Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game

My 14 hours of playtime is me not closing the game once, its close to 2-3 hours before I made this review and another hour after I made the review

Maybe i'm dumb, maybe I don't have the patience for games that refuse to help you at all, or maybe I lack the tism to intuitively know what they want me to do.

I start the campaign, name my company what it is, a trainwreck, and see if I can figure it out.
I'm hopelessly lost
I go to the tutorial, it's a 50 minute youtube video.
I watch it and go back to game, I manage to make a car that takes so long to build that by the time it comes out its crap.
I have a few other games because it was around christmas, lets play those and come back later.
I have come back, I can't even make the damn car when I have ai do everything because it wants a factory, and the game makes making a factory as difficult as possible.

So rewatching the tutorial a second time following step by step with the game open to the left
so for starters, I think the tutorial is on easy with unlimited money, so I went with that,
from the start I think what it decided to show, picking a target for the car and then a secondary one isn't possible or they did something more advanced and didn't tell me how to do it,
so I just picked family and let it generate.
on the next part of the tutorial where its telling me here are numbers try to hit these numbers, I dont think is in the game anymore or its displaced in some why that I have no idea how to get to it. Looking at it more, the entire trim statistics is different, I have pretty much no idea how to read it, I think I do, but I have no idea if that's correct without trial and error. so this portion of the tutorial is kinda worthless.
Ok at this point we went into looking at the chassis and I made edits to reflect the tutorial, I followed to engine, I think pressed something wrong, and with no way to undo forced to restart the game again because I have no idea how to undo what I did so off to start Trainwreck 6
With Trainwreck 6 made and back to the same place, I go to the engine, and everything is different from the tutorial with settings I can't even see an equivalent for.
Ok, watching more he did nothing in there, however now he went to demographics and that's greyed out and I can't figure out how to get back to it. everything talked about here, while useful effectively doesn't matter. Ok after some clicking I think I got back to where this tab would exist, and the info is presented in such a different way now that this part of the tutorial is useless.
Now it tells me to go to the markets tab in testing, there is no markets tab intesting, there is one at the upper right but that's not what they clicked, what is in the tutorial is completely different from what I see, so i have to make guesses on what to do.
ok the summery page is more or less the same outside of the completely different way to display trim
The next thing they did was clone the trim and made a more high end version, did the same
Now they want to go to factory management, and that's greyed out can't click it at all.
skipping ahead in the tutorial, it seems the trim and the engine factory management are flipped around... ok let's try to get the engine stuff done
I follow the tutorial as close as I can, I set the factory up to be as close as it is in the tutorial, and the factory is not selected, so I try again, nothing is saved from what I did, I redo everything, and try again, the factory is still not selected, I click the arrow to see if I get an error... nope, apparently it's just fine. so I seemingly ran into a bug. ok FINE, now I can go over to the trim
To start out, not all the options are there, or in the same places, but straight forward enough, to the next phase
the forecast, there are no options at all here that they are messing with, the shifts or perimeters.
now, onto the desirability, both of my cars are garbage for their demographics compared to the tutorial, either I did something wrong which is likely, or the game greatly changed and this part is no longer representative, the cumulative cost and forecast is also completely different from what I see to the point I have no clue if the tutorial is helping.
Now for the sign off, again completely different look but I think what is shown is about the same
I am now waiting for the car to be made, somehow I am making 11 billion a month, I assume this is a byproduct of unlimited money.
Ok it wants me to facelift, I screwed that up, im done, I let the game play for another year, turns out interest is the primary thing that I make money on, and revenue from cars may as well not even be a piece of the pie.

So I'm going to backburner the game again, I have no doubts if I could figure this out I would love the game, but a 5 year old tutorial where every step of the way I'm sitting here having no idea if what I'm doing is correct or not, I am sure that sometime this year I will sit down and bash my head against the wall till something works.

my suggestion for the devs

MAKE AN IN GAME TUTORIAL, make the tutorial voiced because god knows there is a lot to cover, hell, compartmentalize the tutorial into sections so when something is updated its not a ball ache to remake the entire tutorial. Have a completion date next to the tutorial, and then have an update date, this way when something changes it can be reflected in this tutorial has been updated.

