Hello, I am fairly new to the game (been playing since July this year), and would like to get into a challenge from the community challenges section on the forum. I’d say I have a good understanding of engineering cars, but making them look good isn’t my strong point.
Most challenges either seem to be focused on looks, or have pages of rules. Would anyone know something I can comfortably get into?
QFC. I might sound biased since I host the current round, but generally I think it is one of the better challenges to get into for beginners, if you don’t like the current round, just jump into the next one. Usually not that thick of a rulebook, and with a short timespan, nobody really has time for tons and tons of detailing, meaning that a simplistic but fresh looking beginners build might have a better chance than in, let’s say CSR. Also, it is a good way of quickly stepping up the game, I guess, since the challenge is fast paced and you can do many rounds in a short amount of time.
But don’t forget, it is not a disaster if you get a bad grade on looks in a challenge, learning by doing I say.
Hey, welcome to the Automation community, we’re so glad you’re here!
We have a handfull of non-official recurring challenges. From hardest/most in-depth to easiest it is roughly TMCC/AGC, ARM, CSR, CSC, CW, and then QFC/ARB.
The Giants:
TMCC (the movie car challenge) and AGC (Automation game challenge) are generally the most challenging and also have the most range in difficulty, going from “main character needs a crapbox” to “fully 3d cyberpunk” ARM (Automation restomod) has a range of difficulty but is a lot more consistently hard than TMCC and AGC though never with the peaks of crazy, and is very new and quite popular. CSR (car shopping rounds) is our oldest recurring challenge, and is very prestigious and rather legendary. It is a good place to test your limits as a designer even if you are new.
Middle ground:
CSC (crowd sourcing challenge) is all about styling a car for someone elses brand. It is still very prestigious, though less difficult due to taking out the aspects of engineering, naming, branding, and coming up with your own design language. CW (cool wall challenge) is sort of in between QFC and CSR but with its own unique quirk that you have to find out the tastes of the buyer by submitting suggestions to be put up by the host on a “cool wall”
Most beginner friendly:
QFC (quick-fire challenge) is exactly that. No internal monologues, no interior critiques, and no AGC craziness. Basically CSR Lite. It is certainly not restricted to new members, though. ARB (Automation rebadge) is fairly prestigious with high standards but a lot of difficulty is taken out by not needing to design your car from the ground up.
Did I miss any?
All this abbreviations seems very confusing for newcomers. I’m newbie to the forum, and I kinda miss some engineers challenge without too restrited directions.
Tragically, most challenges look at aesthetics as well as engineering.
You could have a great package, but if it’s wrapped not as well on the outside, that cause your entry to been given a penalty.
As people say, you either swim or drown, and so you got to learn the ropes and understand what people like or what they are looking for.
I’ll say QFC is a bit easier than most, and also there is opportunity to collaborate with others for challenges so you could halve the workload of designing to someone else.
Well, in the current QFC (31) I put aesthetics as only 1 star priority, so a car with solid engineering has a chance to win even with mediocre styling.
I still question if winning is the most important thing, or if having fun and still learning something is…
QFC was originally designed with the deliberate intent to make a challenge friendly for newcomers to the forum. Quick rounds make it easy to get feedback, simple challenges make it easier to meet the rules. The only issue is that you need to do it quickly.
Alternatively, ALC and LHC are both challenges with a lot of stuff, but you can just focus on the most recent post’s rules. I host ALC and am happy to answer questions for newcomers, and I am pretty sure that cake_ape (who hosts LHC) is happy to answer questions too. The bonus of those two is that you can enter just about any car in those two challenges.
Finally, I highly recommend joining the discord and asking to collaborate with other community members - it’s a great way to learn and lets you look at their methods!