Question: is it possible to spend lobbying tokens negatively, against a school? (e.g. say I want to spend 40 lobbying tokens to level down Aeronautics?)
I’m going to say no. Both due to stuff not being balanced that way, and because I can’t really see what that would look like in-universe.
3 Likes
Hey all, two three slight updates:
First things first, the column on the far left is not how many spending tokens it takes to level up a school. It’s just the sum of how much techpool it gets you, in terms of “value for money”. Everything but art is worth about 16-17 arbitrary points (adjusted for how useful different sorts are). Art is worth less than others, but has benefits elsewhere. Different ones will take different amounts, but it’s all a bit of a fudge factor and I will keep that a little hidden so there’s some variability. @MrdjaNikolen I finally posted this, there you go.
Second of all, the next round will not open until:
- LHC5 has closed - I don’t want to have both legacy challenges open at once. Cake posted first and I wanted to wait a little anyway, and I have other stuff to do too.
- The first few hotfixes have come out on the open beta. The next round will run on open beta, and I have run into a couple of show-stopping bugs in some of my testing. They’ve been reported on the discord, the devs have been given representitive .car files which exhibit the issues, I have confidence that they’ll get fixed within the first few patches… But they’re there.
- I am happy with the state of exporters. This might mean waiting for Endfinity to patch that side of things and get it showing all the new parameters like power limit and emissions. This might mean I create my own separate tool I have been meaning to work on. The route I take with exporters will determine how certain stats will be judged, so it really needs to be ironed out before the round opens.
Due to this delay, lobbying will remain open until I close it. I’ll give 48 hours notice before closing lobbying.
EDIT: Forgot the third thing I was gonna mention. While this challenge initially ran on ten year-ish rounds and ALC copied that, my experience participating in LHC and judging this challenge has changed my mind there. I want to run shorter rounds, I want to tighten it up a bit, around six or seven years. Yes, this does mean that there will be more rounds. Yes, this does mean that the challenge will go on for longer. I see those as positives, personally. Shortening rounds incidentally lines up better with the life cycles of regular commuter cars like the Corolla (4-6 years between generations).
8 Likes
BONUS TIME!
Okay, time for a quick little bonus round. Lobbying will remain open for the entire duration of the bonus round. It’ll be open for three weeks from today, closing on the 29th of October at 11:59PM UTC.
Araga is set to introduce strict new emissions regulations from the 1970 Model year onwards. There are concerns among the public that this will lead to reductions in car performance, making them slower. The government aims to ensure a positive image… but how?
With a good old fashioned drag race, that’s how. The rules are relatively simple:
- First off, this round will be run on the new open beta, as it uses the emissions from that.
- Second, cars will run on the following 1km strip. This produces the same results as the regular test in most cases, but I’ll be using it for the reviews. You may also want to use it to get your gearing just right. Basic Drag Strip.zip (20.7 KB)
- Fastest time wins, with no modifications. Drivability, comfort, fuel economy, reliability… all irrelevant.
- Use the default +5 everywhere techpool. Cars must have their years set to 1970 or older.
- Cars must pass WES4. I don’t particularly care how they do it.
- Cars must also resemble road-going models. Think Funny Cars rather than Top Fuel.
Open wheelers are banned,there needs to be somewhere the lights and such would go, etc. Cars must also use Advanced 70s Safety with 0 or higher quality.
– Open wheelers are no longer banned as there are some on the market, but they should resemble what already exists - sensible, reasonably-proportioned, etc. Open wheel bodies are still banned. - Aero is mostly unrestricted. It must be mounted relatively close to the car’s body. Don’t make it super far back, keep it attached, etc. In addition, neither set of wheels may lift off the ground during testing - if your lift is higher than your weight over either axle, you are disqualified. The game has a warning for this now.
- Manual gearboxes are mandatory.
- There are two classes: Free-Fuel Dragsters and Modified Dragsters. You may submit to both.
– Free-fuel dragsters can use any non-leaded fuel in the game. Yes, that includes nitromethane. They have a maximum cost of 80000 AMU as shown in detailed stats.
– Modified dragsters must use 95 RON unleaded fuel, and they have a maximum cost of 50000 AMU as shown in detailed stats. - All other modifications are allowed. Wanna take a commuter car, slap new tyres and a V12 (or 16!) in? Be my guest. Your engine will be literally unable to drive more than a few pulls due to how much wear it will get? That’s how most dragsters are! Advance timing so far that you need a good batch of fuel to run? Again, that’s how dragsters are.
- Entries should be named ALC4D - YourForumName
- Anyone may enter.
The government will be awarding prize money (spending tokens) to:
- The fastest entries in each class.
- The entries with the lowest emissions while maintaining acceptable performance.
- The best-looking entries.