I am sure there is a better video somewhere in the last 5 years that was made on how to play the game, but if you insist on another youtube tutorial, please DO NOT CUT ANYTHING OUT, im sitting here trying to figure out what the hell you did to get to where you are now and I have to guess, I shouldn't have to guess with a tutorial if i'm following the tutorial correctly. Don't start with unlimited money either, let us see the exact decision you would take/recommend for a 'my first car and where to go from here' tutorial.

as of now, trying to play, then crashing and burning for 5 hours, while trying to follow the tutorial twice, should tell you why I don't recommend the game, hell, add an undo/back button would have saved me unnecessary restarts when I eventually did something wrong and have no idea where to go from there.

This is my kind of game, I would probably love it if I knew what the hell I was doing, but somehow 5 hours hasn't gotten me close to that yet.

This is an amazing game for when you just want to relax. Not only is it accurate and revolutionary, but its also relaxing. Not only that, but you can export your car to a game called "Beamng" where you can drive around and test your creations! Its amazing!!!

even though they are still working on it, its a fun in depth game that could flourish with enough support

This is a very good game for anyone who is/wants to be interested in cars and/or engineering. It goes in EXTREME depth in just about any and everything you could ever want to delve into, while also giving new players plenty of help and assistance with literally everything from suspension tuning to fuel maps and power graphs. It may seem overwhelming at first, but you get the hang of it pretty quick. just mess around with different sliders until the warnings go away. Plus, you can test your creations out in BeamNG Drive to see if what you made isn't a pile of oil and gasoline flavored garbage. 11/10, would reccomend. woth the price tag twice over.

I understand that this game in being worked on, and recently ive been playing on the open beta. And the problems that ive had with this game are just the most annoying shit ever, one thing that has happened twice now is when im working on a car with multiple trims already made and i change the body for one instead of just changing the mdel on one car it'll change it for all of them deleting all of my hard work and that alone just makes me loose motivation to play this. with literally just that alone and some other big bugs I could not recomend this until things like that are fixed.

3 hours in and I'm already addicted. The game is a little complicated at first, but the learning curve increases very quickly, as I am now already making some powerful engines with some prior car knowledge. The game is very in depth, as you get to choose everything from the chassis material, all the way to the engine size and intake system. I recommend this game to anybody who likes cars and would like to design cars. 10/10.

this game is great and super realistic! amazing game for people who like cars and engineering 10/10

very good and realistic i love and the cars once you export them are very fun to drive

Combine this with BeamNG.
Detailed car design build in Automation then test drive in the BeamNG game. wonderful combo.

Loads of fun for learning about cars and you didnt hear it from me but you can export your cars to BeamNG.drive and drive them around there.

Automation is an outstanding game that offers unparalleled depth and creativity. While it does have a steep learning curve (though not as steep as Project Zomboid), the level of detail it provides is absolutely worth the effort. Its modding capabilities are exceptional, enabling players to push boundaries and explore endless possibilities. However, I’d love to see the inclusion of W engines and X engines, like those iconic classic airplane engines, to expand its already impressive array of features.

Great game, amazing detail and easy to import into BeamNG Drive!

really cool game , worth the price especially with beamng

Automation has to be one of the coolest games haven't exactly played the campaign mode yet but basically have just been using it to create vehicles so i can import them into "BeamNG Drive" Which has to be one of the coolest things the Automation Developer's have done.

Great game, but needs UI/UX work, feels a bit clunky.

Worth getting on sale and/or if you have beam ng drive and want to use the intergration these games have.

I've blown up so many engines and possibly poisoned half the planet with toxic gasses while making several thousand horsepower time attack monsters.

