Generations [LORE, UE4] [FINAL RESULTS]

1985, Somewhere in Ohio, Luke Sinistra’s Sunbolt

He revved the engine menacingly, as he’d done four times before in that same night, and had been doing for months now. The high-revving V6 responded eagerly, 220 horsepower demanding to be unleashed. Luke put the Sunbolt in first, pinned the engine to the rev limiter, and dumped the clutch. The back of the car, already an astounding racket, burst into squealing tires as Luke threaded the Sunbolt through a careful dance, the rear tires spinning madly. The lazy loops slowly formed letters, and after a couple minutes, formed words. “Don’t Buy This Junk, Buy a Sinistra.”

For the past three months, Luke had been doing these covert missions with the Sunbolt, driving into competitor’s parking lots in a dark-colored sports car, almost always a Charcoal black Sunbolt, though occasionally one in Crimson Sky was used, and ripping off a loopy, cursive burnout to warn people away from his competition. But for Ardent, he’d reserved judgement, and had done his striping in the Sunburn yellow menace, his personal car, complete with the license plate “GOOD SIN” visible. He didn’t care if they noticed this time.

Of course, he’d cared a lot more when he ripped one across a couple of Erin dealerships, and he’d only left a squiggly mess of stripes through the Bogliq lot, but for Ardent, he was throwing down a gauntlet. He was telling them, “This is what my first generation sports car can do.”

And, of course, the bright yellow car was long gone by the time the cops could arrive, back on a highway heading toward Nevada, the tires worn nearly bald from doing burnouts.

He knew the other company CEO’s could tell who was doing this. If it wasn’t him doing it, it was someone he hired, someone who could handle the rear-engined car’s twitchy handling.


1988, Sinistra Motors Headquarters, Nevada

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?!” Luke yelled, sending Jeff back-pedaling out of Luke’s office. “I authorized you to spend money and create prototypes because I expected results! Yes, the Sunbolt is a success, I know that. That’s the only reason I haven’t fuckin’ fired you yet. Where the hell are my god-damn turbochargers!?”

“We’re trying to manufacture them in house, so we…” Jeff started to say, only for Luke to go on another outburst.

“Why the fuck are you reinventing the fucking wheel!? You could have contracted with a company and we could have had turbos five-fucking-years-ago! Do the in-house manufacturing once we have a product line, you shithead!”

“I… Didn’t think about that.” Jeff admitted.

“Get the fuck out of my office. And Jeff, if you don’t have a Turbo Sunbolt ready for me in two years, you better have your desk packed before you come to my office. This has gone on long enough.”

“We… Could adapt the engine with variable valve lift.” Jeff said, in a half-hearted attempt to calm Luke down. He relaxed when it seemed to work, and even more so when Luke said, “Do it. It’s half of the Sin-Cam project done, then, and we’ll figure out the other half when we have time. At least it’ll fix the crippling gas-mileage of the Sunbolt.”

Jeff hurried down the hall, back to the engine design room. Before making any calls, he opened the locked filing cabinet and grabbed the bottle from within, pouring himself a large glass before downing it, putting the bottle and the glass back into the cabinet, and locking it back up. He knew if Luke ever caught him drinking on the job, he’d be fired. Luke was known to dislike activities that wasted company time, and he’d soured a few friendships when he imposed a no-smoking policy on the property. And Jeff remembered warning two new employees to his department about not smoking or drinking on the job, only for both of them to get busted, one that day, and one a week later.

The first guy had simply shrugged it off, wasn’t the first time he’d been fired, let alone gotten in trouble for smoking in the bathroom. The second, however, had also crossed Luke’s hard stance against drugs. Jeff had smelled the pot and tried to find the source, but Andrea, Luke’s current head of the Performance Division, had found the guy first, and then found Luke before Jeff could. Luke had the cops on site before Jeff could even warn the guy, and Luke made sure he left in handcuffs, to make a statement about drugs on company property.

Jeff picked up the phone and started calling companies, asking if they could contract out to Sinistra Motors for some turbochargers. He hoped he could find some that were suitable for the Sunbolt before 1990, because he really needed to keep this job.

5 Likes


I haven’t decided on which car to use yet, but if I choose the Boulevard Star, will it count in as a van when it comes to regulations? It’s using the early 80s hatchback body, but redesigned into a shape as van-like as possible. In the back there’s a simple bench for three passengers, that can be removed, folded flat or even folded to work as a bed together with folded front seats…so a 2+3-seater with quite large cargo room for its size.

(Of course, this version doesn’t have the USDM taillights and bumpers)

6 Likes

Lore

Imgur

Let the Battle begin

Nb: The Price is Inflation Adjusted to 1988 Money

7 Likes

1988 Lore


1988, Sinistra Motors Headquarters, Luke’s Office.

“So, you think this ad’s gonna work?” Luke asked Robert, the new head of the advertising division.

“Well, it plays to the Sunbolt’s strengths. It’s easy to drive, it has room for the family, and it’s affordably priced.” Robert responded. “Plus, it’s really safe. Someone crashes one of those foreign supercars, it’ll be all over the news because it’ll get ripped in half. Imagine the headlines: ‘Another Tech CEO Dies in Supercar Crash.’ You’ve been saying the tech industry is cut-throat and that people are stopping only slightly short of murder when a startup threatens their market. Then in '83, some CEO crashes his foreign supercar, and his company goes bust, proving these stupid-fast cars aren’t super safe.”

“Wasn’t I the one who predicted the demise of Eagle Computer?” Luke said, raising an eyebrow at Robert. “Still, good way to twist it around, make other cars breaking that speed-barrier look like death-traps. Yeah, you’ve got my permission to publish that ad. Maybe you’ll scare people away from the crazy two-seat doctor-killers.”

