With the first part of the Supercharger Update now done and dusted, we are hard at work on the second part; the Al-Rilma Update! This is the update that everyone has been eagerly awaiting for many years, adding superchargers to Automation! But that's not all we've got planned for you...
The Al-Rilma Update, summarising all of the main points we're hitting.
Before we get going, a bit of a disclaimer; all of the in-game art and content we are showing in this post is work-in-progress, and does not necessarily reflect what the final product will look like!
Superchargers
After a long wait, they're almost here!
Yes, finally! We are adding superchargers to Automation. It's been a long time coming, but now they're now just around the corner. All engine configurations will have access to superchargers in three different forms; centrifugal, roots and screw-type superchargers. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages, which will make for some very interesting design choices!
More Forced Induction Options
Very big turbochargers with a small inline-3 engine attached to them.
As mentioned in the roadmap for the Supercharger Update, we promised Automation players that we would be adding sequential turbochargers, as well as twincharging (turbochargers combined with superchargers) as part of the Al-Rilma Update. But, due to a happy set of circumstances - namely, the fact that they are feasible for us to model at the same time - we will also be adding two different styles of compound turbocharging!
What is compound turbocharging, you ask? That's where you have two turbochargers acting on one another - in sequential compound turbochargers, you have one turbo spooling to not only build boost, but also help another, larger turbocharger spool up faster, and in pure compound turbocharging, you have one turbocharger directly feeding its output into a second turbocharger, to add even more boost! These setups will be perfect for those wild, ultra-high-performance builds.
We're working to make engine volumetric and combustion efficiencies realistic.
With the re-worked engine simulation from LCV4.2 and the Ellisbury Update, we felt - as well as the community - that something didn't quite feel correct. That something happened to be how engines behaved at part throttle settings. With the Al-Rilma Update, we are creating a much more detailed and accurate simulation of engine volumetric efficiency - basically, how efficient is the engine at moving air through it - and revisit combustion efficiency along with it. This now produces more believable engine behavior and results!
The Return of Multiplayer
Multiplayer will be returning to Automation!
Multiplayer will be returning after a long absence! For those of us who weren't here during the late Kee Engine days of 2014 and 2015, Automation used to have a scenario-based multiplayer mode, where players would compete in time-limited scenarios to see who could build the most suitable car/engine for the randomly generated challenge put before you. It's a very fast-paced and hectic experience, but it's immensely fun and it will make you a better Automation player in a hurry! Both engine-only and full car scenarios will be available for that.
Multiplayer scenarios are balanced around the competitor car database and thus automatically rebalances itself when game balance changes. Normal curated singleplayer scenarios will return to the game as soon as it no longer is as heavily in flux as it is now, which will be with the third Supercharger Update - Terso. The much needed return of a whole series of proper tutorial scenarios is scheduled for then too.
Test Track Simulation Revamp, Phase 2
New simulation, the Standalone Track Editor and a new track!
An image of the new standalone track editor, still under construction.
The first phase of our test track revamp in the Ellisbury Update saw new visuals and a heavily-revised UI, but the old simulation calculations remained. While they are functional, they are not particularly realistic. In this upcoming phase of the test track revision, we will be putting in an entirely new set of calculations to more accurately model how a car goes around a track. Along with that we are making a powerful and very user friendly standalone track editor for Automation, so that you can create your own tracks quickly and easily; anyone who has done track modding in the past knows just how cumbersome the old custom track system was!
Also coming in the Al-Rilma Update is the new Narnilla track. This is a very old-school, European-style racing circuit, with lots of elevation changes, narrow rights of way and pavement of (occasionally) dubious quality. It's also the track where we did our art test some months ago, where you the community chose the art style that you liked the best. Here's a snip of the winning entry:
George made the winning art test entry and now is working on the full track.
Eventually, we will be re-doing all of our track art in this style, both for the tracks we currently have, as well as the new tracks we have planned that will be coming out as part of future updates.
Art Revamp
New Design Rooms, Factory Environments & More!
We will be adding three new design rooms for you to use and enjoy, and for Campaign players, we will be adding new environments for your factories to be part of; no longer will your factory be just in an empty field of green grass, with nothing else surrounding it, they will be part of a more "lived-in" feeling world now. Have a look for yourselves:
New 40s design room.
