RR Family Car Challenge
I’m calling this the “Alternative Design Challenge”, in case it ever becomes a series. Your goal is to design a car whose design is an alternative to what is considered standard or accepted in its market. In this case, rear-engine, rear wheel drive car for ordinary family buyers.
Abstract
The year is 1989, and our company, Crusoe, believes there’s a gap in the market. Once, rear engine hatchbacks such as the Beetle and Fiat 500 were highly popular, affordable cars, and there were countless similar designs. Now, front transverse cars are beginning to dominate the market, and they’re all a bit samey. We think we can carve a niche for ourselves with a rear engine car for ordinary people. It should be a little fun for people who care about rear wheel drive, and simple and reliable for people who want a cheap compact car.
Scoring
We’re going to select the car design with the best score as our production car- that will be the winner. Cars will be scored both based on engineering characteristics and appearance. We are selling cars primarily in Fruinia and Hetvesia, so desirability is based on these two nations in the market screen. Your car will score points based on each of the listed categories.
Note that desirability is not Competitiveness, it’s a number viewable when mousing over the competitiveness. This tends to around a couple thousand.
Desirability
Engineering
- Desirability of Family, multiplied by affordability of Family, divided by 200
- Desirability of City, multiplied by affordability, divided by 200
- Desirability of Fun, multiplied by affordability, divided by 200
- ET of the car, -100, divided by -10 (positive points if your ET is less than 100)
- ET of the engine, -100, divided by -10
- PU of the car, -100, divided by -10
- PU of the engine, -50, divided by -10
- Bonus: Tires are not staggered (same width for both), 3 points
- Bonus: Sportiness exceeds 2.0, 3 points
- Bonus: Manual transmission, 3 points
- Penalty: Engine is turbocharged, -5 points
So for example, a desirability of 2000 in Family, with 80% affordability, is worth 2000*0.8/200 = 8 points.An engineering time of 95 is worth 0.5 points, and an engineering time of 110 is worth -1 point.
Styling
- Must include road legal necessities: Headlights, tail lights, reverse lights, blinkers, front and rear license plates, wipers. Blinkers must be visible from the side, but they may wrap around or include a separate side blinker. Fog lights are acceptable but not required. 5 points.
- Engineering necessities: handles, fuel cap, ventilation should give some hint as to the engine location and aerodynamic sliders, including brake ventilation if you have any. 5 points.
- Sensei Score, out of 3 points.
- Audience Vote: viewers will vote on the best looking car. The top 10 most voted cars will receive points, starting with 5 points for the 1st place and 0.5 points less for each place after that (EG 4.5 for second, 4 for third). This will probably be a Strawpoll or something similar.
- Penalty: Car does not look appropriate for its era. -1 to -3 points. In particular, it shouldn’t look extremely advanced. Crusoe is not a forward-thinking company, they’re trying to bring back a design people consider old fashioned after all.
Requirements
I want to keep your design options as open as possible. After all, the point of this challenge is to celebrate (or make an argument for the viability of) uncommon designs. Most stuff that’s really out there should be penalized by the scoring system, for example, you’re not strictly required to have 5 seats, but you’re almost certainly going to want them. It’s your choice to go with two or four doors, and full seats or something like 2+3.
Engine
- Variant year 1989
- Must have at least one muffler
- Standard intake (no DCOE)
- No quality sliders may exceed +4
- Fuel type: Regular or Premium, Unleaded only
Car
- Model and trim year 1989
- No quality sliders may exceed +4
- Chassis quality may not exceed +2
- Chassis type Monocoque
- Must be rear engine, rear wheel drive
- Hard or medium tire compound
Mods
- Nothing the community generally considers broken (I’m not an expert on this)
- No modifying the car’s numbers outside of the game
- Warn me what fixture/body mods you’re using, I don’t typically play with a lot installed
How to Submit
Name your model “RRFC-YourName” and your trim whatever you want to name your car. It will be sold under the Crusoe mark, so a company name is not necessary. Same for the engine family, “RRFC-YourName” and the variant can be whatever you want. PM me on here on the forums. I’ll add a deadline of a week or two when the rules are final.
Hints
- Boxer engines are the most space efficient for this kind of setup.
- You will probably find that Family has a higher desirability than the other demographics, making it of particular importance.
- Don’t forget to go into the market screen and make sure the Fruinia and Hetvesia flags are turned ON and the other flags are turned OFF, in order to see the desirability and affordability I will be using for this challenge.
- A lot of the challenge will be controlling a rear-heavy car’s tendency to oversteer, so you may need narrower front tires, lots of negative camber on the rear tires, and strong front sway bars.
- I don’t have a logo or anything, brand the cars however you want for your submission.
I’ll wait a day or two if anyone has suggestions on the rules, so it is best if you wait to start building a car until they are officially final. Hopefully reading through this massive list of lists wasn’t too bad, I don’t know a ton about prettying up posts on Discourse.
