Hi There.
I know you guys are incredibly busy working on the Unreal Engine Version of the game, but I thought I should just put this out there…
Automation functions as a kind of engine ‘recreater’ for me as I regularly Google the bore and stroke of engines and try and get as close as possible to the real power and torque curves.
I like try and ‘recreate’ all types of engines (including F1)
One thing about modern Formula 1 engines (excluding the V6 T [2014-]) is that they spin very fast.
The Limit imposed by traditional Valve train systems in reality and in Automation is about 12000 rpm.
But F1 engines used to spin past 18000 and I would like to recreate them within Automation.
F1 engines of the era used Pneumatic Valve Springs, but what I find more plausible to implement into Automation is FreeValve because it is practical for improving economy as well as increasing performance.
Also if you guys are looking at adding Diesel (again as DLC later), you could use the self ignition system that you guys would have developed for Diesel in Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) petrol engines…
I’m talking about for late game
FreeValve specifically is still in development, but it is very similar to what MotoGP bikes and F1 have been doing since the 80’s
still, given Automation’s campaign most likely won’t be extended past 2020, not sure if Freevalve as such niche technology makes sense in civil cars, which is the scope of the game.
If some sort of newer valve technology was to be added, I’d vouch for a continuously variable valve lift system such as BMW’s Valvetronic, Toyota’s Valvematic, or Nissan’s VVEL. Nissan’s system being notable for being desmodromic.
I’d just add too: There’s absolutely no reason to add it right now, given the limited amount of control we have over the valvetrain.
If we were picking intake opening, closing and lift (And same for the exhaust), it would make sense. But given that we simply have a slider for “more aggressive vs less aggressive”, it wouldn’t really confer the proper benefits.
I’m gonna be on the other side of the spectrum on this, and say I’m for a FreeValve implementation, but not the max rev limit increased beyond 12k RPM. It sounds like a rather easy implementation to me, where when you tick the option for FreeValve, it can check every ‘cam profile’ at every calculated RPM (so every 100 RPM, in the case of the game) and select the one that gives maximum torque and/or efficiency at each point, kinda like how the VVL system checks when the second cam profile is more powerful than the first.
Maybe not exactly FreeValve, because that seems to give much more than simply a continuous VVL, but some kind of that continuous VVL would make a lot of sense. Or/and maybe Fiat’s Multiair tech - it’s on the market since 2009, is available in very common cars and is a quite logical step towards camless designs.
The other reason we cannot go beyond 12k rpm. Is none of our engine sound samples cope beyond 12k (we have no more samples to interpolate with). Some of the existing samples are already a bit harsh up the high end.
At some point, we are going to have to push the campaign end date out to a later year. But that will probably be Automation 2. We are not terribly big fans of DLC. We do have some plans for some, but it’ll be more fluff, and hopefully collaborative with other people. The main reason is if you are late to discovering the game, there is this feeling of a big wall fo stuff. E.g. Civ 5 and it’s 15 DLC’s, and we don’t want that.
Ideally we want a model, where for existing Automation owners, Automation 2 is a DLC like price. People coming for the first time will pay full price.
Bear in mind, this is way out in the future, we just need to have some plans in motion for keeping Camshaft Software a sustainable enterprise.