I've picked up both games. My son took an interesting in beamNG.drive and bought it. Planning to get some mods to we can play together. Picked up Automation as well just in case I feel the need to want to participate. Got a bunch of other games I play with people already. But at least I got the option to participate in the future.

@t0ast said in Automation Challenge Hot Laps - 2nd Anniversary Edition (Dec. '22):

A bit too powerful for its own good.

Pretty much expexcted...

kokain would slay this crowd

@Taylor-Martin Looking forward to it! I'm planning on finishing off my sportwagon tonight since IIRC those are due next Sunday. Failed SSD tried to eat it, but fortunately the drive is just in read only mode so I was just able to copy off Automation's well hidden save files.

@t0ast That went every bit as well as I expected.

I was laughing the whole time.

Will be interested to see how the hot laps pan out!

@t0ast first off, you’re a hero.

Secondly, I have two keys and neither of them have ever seemed to work, so I’ll have to try redoing that. Can’t delete them either, and can’t create any more. I’m on lock.

@EssExTee said in Sunstar is going on vacation to test its new wagon:

@CB said in Sunstar is going on vacation to test its new wagon:

the camper isn't full of stolen documents from other automakers

It's full of kidnapped engineers

Shhhhhhhh

@t0ast said in Automation Challenge Hot Laps - Cool Convertibles (Nov. '22):

Thankfully it's not enough to be disruptive unless you really want it to be, in which case you'll be rewarded with some very long, very easy drifts, which I would have enjoyed if not for the goal of good lap times.

For not having access to BeamNG at the time, and working with a specific price target, it's amazing how well it achieved my goal: quick when you want it to be, a fun way to leave rubber on the road when you don't.

@HFV-now-with-more-H The laps have been done, but the write-up will probably be stuck until I see the results (to put names to cars) and can finally catch a break from my own holiday + moving halfway across the country activities (guessing about a week or so).

@siennaman join us… join us…

@facw The original car was a sedan, so I'll do something else. Maybe a cyberpunk version...

@CarsOfFortLangley

I feel the same way.... gonna place my order and try to make the time.

@Bylan-Hoarder-of-LS400-s I guess we need to make it happen then 😄

@CB Those are some big numbers...

Given my limited engine room I had to be satisfied with less:

73702d88-2aef-4395-a44b-75e2cf0e3b31-image.png

The van's fast. It doesn't turn or brake, but as long as you want to go forward it's a pretty good rocket ship...

I may do a little optimization, but I don't want to do anything that will make it slower, and it seems like I would need a lot more power or weight reduction to shave another second off the 0-60. Plus the car's reliability is a bit compromised, try to run more power through my little 3-cylinder and I think the game will tell me it's too unreliable to sell.

@Taylor-Martin Unfortunately they don't drive in Beam. The old Cadence I have on my system did work (mostly, there was some weirdness where it wouldn't stop calculating), and I can export that ok.

It now has many horsepower! Though it looked like I could around 25% more with a race header...

Though man, 50 safety is hard when you are building a crappy deathtrap of a kei car.

@t0ast I've got a failure down there as well now:
1a1744b0-27a7-4bdb-96cf-c33a28c4ccca-image.png

I figure if it's below idle, it can't actually be important right?

@facw said in Sunstar development issues with the DayTripper:

@CB said in Sunstar development issues with the DayTripper:

All-wheel drive is requested due to snow

I really wanted AWD here, but while I fit a ton of other tech in here, AWD was just too expensive to make the cut.

I hope customers are excited for their FWD convertible GT car...

It took a lot of self-control not to build a Hatchy-based convertible.

@ranwhenparked Its well worth getting. Other than American Truck Sim and BeamNG I havent seen such a game simulator have such ongoing development and theres always something new.

Learning curve might be steep, buts its fun. No 3D modeling like Blender, everything is morphing parts how you want your car to look. Then the technical stuff like the engine, drivetrain, suspension, etc.

@EssExTee said in What has EssExTee been up to lately?:

just falling down an unhealthily obsessive rabbit hole

So what are you, like a medical doctor now or what? Who's to say what's really "unhealthy" anyway?