New factory environments.
3D-scanning some carburetor models, and the (untouched) results from which we will be giving the existing carburetor models a much-needed clean-up!
That about covers the Al-Rilma Update as it is right now, we encourage you to watch the Dev Update video above, and let us know in the comments here what you think. Also, be sure to follow Automation on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok for fun and informative content every day!
Cheers!
Ellisbury Update: Patch 5
With this small update we're attacking some of the remaining issues and have a potential fix for one of the largest remaining sources of game crashes.
General Fixes
Possible fix for race condition crash occurring during demographic calculations
Fixed various strings in campaign tech tree chart that either were missing or not showing up
Fixed chassis, body, and family techpool resetting on facelifts
Fixed variant names not automatically populating, causing exporter issues
Fixed issue with bad scale of distributor level of detail
Fixed airbox art issues
Updated safety regulations, Hetvesia now is toughest, Fruinia less so but nuanced Fruinia ups its regs for 1960 when they open the floodgates to Archanan sh!tboxes, while Hetvesia tries to avoid subjecting their citizens to the cardboard builds coming over from Fruinia.
We're keeping an eye on what issues might remain. Cheers!
Ellisbury Update: Patch 4
With this patch we are wrapping up the focused development of the Ellisbury Update. If things break or issues pop up, we'll address them via smaller hotfixes. So what is in this patch? Have a look!
General Fixes & Improvements
Implemented familiarity gain dependence on the difference between Quality and TechPool
Updated campaign safety regulations to better match the new safety stat progression
Added a lock/unlock all fixtures button to Advanced Fixture Controls
Added poster layout with single masked car image to allow auto-cropping to .png
Added part type in tooltip for research timeline items
Added VRAM usage indicator and warning system
Fixed pushrod heads causing the headers to be angled incorrectly
Fixed error in car body BodyEditor_10sSupercar02-Coupe_Update_1_0_Preview
Fixed issue with traction graph scaling when using AWD scaling with force, not acceleration
Fixed limit to awareness option not working correct in markets drop down
Fixed tooltip inconsistency for engine family
Fixed techpool UI not updating when switching entertainment category
Fixed disabled addons not telling you why they are disabled
Turned off a plugin that was crashing on startup for some people
Possibly fixed a crash with loading of mods
Made safemode not load mods
Improved performance going into car and engine designer loading
Disabled being able to edit the sandbox company in the company manager. Note: This may require cars to be moved out of the edited sandbox company.
Added a database clean-up on entering car and engine manager to save corrupted items Note: If you have a database with thousands of orphaned items, this may take a minute!
Art & Car Bodies
Added a new family of car bodies named grm_mercy
Revised DAOHC head art
Fixed a shading issue on left rear quarter panel of 10sSupercar02 family
Adjusted automatic torque converter sizing for more correct stall/launch rpm
Greatly reduced low load automatic shift point RPM values
Adjusted dual clutch launch RPM values to prevent clutch from engaging at idle
Corrected motion ratio issue with Macpherson suspension
Adjusted steering limiter beams on Macpherson front to prevent wheel full lock "jacking"
Increased max steering angle of Macpherson and Live Axle to match Double Wishbone
Overhaul of damper stiffness exporting for more correct damping values
Fixed swaybar stiffness exporting softer than it should, and sometimes inconsistently front to rear
Further tweaks to tyre sliding friction and Stribeck values to improve handling during slides
Fixed Advanced AWD having no bias offset at low drivetrain quality
On-Demand AWD offroad locked enables at trim year + drivetrain quality of 2016
We're keeping a close eye on what more needs fixing. Cheers!
Ellisbury Update: Hotfix 3
A quick hotfix for new and old issues that were discovered in the latest version!
Hotfix 3 General Fixes
Fixed memory leak / infinite loop in engine designer causing game freeze
Fixed changing factory tooling time and costs on retooling start
Fixed campaign top bar emissions UI not working correctly in campaign hub
Fixed BeamNG exporter crash if BeamNG is not installed
Fixed steel custom paint always having scratches in beamng
Fixed balancing mass 0-100 slider value converted when using [lb]
Tweaked difficulty presets in campaign to max out at 500 M$
Last patch's changes to export cars' suspension & tires is now actually in
Cheers!
