Automation Airfield Power Lap Times

[strop]

The tyres are the limiting factor imo and this one has good cornering due to larger tyres. I could not fit a 2000hp Turbo though

Note that a 2000hp turbo will invariably do worse than a 1000hp NA engine on airfield due to it strongly favouring tameness. I'll be taking a look at this body shortly when I get home, could be exciting!

EDIT: I see what you've done now. lololol that's crazy man, this body does so well with the front sway bar removed. I've already destroyed my best time with the Group C body, who knows how far this will go!

[BurningBridges]

And before strop can post his improved versions, a model for the Production Category.

It's ca 1-1.5 seconds slower, otherwise mostly the same. I adjusted it to meet the exhaust, tyres and fuel requirements.
Engine reliability is ca 23, cooling is ca 90% of optimum, I placed intakes on the roof etc. (I don't want to make the intakes on the front bigger, mostly for esthetic reasons)

Blitz_RS215P.jpg (261.32 KiB) Viewed 8711 times

BlitzLapTime_1_9_84_Production.jpg (270.01 KiB) Viewed 8711 times

[BurningBridges]

Note that a 2000hp turbo will invariably do worse than a 1000hp NA engine on airfield due to it strongly favouring tameness. I'll be taking a look at this body shortly when I get home, could be exciting!

Thanks, I already suspected as much. I noticed that as my turbos get more powerful, the laptimes actually seem to deteriorate. I take it for now that if you cant make the tyres bigger or the downforce stronger, there isn't much that more hp will do.

Which is a bit weird, because all we can do is work around limitations in the car designer.
If you find a car that can mount the largest tyres (relatively speaking) it's likely that the limit is also highest in respect to lap time. But once you reach that limit, it becomes a rather pointless search for 1/100th of seconds. In the same vein, also noticed that a 6 cylinder Turbo is purely limited by the exhaust size. It should be good for over 2000 hp but must use the same single exhaust as the 4 cylinder (which is for ca 1200-1600hp). The 8 cylinder can use two of the same types of exhausts and therefore easily reach 2-3 thousand hp.

[strop]

...noticed that a 6 cylinder Turbo is purely limited by the exhaust size. It should be good for over 2000 hp but must use the same single exhaust as the 4 cylinder (which is for ca 1200-1600hp). The 8 cylinder can use two of the same types of exhausts and therefore easily reach 2-3 thousand hp.

In one sense yes. Though this is a less frequently encountered limitation because most engine bays aren't large enough to accomodate an i6 for which that would become a big issue (well, the large sedans and the most modern coupe, plus definitely the van and the bus/lorry, I suppose).

P.S. I won't be posting any improved versions on this leaderboard, as while I technically have a build with a "faster time" (in both categories), I don't see a point. I've been discussing the findings with burningbridges anyway, and feel that this is a weird game behaviour that needs further investigation post-Steam release.

[Microwave]

Right,
I wanted to see this thread become active again because of the fact that the track calculations have been heavily revamped and unfortunately the original OP, Pleb, isn't as active as he used to be. Because of these reasons, I've decided we're going to start fresh, so I've cleared the leaderboards and changed the OP a fair bit.
Send me your airfield track times now, so I can add them to the leaderboard! To start, I'll add my own company's car (also, if you have suggestions for rules please do tell me).

[DoctorNarfy]

Nice, but as far as production cars go, I think you should allow race exhausts, But set a noise limit, an Emissions Limit, A ride height limit, and ban Semi Slicks. But those are just suggestions.

[Microwave]

The race tubular exhausts are not meant for production, as stated in game so that would not make any sense. The semi slicks are also road legal. What kind of emissions and ride height limits would you suggest?

[iRaptor]

Noise limit sounds fair enough.
However remember Automation only makes for road-legal cars. Therefore a ride height limit wouldn't make any sense due to the fact that a road-legal car must clear roadbumps. Most cars in the game go over 150mm which seems ridiculously high for a racing-oriented car. So I wouldn't go for a ride height limit, if my reasoning makes sense to you.

Semi-slicks are road-legal. the World Time Attack Championship actually uses semi-slicks and they can well be used on roads. And Automation has a road-legal car designer. So no point in banning them aswell IMHO.

You might have a point with emissions though.

There are noise-limits aswell so putting one could be a good idea for sure.

IMHO I'd be doing a restriction on the last 2 points.

Like :
Emissions : under xxx
Noise : under 70.


Other than that I'd be pretty glad to be part of this!

I'd suggest making a separate board alongside every car who wouldn't fit to some regulations, like some of the AMWEC cars. I suppose most of the doesn't use CC or mufflers, and maybe some of the cars other than in this competition might be built as a potential track racer

[Microwave]

What would the extra board be called?

[strop]

To be technical about it, emissions would have been tiered per year of production due to improving technology, which makes it complex.

What was suggested on the Green Hell leaderboard was using a class system by year and price tag, perhaps?

[Microwave]

Yeah, that would be the simplest way to go about it. That's why I asked people to tell me the power ratings of their cars, so it's easy to differentiate between different kinds of cars.

[koolkei]

if you really wanted regulation for the emission. regulate them with emissions per liter for 5 or 10 year interval

[Microwave]

I'm going to do what Strop said, with cars being separated in classes by price tags. The model year of the entries will also be listed. So, for a start, how are these values:

Budget/Low end ($1 - $30,000)
Mid Range ($30,000 - $50,000)
High end ($50,000 - $150,000)
Supercar/Luxury ($150,000 - $300,000)
Hypercar ($300,000 - $500,000)
Open ($500,000 and beyond)

Please tell me if you have ideas for improvements or changes.

[strop]

That's a fair assessment of price ranges, but I don't think Automation follows the pricing at the top end (cars designated 'hypercar' in the market tab are allocated a budget of up to 486k IIRC, but the most effective cost-effective competitiveness tends to be around the 200-250k mark provided sensible choices were made). For the most part, any car priced at 1M Automation money units can't be sold anywhere and also tend to have 15+ tech on most if not all things, so they might as well be part of an 'open' class, prototype racers etc.

[Microwave]

Ah, I completely forgot that the markets have individual budgets... Oh well. An "open" class sounds fair, I'll change it real quick.