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ERA 3: '65-'69
Or: The Safety Scare
Almost one entire year after the previous round closed, the next era opens. This era ends in 1969. With recent updates, I can use techpool to manipulate unlocks… But not completely. IRL, 1973 was the next biggest change, but, well, there won’t be a malaise era here. Instead, well… There is what was hinted at in the end of the last era, and something that conveniently allows me to handle some of the recent updates.
Also, entries will close on the 14th of July at 11:59 PM UTC, plenty of time. I am going to aim for a rough cadence of “1 month creating, 1 month writing”, but the second part is really just a goal.
MAJOR RULES CHANGES
Araga may follow a somewhat unrealistic path, wait and see. However, there are four major changes to the core rules of the challenge. The simplest ones are that entrants are no longer forced to stick with a single brand or company, and that (as mentioned before) I am now looking for co-hosts to handle particular segments. Co-hosts will be responsible for a particular market segment, and don’t have to stick around for more than one round, it’s all optional. @Edsel has already offered to handle a segment, ideally I’d want another 2-3 co-hosts, feel free to offer.
In addition, entrants may now submit two versions of the same base. This can mean three things:
- The same car, two trims - potentially with an engine swap (see: C8 Corvette Stingray vs C8 Corvette Z06)
- The same platform under two different brands (see: Chevrolet Cavalier vs Caddilac Cimarron)
- The same car, with a different wheelbase (see: Mercedes’s various LWB/SWB offerings)
You should use the same broad body family (For instance, RB_60s_sports_20, 23, 25 and 27 are all the same broad family). However, everything in the chassis tab (panel material, chassis type and material, engine placement, suspension types) should remain the same.
Finally, I am overhauling how safety will be calculated in Araga. Weight and footprint will no longer boost safety. To clarify what that means, take a look at the below screenshot from the detailed stats pain.
Normally, the 40.2 value is gained by adding together elements from body, weight and footprint. Now, however, the weight and footprint will be excluded - only the body part will matter. 15.9 is multiplied by 0.901 (100% minus 9.9%) to get a final safety value of 14.3.
Wha happun?
At the end of 1964, Aragan road safety was a hotbutton topic. It was a massive matter of debate, and the government acted rather unilaterally, not waiting to allow car makers to lobby against the sweeping new changes. But the massive threat to manufacturers also presented an opportunity. See, Araga was having a massive boom in the economy, enough that the government could bring in a massive sweeping plan: All previous cars would be brought off the road, replaced with newer, safer models evaluated under a new system. Much more stringent requirements, and a new approach to ratings. Customers were forced to start from a clean slate, but there were a lot of cars being bought.
Impact Of Last Round's Spending, And A Lobbying Recap
Last round’s lobbying results were that we would have a modification to the tax equation, and a ban to leaded fuel in new cars.
A lot of you spent money on trains. Like, crazy amounts of money. Goes without saying, then, that y’all are getting trains. A decent amount of money was spent on importing the train network. Coupled with the results of last round where Araga saw a hefty push towards urbanism and satellite cities, well, the results are going to be rather explosive. There was also a push towards air travel, with just about no investment in road transit. So, Aragan cargo transit consists of trains and planes, with vans and medium-sized trucks for that last mile.
Next, to education. We saw a decent amount of investment there, mainly in the arts and in science - less in trades. So, what actual effects does that have? Well, for now, the science effects will manifest as a free +3 to interior, safety and assists quality. You’re gonna need one of those three. The arts have manifested in that tourism boom I mentioned, all using the new rail network to tour Araga… Well, not all. More about that later.
Finally, with motorsport… I messed up my sums and will have to go back around to them, I’ll post when we get to racing again.
Get In The Pool
For this round, we will use the standard 5 point techpool, except you are allowed 8 points in safety, assists and interior. You can copy paste the following:
Techpool
Family,5.0
BottomEnd,5.0
TopEnd,5.0
Aspiration,5.0
FuelSystem,5.0
Exhaust,5.0
Body,5.0
Chassis,5.0
Interior,8.0
DriverAssists,8.0
Safety,8.0
DriveTrain,5.0
Tyres,5.0
Brakes,5.0
Aerodynamics,5.0
Suspension,5.0
Safety Regulations and Fixture Requirements
- Cars must use 70s safety. That’s why you got that sweet, sweet techpool. Yes, that means that you don’t get standard safety for the start of the round. Yes, that means basic safety is not an option. Have fun. (CHANGED FROM PREVIOUS ERA)
- Headlights: at least one pair, round lenses are most common
- Turn signals: must be visible when looking directly at the front and rear of the car; side-mounted ones are not required but can be used in place of front- and rear-mounted ones for this so long as they are visible. Light-based turn signals must be orange. Semaphore-style indicators are allowed.
