Reguarding the possibility to drive the cars your self.

[Daffyflyer]

My point is that the game as we have it planned is already a massive beast that will be a challenge for a small team to polish up to the standard that we want to, and adding features like manually controlled drag racing will just take even more of our time away from the core task of making a good quality car company game.

[oophus]

Ahh, well I wouldn't mind if this was something to be added as an DLC or something like that after the main aspects of the game was finished.
And I think this probably would be easier and faster to implement then building support to export everything to a 3'rd party driving simulator.
If you want, I could even model the drag strip for you for free.

I just feel that it would be fun to have a way to test your engine in a more direct competitive way. Both with your own build engines, and in leagues where you get a pre-defined engine where you compete with your timing only.

[Daffyflyer]

I'd say its pretty unlikely to happen to be honest, we already have enough stuff we could add as DLC to last us for years of work if we wanted, and even finishing the main game itself is a huge task, the last thing we need is more features at this point

[Killrob]

*producer reads thread*
*producer head-desk*
*producer leaves*

[Daffyflyer]

*oophus used feature request*

*it's SUPER EFFECTIVE*

*Producer Fainted*

[oophus]

I'd say its pretty unlikely to happen to be honest, we already have enough stuff we could add as DLC to last us for years of work if we wanted, and even finishing the main game itself is a huge task, the last thing we need is more features at this point

Isn't this a feature you've already discussed? The possibility to test/drive it? How is this more features?

[Killrob]

Has this been discussed? Yes, like 10000 times. And 10000 times we've said that NO this won't be a feature. So I don't get where you got that from.

[oophus]

Oh yeah, we had a chat to the developers of that a while back, would be cool but very hard for us to get car models that work properly in both Automation and BeamNG

We've never said we wanted to build our own driving sim, that's out of our reach I'd say, but indeed we have been thinking of doing an rFactor 2 exporter if possible

We're at least going to try for an rFactor exporter.. maybe a generic mesh exporter too, we'll see.

To me it looks like its something you have considered? And I can't find posts where you outright say "NO!" to it. But if a clear no, then ok.

Its just that I believe that doing this compared to building an exporter would be easier, would it not?

[Killrob]

Of course we have considered it, we all think it would be an amazing feature - but it is just not feasible for us to go that route.
That is why we have considered other, more feasible ways too: exporters to specialized driving sims for instance. Automation itself will never have a first-/third-person diving simulator, that is 100% certain.

[oophus]

I don't think you understand what I was proposing. It would not be an driving simulator. You already have most of the stuff you need from the already implemented system with its graphs and such. You would only need to add support for the miles per hour/km per hour graph to the system, and then link that within a simple viewport in a new environment (the drag strip), and let us control the throttle like you already have with the new test bench, and just let us make gear changes.

Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6erm38DEnmc

Simple UI with a throttle (instead of the button) like you already have and gear changes. Maybe a H pattern where you use our mouse to make gear changes?

I guess the simplest way would be to have 1'st persion view, so you don't have to rig wheels and tire deformations and such. Just tilt the window back a bit linked to the system with its horse power and torgue etc as you accelerate.

[benceboc]

This game is a car company tycoon game. It should be focused on expanding your business (and designin your cars, of course), not on drag racing or speaker systems.

[Slim Jim]

There's probably no bigger drag racing fan than me on the board (I've got a huge stack of timeslips to prove it). But I'm going to have to agree with the developers on this one - it's a nice idea, but beyond the scope/purpose of the game.

For me, as long as we have a 1/4 mile (ET and trap speed) stat somewhere in the car designer, I'll be happy. And I won't stop pestering them until it's within 1% accuracy.

[Killrob]

I didn't miss your point, oophus, you don't see our point. The is no "you just need to" and you completely underestimate of how much work would be go into realizing such a feature you describe (and show in the video). My estimate would be some good 2-3 months of work to get it to the same quality as the rest of the program, while being completely irrelevant to the core principles of Automation. I highly doubt people come to Automation for a shallow click-one-button mini game basically being a cow-clicker for dudes.

Yes, we will try to make the car testing as pleasing and entertaining as possible, but only within limits that add to the core gaming experience of the game. Take a look at the suggestion guidelines to see why that is.

To watch your car perform in certain tests: would be amazing (the best part of Detroit, even though objectively it was total BS), to do driving or drag racing: a waste of development time (like in Motor City / Oldtimer where you had optional ultra-boring driving sections which added nothing good to the experience and probably cost the developers lots of valuable time).

@Slim Jim: Yes, of course stats like these will be provided. This is data that is viable to have in the game and weaves into the core gaming experience Automation provides. You want to be able to compare to your own and others' creations.

[Daffyflyer]

Yes, we very much do want to have some car tests that you can watch, but we really couldn't even do a satisfying simulation of player controlled drag racing I don't think. We'd be much better doing a very well polished test you watch.