Hi a question about a possible feature. Will we later on have the possibility of “modernizing a body”
Basically in exchange for money and engineering time you have the ability to reduce (maybe not fully?) the prestige and safety (offset by slight weight increase) penalty for an old body.
The lack of prestige drop could be attributed to something becoming iconic like a 911 (maybe because part of the cost went into marketing) it could represent new design work (extensive fixture use in a new variant) or maybe its a throwback Vehicle like a gt40 or a morgan.
No, there is n such thing as modernization of bodies in Automation. If you look at real world examples it isn’t a thing either, just the overall style carrying over.
Automation considers three things:
Age of trim
Age of model
Age of body style
You are able to amend 2 and will be able to fix 1 with facelifts. 3 will be something that always remains.
Well i know there is more than just a trim difference to a body when a new generation of a car arives irl. This was more to counteract the lack of newer bodies in the style of ones if the one wants to emulate a lonh running line such as the 911 without needing say 3 different bodies. Then it could be “refreshed” with some body morphing an tastefull trim usage.
Then again the same desire could fullfiled with more “lineage” body’s as well as some maye some trowback odballs from mods
I find myself on Cyk0’s side here. To make an entirely new body style for relatively minor changes seems wasteful. The Challenger looks like it could’ve been plucked from the 70’s. The 911 has adamantly refused to alter its style. Every Morgan on earth looks like it just rolled off a 1940’s assembly line. Yet all those cars seem very appreciated despite that aesthetic stagnancy - hell, I’d argue they’re popular because of that stagnancy. Any sort of bypass to body aging would be appreciated (Maybe an option in the set-up screen later on?)
What I think you guys are missing is that “iconic” bodies built nowadays / modernized are far larger and heavier due to safety regulations and requirements. It would be either overpowered to just tick a box and have it be modern (original body with some safety penalty) or it would be very unrealistic (weight penalty but no size difference).
We have discussed this aspect a lot over the past 3 years and the way it is now seems to be the way it will be (apart from balancing the progression of penalties, etc., which of course is not considered final).
The modern Challenger (Especially the newest one) does not look like it’s from the 70’s, it would look very out of place in the 70’s just like a modern Porsche.
The Porsche is a good example of a car that kept it’s styling but didn’t get outdated.
Both could definitively be made using the exact same body in automation /s
The only cars sold today that truly look like old cars are very niche cars from small manufacturers, like many of the Morgans as well as the numerous Lotus 7 clones you can get. But they can get away with it because they often don’t have to conform to the same safety standards as big companies like dodge, and part of the reason why people buy these is to get the classic driving experience, not just the classic looks.
Comparing the two you can see the new one has fater pillars and overall thicker panels. The same as comparing the original Ford GT40 to the 06 Ford GT, the second one has a similar shape, but it’s bigger to meet all the safety regulations.
Also, on a non relevant side note, I keep reading the title of this thread as: new generation body to reduce panties
To say that I missed it a bit harsh with my opening post containing the weight reference, and I also mentioned that it might not be realistic to have it achieve 100% reduction since you are using the same body (baring modifications)
But as I said, more generational bodies would achive the same thing. This would just let the user create a classic out of a car that was successful even if that car has another bodyshape than what became a clasic irl (which is something that would increase the chases of a shape having generational bodies)
It would also mean that even say the 991 could have been handled with just 2 bodies with some morphing options say the original from 63 and then the 996 from 99. Then you would have handled 52 years of models with those two instead of the 7 internal body classifications they really went through.
But the big point for me is the ability to create my own classic line. maybe it will only span 30 years because of diminishing returns form re engineering but I would not be pigeonholed into doing it a style that eventually gets some “generational” bodies.
Anyway enough beating of the (potentially) dead horse. I don’t want to be an advocate for feature creep here, and this is certainly something that could be acomplished with the “tools” ingame (bodies) and mods. Keep on doing your great game! I am really enjoying the campaign even in its lighter form.
Of course the Mustang, Challenger, Porsche et al aren’t identical to the way they were, I’m well aware of that. But they look close enough that designing an entirely new body to account for extremely minor changes would be a total waste of development time. As I said up top, there’s really no reason why updating the entire chassis, drivetrain and materials while retaining a classic style should be universally negative.
That’s the thing, they aren’t really extremely minor changes.
Extremely minor changes would be something like most facelifts.
Or like Cyk0 said, the post 2000s Porsches.
But apart from that they are quite different, even though they might share some design elements. Some tweaking of the values might be required so bodies can be used for longer with facelifts considering how long some cars were in production, but it should definitively not be possible to make a viable car out of a 1970 body in 2010.
While you’re not incorrect, I disagree thoroughly. We aim for nostalgia all the time with modern cars, and again, rather than doing small rear engined coupes with small enough differences to be changed with player sculpting and trims, just do it once and let the player do the rest of the work.
We already have gameplay elements in place for not bothering to update a model between 1970 and 2010: Namely, the safety, emissions, power delivery, general dimensions and everything else would be horrible with the old technology in place. If someone wants to make a classically styled, modern-chassis car, the game shouldn’t really be jumping in and saying “NOT ON MY WATCH”.
The only real examples of retro cars that actually share a body design I can think of is mid 90s minis and South American spec VWs, and they DID get discontinued due to lack of safety etc.
As Titleguy1’s pictures show, most modern “retro” cars, are just new cars built with lines that are heavily inspired by something older, but usually are quite different in diamensions, have no bumpers etc.
We certainly do need some more “modern retro” styled bodies though, sure.
with my opening post containing the weight reference, and I also mentioned that it might not be realistic to have it achieve 100% reduction since you are using the same body (baring modifications)