- Tail lights: at least one pair required. Must be red and must use different bulbs to the brake light.
- Brake lights: at least one pair. Must be red and must use different bulbs to the tail lights.
- Reversing lights: not required.
- All legally mandated lights facing forward or back: At least one set on each side must be visible from the head of the dummy in the Light Visibility Measure-inator, at a distance of 2m from front bumper to rear bumper. The Measure-inator uses the crash dummy mod. If only your driver’s side indicator is visible, you will fail the test.
- Mirrors: now required, may be mounted anywhere but should be fairly visible from the driver’s seat. (CHANGED FROM PREVIOUS ERA)
- Gas cap: must be mounted externally, placement is free but should make sense (CHANGED FROM PREVIOUS ERA)
- Wipers: one wiper required on the front.
- License plate: any (unscaled) plate will be allowed, as there are no standards yet, because I forgot to get opinions.
Other Regulations
- Emissions and efficiency requirements: None yet.
- Fuel availability: Leaded fuel has been banned for new cars. Regular (91 RON) fuel is available.
- Tyres: Over 75% of cars in the previous era used radial tyres. As a result, cross-plies are basically non-existent on the market going into 65. Use radials.
- Name your model and family ALC3C1 - <YourForumName> for your first trim, ALC3C2 - <YourForumName> for your second trim if you submit one.
- Vehicle taxation: Displacement taxes remain in force. The amount of tax is based on the displacement in CC, where Tax=1.6^((displacement-3000)/1000)*506.25. The tax on new cars has been waived for this period. There will still be a 2000CC tax break on cars with dedicated non-passenger spaces around 40% of the length or more, but the tax break for offroad cars has been removed.
Market Sentiment
- You may think that with everyone needing to buy new cars, they’d be looking for cheap ones… But nope, not quite. See, Araga is seeing an absolutely massive economic upturn. Tons and tons of extra money going around, so people are looking to spend, spend, spend. The government giving people rebates will help for that, so yup. Customers are less price sensitive.
- Customers did get good value for money at the both ends of the market last time, so… Good job there. Customers are fine with spending, and want to spend.
- Small engines have often been low on power, making them rather slow. Continuing along this trend may mean that the government re-examines the rules… But if a company makes a small engine that punches above its weight, that might be seen as a marvel of engineering.
Current Events
The safety scare takes up the full era.
Lobbying Opportunities
The following elements may be lobbied on. The next era’s length uh… Has not been decided on yet.
- Companies can lobby for US-sized or Euro-sized license plates.
- Companies can lobby about safety, on a between 1 to 9. 1 represents a substantial weakening of the government’s stance towards safety, 5 represents the stance remaining roughly the same, 9 represents a stronger stance. What does it look like making the current system stronger? Honestly, I don’t know but I kinda wanna find out…
- Taxation and other lobbying will be done after the round, because I want to see what people do.
In-round Bonus!
Yes, there’s more! With the explosion in tourism, the large numbers of cars being pulled off the road and the public transit networks, hire cars are becoming more and more of a big business - to the point where hire car companies are looking to purchase cars to build their fleets.
Cars submitted should be road legal. The target market varies a fair bit - groups of tourists are a large part, but they’re also looking to sell to people who have decided not to buy a car and just occasionally rent one every now and then. Some tourists have plenty of money and some don’t - just like the carless locals. You should submit cars with at least four seats. Name your car ALC3H - <YourForumName>. This car does not have to be the same as your regular car.
The following are considered to be of particular importance:
- Purchase cost and service costs. Money matters a lot, spending a ton of money now or having massive overheads will make it hard to run the cars. This really matters most.
- Reliability. When the car breaks down, it stops making money.
- Drivability. Yes, crashes are covered under insurance and/or billed to the customer, but it’s still a hassle - and some of the customers are infrequent drivers.
- Prestige. You can charge more for a prestigious car, you get higher margins there.
The following will be largely ignored:
- Sportiness. The hire car companies would really prefer it if the cars weren’t driven hard.
- Offroad. Again, this will put extra wear on the car and be hard to clean.
- Fuel economy. That’s for the customers to deal with.
All other stats will be considered roughly as the market normally would.
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