Overview
GearCity is a complex beast and it can take quite some time to figure out the basics to successfully start your new company into the future. This guide aims at reducing that time by giving you the hints and some background information for a successful start. However, it’s not a recipe for the perfect company.The guide presumes that you already played the game and that you know the basics, such as where to find commonly used menus.
Setup your company
For an easy start choose a well developed city with a high population and high average labor wage. London is an excelent choice for your HQ. It will allow you to run your factory at full capacity and sell the produced vehicles at a reasonable price from the start.
Your first vehicle
The Phaeton is a good choice for a new company in Europe: There’s a decent demand and it’s a vehicle with low requirements, thus cheap to design and produce and suited for a large audience. In the following examples I will use the Phaeton.
From the three components you need for your vehicle, you should start with the engine. When you design your chassis you want to know how small it can be to still fit the engine. (Only for very high torque engines you might want to ensure that it is possible to design a Gear Box that supports enough torque, before you design the engine.)
Start designing your engine by using the “Advanced” mode of the designer. For a cheap Phaeton select the Single Cylinder Engine.
Once you’ve chosen the components you can view the prototype design to decide where you want to have high values for your Phaeton. Ensure you selected “Phaeton” (or whatever vehicle type you want to use your engine for) before you click the button.
For every car stat you also have an “Importance” stat. They show you how important that stat is for your Phaeton. For the Phaeton Safety and Dependability have the highest importance. You want these two stats beeing as high as possible while you can neglect Luxury, Performance and Quality to reduce Material Cost, Manufacturing Requirements and Design Requirements.
Also be aware, that an engine might be fuel efficient by itself but if it’s too small for the vehicle, it just won’t have enough power to move the vehicle effectively , which can result in a very bad fuel efficiency for the vehicle. Thus also check the Prototype Designer to get an idea about the final stats of your vehicle. Hit the refresh button multiple times to envision the range of different possible outcomes, while you fine tune your engine’s values.
Warning: Albeit you should neglect low Importance stats, you should also avoid setting more than a few sliders to 0: If you put too many sliders to very low values (smaller 20% (4 clicks)), your vehicle will receive a hefty sales penalty. (More about that in the Buyer Rating section of this guide.)
Use the Prototype Design View for any components you design.
If you’re not sure about what stat any of your component ratings influence (some influence multiple stats), click the “?” icon next to the rating. For example the Chassis has a Strength rating which influences Safety and Dependability of your vehicle.
Make sure to set the Design Pace for each component to the same date. (Have an eye on Completion Date and Project Cost while adjusting the slider.)
After a couple of months, when your engineers finished development of your new components, you’re ready to design your car, using the same workflow as you already used for the components.
Hint: The Body you chose for your car is not only a visual thing but also influences stats of your final vehicle (e.g. weight, cargo space, passengers). In the designer click the “Ratings” button while you try different bodies.
Sales and production
When the development of your vehicle finally is done, you’re ready to setup production and sales.
In the Branch-Distribution menu apply the proposed price to your new vehicle. Then check the Buyer Rating Report.
At the bottom of the Buyer Rating Report (scroll down) you find your new car amongst a list of competing cars and their respective Buyer Rating and Estimated Sales.
Just above that list you find information on how the Buyer Rating of your car has been calculated. In the components guide I pointed out that you want to avoid the Low Sliders Penalty: You would find that penalty and its effect on the Buyer Rating somwhere at the bottom of that Buyer-Rating-Calculation. If there aren’t any penalties applied and if you designed your car with type-specific stats, your car’s Buyer Rating should be amongst the higher ratings amongst its competitors.
Amongst the penalty warnings, this will also give you a basic idea about what influences the sales-success of vehicles.
To view or compare vehicle stats use “Marque Catalog” and “Model Compare” in the Showroom.
But back to the Estimated Sales in the Buyer Rating: Remember this value for your car. Now setup factory production. Basically you want to operate your factory at full capacity. If you produce more cars than the “Estimated Sales” value, lower your price and check the new “Estimated Sales” value. Or vice versa, if the Estimated Sales value is higher than your max production. Of course, keep in mind that you want to cover the material cost with the Sales Price, as well as other running costs, plus a profit for further investments.
If you can’t set your factory close to full production at a reasonable Sales Price, consider creating an additional trim of your car (for additional production and sales), before you start building up additional branches or expensive marketing. But keep an eye on your cash.
Anyway, with some profit coming in now, it’s the right time to redesign your HQ branch and to setup some basic marketing.
For the start, redesign your branch for a 2-Star Dealer Growth Rate and a 2-Star Sales Efficiency Rating. This will accelerate Dealerships-Growth.
For marketing, invest a bit in Newspapers, but for your current low profit you should keep that slider below the middle.
First trim & factory upgrade
If your factory isn’t close to full capacity, it’s time to create an additional Trim of your car. If it’s already at full capacity, you should upgrade it by some additional lines before you create another Trim. Or you just create up to as many Trims as you have factory lines and then sell them at a premium price, just low enough to use each factory-line’s capacity.
Upgrading your factory is a fast way to get additional production lines. For a new factory it’s cheaper than redesigning it or building an additional factory. However, each subsequent upgrade will be more expensive. So, after some upgrades (or when you want to improve capacity/quality per line) redesigning or building a new one will be a more viable option, albeit construction can take quite long.
The Upgrade Costs will be deducted pro rata from your monthly profit, so make sure you accumulated enough cash before you start the upgrade, since it will most likely turn your startup company’s profit negative for the upgrading time.
You can still use your factory while it’s beeing upgraded (or redesigned).
Before you create another Trim, make sure you have the production capacity by the time the Trim is done (which usually takes around 3-6 months).
Creating additional Trims is a quick and cheap way to push your sales. Designing a Trim is much cheaper and faster than creating a new vehicle, also it has a lower material cost (due to the experience with this vehicle design and production) and shares the image with its base vehicle.
Additional Trims can be created in the R&D Modify Vehicle menu. You can add small type-specific improvements to the new design and/or make a luxus edition by gilding its concrete seats.
Keep growing
Always keep in mind that your factories have to keep up with the additional demand you’re generating. Of course raising the prices is often a good way to lower that additional demand in a profitable way, but at some point a lower price with more sales is the more profitable choice. Finding that sweet spot is one of your challenges.
Start designing and selling new vehicle types and build new generations from successful vehicles, to take over a part of their generated image. (R&D, Modify Vehicle)
With growing production and sales you may also want to raise your marketing budget.
And with the money flowing, think about investing into things that pay off in the long run, e.g. the research team and lobbying. Also, building big new factories can take years, so start building them before you desperately need them.
Try new things
- Expand to other continents
- Build up racing teams and use your own (sport) vehicles and components
- Enter the contract business (raise lobbying effectiveness for success)
- Create additional Marques
- Found new companies
- Acquire a Company
- Trade at the stock market
- Launch an initial public offering, invest the resulting money, and make your shareholders happy