10/10, would recommend

2054 hours tells its own story. Get it. It's great, and one of THE greats when you mix it with BeamNG

engine building is fun but, the campaign is not. it gives you a tutorial video and that's about it. the engine and car building is very straightforward and fun but putting them into production/anything to do with factories is not fun. its very confusing, poorly explained, and a loading screen between every single goddamn menu with the huge freezes when time passes makes the campaign a frustrating clunky mess that i feel could be straightened out into a very fun part of the game

I really enjoy the process of designing cars and driving them in Beam NG. The new soft body physics though never loads properly into BeamNG so I have to use the standard version

Played this quite a bit very fun with Beamng and if you don't have a strong grasp on technical stuff it covers it well. Placing items on the car can be silly sometimes same with some of the technical stuff is funky but it is very good. I would like to state the game is in early release at time of writing.
I do love this game for the varied features and the career mode was wonderful while in place. Fun to come up with cars and new ideas let alone maybe make an alternate history.

What an amazing game, to be honest this is my wifes computer since I ran out of storage on mine. But clearly if I am using my wifes computer then it truly says something. I am a technician for Chrysler and playing this and beamng drive with the cars I make here is a feeling you cannot get from another game, absolutely amazing. However, I do wish that they add certain features, although it may conflict with the tycoon part of the game, it would be amazing for people like me who prefer making cars and uploading them to beamng(the tycoon is also cool make sure to try the base game of automation) I would love to see superchargers and of course increasing or decreasing capacity in Liters. I would love to see electric motors for full electric configurations and also hybrid ones as well. Diesel would be an awesome concept it is hard making gas cars that run at 2-3k RPM and actually get anywhere, sure they make 1000ft lbs of torque but it acts very weird with all the new updates. And a higher rpm threshold beyond 12k maybe 14-16k for F1 style engines with little stroke that allows for such high RPMs, I can easily reach the 12k limit with the stroke setting at it's minimum. Other than my suggestions totally worth the money to buy this game along with the V16 DLC. Have fun

very good game made a lot of stupidly fast cars sorta easy once you get the hang of it really fun

All in all, its a pretty good game. It can get pretty unrealistic fast but thats the fun of it.

I tried to like it. I love building cars, and I love tycoon games, what could go wrong. As a tycoon game, the interface is just far too confusing. The progress of cars and adding new designs and manufacturing is too confusing. I haven'
t had the crashes or the glitches others have had, the gameplay seems smooth, but it just isn't interesting enough to make me want to make more cars.

As a Car building game it seems ok, and if you look most of the reviews say thats what people play, build a car and export it, but as others have said, that makes it a nice $10 add on for Beam NG not a full game.

This is a great alternative to getting sketchy mods for beamng and also gives you some pretty crazy creative freedom. I would 10/10 recommend this but it takes some time to learn everything that you can do.

Fun game, especially if you like messing around and seeing what happens.

fun every childs dream but a bit to confusing for me

Honestly very fun simulator, endless creativity and exploration. The data is kinda accurate actually if you put in the same specification from a real engine into the simulator but it will be off by a few percent. But would be nice if you could press "W" to control the acceleration and simulate changing gears so we could hear the engine sound more, kinda like what the engine would sound like if you're driving or racing it. Really love the simulator, please keep it up!

It's a cool game, I like the idea, but it's not simple and a little bit boring - not my cup of tea...

This is a very nice game to let your mind put its creativity in. It will take a bit to understand, but it will be easy.

This game is magical. From the endless customization to how detailed and precise this is, this is a game everyone who's interested in the world of cars or anything that lets them be creative as they want to be should try out.

you can create your dream cars make your dream engines you can click on the export button and it transports your cars to beamng drive or possibly others i recommend this game!:D

I haven't had this much fun with a game in a while. It requires being a bit of a car nut, but then, well, it's endlessly fun to try things, as long as you also have beam.ng to drive your creations.

