a car. Just seems weird. With this new perspective it makes all sense! If is still within the price range you should add as many features as possible?
i have a problem at some point the rework station just keeps sending cars through line line indefinitely am i missing something?
Excellent simulator. Good job!
Thanks for this game!
most expensive cars that i produced is marked as Uninstalled Feature and i have a lot of defected cars even do u know how to fix these two problems? thx
Game need disasters like flooding, fire, and stuff. Also when you pause a line, visually it keeps running, it should stop. A little more difficulty would be good also.
You need to ditch specific office space and allow office blocks to go wherever you want. If I want 20 researchers, I should be able to do that and not be limited by office space. It's totally unrealistic to not allow office space expansion anywhere you want. You say to research ahead of the AI, but it's darn near impossible because research is so slow even with the office space maxed out with researches. So, you either need to speed up each research block or slow down the AI because it was ridiculously out of whack... the AI seemed like it was 10x the amount of research even when I had 8 researchers.
Remember there is more than 1 AI competitor so it seems like you get alot of notifications but only 1 AI might have that research you dont need to keep up, choose stuff they dont have once you unlock 2 office spaces you outpace them very fast. And having limited office space is realistic many factorys have small office space compared to production space. Remember in the game you are buy pre existing buildings, office will be say 3 floors of office buildings with all domestic fitting and electrics/water etc production space will have massive high roofs, swarf tunnels, crane space, forklift space etc so its not as unrealistic as it seems.
It is not too difficult to stay ahead in reaserch if you place 3-4 reasearch labs right from the beginning. There is also an improved lab that yields about 3x the reaserch points (cant remember the proper name right now) but you also need to reaserch for it before you can build it. Reaserch is key in the game, it makes the game a lot easier if you prioritize it.
Hello Cliffsky. You made me aware of putting more defect inspection stations and I may have stumbled upon a bug. I put a performance inspection station after the engine fitting slot. It also had a smart junction to a rework station after that. The cars said "next slot not available" or whatever it says.
Hi, the slot you want to use is 'visual inspection'. thats the only one that you can pout anywhere on the line.
@@positechgames Thanks for your reply. I figured that part out (eventually). Maybe you could think about a new slot to pre-inspect parts prior to them getting to the line in order to ensure quality assembly on the line? Benefit could be cheaper/quicker inspection/reworks?
Good god - how big is that map? That a custom map ?
Funny I use those "straight through" intersections for finished cars crossing pre-body fitted cars but for some reason they keep turning in with all the unfinished cars and going through the whole half of production line again. This results in me not sending finished cars out to the showroom and going broke. I'm curious how this dev made such a nice and advanced production line with conveyors crossing and not have any problems.
Where? I don't see that. It should work with smart junctions, but other than that, junctions will always distribute to all outputs equally (as long as the output belts are empty). The usual layout snakes all the way around, but does _not_ cross belts.
when you pause a slot, does it's power consumption and wages pause also? and what do you consider a stupid amount of cars in show room?
If I recall, power does pause, but wages are still paid. The power consumption for a slot only happens when its physically working, so when cars are in a long queue, none of those slots consume power. Thats why the power consumption fluctuates so rapidly. I'd say >250 cars in show room is too many :D
@@positechgames thank you
Could you provide some tips how to use discounts efficiently (for missing features, defects, etc.)? I use them to get the car out of my showroom, but I feel like it's hit or miss.
Personally I tend to use them mostly for defects or uninstalled features. The discounts for vehicles being in the showroom too long is really a sign that you need to make adjustments to your production schedule to better match the marketplace.
The discounts you are mentioning are only appicable to defective vehicles. If you want to sell the cars in your showroom you either decrease the price on them, change your production schedule or run advertising campaigns.
By the way, i usually leave those discounts at 5% and that seemed to work just fine
How do we cut down/prevent lag? Every time I lay down conveyors or resource conveyors, my game drops to
Wow, that doesn't sound right. How big is the factory? is it super huge? is it a custom map one? Basically the performance of the game is closely tied to how many routes there are between importers, stockpiles and manufacturing slots. If you do a modded map with hundreds of import slots that will slow the game down. Also that 30% sounds low if the game is lagging, Production Line should be capable of using 100% of any number of cores if it needs to. Is something else using the other 70%? What are the specs?