Ellisbury Update: Patch 2
With this second patch for the Ellisbury Update we are addressing technical problems as well as a wide range of issues affecting gameplay. This should sort out the most noticed issues players have been running into!
Winter weather is no match for this custom SUV by OT motive.
General Fixes
Fixed large memory leaks from opening and calculating cars, improving performance
Made rear engine layouts available on ladder frame chassis
Tweaked reliability score dependency for demographics, making it weaker
Fixed loading screens continuing to load images in the background photo scene
Removed grouping commas from numbers in photoscene slider textboxes
Fixed AI being able to use more than 15 quality with +15 tech pool
Fixed lua error changing bottom end parts, family deselected
Fixed lua error on changing tire diameter
Fixed rear engine AWD not scaling gearboxes, leading to small rear engines not fitting
Fixed issue with excessively narrow tires causing all calculations to break down
Fixed Lua error switching engine orientation
Fixed mod warning popup is complaining about car mods selecting an engine for a new car
Improved image caching so it doesn't spawn a new texture for duplicate materials
Campaign Fixes
Added 2020 sandbox company techpool and made techpool lerp between the set years
Fixed campaign finish screen having incorrect company score
Changed step size of cash slider in campaign setup to allow for smaller values
Added company valuation breakdown to campaign top bar
Fixed not-yet-bought plots adding to company valuation
Fixed car and engine factory shift sliders not updating engine/car costs
Fixed a lua error setting up new engine factory
Fixed sandbox-only race tires showing up in campaign tech tree as unlocks
Tweaked difficulty multipliers of HQ countries in campaign setup
Added WES button to campaign top bar to show emissions standards
Fixed empty no-tooling factory tooling settings showing when tooling it afterwards
Fixed factory setup stats not correctly populating on summary / signoff screen
UI Fixes
Fixed Car Manager list items to now show WES standard for emissions
Improved quality slider UI clarity for part unlocks happening
Removed header paint slot due to incompatibility with newer, nicer materials and heat system
Fixed being unable to transfer cars between sandbox companies
Removed pin from top-bar, drop-down markets UI
Fixed sandbox tech pool UI locking the car section without a car
Fixed engine selection panel not enabling buttons in sandbox if company has no engines
Replaced trim graph emissions mode UI with detailed stats fuel economy UI
Fixed multi-select trim delete not working in list mode
Added disclaimer for interior design feature, or the lack thereof
Exporter Fixes
Fixed issue with sound configuration in BeamNG exports
Fixed setup strings file for exporter
Fixed BeamNG glass not exporting transparent anymore
Fixed taillights and brake lights not exporting independent of each other
Fixed remaining issues with carbon fiber exporting with unwanted tints
Improved various tire and suspension related things for exported cars
We'll closely observe if anything else broke, as some pretty heavy underlying changes needed to be made to fix the technical issues. There are a few more items on our list to get done and fixed before moving on to the next big update dev cycle - we'll keep you posted.
Cheers!
Ellisbury Update: Hotfix 1
In this first little hotfix between the years, we have rooted out some annoyances for you!
Hotfix 1 Changelog
Fixed error starting a campaign on Mac test build
Fixed tyre sidewall advanced trim colour adjustment not applying to the sidewall
Stopped corrupt .PNGs crashing the image importer, and added prompt about image corruption
Fixed detailed stats reliability/costs/ET being converted by the weight conversion
Hotfix 1 Exporter Changes
Fixed issues related to hidden car bodies and wheels
Fixed advanced suspension and engine placement parameter parts having flipped slot names
Changed wheel hub parts to be unique for each trim due to offset issues
(Potentially) Fixed exporter issue with grille meshes issue crashing the export
Made advanced tuning parameters disabled by default, must be enabled by selecting advanced tuning parts under the car body and the engine
Of course, we're not quite as responsive as usual now over the holidays, but will be back early January for some proper fixing up of what needs polish and fixing.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Cheers
Ellisbury Update Public Release
A fun little hot hatchback with excellent fuel economy and emissions, by Swift.
It's been a winding and occasionally difficult journey, but we are excited to share the latest update to Automation with you - the Ellisbury Update!
