Meanwhile (re-)learning the Pikes Peak Hillclimb (and other indicated routes to give everyone an equal chance - the former is by far the hardest though). It are always the same 4-5 corners that catch me out, as wel as 3-4 places where I brake too much.
Shout out to @MGR_99, because I’ve been using one the cars he posted in his thread to come to grips with the course, and it’s been a blast so far.
Cool to see people using my cars, I’m guessing you edited the beam car file?
Just for the backfire and gearbox sound.
Oh right here i am having tuned for the test track and the hillclimb i completely forgot to test on pikes peak lmao.
For everyone’s edification, currently the target times I would recommend for the best chance at making the finals is as follows (these are not my times but based on them):
Class B: ATT under 1:50 Hillclimb under 1:30
Class XS: ATT under 2:02 Hillclimb under 1:37
That’s nuts!
Under 1:50? How!
Please strop, share some of your secrets!
And if you successfully scare any and all contestants off, all current entries will make it to the finals!
Jokes aside, I appreciate all well-made entries, and remember there is more to scoring than raw time. It is a showcase event for manufacturers as much as it is a race.
Ok, so I guess it is similar to to the GAT in that way. I don’t think I won a single stage in that, but still managed to top some of the final leader-boards.
Hopefully some of our entries can make up for the lack of speed (in comparison to whatever monster strop is crafting ) in other ways 
Oh, yeah. There’s a trick to this that not many people know about, and I’m all for even playing fields.
Downforce is important. Beam only counts wings as downforce. It also calculates downforce quite differently from Automation. So what I do is basically whack as big a wing on the front of my car as I do the back, and tune downforce to effect in Beam (not Automation. Actually the cars I have now have been balanced exactly so the balance you see in Automation is the balance you get in Beam but that’s just a bonus). Then for aesthetics sake I hide the wing under layers of other fixtures. It helps to use a really “embeddable” wing you can mostly hide. This way I can get ridiculous corner speeds on the high end. You will definitely need to adjust the suspension to match the downforce and weight distribution, and if you can run Beam it helps to do a high speed run with the aero displayed in debug mode and the weight distribution app on so that you can see the balance.
Though honestly the fact that barely 200hp is enough to get around ATT in under 2 minutes is what truly surprised me.
Miros, there’s one other problem: if you’re awarding points for style keep in mind that each detachable fixture we add to the body adds 0.5kg (a node weight of 0.5) in Beam which, for 100+ fixture cars, really adds up above and beyond the expected.
If all else fails, there’s the restomod category, which is really all about quirky looks and engine tunes that make the car go fast but keep the character of the original car.
Should there be a huge discrepancy in designs and speed in the other categories such as B and XS, I have no qualms in rewarding both the speed demons, as well as the high fixture slower cars. I like it when my challenges grow organically like that. You win when you are the best, but you also get awarded when you make an effort.
Also; I have something of a pickle.
The ATT is a very high speed focused track, far more-so than Hill-climb 1.
I’ve tuned my car’s gearing for acceleration on the hill-climb stage, but that means it bangs off the rev-limiter all the way down the ATT straight, which isn’t exactly ideal for setting a good laptime.
How relevant is the ATT time to the overall competition, considering the difference between the two tracks?
That’s intentional and part of the challenge to tune the cars. ATT time can be very relevant if there are lots of fast, good looking entries that are competitive in terms of PU, ET and material costs.
The fastest times will be basically be guaranteed entry to the finals, unless all the rest is simply disastrous.
I’d advice against buzzing the limiter before the Slingshot corner.
At what point does engineering time become unreasonable?
I think I can get a bit more time out of my build, but that would require touching some of the forbidden quality sliders, and… you know what that means
Positive sliders can be used, but remember the scoring is also influenced by a penalty for over-average ET.
I guess you can’t give me any numbers, as it’s based of an average from a group of cars that don’t exist yet. fair enough 
Correct 
Well Automation photo mode has died on me again, so I’ll have to get some photos out of Beam. No idea if these two things are going to be competitive, but they were fun to make.
EDIT: And of course, Automation makes a liar out of me by working again. Well here they are.
B-Class: Epoch M10 Ansom RSA
Based on the latest in the successful M10 line of sports compacts, the Epoch M10 Ansom RSA is always ready to bring the fight to the big guys. The RSA is the iconic performance variant, featuring a turbocharged 1.6L 4-cylnider engine combined with the grip of symmetrical All-Wheel Drive. An ever present contender in both on-road racing and off-road rally, this specific car has been modified as a one-off for hillclimb events.
XS-Class: Boccaccino Shuriken
Boccaccino are renown for their fast and stylish, if not a bit unconventional, machines and the Shuriken is no exception. Although by far the smallest of any Boccaccino to date, the Shuriken is deliberately designed for maximum speed both through corners and in a straight line. Originally sold as a track-only ‘toy’ for those wealthy enough to not care about the price tag, this car features a mid-engine and naturally-aspirated 1.3L Boxer-4, mounted as low as possible. This specific vehicle has been modified further by Boccaccino to push the car to the limits of what is mechanically possible, however, this does mean that not all drivers can tame it!
Interestingly enough if you tune your car appropriately for both ATT and Hillclimb 1, you’ll find that it will be not far off optimal for both high and low speed sections on Pikes Peak… except for the XS class. Since those engines are NA they lose a lot of power at altitude so the gearing will seem increasingly longer and longer the closer you get to the end, and the downforce will become less and less so the handling will be more and more floaty…
It quickly became clear in the rallycross challenge that my long time Automation favourite, the AeroBar™ Front Downforce Device does precisely nada in Beam. It is technically a wing, but the area is negligible.
@Private_Miros do I understand correctly that hiding big wings inside bodywork is OK from your perspective? On the one hand your stuff seems pretty grounded in reality, on the other hand, we can’t use the ridonkulous splitter arrangements that real hillclimb cars have. I am assuming multiwings (wings inside wings) are too cheesy?
Correct.
Multiwings are fine as long as they are aesthetically sensible.
But you are at least 10 seconds faster than B-Spec Bob (Automation testing screen), right? 
