sorry, mixed up the pics. Fixed it now
Guys, I know there’s no rule saying you can only make XXX horsepower or similar, but if I give you guys cars for inspiration and the most powerful one makes like 200hp, and then some of you make cars with more than twice that power output, do you think that’ll go through? We’re talking entry-level sports cars here, not kit cars or budget track-racers.
If the main evaluation criteria are hotlap times, then it’s sensible to build race cars within the given envelope.
The is a reason why AutoBeamChallenge rule sets are Excel fests with a complex set of balancing rules. Something like minimum X Hetvesian market score would have done wonders, for instance. sets are
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Of course we would think that! Because you never said it wouldn’t.
Giving inspiration cars doesn’t make a rule, it sets a theme. And there was nothing in your ruleset that even mentioned having to follow that theme.
It’s one of the most basic principles of challenge-hosting: If it follows all the stated rules, it’s allowed. If you didn’t want it to be allowed, you should’ve made a rule saying so.
Edit: Sorry if my writing here sounds angry or aggressive or combative. I’m not trying to be mean, I just want to make sure it’s clear how egregious a flaw this is. The challenge overall was really well made, and flaws like these can be learned from (even, in this case, corrected). I don’t think you were trying to be mean at all, and I’m sure what was learned here will help make even better challenges in the future. (:
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As quickly as I could, I added timestamps to the stream VOD of race 1 which can be viewed here:
These are the results after race 1, it’s gonna be a close competition!
EDIT: The problem was, I saw two camps of people with their builds, one which took the approach of what could realistically be produced and sold as a budget sports car in 1995, and one that went all-in on performance to make the fastest car they could for under 25k. That makes it very difficult to compare cars from camp A to cars from camp B since they weren’t built with the same intention in mind.
But since I’m trying to learn from this, how could I have prevented that while also keeping the spirit of the challenge? Limit maximum horsepower to, say, 250? That’s about the only thing I can think of because let’s say, a minimum reliability score wouldn’t have worked, some of these cars had higher reliability than my own car that only makes 220hp. Make the budget stricter yet, like 22.5k? Or maybe a minimum drivability score in conjunction with reliability, or something like that, because let’s face it, the cars mentioned in the inspirations are all easy to drive and also reliable for a sports car. But then we face the issue that drivability in Automation says nothing about drivability in BeamNG, which is what matters here. Also, while geared diffs increase drivability in Automation, in BeamNG for FR cars they actually make them harder to drive.
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@TheTom If you wanted to limit power to a realistic level you could have restricted fuel economy, cams, valves, loudness, power-to-weight. Any of these would have given the idea that you wanted 250 ish hp, realistic cars. But you actively stated there was no fuel economy limit for example, implying people should go all out. You can’t just punish people for rules not being restrictive enough. Hell I restricted what the engine could do on my car so it wasn’t “too fast” in a straight line, at least in my eyes. But the point is that artificial limit is subjective, if you wanted a limit you should have put rules in place that would create a soft limit.
And if you don’t want these two camps of cars competing you can still run all of them, but put them in different leaderboards for this challenge. The “Race cars” can’t win the challenge, but at least peoples hard work will be tested to some degree, which is why people submit to these things.
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I HELLA thought I was gonna get binned for my design…
I’m more upset cause I didn’t get to see that cool a$$ blue car get to race…I think TCup made it.
Here’s the problem: you never even mentioned that realism or theme-appropriateness was going to be considered. In fact, the rules seemed to suggest the opposite. For example, When you defined the challenge in the first post, all you really said was “…it’s about building an affordable sports car that looks good and performs well.” before describing the specific rules. On it’s own, that almost directly means “As fast and good looking as possible within the budget” And that’s why most of us (including many people like me who you did accept) jumped headfirst into Camp B.
Even just a simple, vague statement to the effect of “cars that are too unrealistic or stray too far from the theme will be binned” would have helped loads. That kind of statement isn’t perfect, but at least it would leave people expecting realism to be considered, and trying to fit your theme. I mean, you’re style grading is similarly vague, and that works pretty well. And if there’s confusion, people will usually ask.
TCup also made some good suggestions on how to add further specificity, which would help even more (especially regulating power-to-weight, which is something real life race series do). But even if you don’t want to make the rules too restrictive, a specific definition or clarification of what the theme is, and what that means for a practical sense would also have helped. There’s a reason most forum competitions start with very long briefs; it’s all about communicating everything up front.