What's new in the Ellisbury Update? Far too many to list here in great detail, but we will show you the highlights of what's new!
Car Designer
Vehicle Emissions and Fuel Economy Calculations
For about as long as Automation has been publicly available, the emissions calculations have been incredibly basic - one could even say "not representing reality"- that changes with the Ellisbury Update. For the first time, Automation now simulates vehicle emissions in a way that closely resembles the real world, with carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides - the chief pollutants from automobile exhaust - being calculated in a realistic fashion, and tested using real-world test cycles.
An engine in need of quite a bit of emissions optimisation, with the graphs showing where the test cycles hit in terms of throttle percentage and engine speed.
This mechanic translates into Campaign Mode in a fun and challenging way, where players will now see a financial compliance bonus/penalty on each car they sell; make a car that exceeds the standards and you will get a cash bonus on every sale, miss emissions standards and you have to pay a compliance cost on every car you sell...choose wisely, because that one special outlier of a car that you're counting on to boost your prestige might just sink your company financially!
The new emissions and fuel economy page from Detailed Stats shows you everything you need to know about your car's fuel economy and emissions results! This engine isn't going to be legal to sell for long, or at all in some regions...
These new mechanics also extend into the completely new fuel economy calculations, which are also now based on real-world test cycles and will much more accurately reflect the values that real cars could and should achieve.
Engine Component Overhaul
The heavily revised engine bottom end component selections; notice the engine power density limit, and the new upboring capability!
We have added more nuance in the component choices you make while designing your engines. All components have torque limits, and contribute to the overall power density limit of your engine. What is power density, you ask? Power density basically exactly what it sounds like - how much power your engine is producing in comparison to its overall size. A small, heavily-turbocharged inline-4 making 400 horsepower is going to have a very high power density, especially in comparison with a lazy, low-revving pushrod V8 making 400 horsepower! What's more, your choice of crankshaft, connecting rod and piston will have a dramatic effect on your engine's ability to rev to high RPMs; a weak crankshaft combined with heavy pistons and rods is not necessarily a good combination anymore!
We've also changed how engine variant bore and stroke is handled; to give your hard-working engine families even more flexibility, we've increased the ability to reduce bore and stroke on your engine variants - with the attendant bonuses and penalties one would expect, but we now also allow you to up bore your engine past the limit set by your engine family, but at a cost!
New Dyno Simulation
Lots of information on display in our new engine dyno simulation.
With all of these new mechanics and interactions, we found that our old engine dyno simulation just wasn't adequate in conveying the right information to the player, in the right way. So, we've completely re-designed the simulation from the ground up! In the previous simulation, your engine ran at maximum load - full throttle - at all RPMs. While this does provide meaningful information about performance, it's actually quite rare for a car to be in that condition, and virtually the entirety of a fuel economy and emissions test cycle is done part-throttle across a wide range of RPM. With the new simulation, you can now see exactly where your engine is performing properly - or where it's causing you to fail emissions tests.
Drivetrain Overhaul, including new transmissions, differentials and tires
Many more choices and new interactions on the Transmission tab; this gives the player unprecedented control over their drivetrains now!
One of the largest changes we've made for the Ellisbury Update, is a complete re-think of how drivetrains work in Automation, especially in the context of transmission behaviour, and how all-wheel drive works. Due to popular requests - and in no small part because of all the changes we made in LCV4.2 to the engine simulation - we have been able to add continuously variable transmissions, or CVTs, to Automation. We've also brought back sequential transmissions, though this time, properly, instead of the mis-named automated manual transmissions we had before! We've also implemented full player control over gear ratios, either by speed or by ratio, so that you can now completely customise your transmission to your desires. Beware though, transmissions now have many limitations in place - ratios that are too spread apart incur a reliability penalty, as does your choice of transmission type! CVTs have huge advantages in terms of their mechanical properties, but they do not handle high engine torque levels well at all!
The new traction tests will show exactly where your car is losing grip, and under what conditions. This one does reasonably well off-road!
All-wheel drive and differentials have had a complete re-work as well, to go along with the completely new grip calculations (more on that later). We now have all-wheel drive options that cover a much wider swath of the frankly staggering number of variations of AWD systems that exist, and a better, more accurate simulation of the effect that differentials have on all drivetrain setups. You can also now visualise how your car performs in various grip conditions, and on different surfaces, in our new traction/grip screen!
