Automation Engine Designer Demo Feedback Thread

Haven't noticed any kind of feedback topic for the Demo besides bug reporting? So here, I made one.

Firstly, I love the demo. Runs smooth at around 400 FPS with everything maxed. Menu layout is extremely minimalistic and a complete pleasure to use. Click, click and im in a scenario or the sandbox, very efficient!
User interface in-game is also very very easy to use, all buttons work and are easily identifiable as to what they do, sliders are easy to use and pinpoint accurate and labeling is clear and readable. My only downside is the tabs on the far right, the glow effect on the text makes the font a little unclear, much prefer the style used in the tutorial videos done by Killrob!

Graphics look superb, again crisp and clear, textures look very good! Cant spot any modelling errors either. Animations when testing engines are smooth and certainly pack some detail!
Sounds are brilliant, can easily tell by ear which engine is running a 2 litre race setup and which is a 1.3 econobox! Backfires really add to the effect of creating a firebreating monster engine.

My only major negative so far (Sorry, has to be one!) is the windows. I like to run my games at fullscreen, which of course you've included an option for. The game however, as I guess you've designed, then runs the scenarios or the sandbox in a window inside the game. This makes it all a little small for me on a 1920x1080 monitor and I also find still seeing the menu in the background a large disturbance and often leaves me forcing myself to focus on the window the designer is in. I feel a little mislead since the tutorial videos seem to run the scenarios in a fullscreen environment? I dont know if this is a planned feature just not included in this demo but if not, personally I'd like to see it changed as I feel it spoils the enjoyment of the game.

Overall, an absolutely cracking demo release and I hope any future updates and additions continue to make this very niche game an absolutely amazing one!

EDIT: Noticed a few views now, please give your opinions too guys! Surely it will help development, or just praise the gods who gave us this demo!

[Daffyflyer]

Stickied (Global)

[Daffyflyer]

To quote my post from another thread:

Yep, trust me, my view as a naive artist is that resizing would be easy to do, but getting a user interface like that to scale correctly to different sizes is an absolute horror show and would add loads of extra development time.

We went for the window size we did as its the largest we can fit in a 1280 x 720 window, which we figured was a sensible minimum resolution for a game these days.


If you've got a huge resolution (Hell, I'm playing it in 5760 x 1080) then you'll be able to have loads of windows spread around, the engine designer, the finances screen, the car manager, etc. That'll be useful for managing mutliple aspects of your company easily.


Yes, its not perfect, but we're a 4 man team and I think we've done fairly well for what we are.

With the tutorial videos, they're done at 1280 x 720, so they do fill most of the screen at that res.

there is something that's not clear to me..

when the designer shows a challenge, you don't pass it at the exact value: if it say more than 85.0kw, you'llneed 85.1kw

I wonder if the same apply to hp.. I didn't try this out, but, if you have a challenge for 115hp and you pass at 116, then there is a difference in what is considered passed between hp and kw

[Killrob]

@LoSboccacc
There is a hard threshold plus rounding (after the check against the threshold). If you choose different units it's the same but with a conversion factor in it. So playing in [bhp] won' be "easier" than playing in [kW].
You can pass with 85.0 kW, but I think (not 100% sure) that you also can fail with a displayed 85.0 kW: if you got 84.997 kW you failed but it is rounded to 85.0 kW, if you got 85.003 kW then you pass and it shows 85.0 kW. There is no difference in different units.

I'm impressed by the level of detail. I thought it would be easy to find the best engine for a given purpose, but as it turns out, it isn't.

I think the engine designer will be a very important part of the game. I can already see the difficult descisions you'll have to make as a car company manager.
Things like: Oh, these test runs are bloody expensive and I can only afford 6 a year... should I improve my old engine, or should I build a brand new one, with the new technology we've got now. That'll be very costly, cause I'll have to run a lot of tests. Maybe I should do nothing at all, just keep the old engine and wait for variable valve timing...
And what if I put all my money in a new powerful engine, and the next thing that happens is an oil crisis?

That's all very promising. Could become the first seriously good manager game since F1 Manager Professionell by Software 2000 (which is the most underrated game ever made, imo). Just make sure that you put as much effort in the economy model as you put in the engine designer! This is absolutely essential!

Other than the couple issues i mentioned already in a couple other Threads, I am very impressed on how well you can accurately recreate (with some tweaking of course) real world engines. me and a friend of mine that also has the program have already created Honda R20's GM Iron Dukes, Ecotec 2 liters and using actual spec's (bore, stroke, materials used, compression, etc) we get really close to what actual world performance really is. We get the same HP, and come within 100-200 rpm and 1-2 ft. lbs. of the real motor.

we have about 20 motors so far and they pretty much perform exactly as what you would expect the real life engines do

if i would want anything, it would be for a little more sensitivity in a few of the sliders to get EXACT numbers, coming within 1 ft. lb. of torque and 100 rpm of the real motor just bugs us sometimes. although i think we may just be OCD on this issue too

Just, wow. It's a blast to play and build a few engines. *cough*never managed to get pass tutorial missions*cough*
The ability to name the engine is awesome, I have an engine named Elysium(oddly/obviously/smartly)
I still can't wait for the Car Designer, though.

I playd with the engine designer about 2-3 hours. The tutorial is great, i didn't watched all te movies, but if there are on the level of the first 3-5 then it's a solid work!
I played trough the tutorial missions, and i sticked with the first easy one for about an hour to get it gold

So for now, it's great, keep on the good work and keep the quality

I've been playing the demo for 2 days now and there are a couple of things I'd like to give my opinion on.

You can change the technology year for every section of the engine designer.. is that supposed to be like that? Maybe it's just me but to me it doesn't make much sense to have bottom end parts from 1940 and exhaust parts from 2020 in the same engine. I always use the same technology level for all parts so everytime I have to go through all tabs and change the technology year 5 times.

The sounds of the engines could be a little less artificial in my opinion. I know it's hard to make them sound realistic and adapt to the changes you make to the engine but right now all the engines sound more or less the same and the artificial pitching up when revving sounds unnatural.

The info bar above the parts section which gives you information about weight, man hours and cost etc. is a bit hard to read for me sometimes because it's a thin white font against a mostly white background (floor or wall). Maybe it could be made more easily readable by putting some semi-transparent dark overlay beneath the text.

In the engine manager I'm missing a sort function. Would be handy to be able to sort it by displacement, power, economy etc.

And as discussed earlier, the window of the engine designer is a bit small for my taste as well.

But I don't want to only point out negative things. I really love how accurate the engine simulation is. When I saw the videos of the tutorials I was thinking "hopefully it will be accurate and not some arbitrary unrealistic engine figures". I'm glad this really is a simulation and not some unreal arcade stuff like 99% of the games on the market. It is really amazing how close you get to real world figures by using actual engine specs and tweaking a little bit here and there. I just can't wait for the I6 engines and turbochargers.