Pikes Peak Automation Hill Climb 2015 [RESULTS]

[strop]

Shout out goes to BlastersPewPew, who volunteered quite a bit of time to help check over the entries (and spotted a couple of violations I missed), and manually entered some of the info on the cars. Fortunately for the most part, I was able to organise the data in a fairly automated fashion in Excel, so this made collating the results much easier!

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EDITED: lots of new posts, going to move this to another post.

[BurningBridges]

Would it help to have a little program that reads the data directly from the LUA files?

[BlastersPewPew]

Shout out goes to BlastersPewPew, who volunteered quite a bit of time to help check over the entries (and spotted a couple of violations I missed), and manually entered some of the info on the cars. Fortunately for the most part, I was able to organise the data in a fairly automated fashion in Excel, so this made collating the results much easier!

It was just too bad my Open Office didn't like the Excel format so much or I could have done more As soon as I tried to place or edit a larger photo it would CTD, best I could do was put the country flags in one at a time and save after each one just in case.

Also here is to Elvis, may he plod around the track in style and comfort! I never intended my car to be an actual contender, way too heavy with too little power and no real handling BUT I wanted something that was still in the spirit of the race, something that MIGHT eek out 2nd to last place (though I doubt it ), something that could have been an actual production car from the mid '70s with the best interior money could buy at the time. BTW if your car breaks down on the way up it will probably be the car that picks you up and takes you back to your pit

[Razyx]

Nicely done guys!!

Would it help to have a little program that reads the data directly from the LUA files?

I think that would be a good tool for anyone that want to host a challenge .

Do you have anything in mind?

[BurningBridges]

1. What I meant was that I hope you guys dont type in all the values manually. every time. It would not be much work to write a little program that reads the values from LUA and put them into Excel. All you had to do would be to take a screenshot (unless you want to use the thumbnail - that one could be put in automatically too).

2. great job

3. I suggest that for the future we have displacement classes. I think it makes everything more interesting if you cannot put in am 8 or 10L engine every time.

4. I also think that limiting the tyre width to something like 255mm would make more chassis options available. Because right now it is unfair, smaller chassis often have much larger tyres. Thats the sole reason no one was running the 1960s Ferrari or the 70s Lotus Elise (wedge car), for example.

[conan]

What I meant was that I hope you guys dont type in all the values manually. every time. It would not be much work to write a little program that reads the values from LUA and put them into Excel.

That would be excellent! Can you write one for us?

[BurningBridges]

I could write a little program that copies the values to a CSV file. This should not be too hard.

[strop]

It would not be much work to write a little program that reads the values from LUA and put them into Excel.

This is something we wistfully think about every time we get a challenge with more than a dozen entries, but unfortunately, no not as of yet. Also, what's a CSV file?

I suggest that for the future we have displacement classes. I think it makes everything more interesting if you cannot put in am 8 or 10L engine every time.

Other challenges run displacement classes, especially if they're written into the rules of the code they emulate. Only the challenges I tend to run don't have displacement classes purely because I hate restricting power

I also think that limiting the tyre width to something like 255mm would make more chassis options available. Because right now it is unfair, smaller chassis often have much larger tyres. Thats the sole reason no one was running the 1960s Ferrari or the 70s Lotus Elise (wedge car), for example.

Yes and no... yes in that you'd think that limiting the tyre width would make for a more even playing field, but I happen to know for a fact that some cars are severely OP when running 235/245... so you'd run into the opposite problem that limiting the tyre width so low will place a huge advantage on some bodies over others. And Felgen's wedge body in its original spec doesn't like taking more than 235 rears and, as one of his first bodies, is also extremely finnicky to tune for, so it's sadly not popular for any competitive tournament at all despite being so distinctive.

[np1993]

link doesn't work for me

EDIT: nvm, it worked in a different browser!

EDIT 2: Awesome Cards! I enjoyed the comments

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Pikes Peak Automation Hill Climb 2015: Inspections and Preparations

Pikes Peak, Colorado. Each year the mountain comes alive with enthusiasts, hoons and nutjobs making the pilgrimage to see one of the toughest hillclimbs in the world. Cars of all varieties, drives, visions, and power line up to tackle the 156 turns, climbing over 1400m over 20km of open mountain, cliff and no guardrails. There's no armco to stop you from shooting off the mountain into oblivion, just your tyres, your brakes, your foot, and whatever deity you wish to place your faith in, if any.

