Automation Engine Designer Demo Feedback Thread

[greusome1]

WEIGHTS AND BLOCK SIZES? I have noticed while tuning for race engines, I can gain 5% in both power and torque just by changing block sizes. I use the same displacement and settings. I find while using a different block size, with altered bore x stroke to keep displacement the same, is in my opinion using some supersonic resonance for personal gain. I find this to be pretty much like real world technology. Something interesting I cannot fail to mention. I have experienced horsepower gains using a cast iron head on an aluminum block. Why? I would tend to think that under extreme revs the lightweight material would flex to some degree, throwing the center line of the cams and/or valves off, reducing power. I am not an experienced engine tester. I like to tinker with cars under a shade tree. I tend to pick up fast it seems. Last but not least. I love this game!! Well worth my donation. These are just my opinions, and would very much welcome any input as to why the above things happen.

[Daffyflyer]

Huh, those are some interesting points, I'm not convinced thats working quite as it should if you're getting those effects, I'll have a bit of a look into it.

Although one thing is that the carbs/headers and such scale with block size and as such flow more air, so that could be it.

[Highharti]

Regarding the intakes, going from a standard to a performance unit increases annual service costs on one engine from $1069 to $1307. I'm having a hard time figuring out why this should be, considering it's just a high flow filter in a nicer box.

I don't really know, but I guess the higher airflow in performance- und racefilters is partially achieved by just using worse/less fine filters.
So there's probably more dirt going into the engine which should effect lifetime, and servicecosts (cause you'll have to change the oil more often).

I've also noticed the cast-iron = more-power-than-aluminium effect, btw.

[Daffyflyer]

^regarding dirty oil and airfilters, this was our reasoning

[RoyOnWheels]

I am pretty impressed so far.

I would love a way to review and even save test runs including the graph, results, and selected components.

My 1st issue is having the slider arrows & check boxes not line up with cursor, I have to aim down and right.

The sliders feel very choppy In both the settings and components explanation area.

Check boxes are hard to see and the section selection text doesn't match the UI, plus the text is tiny.

I had mentioned my experience in User Accessibility testing elsewhere and have some feedback.
First, the video explanation need an option somewhere for captions or transcription.
Currently my adaptive equipment only allows left mouse clicks, so I can't right click to rotate the engine view. Maybe add an onscreen arrow rotation tool or a 'use left click to pan' option in options.

That is all my current feedback for now.

[Daffyflyer]

Subtitles are in the works for all videos


We'll investigate your other ideas too

[Crystal92]

Two issues I have with the engine designer. When you play a scenario and you can't pass it, if you close it and want try it again some other time you have to start from scratch. I think it would be nicer to be able to start where you left off and improve it from there instead of having to do all of it again. Maybe add a "clear/reset" button somewhere so you can quickly deselect all parts if you really want to start all over. But when I get close to the required specifications to pass the scenario and have no more time left and want to continue later, I have to do all the work again.

Secondly, in some scenarios the parts are pre-selected and you can't change them. The problem here is when you move the technology slider to 1940 and then back to where it was, it changes to some cheaper parts but it doesn't change back up when you move it back to the tech year it was before. The only way you can get the good parts back is by restarting the scenario. Some people might not notice this though when they accidentally touch the tech year slider and then become frustrated because the scenario is impossible to pass. The slider for the tech year should be restricted and not be able to go lower than the minimum tech year given in the restrictions if there are pre-selected and locked components somewhere.

[Daffyflyer]

Post that second issue in the bugs thread too, that needs fixing!

[Killrob]

lol dude, good find with the tech slider and making scenarios impossible by sliding it down and up again That indeed is a bug that needs fixing... never thought of that

[Crystal92]

Let's say you've passed a scenario at 1400 pts and close the scenario and open it again, it will load the engine that scored 1400 pts. If you change the sliders and suddenly it's lower than that and you change it back up and get 1390 pts and close the scenario, it will load the 1390pts engine next time you open the scenario. It should load the engine with the highest score you've ever achieved though. Because sometimes when I make changes I forget which sliders I changed and it's impossible for me to get my original highscore and then I'm stuck with a lower highscore.

[1701adguru]

Well, heres my feedback for the demo.

Basic Opinion
My opinion, on the demo, is that the game is at a great stage in it's development. The demo itself is surprisingly good, and even with just one engine type, the addictiveness of the demo itself is extremely high. There are a few bugs here and there; most have been mentioned in the bugs thread. Updates will most likely fix them. I've spent much of my time in the sandbox mode, as scenarios aren't really my thing. I usually play the "free" mode in a game (meaning no limit) or the "campaign' mode, and in the full game that will be running my own car company.