The purse will be decided based on how many entrants there are.
Changelog: Corrected a typo in the rules. Cars must be 1970 and older, not newer. Also banned automatics.
9 Likes
So uh… Nobody has submitted an entry with an actual .car file. I am extending the deadline out another week, and I’ll also start chasing people for lobbying.
I will try to enter with worthy vehicles next week
One group of engineers had decided to have some fun and made…this:
There isnt much of expectation, but they still nevertheless hope they aint last.
1 Like
Hey all, just a reminder, you have 15 hours to submit. So far, I have entries from @MrdjaNikolen , @moroza and @Danicoptero - plus a message but no file from @Vento
Based on the DCMW Firebreather, here are two completely unusable monstrosities, fit for nothing but turning large amounts of 95 RON (the red-wheeled Dragstah) or nitromethane (the blue-wheeled Slowpoke) into large amounts of noise, smoke, exploding engine parts due to 0.2 and 0.0 reliability, and Extremely Adequate™ forward progress.
3 Likes
Power! Consume my fire. 
A Renner Cannonball 3000, slightly modifed by two fabulous friends.
The “flower” obviously refers to the turbocharging for good flows, duh.
Yes, you can drag race in a Barbie Car.
Swanson RX (64) homologation car - again, slightly modified.
It was road legal last time someone checked, what owners do to them we do not ask.
4 Likes
EVER TRYED TO RUN A GLOBUS DOMINATOR AS DRAGSTER?
Yes, it´s pathetic in professional use, it´s however the best tool to show off.
The real deal on a track in a professional competition is this modified one. It´s evil. It has no mercy.
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Capable will be entering the drag race!
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“Is that a Superlite Aero? Did they actually build those?”
Nope, this is a just heavily modified drag spec Superlite Zero. The production V8 has been replaced by the biggest V12 they could fit, and it has to be rebuilt after every run.
3 Likes
Submissions are closed, results coming soon!
1 Like
PERFORMANCE RESULTS!
First things first, a little bit of scrutineering. Every car was legal, save two:
- @Happyhungryhippo, Globus Dominator - used advanced 60s safety.
- @moroza, DCMW Nitrobreather - Holy crap, this thing is bah-roken. It sorta passes and fails the rules at the same time. The front tyres blow out, which causes it to have zero emissions. It’s displayed as passing WES 11 on the stats list, but also failing WES 1 on the detailed list, but…
Here’s the catch, though: I can make a couple of tweaks to each car to bring them back into legality. Hippo’s car can just have the year scrolled up, while Moroza’s car needed a couple more tweaks which I will get back to later. Both of you will receive reduced spending tokens, but aren’t fully binned.
Also, this post will only be the functional reviews, with aesthetics coming as a separate post along with some fun things I noticed which will have market impacts, and a final total of how many tokens you have each earned.
MODIFIED CLASS
So, let’s start with the modified class, which saw five entries:
- @MrdjaNikolen - Mrdja Cars Araga DragRace Prototype Modified
- @Vento - Capable Connector V12 Dragster
- @Happyhungryhippo - Globus Dominator
- @Ludvig - Swanson RX64 5500 no37
- @Moroza - DCMW Dragbreather
Globus by @Happyhungryhippo
Let’s start at the bottom, with the slowest car - the Globus. This one runs a 22.34, and the finish speed is just 249 km/h. It’s slow on the first 250m, slow to 500m and just slow, slow, slow! Why? Power and torque, mainly. It uses a carburetted, naturally-aspirated engine - the only one to do that. So, in spite of its 8.9L engine, it has significantly less power and torque than the other entries in the class. This hurts the top speed, and just makes it lag behind. It also has a heavy chassis too, at 1.2 tonnes. It also only hits WES5 for all tests, so no help there. It does hit actual normal reliability numbers at 65.6, which… doesn’t really help here, we aren’t judging that.
5 tokens for participation, minus one for the safety issue.
Left: Mrdja Cars by @MrdjaNikolen Right: Capable by @Vento
Two rather similar times, but they get there different ways. The Capable is as slow as the Globus across 250m and only a few tenths up at 500m before pulling ahead across the second half as it reaches its 300 km/h final speed. It is more powerful than the Globus, with its Turbo V12, but still only runs a km in 20.84 seconds. With 13 reliability, it can do a few runs too. You do come second in emissions, very nearly hitting WES 6!
5 tokens for participation, plus another 5 for emissions.
The Prototype from Mrdja Cars is bugged. The detailed gear selections didn’t export right or something, so the gear-limited top speed is 270, and that is where it spends the last portion of the lap, allowing the Capable to reel it in but not quite beat it, as it finishes in 20.15. Fixing this bug and moving the gears around brings it down into the 19 second range depending on exact tuning - the 3 gears do make that hard. It also has 26 reliability… Partially because it’s knocking like crazy! In fact, dropping the compression gives you more than 100 kW of free power, which would have put you up in line with the upper tier.