We have, for the first time, no-joke slick tires in Automation...in several variations no less!
In previous versions of Automation, we had limited tire choices available, and that forced us to make some compromises in terms of how the various tires behaved and how they all related to one another. Moreover, we also felt that cross-ply tires were not really simulated in an adequate fashion, and there was no real need to stick with them any longer than it took to research radial tires in Campaign Mode. All of this has changed, plus we've also added - for the first time - a selection of racing tires to Automation, in both radial and cross-ply forms. These all export to BeamNG as well, so you can now finally make that race car of your dreams!
New Test Track Visuals
The new test track looks and behaves a lot better than before. You can even see a little representation of your car now, too!
The old test track simulation will be retired in this update cycle, but at the moment we are in an in-between spot: new test track visuals, some improved calculations, but without the planned new underlying systems that will move the test track simulation to a new level. We've gone to high-resolution background images for the test track (for both custom tracks and the Automation test track), and we've added a lot of background features in the simulation that we will be taking full advantage of in later updates; this is a work-in-progress item, with more functionality and features to roll out later on, including a standalone track editor for you to smoothly create your own tracks!
The new Ellisbury Tri-Oval, for those who haven't seen it yet!
As part of the track simulation revamp, we've added the completely-new Ellisbury Tri-Oval race track. Available in oval and several challenging road course layouts, the Ellisbury Tri-Oval is one of the crown jewels of motor racing in the Automation world. We are working on several more tracks located within the Automation world; more on those in updates to come!
Campaign Mode - Competitor + Country Techpool and Sankey Charts
How the techpool progresses based on region in Automation. This will add some significant advantages - or disadvantages - depending on which region you've chosen!
Up until now, your AI competitors in Campaign Mode did not make use of their techpool at all. This meant that as you worked your way through a Campaign game, your competitors would become easier and easier to compete against, as you could liberally apply quality to all of the parts you've been researching through the game. Now though, your competitors can properly utilise their available techpool, which will make for a much more challenging middle to end game, doubly so if you turn up the difficulty settings!
Additionally, every country in the Automation world now has its own default techpool progression, which helps further differentiate each country from one another, and poses unique challenges in any playthrough. Some countries start off far behind the others and catch up, while others start in a dominant position and then slide backward as the rest of the world catches up.
The Sankey chart sheds a lot of light into what's going on in the car sales simulation.
In this version, we have opened up the "black box" of the Automation sales model for all to see in Campaign Mode. With the new Sankey chart, you can see exactly what your competitors are selling and how many, in whichever country and market demographic you choose, right down to each competing car's stats. After all, real-world car companies don't operate in an information vacuum, so why should you?
BeamNG Exporter - vehicle dynamics overhaul!
A funky early 90s supercar concept, by D Point.
All of the changes we've made to engines, drivetrains and tires in Automation have necessitated a major rework of how BeamNG exported cars are handled. In LCV4.2, there was a slight bug where Automation exports had approximately 25 percent more grip than they should have had otherwise, which, while fun under some circumstances, meant that exported cars were not well-balanced at all with native BeamNG cars at all. With everything that went on under the hood of the Ellisbury Update, this was the perfect time to not only correct this bug, but also address several complaints we had about how Automation cars behaved in BeamNG. Tire grip has been extensively reworked after several thousand kilometres of driving and writing about exported cars and their behaviour, and now we feel confident that exported cars drive better than ever, from both an objective and subjective point of view.
We've also added in all kinds of provisions for handling custom textures and materials better in exports, and added the groundwork for a number of other functions that we will be working on in subsequent updates.
Notes about migration
So with all of these huge changes, those of you who have been with us for a while might be feeling a little bit apprehensive about a new version of Automation, as in the past, this often meant that all of your cars and mods were no longer going to work.
This is no longer the case.
All of your Sandbox Mode cars from LCV4.2 - the previous public version - will migrate more or less seamlessly into the Ellisbury Update, and all mods compatible with LCV4.2 are fully compatible with the Ellisbury Update. There might be some re-work needed for engines and drivetrains, what with the amount of changes we've made there, but everything else should be basically unchanged from LCV4.2.
