• Autoproduction (Youtube)
• Autoproduction Shipping (Youtube)

The Autoproduction system gives control of production to the game's AI. The AI will manage production line and slider adjustments to ensure that you produce the exact number of units required each month without inventory. This system uses the same system that AI companies use in the game.

To enable Autoproduction, open the Mega Menu in the Office. Click on the “Autocommands” button from the left menu. At the bottom of the window will be a series of checkboxes for Auto Assistance systems. Enable the “Auto Produce” checkbox.

When you enable the Autoproduction system, the game sets shipping to global. Meaning any vehicle produced at any factory can be shipped anywhere in the world. The game is unable to adjust production numbers and take into account shipping restrictions or distances. Therefore even district shipping restrictions are ignored when Autoproduction is enabled.

Because Autoproduction only works with global shipping, using the system can inadvertently increase your shipping costs. Early in the game, shipping costs are quite important. So here are a few ways you can run your company to reduce those shipping costs.

This restriction system is available from the factory production window in the Mega Menu or the World Map.

When you enable this restriction, factories can only produce vehicles from the same marque that owns the factory. You can set and view factory ownership in the View Details panel of the world map's Factory window.

You'd want to use this restriction if you want to use a specific marque for specific regions, for example, a VENT Europe, VENT North America, etc. When doing this, you would only sell these marque vehicles in the places you'd want to ship them to, typically around the factories.

Other reasons could include producing luxury marques in specific factories with high ratings to maximize vehicle quality. Or you may want to clump models of the same marque together in one factory because they share the same components, which would reduce production costs.

This restriction system is available from the factory production window in the Mega Menu or the World Map.

This restriction limits both production and shipping to their local region. For example, factories in Europe will only produce vehicles for European Branches. And it will restrict European Branch shipping to European-only factories.

Players often use this restriction when they have global companies before 1960. Companies with transportation cost problems may want to consider using this restriction.

This restriction system is available from the factory production window in the Mega Menu or the World Map.

Just below the checkboxes in the Auto Production system is the “Limit Production To” system. This system lets you set specific vehicles that the game can produce at the selected factory. The vehicles on the left are vehicles that you can add to the list. The list on the right is your production list. If no vehicles are on the right-side list, then the factory can produce all vehicles.

If you click a vehicle on the left, then the right arrow button, the game will move it to the right-side list. The game limits the factory to producing only the vehicles on the right-side list. You can add and remove vehicles from the production list as you will.

This restriction is helpful if you want to guarantee the production of certain vehicles at certain factories. Or if you want to make sure that there is enough production capacity to produce a specific vehicle. You can also use this restriction district-wide. It will overwrite any individual restrictions you have.

You must click the “Apply” button to save any changes you make on the Auto-production Factory Management screen.

If you plan on using the Autoproduction system for the entirety of the game, consider building many smaller factories spread throughout the world instead of a handful of large factories. By doing this, you will force the Autoproduction system to spread out production rather than build everything in one place. There are some circumstances where this might not be a good idea, such as later in the game.

When you add new factories, branches, and designs, the game does not recalculate the existing factory line allocations. Therefore it's a good idea to occasionally reset all production lines using the "Idle Factories" Auto Tool in the Mega Menu. This will reset every factory you own in the game, forcing Autoproduction to recalculate your entire production allocations. By doing this, the game can reoptimize all your production lines could reduce shipping costs.

Consider doing this tip anytime you make major expansions or retractions to your company. Or about every 10 years.

The game allows you to mix and match the restrictions.

It is generally a good idea to have excess production capacity when using Auto-production. This idea is even more true if you plan on restricting production. For example, let's say you have 5 production lines in Europe and you're selling 7 models there.

If you enable “Restrict Shipping to the Same Region/Continent” you won't be able to produce at least two of your vehicles. And if some of your models use more than one production line, you won't be able to produce even more vehicle models. Since you restricted shipping within the Continent, you'll miss sales on all those models, even if you produce them outside of the region.

So when using Autoproduction, you want excess production lines if possible.

The Autoproduction system first determines if it needs to adjust any production lines for component contracts. It then orders your vehicles. The system will queue any models you have active contracts for first. The remaining models are in order of the database optimizer. Typically, this is in creation order, oldest design to newest design.

Next, the game goes through the list of vehicles. If you have regional restrictions enabled, the Autoproduction system will break demand down by region. And calculate the production lines per region. Otherwise, it processes demand globally for each vehicle model in the list's order.

The system will determine if it needs to increase production lines or remove them. And what amount of production speed slider it should use.

When it comes to factory selection, the system will choose factories that already have the model in production. Then it will add factories that don’t have the model in production to the list.

In cases where the game needs to increase production, it will select factories in order of open factory lines. And when it needs to decrease production, it goes in the order of the factories with the most lines used for the model.

When adjusting the production speed slider, if the slider goes above 80%, the Autoproduction system will use another production line. Likewise, if the production speed slider falls below 40%, it will decrease production lines.

The goal of the Autoproduction system is to fill all of your demand without inventories and to maintain positive or near positive quality rating growth. It does not concern itself with shipping distances, but you can enable shipping restrictions to help improve your shipping expenses.

Since the Autoproduction system tries to use existing production lines, the Autoproduction system can become sub-optimal. It is a good idea to clear out production lines occasionally and have the Autoproduction system recalculate everything from scratch. The game does this automatically when you win contracts. It is wise to do it yourself any time you’ve added several new branches or factories, especially if you have regional restrictions enabled.

You can clear production lines with the “Idle Factories” Autocommands tool located in the Mega Menu. Ending the turn will force the Autoproduction system to recalculate all the production lines at your company.

In summation, the Autoproduction system is a great way to reduce the workload in your game. If you have many factories, many models, or both, you can reduce the amount of micromanagement considerably. It won’t be as optimal as micromanaging everything yourself, but it could give you much more enjoyment after a certain point.