Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sensei]

Prototype: Super/Hot Rod?

Well, we might have an idea here... or a quick example of just how bad the body age penalty can get. The '46 body has almost as little drag as the best bodies in the game, but it has pretty terrible lift characteristics. For reference, the LMP has 0.024/0.016 lift and the Bay 12 GT body has an absurdly good 0.002.


Well I tried to tune it and... well first off, it just doesn't support proper super car tires.


 It also has terrible engine space unless you put the engine in the rear, and then I can't get maximum sportiness without terminal oversteer. That said, the score isn't bad (for not being tuned right). With Advanced 90's safety, it's perfectly safe. In fact, I don't think there is a body safety penalty. The poor safety of old cars probably comes mostly from the lack of ladder frame, and lack of chassic quality bonus. But, the body age penalty? It's only 3%. I think that's where it caps out in this version of the game.


So, let's try this 1940's styled super car thing again. I'm going for the body I always use for 40's sports type stuff:


A 6L turbocharged V12 can be stuffed (barely) into the engine bay, making 1100 horsepower. This gets us a top speed of 276mph. That puts us squarely on the Hyper/Super demographic line for this car. It also uses new sequential transmission. With these scores, it beats the LMP in Super and especially Hyper. Earlier prototypes also scored in Track Premium but this example is far too expensive.


It takes WIIIIIDE tires to handle the power. Oh yeah, it was also an opportunity to use AHS steel- but even Hyper still doesn't want Carbon Fiber body panels. Apparently it's just too expensive for everybody.


Hauler Mk3?
Okay, if you thought this body looked ugly in the bodies screen, you should see it with morphs.


For the delivery version, the scores are great, I think it does better in Delivery and Heavy Delivery than the Mk2. The market scores steered me towards tiny, narrow tires that supposedly have a 1200lb load limit. You'd think that would be bad, since the suspension has a 2000lb load limit, but whatever. The brake setup is also completely insane, but I guess that comes with the size of the vehicle (and the desire for cheaper brakes).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Switching to a Utility version, I expect to see a low practicality penalty because it's only 1 seat row. In fact, Utility Budget has a 15% low practicality, but Utility has a penalty for offroad. Also, we start off with high scores in Delivery despite a body type penalty.


With AWD, manual lockers, and much softer springs, we get a decent Utility score! It also has a Premium interior. Surprisingly, Utility Budget hates it, its practicality is below their minimum to avoid a big penalty. But, for regular Utility, we were able to get away with only one seat row.


Lastly, can it still make a decent family van? I've set it up so far with only Standard safety, so hopefully that's still fine with six or so seats. Well, I tuned it and this is what I came up with:


It has MUCH smaller brakes, FWD, and a Standard interior. They also really like ESC, so the Family version has it and I may as well add it to the others because I think the engineering time will be less if they all have the same thing. In fact, I checked and sure enough, base engineering time is 82 months if they all have ESC and 90 if only one does. Alternatively, it's only 68 months if they all don't have ESC. Just the Family Van version loses about 5 points.

I think there's still at least one or two prototypes I still want to try, but that's what I've got for the moment.

[Sensei]

More!

How about our other idea for a hypercar? The modern 2.7m body really does look good. But, you should see it with the default tire size...


It also has much worse lift characteristics than our GT car body... so much so that I'm convinced that the GT car body has bugged/typo lift numbers.


Anyway, I made it mid-engined and gave it the absolute meme machine 1100 HP V12 I designed for the classic body hyper car. It's AWD with a 70% rear bias, that solved the the issues balancing it out and had much less wheelspin than the default 50/50 since the weight is in the back. Following the desires of the demographics, I have no aero, and pretty standard construction.


I honestly can't help feel slightly disappointed... we're making a car for the most expensive market in the game, and even though it's affordable, they still don't want to pay out for most of the exotic materials. They're basically useless in campaign right now. I tried a bunch of combinations, and this is what Hyper wants.


The market scores are stronger than the vintage body version, but the choice is up to you. Or, we could make both, but it will really hit market saturation. Like the other example, it has the potential for a Track Premium version. What's more, there's a convertible variant.

I have no idea why there's a 5% penalty- it is both a convertible, and a coupe. But, whatever.

Light Sport/Track: This is something I don't usually build for. Let's see... for the 2009 2.3m body, I think I'll try something a little less powerful, and more budget friendly. I give you: the Reactor Sport.


Nearly double the horsepower of the base Reactor gives us some good shit. Compared to average Light Sport competitors, it's much less sporty, but also much more driveable and comfortable. This version has 2 seats only. 2+2 scores much worse in Light Sport but goes to 200 in Fun Premium.