All it needs now is rotary enginges, inline-2's and 8's, boxer 2's and 8's, v2's, 4's and 5's and 15 degree bank angles V engines. It also really, really, really needs rotaries/wankels. Also, a cooling mechanic for radiator size so things don't overheat all the time in beam.ng. Also, air-cooled. Also, better suspension representation so that I can build a proper oleopneumatic activa system that restricts body roll to max 0.5 degrees or can make it roll the other way if you want. In short, I want more options, devs, more than happy to pay for it in the form of a DLC.

Oh, and most importantly, make it so that you can let the body morph, height, length and width to accomodate whatever hair-brained engine I want to install!

Keep up the good work and gimme more options!

This game is great at what it does there aren't many parts to use when you first start but this can be fixed with mods plus I'd recommend for better interiors to try animating the props which you you can do in game with description, for more info on this search it up and you should find a few vids on this I'd also recommend the peskyboyz autobeam animation gen on Github.

The game has a lot of issues with exporting the vehicles. I made a really nice car, and when I exported it to BeamNG and spawned it, the only thing it spawned was..... absolutely nothing. Well, the only thing it did was remove my previous car and show up an LUA error that no one will ever understand. It is a good game overall, but the exporting has f**ked itself up. Also, when I made a test car to try if the exporting maybe had fixed itself (that other car was already a few months old), and spawning it in BeamNG crashed my game. I'm really done with Automation right now. If anyone knows how to 'fix' this, please tell me. And if the devs see this, please fix your game. The most important action, exporting the cars, doesn't work, for Gods sake. I'm not saying your game is bad though, you can make great cars in this game, but please make your export work again. Thank you.

i tried to return it to get assetto corsa because i didnt get it, but steam is mean. if youre smart you would like it

this game is great but if you have a low performance lap top this game is quite a struggle i mean ive played for over 90 hours but thats mainly because it takes sometime to load everything but this game is still good i do wish they had more areo parts and espcially more badges if you like to have aero i recommend you get mods but i deffinitly recommend this game

This is an example of a passion project. Although it's been in EA for 10 years already, development was slow and they've been talking about the campaign mode release for years, the direction of the game is good and they keep improving and surprising. For example you can export the cars to beamng which was never expected, they added interiors which was never announced and confirmed. I had my fun with it already back on their own housemade engine so i can definitely recommend this.

It is a very realistic simulator of the car building process. It taught me a lot about cars.

good game easy too use ui and great because you can export files into beam.ng i love it

its very nice and i like making ridicilous cars. but right now my game keeps crashing so im currently reinstalling the game

this game is avesome i played abit at first it was quite difficult because i didnt understand a thing now im working in a car project

Good and fun, even more so with mods

Best simulator game I've ever played. Absolutely phenomenal. Very active devs, the game gets better every month. Of dozens and dozens of games I've purchased, this is one of very few that I can confidently say is worth every single penny.

it is really easy to download, and i love that it works with beamng!

I recommend this game to other players because you can make whatever car you want like a troll car , a fast car or just a family car

very entertaining very open with what you can do just would like a few fixes to the Beamng exporter very fun cause you can do whater you want if you want to make a 70L V16 with 4 turbos and runs on pure nitromethane and makes 10,000HP you can!

Tutorial how to start up a successful car company: Design a car that is reliable, practical, cheap to produce, affordable, prestigious, comfortable, fuel efficient, has low emissions, quiet, has good handling, feels amazing to drive, and looks nice.

It's simple, isn't it?

a good game for ppl who like cars and specifically car parts (not models n stuff)

Make cars for BeamNG. Export. EZ

It's been really fun making a car, exporting it to beam and just doing different kinds of races with different kinds cars. The career mode is pretty good but can be overwhelming for sure. The good news is the developers seem to be really involved with updates and new additions. Recently superchargers were added for example. For free. Just because. Not $5. That means a lot to me honestly.

With the extra mod support, this game is awesome.