World domination through corporate warfare!
Windows95, Windows NT 4.0, or OS/2 Warp
AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
 

Auto Market DIM (5/98) (unzip this into your Entrepreneur directory)

Info
 
 

The auto industry is quite different than the computer industry in tactics and in mechanics.  In Entrepreneur, the automobile has been broken into a few pretty major components:

Engine/Transmission
This is where a lot of the cost and power consumption as well as the performance and reliability of your vehicle will come from.

Exhaust
The exhaust of your car provides some of your vehicle's reliability, a bit of power conception, as well as adds to the cost and time to produce.

Suspension
Pretty much similar to the exhaust in terms of what specific values it adds to the vehicle.

Tires
Performance and gas mileage are heavily influenced by the tires.

Interior
The asethetics value (called "looks") comes from here as well as some power consumption.  It is also a very expensive component.

Body
The car body is where much of the looks of your car comes from as well as its cost.


Understanding Power Cosumption
To introduce a neat game mechanic, you can't generally directly manipulate your car's gas mileage.  Some components use up power (like the engine).  As the car designer, it's up to you to reduce the amount of power your car uses.  When you have done this, you can click on the little gas station icon and try to move your vehicle into a different gas mileage class which will improve your fuel efficiency rating.

The traits people want
In Entrepreneur, people will be looking for these things in their car:

Reliability (how safe and reliable the car is?)
Performance (how fast does it go, how well does it handle?)
Looks (how "Cool" does it look?)
Fuel Efficiency (how much gas does it guzzle?)
Prestige (how prestigous is your car?  This rating comes from comparing your most technologically advanced rating to your competitor's).  If you're #1 in technology, your prestige will be 100%.

Known Bugs
No known bugs.

Any feedback regarding the accuracy of the automobile DIM should be sent to bwardell@stardock.com (Brad Wardell) as he is the one who wrote the stats and while he has driven a car, we found him looking in the glove compartment the other day looking for the place where they keep "the engine thingy".  His knowledge on how much car components may cost may also have issues as he ran around the office garage yelling "The engine only costs 500 quadroons!"  Luckily, we have restrained him and is resting comfortably though claims that "the voices" are the true source of his automobile knowledge...
 


Back to the Entrepreneur home page...