The unreal engine is pretty wild, cool stuff you've done too!

@t0ast Huh... this is interesting... mainly because I purposely build Dan's Van to be slow. As if the aforementioned Dan just slapped some cladding onto his turbocharged family hauler and set out. Incredibly surprised to see that was the fastest car, especially with the DuneBlaster in play... The goal with that was big engine in tiny car, and it delivers, provided you never turn 😉

Excellent writeup, as always! I thoroughly enjoy reading these (and reminiscing on the wacky race video!)

@HFV ...how long have you been taking photos like that?

@Jawzx2 NICE!

@t0ast I phoned in the Battaglia... it wasn't a good car, I'll be the first to admit, so I'm very surprised it came in anything except last place.

@HFV Hey Mods could I get a sticky on this?

@t0ast As noted above, for the Group B, I'd recommend using the version of the Divergence that doesn't overheat. Constant resetting or keeping it below 6000 RPMs will get old quickly (though certainly handling issues might make it problematic regardless)

@CB

To tell the truth, I'm not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to. If I ever saw myself saying I'm excited going to Cleveland, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'm lying.

-- Ichiro

@siennaman F4 should be fine. Again, just do whatever you think would be closest

@Taylor-Martin said in Sunstar leans into the rally heritage:

facw released a prime example of what I didn't want people to do. His entry couldn't hit 50 and sucked in every way, but dominated in points...

Please note that there are plenty of fine city cars that can't hit highway speeds... And also that submitting absolute crap was definitely a response to my luxury car which was good at everything except cost coming in second because it was expensive (who's ever heard of an expensive luxury car?!?) Granted @t0ast's car (IIRC) wasn't a pure econobox, but I'm pretty sure a pure econobox would have dominated the competition had one been entered, so I wanted to give you something to think about with the Cadence 🙂

@Mr-Ontop For the first cars I made, that’s partly my inexperience with the game coming through but also Automation seems to give a higher competitiveness score to higher ride heights. I think there’s more flexibility as the suspensions become more sophisticated though, the newer cars I’ve made look more natural in that respect.

@MrSnrub If you like the Automation campaign, have you tried GearCity? I haven't played automation's campaign since before they switched to Unreal engine, so at least 5 years, but I've sunk 100s and 100s of hours into GearCity. It's a weird little game developed by one dude that kinda seems like it should have come out in about 2002, but I really get lost in building a car company that puts peak GM to shame (At least once I bought out every single other car maker on the planet, though acquisitions have been tweaked since then to make it a lot harder to pull off now)

@t0ast Hurray! My car is slow! But what's really impressive is that the Toyo is fast! Especially when you compare it to horsepower:

be336566-206e-40af-9ead-0c06c17396be-image.png

Bottom 3 slowest cars. Top 5 fastest laps. That's impressive, congrats kid of @HFV

@facw Too bad it doesn't fall into pieces 😛

@HFV No, that's Dragon Age

@t0ast I'm pretty happy with a 3rd place finish here. I wish I'd tried to push for a bit more horse power, but I did pick this car because of the 3 cars i made it was the only one that could remotely handle the 350hp my engine had.

@Brickman They made a brochure!
https://www.beamng.com/civetta-scintilla-brochure-small.pdf

@facw Nice! Thanks for revisiting this one. Very interesting to read how these all stacked up from "new", and certainly enjoyed seeing my lightly troll-ish (whatwith the wholly unnecessary 4x4 and lift) build claw back a few positions and find its way into a very unlikely tie 🙂

@t0ast Woo hoo!! Proper ute for the win!

@CB This is still a work in progress, but I think I''ve got a winner. Photo434_1,920-1,080.pngPhoto433_1,920-1,080.png
@Automation

Check your fixtures, I found the update made my grilled and vents kind ie wonky on curved or creased surfaces. Had to fix that.