Now can I make this into a Track variant? Well, immediately I found some changes that also benefit regular Sport. Going to Basic safety saves a lot of weight (Track has a 10% low-weight desire!) and we can actually afford Active Sport suspension in these markets. This gets us to 200 in Light Sport right off the bat, invalidating that market screen up above which I'm too lazy to change. There's also some changes I didn't expect- like a geared LSD. Even Super doesn't always like those. The biggest change of all? VERY stiff suspension. It also got aggressive brakes and camber, because Track has specific desires for cornering and braking.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

See that comfort modifier? It's 9%- ouch! And we have a grand total of a whopping 0% comfort. Surprisingly, Light Sport likes it just fine. We did lose score in Sport and Fun Premium, but we have other cars for those.


I also had a short look at the Minecart replacement with the '07 2.2m. It's actually an SUV, and gets penalties in Commuter accordingly. It can make a decent car according to Archana budgets, but not matter what I do it doesn't get a lot cheaper than our existing minecart/alpaca. We're probably just best cranking up Optimization and Automation in the engineering for those cars, and making sure they have multiple Huge factories, if we want to hit budget demos.

I think the only suggestion I really have yet to prototype is the '07 3.0m with a lot of variants, and maybe trying to hit track/light sport (or their premium versions) with a GT variant. Or cheaper GT variants in general. I also need to figure out what I want to do with the Pumpstack replacement engine.

[Aseaheru]

 I love the Hauler Mk3. Its so ugly!

 How does the '08 2.3m supercar compare to the 2.7m? For that matter, how did the '07 2.2m possible minecart type thing do?

[Darkening Kaos]

   Love the hot-rod, that's what I was talking about.  Did you try it with aluminium frame made in a small factory?  (I know numbers are more important for the score, but, this is just a thought experiment).

    PS: Wide back tires and skinnier front tires?

[Sensei]

I love the Hauler Mk3. Its so ugly!

 How does the '08 2.3m supercar compare to the 2.7m? For that matter, how did the '07 2.2m possible minecart type thing do?

At a glance, it did... fine, but not a lot better than other ideas. I might do a more complete write up if I feel like it.

   Love the hot-rod, that's what I was talking about.  Did you try it with aluminium frame made in a small factory?  (I know numbers are more important for the score, but, this is just a thought experiment).

    PS: Wide back tires and skinnier front tires?

Well, I mostly just followed the market competitiveness. In this case it led me to a monocoque chassis. The best small size alternative would actually be aluminum body panels with a carbon fiber space frame, but it scores worse. On the other hand, I'm not sure it can keep a Medium 1 factory very busy. Since we have tons of money around, however, I might just make it in a Medium factory to get monocoque and run it at reduced shifts and low automation if I have to.

It actually already has staggered tires. The front tires are still very wide, but less wide.

[Darkening Kaos]

     Actually, just noticed you used the 2.1 m 1946 chassis, not the 3.1 m chassis … would that make a difference?

[King Zultan]

I like the look of the hot rod and the massive brick that should become the Hauler MK3.

[mightymushroom]

I think I like the 1940s hyper car better than the modern one.

The Hauler Mk.3 continues the proud tradition of function over form.
Although the load bearing numbers are screwy, but if it says it sells then it sells, right?

And I'd love to see how a proper track car with all those adjustments performs on the test track.
Our underpowered economy vehicles don't exactly tear it up.

[Fishbreath]

The Reactor Sport looks like a fun little engine.

I have a busy week ahead, but hopefully I'll have some time to test drive our recent batch of sports cars before the next update here.

[Sensei]

Back from a trip, so let's do some stuff!

I don't have much in the way of specific votes, so I'm just going to do my best to pick stuff that people seem favorable towards. We're getting into the home stretch now. I don't know how far we are away from the campaign 4.1 version release, but I definitely want to conclude this before that happens. In the interest of thoroughness though, I'm going to investigate the last couple prototypes we want to look at:

Last round of Prototypes!

Before I get to the really fun stuff, let me show the last thing I did first: an alternative trim of the Bay 12 GT. This has the new, unnamed engine intended to replace the Pumpstack, making about 500hp and with the speed limited by gearing. It's targeting Track Premium mainly. It has much stiffer suspension, simpler interior, and only 2 seats even though the car has 2 seat rows. Oddly, Sport seems to like eliminating the rear +2 seats- I got them to a 205 score, much higher than the normal GT, during tuning despite aiming for Track. It could also gain several points in Track and Light Sport by reducing from Advanced to Basic safety, but two safety types between variants adds crazy engineering time so that is not the version that's shown here.