Bespoke tuner and race outfitter Gryphon Gear is pleased to host the Pikes Peak Automation Hill Climb of 2015, with the help of closer-to-home scrap specialists Desert Motors. We've inspected a whopping sixty five vehicles (sixty seven, if we include Gryphon Gear's own proof-of-concept prototype, and the truck it came in, among the list, though Gryphon Gear will not partake in the official standings, being the hosts). That's 12 in the production class, 8 in the tuner class, 6 in the open class, 13 in the heavy class, 12 in the vintage class and a whopping 14 in the insane, no-holds-barred unlimited class. There's a great amount of variety in the entries, with approaches varying in each and every class from representative models that embrace the spirit of the class with maybe a few minor modifications (or not), to the balls out crazy tuned-to-within-an-inch of the rules.

While testing for the prerequisite reliability (or whether the car even runs at all), we gathered the data of all the power outputs, and in particular, the power to weight ratios of all the cars. I've compiled them in a (big) graph for your amusement. The car names have been colour coded by class.

PPAHCpowa.png (93.9 KiB) Viewed 4045 times

It was at this point that we had to scratch one entry: the PoMoCo lorry overheated and burst into flames on the dyno. Clearly it needed more ventilation, but as it was, it got the fire extinguisher and was thus rendered incapacitated.

That setback aside, all the other entries were eventually prepped and ready to go! Power moves the wheels, but power isn't everything... who is it that will take the line honours in this year's PPAHC?

[BurningBridges]

It would not be much work to write a little program that reads the values from LUA and put them into Excel.

This is something we wistfully think about every time we get a challenge with more than a dozen entries, but unfortunately, no not as of yet. Also, what's a CSV file?

CSV = comma separated value, can be read it in Excel.
More later, provided that I get anything done.

I also think that limiting the tyre width to something like 255mm would make more chassis options available. Because right now it is unfair, smaller chassis often have much larger tyres. Thats the sole reason no one was running the 1960s Ferrari or the 70s Lotus Elise (wedge car), for example.

Yes and no... yes in that you'd think that limiting the tyre width would make for a more even playing field, but I happen to know for a fact that some cars are severely OP when running 235/245... so you'd run into the opposite problem that limiting the tyre width so low will place a huge advantage on some bodies over others.

Hm. I thought it was the other way around, that right now some chassis have a huge advantage just for the tyre width. Wouldn't a "balance every tyre, weight and drag value-mod" be in order?

[strop]

Wouldn't a "balance every tyre, weight and drag value-mod" be in order?

Well now, that would get complicated, because different tyre, weight and drag values suit different tracks better This is very easy to prove, by changing the various values of engine cooling on one of your overpowered cars on, say, Green Hell, then doing the same on Airfield. Therefore, the various advantages you would get in any given tournament would depend on the track selection. And that is why game veterans now run tournaments with track listings that are kept secret until after the deadline...

[BurningBridges]

Yes, but why shouldn't they depend on the track, or how is that different to now?
The problem I have is that right now some cars are limited to so small tyres that they cannot compete. Good examples are the the two supercars. What would be so bad if they get larger tyres (in the progress of another balancing pass), just large enough that they can compete with a Ford Escort?

Or put differently, show me 1 example where one of the said supercars outperforms an Escort or a Golf, and I will shut up (temporarily at least)

[strop]

I'm not sure what you're asking there, since I'm talking about the general principles in consideration when balancing a tournament (or, in my case, leaving it open). I'm not sure whether you're doing the same, or you're making a suggestion as to how you would have run this specific tournament. In fact, I'm no longer sure I understand what you're saying at all xD

As you can see (or not so much, actually, though the power: weight graph on the previous page is actually a very good indication), there was a very wide variety of approaches in this tournament. Not everybody wanted to make an all out balls-out car. That nobody happened to use the wedge or the pre-wedge body in this case, therefore, is more likely to be a coincidence than anything else, and may only have changed if I had specifically restricted the use of the body.

My personal feeling is that the pre-wedge and wedge supercar bodies are not as frequently used as apart from the relatively narrow tyres, they also have a very specific shape with limited opportunity for morphing, and there's not a lot of options when it comes to fixture placement as a result. Furthermore, many of the users who do quickfire builds and don't care about styling don't use mods, and both those bodies are currently mods.

On a slightly different note...

show me 1 example where one of the said supercars outperforms an Escort or a Golf

If you would be a little more specific, I'd be interested in having a tinker. Do you mean impose the same maximum tyre restrictions on all the bodies and see which one as the advantage?

[BurningBridges]

I would just like to see what happens if all cars were limited to 255mm tyres, like the wedge car. My hope would be that it would encourage people to use bodies like the wedge car and the supercar. I will continue in another topic as this was not a criticism or anything of your competition, just an idea how competitions in general could be more diverse. And I still think that the wedge car would have been competitive in this competition, if only it had wider tyres.