@siennaman that is weird, these cars were popular in Colombia as taxis. They were reliable and comfortable… well not comparable to 80s cars or as cool but they were spacious and better than a cheap motorcycle. My dad had one and my classmates made fun of me saying that my dad’s car looked like the 60s batmobile. This car had one electronic component that when it rained a lot could mess up, Colombian mechanics would just put hot glue on the circuit to water proof it.

@CB My Kei car got stuck in the chute let down by its open diffs. My RWD heavy hauler couldn't get up the final hill. My V12 super utility vehicle made it to the lake when it got hung up on the rocks. My ute needed a little momentum but made it trough. My offroad truck made it through no problem, even kept the mirror attached.

@Jawzx2 it’s two things. Massive torque, but also over the rpm range. I’m gonna deliver an engine with a flat torque curve across the band. More gears also=more towing to a point. But where top speed gearing of the transmission is set greatly influences towing and mileage to a point, and then too steep makes the towing fall off. Same for the first gear. It will be low, too steep, also makes tow rating falloff. So play with it, see what happens across the settings.

@facw You know what?! Maybe it will be

I'm liking what I see in this thread.

@facw For certain categories I did use averages instead of the actual score, but all in all they're similar enough.

@HFV I forgot those existed 😛 Actually I was using a 74 Plymouth Valiant as inspiration, but I do see how it looks like a Granada, especially the front.

@eel it’s still Front engine, RWD.

@HFV Ah yes, the F350 Escalade SuperDuty V.

@t0ast Thank you for the kind words about the Vulkan.

I try to approach these challenges by 1) making a car I like and 2) thinking about how an OEM would approach it. With that in mind, I nerfed myself a bit by going for wider gearing and a fairly tall rear. That gives a good hit of acceleration but also returns good fuel economy.

I do wish Automation would allow us to select ratios for each gear independently. One of the things I thought was great about my Camaro (for the brief time I had it) was the TR6060 gearbox and the way GM set it all up. It was close ratio 1-4, something like 2.66, 1.76, 1.34, 1.00, and then deeeeep over drives in 5th & 6th, like .72 and .53. This allowed them to run a 3.73 rear and it was awesome - you always had power on tap in 1-4, but with the double overdrive you could still get 25+ mpgs highway.

Since I can't make a gearbox like that in Automation, I did what I thought an OEM would do given the constraints.

@siennaman glad to help. The alpha does have a bunch of new visual stuff to spice up your car. And yeah, the car building experience definitely transfers, even if the cars don't

@eel said in I figured out how to make rust texture!:

I just buy a GM product. It makes rust texture all by itself.

Well, MI road salt helps a little too......

@cb What do you think of my submission so far?

afbe0bc0-826a-421e-b546-8e4515f71e01-image.png

@just-jeepin It does sound promising.
However, the odds are against it. The latest remote start deactivation scandal by Toyota is an indication of things to come.
Mitsubishi could gain loyal customers by coming up with something new and creative like this and supporting it long term. Most likely some of their idiot corporation bean counters will convince them to make it an expensive added cost option with a short free update period and expensive subscription payments.
Therefore, doomed to failure. Google will probably make a better one anyway.

@silentbutnotreallydeadly said in Auto-MOW-ation 😄:

@hfv said in Auto-MOW-ation 😄:

@brickman Oppo Mower racing series?

@Taylor-Martin

You crazy son of a bitch… I’m in…

@essextee Wow... impeccable timing as always. That said, I was planning on making a post about this, so I'll address this soon. Thanks for the heads up.

@facw Here's what mine looks like right nowPhoto204_1,920-1,080.png Photo203_1,920-1,080.png Photo202_1,920-1,080.png . With the body off yuo can see places where liberties were taken. Like the roll bar not actually lining up perfectly, and some chassis not covered on the floor. but witht he body one htose things aren't visible.

@facw
The Suzuki Swift GTi of the same era was a very good hot hatch. The G13 engine (4cyl 1.3 litre twin cam) remains a very popular thing...it was good for 100hp and 113 torques in stock form.

@cb It would be a unique twist of fate to see Sunstar up higher... maybe even top 5.