Sounds
The sounds in the game are okay, but I'm not going say good or perfect for a couple of reasons. I own a 2011 Scion tC, and some of you may know that by looking at my profile already. It has 180 BHP, and it redlines pretty much at 6100 RPM-ish in sport-tronic shift mode. Now, heres my complaint. I recreated the (almost) exact same engine in the engine designer demo. It had 180 BHP, and it redlined at 6100 RPM. The result? An engine that made my Scion sound alien. It was honestly way different then my real life engine, sounding like a bunch of angry bee's being shaken in a can (aka a rotary). It is just a game, but Forza 4 had a shockingly similar engine note.

The exhaust note is a somehow entirely different story. When I moved the camera at the exhaust, I could imagine my brother revving the engine, and me listening to the throaty sport exhauast on my real Scion. So overall, the engine note (in my opinion) needs some tweaking. Well, not the engine itself, but the sound the engine makes when combined with certain parts. Now to other misc. noises. The sound of the garage/working room is pretty realistic. It reminds me of the automotive class that I took in High School basically; the sound of fans and the clanks of tools. (That's a good thing! )

Controls
The controls of the demo are basic, yet extremely hard to master. You start by placing an engine block, determining it's size etc., but then you start finding yourself tweaking various components of the engine and the parts attatched. If I'm not satisfied with my 5600 Redline engine because it's not producing optimal results, then I can easily increase it to 6600. Easy as pie. But, the hard part is finding the perfect setup. Do you want maximum economy ratings without a loss of performance? Then spend the whole afternoon tweaking and changing to find what you want.

The camera controls are pretty basic. Drag and click, zoom and scroll. But again, the game is complicated under it's shell. You can use the camera to zoom into the exhaust to hear a clearer sound, or scroll around the pistons and watch the sparks and flames. It's pretty awesome.

Overall
For a demo, it's extremely addictive. You can change seemingly everything about your engine. The only thought I'm left with is: "Can the Car Designer live up to the greatness of this single demo?"

[Crystal92]

When you click on engine archive in the engine manager, i think there should only be one button to delete which deletes the engine you have selected from either the current list or from the archive list. Because if you select an engine from the archive and accidentally hit the left delete button it will delete an engine from the current list and you can't revert that so if you screw up the engine is gone forever. For me it would be much more intuitive to have just one delete button which deletes whichever engine you select, whether it is from the left list or from the right list.

Also when you're exiting the engine designer it should ask if you want to save the changes you made to your engine if you forgot to save them yourself.

[zebro racing]

I just downloaded it and started playing last night and it is AWESOME! Even this little bit of petro-phelia kept me playing for longer than was responsible. So far I've only really played the scenarios and really like them. The only suggestions I would make are:
1) offer lift AND duration tuning on the cam
2) offer flow and duration tuning on the injectors
3) it would be nice to be able to map the fuel over discrete portions of the rev range (at least with the EFI systems)
These are nit picky complaints. Dieing to see the full version.

[zebro racing]

One other thought on making the engine designer better: analysis tools. I find myself taking educated stabs in the dark trying out different combinations of things and never really knowing what to expect. It'd be nice to at least know where in the rev range the engine is stocio, and where its above and below; and maybe some post combustion analysis to know how completely the charge is being burnt.

[Arnerdo]

So far ive only played halfway through the scenarios. I noticed that im having difficulties comparing configurations when im tweaking the engine. Often i find myself swiching out a part or two, and then doing sevral testruns just to tweak in a few parameters to optimize for the change in parts. After these testruns ive lost statistics from the original configuration that i wanted to compare to. Really annoying in the long run. My solution is actually to write down some key parameters on a piece of paper so im able to compare.
Proposition: There should be buttons to clear and set performance curves and results when i want to. I would rather have this, than constantly comparing just with the previous run.

Also, after doing all the tweaking and changing the parts and i find out that my new configuration is worse that what i had, its a pain to revert everything back to the way it was. Again my solution is pen and paper..
Proposition: Have a button for taking a snapshot of the current engine configuration, and a button to revert to the previous snapshot.

It would be nice to be able to see the cost of the engine increase as i mount part on it. This way i would immediatly see when ive overshot my budget for the scenario.

Some of the above comments could probably apply for the car designer aswell in some way?

Loving the game! Keep up with the good work!