Here's an example of how the original post could have been changed to be more specific:
Let’s try expanding that initial statement slightly.
“…it’s about building an affordable sports car that looks good and performs well, while still being realistic to its era.”
That, alone, helps re-frame the competition into what you want. But for a bit more clarity, let’s add a second paragraph, either right below it or in “inspirations”:
“Budget sports cars are usually designed to be as fast as they reasonably can, but they aren’t full track cars; they’re still road-going cars which might even expect to be someone’s daily driver, and still have to be at least mildly comfortable, drivable, and sensible. Budget sports cars in this era usually did not exceed 200hp, and stayed away from excessive cam profiles and valve types; they still tried to have respectable fuel economy and not be deafeningly loud.”
And then we’d have to add to the rules: “Cars that are too unrealistic or race focused, or don’t appear to be factory spec, will be binned.”
And now, everyone is on the same page at least. They know which end of the field to shoot for, even if they don’t exactly know where the goalposts are. And they can ask for more detail if they feel its not specific enough.
Another thing that could also help is, if you do see someone post something here that looks like it might not fit your needs, warn them- on the public forum. Even if you’re no re-submissions rule doesn’t let them fix it, it could save someone else from making the same mistake. And it starts discussions like these earlier, when people are less likely to get fired up and its much easier to correct or adjust things.
TDLR: If something is going to be important, or even might be relevant, make sure it is explicitly said from the beginning. It doesn’t have to be super detailed, it just has to be there in the first place.
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Just as an exercise: what’s the lowest market score for e.g. Light Sport (Budget?) or Fun in the yellow group? And the highest in the red group? If there is a clear distinction, then that’s something simple to keep in mind for the future to keep realism in check.
Cost (or ET or PU) doesn’t really help, I could quality spam easily where it mattered. Turbos are dirt cheap - but turbo vs NA can be an interesting choice if balanced right.
Edit: A $15k challenge in the same vein, that’d be interesting, but a different thing altogether.
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I truly appreciate your feedback, thank you. I will be honest, I was thinking all that, I just didn’t put it in written form (or spoken in the video). You see, the problem is, I’m used to running challenges with my youtube viewers and on youtube, short videos tend to do better than long ones because the average viewer on youtube apparently has a very short attention span. So the video can’t be too long, nobody wants to listen to me ramble I’ve found. Might just be because it’s me, but that’s besides the point.
What I’m quickly realizing here is that people here on the forum are different in that regard, people don’t mind reading through gigantic walls of text like in the CSR rulesets or whathaveyou. The challenge for me now becomes, how do I combine the two? And I guess the answer is, give a brief overview in the rules announcement video with the general idea of the challenge, and point people towards the more extensive post with the complete rules which will be here in the forum. I know that now for next time 
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I guess probably the best thing to do would be to give an overview of the challenge and format in the video, with a few key rules a basics. And talk about the theme and what you’re expecting to be submitted, which should keep things nice and brief. Then have the detailed rules in the actual forum post, along with everything you’ve said in the video too, just for people to refer to at a later date.
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That’s a perfect idea! Text is a lot easier and faster to read through than a video, but video is better at conveying emotion and tone. The video could great for setting the mood and theme of the challenge, while the post can cover more dreary and wordy stuff like rules and guidelines. :D
I guess not >.<
Definitely wasnt expecting that.
Guys, I apologize for my mistake and will make sure to make the rules clearer next time. The cars that got DQed despite meeting the rules will also be raced by me on video, but they won’t count towards the competition. I’ll try to get the video done as soon as I can but I have to find the time for it. I’ll keep you up to date on that
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It just so happened that I got a window of time today which allowed me to record the disqualified cars going down Hakone. Let’s just say, some of these cars are very impressive!
Here is the video: https://youtu.be/z56iKNH9Vto
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Hey thanks for doing this!
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Hey, It takes a lot of character to apologize and like that, mate, let alone to go out of your way to do those cars anyway.
Much respect mate, and can’t wait for next weekend. :D
(and looking back, I’m sorry again if my tone came across as too harsh at some points)
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I would only add that, even in your rules video, you can write out the complete rule set in the description and simply tell people in the video to check the complete list before submitting. Just a suggestion. I’ll have to wait for next challenge anyways as I didn’t make the deadline.
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