Hello all,
despite the problems we had with Ellisbury, I had the feeling that the devs learned from it and we would have a “smoother” open beta (or even alpha now!) phase for now, and that turned out to be true. Yes it is very incomplete but it´s not that Killrob didn´t say exactly this in his video.
New Reliability
a change for the better, I think. The estimated failure might be a bit inaccurate, but gives us an idea how that car would score.
Although I think the reliability penalty on mechanical injection is too harsh. Yes, early ones were crap that was soon swapped out against carbuterors for daily drivers. But the systems improved throughout the 60s, and a late KE Jetronic as used from the early 80s onwards wasn´t THAT bad as the game makes it. Yes, it needs expensive maintenance, that is a thing, but it is not that unreliable as early systems. I think from the early 70s on it would make sense to gradually decrease the penalty.
Engine power
Engines seem less powerful now, even when using the standard head and not the eco one. Good! Before, cars were overpowered for what they had under the hood, and now the figures seem realistic and accurate compared to period-correct real life equivalents. Single Turbos also lost a bit in terms of advantage in economy and power, but kept a service cost penalty, in return, reliability of the engines is not compromised. I guess this reflects the fact well that turbo engines do last (maybe not a Maserati, but a Saab definitely proved it in the 80s) but need care in usage which is reflected in that penalty…
Changes for challenge hosts
No sane person hosts challenges in the open alpha and I am well aware that I now successfully excluded myself from participating there, but that´s the price early adopters have to pay.
On the other hand, more than ever it´s obvious that quality is MEANT to be spent. You see it in the market tab, when your 3.0 V6 with luxury stereo has 80 percent affordability in the family segment but the reliability sucks ass - then it is definitely built too cheap.
Still, some hosts seem to be afraid of more than +4 quality somewhere considering how restrictive the budget caps sometimes are. Techpool is highly used in challenges (although to very, very different extents between very few points and a generous bath in TP…), so why not quality? If I remember right, Killrob said that +7 quality for the gearbox of a premium brand are totally normal, a Dodge Neon might have a +4 there.
Bugs
Surprisingly few. The engine dyno sounds are almost inaudible, a “paste fixtures from clipboard” button lacks the symbol, and the test track stuff is barely there but the latter was already announced before release.
I really would like to read about other peoples opinions, too, so feel free to reply.