It looks like, aside from Track premium, Light Sport and Track customers prefer the smaller, cheaper Reactor Sport-based car. The true optimum is probably a middle ground between an engine straining to get 150hp out of its tiny 1.5L block and a 3.7L V8 that's making so much power the car can barely handle it. But, I like the Reactor Sport for not adding a new engine to our production line.

The '46 3.1m Super isn't a great option. It's absolutely huge and has terrible drag. The rear is so far from the front that even enormous rear tires don't give much grip, it needs to be AWD to handle a lot of power. What's more, there's no actual coupe body option, so it's stuck with a 20% penalty.


Lastly, there's the '07 3.0m 'general purpose' build. This car is a lot more compelling! It's a good bit more expensive than the Alpaca, no matter what, but it has three seat rows. It does okay (not as good as our other prototype) in Family, but excellent in Family Utility (regular and premium). That is, of course, as long as Archana is excluded from the averages. Due to its size and comfort, it also has a lot of capacity to be a solid Family Premium/Family Sport, judging from the numbers I saw during tuning.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If we want a single model that hits a lot of different markets with variants, this would be it. The only thing it doesn't replace is the more budget-oriented markets served by a smaller car. Just for reference, here's a Family Sport version. It has a the Reactor Sport motor variant, wider tires, stiffer suspension, and only 4 seats compared to the wagon's 6.


Heck, let's get greedy- suppose I want to try to ute? That doesn't usually work out, but...

Hey, today they're fine with only one seat row! This does make me wonder about my conventional wisdom of Utility having a huge issue with low Practicality from only one seat row. I'm beginning to suspect it depends on the particular game session. Sometimes, the competition's average Practicality is high enough that you hit the threshold for a penalty, and sometimes, it's not... interesting.

There's more viable variants in that, such as a premium and a convertible, but I think you get the idea. This is a very compelling car, but it does leave some questions as to our current plans- what variants should we produce? What existing cars, if any, should be replaced? Would we still replace the Alpaca with that other car?

Well, it was originally my plan to just go ahead with the timeline, but I think this is actually worth calling a vote. What should call our new car, and what variants should we make? What about names for the other cars, such as the track/light sport car and the Alpaca replacement?

[mightymushroom]

I appreciate the effort that you went through to prototype every suggestion, yet this latest round doesn't strike me other than the station wagon for Family Utility. If we don't have anything that really covers that slot then it's worth considering. As far as one ultra-versatile model with trims for every market, it seems like the engineering time for tuning each piece differently outweighs any potential for operational economy.

2.6m Alpaca replacement, formerly called Goat, how about: Companion?
^{I've been trying to think of something from adventure mode, too.}

Enormous Toaster, uh, Hauler replacement, in cargo van and pickup versions, leave the passenger model off for now I think, call it Trader

I still prefer the "vintage" hyper prototype over the modern one, I'll suggest naming it Ghost.
^{Get it? 'Cause it's come back from the distant past?}

For a Track car, the earlier prototype, I think it's 2.3m. The Carp??

The Alpaca and Hauler replacements, whatever we decide to name them, should get Huge factories. The new performance cars can go in medium, I guess. Up above I wrote about retiring the LMP once the new hyper/super car hits the market; but with the model proliferation it's tough to visualize whether that would leave any gaps in our sales.

[Darkening Kaos]

     Well, that's a let down, but at least the previous prototype of the hot rod scored well.
     How about calling it the Fey Mood?
     As for colour, I really think a metallic green so dark it's almost black, except when hit by light at the right angle.
     It would need an excessive amount of decoration, though.

[lukerules117]

If we have the factories for it(or the money to build a large factory) then I think the general purpose could pay off by getting us some more sales in markets we may be selling at max capacity in.
+1 to the fey mood name

[King Zultan]

I also like the sound of fey mood for a name, and I still like all the ideas from last time.

[Aseaheru]

 We do need to keep ahold of the Hauler Mk3 Passenger for passenger fleet. And no, we aint changing its name. Shame on you

 Alpaca replacement should clearly be the Lama. Carp Track Car, that works. Vintage car, Ghost, sure.

 Agreed, the Companion/Lama and the Hauler Mk3 should each get huge factories. Next huge should go to the Migrant, see who gets the next after that when it comes up. Probally another Companion/Lama...
 In any event, with existing Hauler factory should be going to, oh, probably the Carp.