Min-Max'ing

[Danikov]

There's one big feature I feel is missing is the ability to fix all other variables and compare the effects of a full range of a single variable. Manually having to do a binary chop searching for the maximum by flicking back and forth between the fuel panel and the test panel, searching for a value that doesn't have positive deltas either side, is a pain.

What we need is more sophisticated graphing (probably no surprise to get a request like this from a technically minded audience). The simplest version graph I want for this occasion would map variance of a selected variable, e.g. fuel compression on the vertical, and I can click on the resultant variables, e.g. economy, to see the effect the different values have plotted. A little more sophisticated version would allow multiple variables to be plot alongside each other, say I might want to find a balance of HP against torque.

I imagine some groundwork is already laid with the plotting of the torque and hp test results, so it's just a case of hooking the variables up, doing a bunch of test runs in the background, and some UI design, right?

[Daffyflyer]

Its not meant to make it that easy though, its supposed to have some of the "make a design with some idea of how it should work, and then test it to see if it DOES work" feel.

[LHOswald]

i agree with daffy. real car manufacturers dont have the luxury of plugging everything into a graph and seeing if it will just "work". they have to build it, set it as such, and see what happens. the game is meant to make you feel like your doing the same dumb, dirty work they're doing!

[Danikov]

It's not about making things easy... there's no trick going on here. What I do is I have to browse to the fuel settings, make a small tweak, browse back to the test page, run the test, try to remember all the results, maybe forget them, spend forever navigating back and forth between menus because a) the game can't recall what I've done before, and b) the game can't make something simple easy to do.

There is no easy way to 'solve' an engine because of the huge amount of variables involved- that's what's fun, having all the variables at hand and having to intuitively work out which ones to tweak. However, tweaking a single variable to find the best results for it, all others made constant, is very straightforward to do, and insisting such a thing should be done manually because it's somehow 'authentic' is on par with suggesting that the game should run in real time and that the test engines should take real days to build, tweak and test run in order to get results (rather than a single-button click and a live test).

Not to mention that 'real car manufacturers' actually do have simulation tech that detects engine design and conditions that are prone to knock, for example, and don't do everything by just building it and hoping it works.

It's not an instant win button and it's not hard to implement. It increases the amount of information at people's fingertips and removes some of the tedium. How is that not improvement?

[Daffyflyer]

I can see what you're getting at here yes.

I'd be interested to hear other opinions on this and see how universally desired it is, as it would represent a lot of work to get it working nicely.

[valrond]

I think it's fine the way it is. You don't take that much time finding the best of a single adjustment, just don't change in increments of 1, change in 15-20, and see how it goes, then you can fine tune. And it's not like it takes 20 seconds to do each adjustment, just 3-4 clicks and you're done.

[loady740]

It's not about making things easy... there's no trick going on here. What I do is I have to browse to the fuel settings, make a small tweak, browse back to the test page, run the test, try to remember all the results, maybe forget them, spend forever navigating back and forth between menus because a) the game can't recall what I've done before, and b) the game can't make something simple easy to do.

There is no easy way to 'solve' an engine because of the huge amount of variables involved- that's what's fun, having all the variables at hand and having to intuitively work out which ones to tweak. However, tweaking a single variable to find the best results for it, all others made constant, is very straightforward to do, and insisting such a thing should be done manually because it's somehow 'authentic' is on par with suggesting that the game should run in real time and that the test engines should take real days to build, tweak and test run in order to get results (rather than a single-button click and a live test).

Not to mention that 'real car manufacturers' actually do have simulation tech that detects engine design and conditions that are prone to knock, for example, and don't do everything by just building it and hoping it works.

It's not an instant win button and it's not hard to implement. It increases the amount of information at people's fingertips and removes some of the tedium. How is that not improvement?

please lets just leave real time out of this

[Danikov]

Well, apparently this isn't that popular or wanted a feature. I hope the irony of people being opposed to automation in a game called Automation isn't lost.