As always, any Campaign Mode saves will NOT be compatible with the new version.
What's Next?
A slick and modern luxury sedan, courtesy of Arteos.
As with any major release, there will be bugs to fix and patches to release, so there will be a period where that's what we are concentrating on. If you experience any issues with the Ellisbury Update, please let us know in the Steam forums, on our official Discord server or on the Automation subreddit. We will be working hard on fixing any bugs that you encounter, and we will keep you updated with our progress. After we're comfortable with where the Ellisbury Update is in terms of stability, we move on to the Al-Rilma Update. And for those who have been following the news, that means one word, that the entire community has been waiting for since 2011...
Superchargers. Get hyped, because that's only the start of what's planned. Be sure to follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and now on Threads for up-to-date news and community happenings!
Cover and banner car build by mat1476
Ellisbury Update Open Beta: Patch 8
With this patch we do have another release candidate version for you. Planning to release the big one very soon!
Fixes & Improvements
Fixed acceleration / traction graph scaling issue disappearing acceleration line
Fixed power steering warning showing up twice
Fixed traction tests lua error and not populating the offroad stats
Fixed finishing an engine half populating demographics side panel
Fixed gearbox warning showing up on incomplete cars
Fixed factory staff requirements not updating in parts of the factory UI
Fixed quality slider tooltips with partially broken/empty formatting
Fixed gearbox torque limit number not converting to lb/ft
Fixed engine factories always hiring 3 shifts worth of staff, now the minimum is 0.5 shifts
Fixed convertible options not accumulating any familiarity
Fixed lua error changing forecaster target years
Added expenses pie chart segment for over-staffing costs on factories
Tweaked desirability datafield coloring in main campaign hub to look less tragic
Fixed loading a trim in a new facelift not triggering a recalc
Changed gearbox ratio range reliability penalty to kick in at 1.0 inteaad of 0.9
Increased PU and ET costs of double wishbone and pushrod suspension
Exporter Changes
Fixed cars not appearing on the car selection page
Fixed 2WD drivemode not having a unique UI color
Tweaked subframe weight
Added minimum throttle limits to traction control
Fixed Issue where some cars would not appear in Vehicle Selector
Fixed Issue where Beam would pick up new mod zips to quickly and think the zip is corrupt
Let us know if you run into any new or old issues that ought to be fixed. Cheers!
Ellisbury Update Open Beta: Patch 7
Another quick patch to iron out some more of the issues that were caught during testing. This update can be seen as the first release candidate build. We are seemingly done with all larger fixes or changes (or so we hope) and are readying up for releasing this big milestone update for good.
Full Patch 7 Changelog
Fixed sandbox techpool settings being locked
Fixed incorrect visual tire widths, tires more correct to real world sizes
Fixed forecaster showing NaNs when projections show zero sales
Fixed gearbox reliability warning system thresholds, separated range from torque
Fixed stats sometimes show all zero in project overview in campaign
Fixed some cars, AI and yours, not showing stats in the sankey chart
Fixed comparing cars not always fetching stats of other car
Fixed not being able to clone the clone of a cloned trim
Fixed brake fades not being directly derived from front & rears values
Fixed brake fade being considered twice for drivability
Fixed braking at max load always showing as -5.4%
Fixed engine cooling warning being misleading
Updated company tech profiles for more variation between companies
Further improvements of exporter tire model (since patch 5)
Depending on how it goes there will be more rapid-succession release candidates coming at the start of the week addressing issues that were found and adding some more polish.
Cheers!
Ellisbury Update Open Beta: Patch 6
Another little big patch that is further polishing up the open beta version. Getting close now to the main release!
Gameplay
Cornering steering behavior analysis now switched sportiness and drivability points
Fixed active wings doubling downforce instead of drag when in brake mode
Increased effect of brake quality on brake fade
Implemented gearbox torque strength factor for longitudinal vs. transverse
Tweaked drivability, sportiness, and offroad grip test stats
Fixed current downforce not factoring into rolling over check
Reworked of drivability and sportiness cornering evaluation, switched D & S targets
Tweaked strength of terminal oversteer drivability penalty