4 Likes

Bogliq USA HQ

Detroit, MI

Michael Konstantin’s office
September, 1983

Michael Konstantin slumped forward in his dad’s, no HIS, chair as he read the dismal sales projections of the new for '83 Bogliq line-up. It was clear to Michael that he was not the man his father was. The company hadn’t weathered the fuel crisis well at all, the '79 line-up was panned for being too bland and stale and the '83 refresh had fallen into the same rut. The cars weren’t nice to drive and they were too thirsty compared to rivals. Other than a low purchase price, no-one was interested in what Bogliq had to sell. Things were going to have to change, old values to shake up, new values to forge, or else Bogliq would continue its slide into the abyss of market irrelevance; mocked as an also-ran when compared to the all conquering imports…

But what to do? Michael rubbed his temples and sighed, another headache was forming. Michael decided to contact his senior engineers; everything had to go on the table! Without change Bogliq would die and Ardent would win and that future was unthinkable… Michael got up and left his office, organised his secretary to get the meeting rolling for tomorrow and he headed home for the day. No point hanging around waiting for his head to burst, besides, he was going to be really busy tomorrow morning.

4 Likes

TSR%20Angel%20S%20advertisement


@VicVictory Do we need to put the 5mph bumper bars on this body? I mean this car has bumpers already.

5 Likes

Molded bumpers count as 5 mph bumpers. You’re still limited with light placement in that regard, however.

3 Likes

So this is molded bumpers (inside the oval)?

I don’t understand why my car got classified as upscale.

Midsize cars don’t get much more basic than mine tbh.

IIRC you had at least one premium interior component selected.

@Aaron.W - Most if not all of the models in this era of the game have integrated bumpers and don’t need a separate fixture to be added. The requirement is in case someone is using a throwback body that doesn’t have one.

4 Likes

As you can clearly see, it’s standard/standard with 5 seats.
Could you please re-run the round and put my car in the correct category this time?

2 Likes



13 Likes

Leviathan Motor Company (LMC) - No longer updated - #29 by Chickenbiscuit

16 Likes

Lore ---->Olympus Motor Group - #45 by undercoverhardwarema

9 Likes

Will I reload your car and take another peek at it? Sure. Will I apologize if I misread it? Sure. Will I rerun the math? Absolutely not. Because it’s not just changing a few numbers in a spreadsheet for just your car, it affects the curving of scores both in the category you move to and you move from. It requires completely redoing the math for the round, which takes me 12+ hours in one sitting.

PS - if I moved you, I can probably tell you based on the comments I made on your car, that you’d actually do WORSE in the category you think you want to be in.

5 Likes
9 Likes

The Erin Berlose launched in 1983, becoming the company’s first ever proper full-sized saloon. Offered with a range of I6 engines and an infamous V8 option later, the car’s smooth ride and comfort quickly established its place in the market, and made it a household name in premium saloons by the end of the decade.

Original lore post

17 Likes

It probably would. But it’s the category it was conceived to be in.
I absolutely don’t understand why it takes you so long to process a round, there is no computational method that I can think of that takes this long. And if this is the best you’ve got, maybe you should ask for help, as I can think of at least three people who are good with spreadsheets, me included, who have better systems, which would save you time each round.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure I am interested in this any longer, with all the issues the challenge has, like the arbitrary categories and their scoring, all the unfair/not lore friendly entries, it’s become far from fun to me.

I’m afraid I’ll withdraw my entry and no longer submit cars for future rounds.

I think you’re a bit rude now actually. Most of us have a real life that is coming in the way all the time and is only running automation and hosting competitions on a hobby basis. IMO, spreadsheets aren’t everything either, I don’t know how Vic is counting but finding the best overall package in a class needs some thinking sometimes. As an example, having the sportiness reaching silly levels on a cargo van should never be able to compensate for the cargo room being cramped since that’s not what the customer want. Sure, it could be weighted differently but that would mean that even sillier levels could be used for compensating etc…

When you are buying a car IRL, do you let a spreadsheet choose the right one for you then?

7 Likes

That’s because each car’s score is reliant on the stats of every other car, not just a simple “who has the highest number” scoring system like you’re used to. When you have as many entrants as Vic has, in varying categories from year to year, the calculation for who has done best is going to take time.

Nice series of assumptions you’ve made there… You have no idea whether Vic is or isn’t using a spreadsheet to collect data in, nor can you reasonably assume that you or your unnamed “3 others” would be able to do a more efficient job. Also time spent calculating figures doesn’t equal quality of figures produced. You may build a quicker system but miss a vital connection that makes your system less balanced or unfairly weighted towards a certain playstyle.

Translation; “I’m not dominating so I’m quitting”. All categories are arbitrary. The only reason you think some make more sense than others is because you’re either used to them or you made them up, thus they match your logic. Ask for a clarification from Vic on what categories there are and how they’re formulated before throwing around terms like “arbitrary”.

As for unfair or non-lore friendly, there has been no violation that I’m aware of. We don’t have all the pressures and thought processes that the IRL companies had so our “Generations” reality isn’t going to look exactly the same as the IRL one. Vic has included relevant lighting regulations and has introduced safety minimums when appropriate so I don’t see your problem. Maybe you should wait until this competition has ended then make suggestions on how another round could be improved/clarified.

This is Vic’s first effort of a very ambitious challenge. We’re doing great to get where we are now and I believe that no-one else would have pulled this competition off as successfully as Vic. So roll with the punches and save the nit-picking for post-competition, where it’s most appropriate.

Your loss buddy, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!

10 Likes