VVL is OP?

General Chat
41

I reread the post and he said he changed it, which is why I edited my post :stuck_out_tongue:

But yeah, the valve count explains the PU difference.

42

And, I’m still not quite sure what aspect of VVL you’re suggesting is OP. I’m guessing it’s how relatively cheap it is to implement and produce? None of the actual effects on engine performance, car performance or car desirability seem unreasonable to me so far.

43

judging by what Leedar had said to me earlier, the question ended up being mostly a rumination on: why aren’t car markets in real life reflected by how Automation makes us behave in game?

44

Well, if that’s the case, then I suspect the answer is most likely simply: VVL is expensive for it’s benefits, and maybe Automation’s VVL is a bit cheap/easy to engineer/easy to produce.

45

I still recommend doing the test I proposed above to check if it is actually OP or not.

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46

You’re right. :sweat_smile:

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47

Okay, the difference in the campaign mode is quite reduced. For instance, making a commuter/family car (1/1/1994 to 1/1/2009, desirability and price difficulty = 1, $4.5 billion in the bank, 1 large factory for car and engine, identical car and engine, except for removing VVL and increasing valve timing to match perf index, slight gear tweaking):

  1. VVL - 2.454 billion, 6894.12 score
  2. No VVL - 2.434 billion, 6750.78 score

And a separate ‘fun’ car:

  1. VVL I4 - 1.906 billion, 5454.43 score
  2. No VVL I4 - 2.149 billion, 4877.11 score
  3. VVL I3 - 2.039 billion, 4431.85 score
  4. No VVL I3 - 2.142 billion, 4079.84 score

I honestly haven’t played with the campaign much thus far, so I wasn’t aware of how insignificant grabbing a bit of desirability is compared to reducing PU/ET. I guess there is no reason for devs to rebalance the cost of VVL, although this still poses a problem for player competitions that use the sandbox and don’t control for PU/ET.

VVL does get a better score with the fun car, what does that mean?

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48

That is about what I expected. VVL is expensive in a campaign setting and as you point out it is not imbalanced at all in that (a tycoon) setting. Automation is a tycoon game, so it’s all good hehe we don’t care much about sandbox balance :slight_smile:

Higher scores just mean that your car had a higher competitiveness value when you sold them, VVL sure does that, especially when you don’t mark it up higher for it having VVL.

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49

If there was a segment & market that needed high specific output (e.g. had more extreme capacity taxes), high power-to-weight, high comfort and high economy, but not high prestige (e.g. low cylinder count), then I think the desirability advantage of VVL might become substantial (VVL did slightly outperform no VVL in the commuter car which approaches this idea). However, that doesn’t really exist in the campaign as it is, and it would be reasonable that VVL would do well in such a niche.

The drivability bonus of VVL isn’t nearly as powerful as I thought it was, a few points of drivability doesn’t count for much against the cost.

50

That sounds about right, if you think about it, what you say here also answers your question about why VVL might be a bit advantageous in the “fun” car class: they’re inexpensive small cars with generally not-large engines you can toss around that have a high specific output, but there’s a small weighting on economy.

To get into the nitty-gritty of it, FF layout cars with an appropriately weighted engine over the wheels actually have higher potential drivability than their FR counterparts, and the additional weight of VVL may actually contribute to this by way of reducing wheelspin (which plays a significant role) and at the performance levels that you’d optimally find in a fun class car, there would actually be minimal appreciable dynamic advantages in the FR. If you really wanted to test the contribution of VVL to this, you’d have to test this hypothesis across a range of cars :stuck_out_tongue:

Absolutely, what’s good is that we’re starting to see this worked into the competitions more frequently now as the Tycoon mode gets more exposure.

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51

(Addendum)

Regarding my earlier claim that some real-world VVL engines don’t have the straight slope of ideal Automation engines, reading this article about the Honda R engine provided a possible explanation: not all real-world engines are DOHC and employ dual VVT to smooth out the torque curve. In the case of the R engine which is SOHC and doesn’t have VVT at all, a more mild high-RPM cam profile is used, which is close to the low-RPM profile, so that the torque doesn’t sag in between the two profile peaks. (Edit: it’s actually more complicated than this, because the low-RPM profile enables a pseudo-Atkinson cycle which provides less torque than usual, so shifting into a normal cycle earlier is preferable to deliver good performance.)

(I’ll take this opportunity to complain again that the ‘engine’ score in the drivability tab doesn’t quite encapsulate a realistic analysis of the torque curve, since the game penalises torque drop off towards redline more than if you have a sag in between profiles.)

52

VVT\VCT is commonly used, VVL is not commonly used it’s mainly for additional power and more complex to design. With VVT\VCT you are just advancing and retarding the cam timing. With VVL you are changing the cam profile.

So yeah VVL would significantly change how an engine performs, it’s like having a smooth eco cam and being able to switch to aggressive cam on demand. It’s fairly complex and is can be static as in profile 1 and profile 2 or dynamic where it can continuously changes.

VVT is fairly simple to implement, you can retrofit the GM LS with VVT and give them a modest increase in power, from what I was reading the kits are good for about 40-50hp and a few extra mpg’s

53

Do you have a cite for a variable lift cam system on a LS v8? Variable lift systems are pretty complicated for ohv engines let alone a cam in block V8.

54

I miss type that I will change it it’s not VVL is VVT. It’s uses the same parts used on the LT motors.

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