[Event is Finished] The Automation Endurance Challenge

[strop]

Other question: are you trying to test the engine, by itself, or are you running it through the model designer section, and testing the engine through the Choose Engine section?

The real stats are the ones which have been calculated after the aero fixtures have been accounted for. When I save an engine on its own in b1362, more often than not it shows a falsely low MTBF figure that is only rectified after I save the engine via Revise Model->Drivetrain->Choose Engine->Revise Engine. I'll PM you a screenshot along with our settings, to show you the difference, and I bet you the lower figure matches the one that you obtained when loading the engine yourself.

[nialloftara]

Team Belua breaking the laws of physics before the race even begins this does not bode well for us mere mortals.

[strop]

Hey, don't cloud the issue, I swear this is a common issue that affects us all

Either that, or every single engine I touch breaks the laws of physics. That can't be possible. I've made production car friendly engines before ;_;

[Dragawn]

How do you check economy btw? Because if you use the thermodynamic efficiency from the engine designer aswell, it could be pretty skewed since weight influences fuel consumption and in real world practice turbos perform better due to better simulation.

Poor guy, team Belua giving him a hard time with fancy ways to properly calculate stuff
And yeah, the cooling issue in engine designer is a common issue, luckily some people got DQ'd, otherwise we'd never have found out and turbo engines would've broken down way too often than they actually would

[Hallowenman]

Ok, the MTBF problem is now fixed for the Prototype cars. One car from GT2 and one car from Prototype class will be disquallified. A third car might be disquallified or get a DNF due to problems with loading it in the game, so I am looking at this. The two teams (Belua and SRE & AMW) are still in the event!

[strop]

phew, that's a relief for us.

I also suspect that this same problem affects our GT1 and GT2 engine

[Hallowenman]

Never experienced this before with Automation....

Error message pops up on desktop when playing Automation

automation problem.png (9.76 KiB) Viewed 5054 times

So basically, I pressed revise model, the game calculated the stats, I then pressed test track, chose the track from the custom tracks menu,
pressed start and then the error message pops up on my desktop. Anyone know why this happens?

[strop]

My impression is: For some reason, the simulation doesn't know how to run the car. This is unfortunately not a problem with the car, but the calculations, but requires the settings of the car to be changed.

I can't tell exactly which calculation was stuffed up by that error message (they're always the same), but for example, in b1362, if your car exceeds 2.04g @ 113.8km/h in the 50m circle test, it will break the calculations. It could be to do with gearing or suspension or whatever.

[Jakgoe]

That's most likely the gearing one. If you change the spacing slider one click, it should do the trick.

[SummonerJedi]

As a point of information, I am the one who mentioned the issue with the turbo settings to Hallowenman. I noticed this issue as I was finalizing my GT1 entry into the contest. I had managed to get the engine to the exact upper limit for the class (550 hp I believe). I adjusted and tweaked the engine settings to where I wanted them and saved the engine.

When I opened up the engine again, I noticed that the power had mysteriously dropped to 541 hp. I reviewed all the engine settings, and that's where I found the turbo settings weren't where I set them. Because I had originally designed the engine around the 'economy' turbo preset, I clicked that button - instantly, the engine power goes back to 550 hp. Save the engine and go back in - power drops again to 541 hp.

Strangely enough, putting the engine in the completed car does show the correct 550 hp figure. As I wasn't sure how Hallowenman was going to evaluate each car entry, I wanted to point out this little quirk in the program to him so he could be aware of it. I upgraded to the latest version recently, but I have not touched the platform / model / engine for my entry. If necessary, I'll install the older version if I still have it on my hard drive.

[Hallowenman]

As a point of information, I am the one who mentioned the issue with the turbo settings to Hallowenman. I noticed this issue as I was finalizing my GT1 entry into the contest. I had managed to get the engine to the exact upper limit for the class (550 hp I believe). I adjusted and tweaked the engine settings to where I wanted them and saved the engine.

When I opened up the engine again, I noticed that the power had mysteriously dropped to 541 hp. I reviewed all the engine settings, and that's where I found the turbo settings weren't where I set them. Because I had originally designed the engine around the 'economy' turbo preset, I clicked that button - instantly, the engine power goes back to 550 hp. Save the engine and go back in - power drops again to 541 hp.

Strangely enough, putting the engine in the completed car does show the correct 550 hp figure. As I wasn't sure how Hallowenman was going to evaluate each car entry, I wanted to point out this little quirk in the program to him so he could be aware of it. I upgraded to the latest version recently, but I have not touched the platform / model / engine for my entry. If necessary, I'll install the older version if I still have it on my hard drive.

When I checked all cars and engines I remembered what you said, so I pressed the economy setting for your engine. For those 2 Prototype engines it was a bit Different though. They had the power, but the MTBF was very low. But its all fixed now

[Hallowenman]

The Results

The final results are now ready. They will be uploaded in some minutes (10 - 20 minutes). You can
find the final results on the first post of this thread where all the event information is. It will be
added on the bottom of that post.

[strop]

Thanks for hosting this unique event, and also to oldgreg for helping you out with the setup.

I'm really intrigued, how was everything calculated in the end? If it's not too much to ask, I'd love to know how close the finish was, too.

[Hallowenman]

Thanks for hosting this unique event, and also to oldgreg for helping you out with the setup.

I'm really intrigued, how was everything calculated in the end? If it's not too much to ask, I'd love to know how close the finish was, too.

Well, lap times were important. If you have a fast car you'll pull away. But the economy (not of the engine, but the model with the engine) and the engines MTBF was important. If you had a slow car but really good MTBF and economy that would make you ''fast'' because you didn't have to refuel or repair the engine as often (less time in pits). Baltazar or Leonardo9613 was extremely close to you in GT1, and close, but not as close, in GT2. If he had a car that was a bit faster around the track he would have taken the victory in GT1. And I am talking about less than 2 seconds...

[SummonerJedi]

Hmm...a 6th-place finish isn't exactly something I can boast about on my company page. That's a bit of a bummer.

Time to sack the R&D staff!