@@positechgames It is a 200x200 custom map with 100+ importers filled out. I have 8 bodyframe lines feeding 13+ "paint booths", feeding in to other assembly areas, etc. I've never seen the game being able to peg the processor at 100%, but I'm assuming multi threading is working since any usage is symmetrical across all cores.
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (No OC)
32GB RAM
Intel 900P PCIe SSD
Nvidia GTX 1070
I also tested on my laptop:
Intel i7-8750 (No OC)
32GB RAM
Samsung 970 Evo M.2 SSD
Nvidia GTX 1060
Same problem occurs on the laptop, but I haven't seen any outright crashes.
I'll try simplifying the routes. I built all the importers to feed the parts manufacture operation efficiently trying to avoid bottlenecks, but I can see the reasoning about it bogging down the game.
Factory layout:
imgur.com/a/IkkZhBZ
Also, I know in your vlogs you mentioned defect scaling. At a certain point in the game defects begin to show up, but it's close to 30-40% on the initial "hit". I took the advice of pulling cars off during the assembly process and fixing them before they get to the end, but as you can see in the screenshots, many are still leaving the line with defects. I built a massive rework section at the end to counter act this, but the number of defects seems somewhat high. Not trying to criticize the game or anything, but more trying to understand the mechanics so I can play it more effectively.
Keep up the good work. I've been addicted to this game for the past 3 weeks now. When I go to sleep I dream about making cars. Very few games are able to keep my attention/interest this long 😂
@@owl007 Interesting., it probably spikes at 100% but not everything in a frame can me multi-threaded (yet!), and task manager is not that granular. Looking at your map, yup it will definitely be the number of importers causing the slowdown. You probably don't need 100, especially with type 2 importers combined with local production and supply stockpiles. In terms of defects, make sure you have upgraded the rework slots, and use a loop with smart junctions to keep feeding them through the rework until no defects are found.
@@positechgames I've taken your recommendations and the game does seem to run better. I have noticed that adding more local production does start to slow the game again. Is it only the importers that slow the game down or everything that's in the factory?
Also, I have an idea for you. Production Line: Aviation Edition. With how Boeing and Airbus have been in the news lately, players could answer the question: "Think you can do better?" 😂
@@owl007 Are you playing the steam version? if so try the unstable build right now, and it should be WAY faster for you.
Hi Cliff! Just want to ask why in my game suddenly in the Expenses tab the Capital Invest grew so fast..? and made me lose almost 500k. Thanks!!
Hi, sorry for delay in replying. do you have a save game where this happened I could look at? you can email it to me at cliff AT positech dot co dot uk with an explanation of what happened.
Maybe becauze you have been placing a lot of buildings (slots)
C++ with SDL? Or OpenGL 3.2?
C++, SDL and OpenGL yes.
Thank you for making awesome game being playing only few hours and thing really annoying me is constant price changes every 2 minutes I have to go and change price for my car as sometimes my car makes 18k profit and sometimes my car losses 5k with same price dont really understand it
That is because you have been spending a lot or investing into assets. I had the same confusion, dont react immediately to price changes if you are building something. Finish your construction and let the time pass for a while so you can see the real impact on your finances.
I'd love to see a way to see how much you can save by making your own parts. It is implied, but never detailed. For intance, I'm making ebausts, which take 2 steel, each of which is about $60, while an imported part is $408. Beyond the material cost, what about capital, wages, etc? I don't know where to find that information.
Great game Cliff!
We don't explicitly make ALL of that information available, mostly because it changes so much depending upon utilization. For example, if a slot is manufacturing chips, and they are sued at the same (or faster rate) than production, then the cost/unit is much lower than if that same slot is frequently paused because of oversupply and a lack of export room. In an ideal world, you always check the component chart data to ensure there is never overproduction of any items, and that manufacturing slots are never idle. You can see the current resource-component costs of each feature if you hover over those items in the car design screen.
1st : No.6 "Your"