It does make the bureaucrats happy, with WES 6 compliance - the only car to do it.
5 spending tokens for participation, plus another 10 for emissions.
Back: DCMW by @moroza . Front: Swanson by @Ludvig
Amusingly, the two fastest Modified cars are both by people who also submitted Free-Fuel cars. How bout that?
Let’s start with the Swanson… A car which beats the Mrdja and Capable cars, because it works smarter, not harder. It has a smaller engine than those two 700cc less, it makes less power and torque than those two, but only 50 kg less than the Capable. How is it faster than them? Well, you invested a ton of money in aerodynamics, experiencing less drag and hitting a higher top speed… But you were also the first to follow the IRL and challenge meta of putting the engine towards the rear axle, giving it plenty of rear grip. It pulls ahead early with that grip. It’s just a shame you don’t have enough power to keep using that grip later, you could have been faster than your 17.7 if you didn’t do stuff like retarding timing.
5 tokens for participation, plus 15 tokens for performance.
And finally, the DCMW Dragbreather. It’s a Modified car, but it really fights with the Free-Fuel ones. Why? Because it’s a giant slab of cheese! Tons of power from a turbocharged V6T, but also the grip to put it down thanks to being rear-engined, with the power being very close to the grip across much of the run. It’s also our first “single-use” car, having just 0.2 reliability. It is made purely for speed - zero comfort, 0.2 reliability, the legal maximum emissions, awful drivability, awful sportiness… But hey, it’s unbelievably fast. It runs the drag in 15.68 seconds. As a plus, it is also ear-splittingly loud, which is a massive crowd-pleaser.
5 tokens for participation, plus 20 for performance.
FREE-FUEL CARS
The rules theoretically allowed you to not use nitromethane, but you all did. I’m not surprised, there’s a very, very good reason why. They also sacrificed every ounce of reliability for performance - those power penalties are killer. The free-fuel entries are from:
- @Danicoptero - Superlite Zero Super D
- @Ludvig - Renner Cannonball 3000 Turbodrag Nitromonger FG
- @Moroza - DCMW Nitrobreather
DCMW by @moroza
So… Moroza, Moroza, what to do? Maybe you broke the rules, maybe you didn’t. I didn’t specify where I would look, did I? In one place, it says you pass WES11. In another, it says you don’t. Would these tyres pop when you do a straight run, or would they pop when you try and turn at speed (which dragsters never do)?
More importantly… does it even matter? No, really, hear me out… You have too much power. Right from zero to the time you hit your gear-limited top speed, you are grip limited. So, the additional rolling resistance from wider tyres doesn’t decrease your acceleration. What it does do is show your emissions results, which are… WES 2. But you don’t have a cat, so I can just add one and… the turbo blows up because the exhaust is too restricted. So I widen out the exhaust and it passes, but now we are over budget. So I drop quality in a couple of areas, and the time has not changed. Seriously.
Is it legal? Rules as written, maybe. Rules as intended, no - but it easily could be, I guess. I’m removing 60% of your tokens for this car as a result of all this though, it’s my perogative. You really should have been suspicious about a dragster like this passing WES 11.
Left: Superlite by @Danicoptero . Middle: Renner by @Ludvig . Right: DCMW by @moroza - yes, the plate says Dragbreather, not Nitro.
There is a great spectacle in the racing between the Renner and the Superlight. The Superlight is ahead the whole time, but just a tenth separates them after 250 meters, the gap widens to four tenths at 500, then that gap widens out to over a second across the last half - surging right ahead, through the track.
So what lets the Renner down? Well, I initially thought it was power. Despite running Nitromethane, it makes just 6 kW more than the DCMW Dragbreather. Its final speed is the same as the Dragbreather… But it’s not power, despite how far you are down on the others in the class. It’s grip. The dragbreather gets more grip at low speeds, opening up a wide gap which is never recovered from. Maybe those grip levels are due to being the only rear-engined entry, perhaps mid inherently offers more grip - I can’t tell, as your body doesn’t allow mid.
You get 5 tokens for participation, plus 15 for performance.
The other two entries both beat the Renner, but they take different routes there. Predictably, the DCMW Nitrobreather has the same efficient chassis as the Dragbreather, only now with buckets of power to the point that it always experiences wheelspin. It’s light, it’s efficient, it’s powerful, it has super low drag… I mean, what else did you expect. It runs the drag in 14.7 seconds, finishing at 387. It uses a smaller v12, but the chassis is what really makes the car tick - a less powerful engine would not change the time, just like more drag would not change the time. A wing actually makes you faster, I tried it. I could get to 14.1, and I think a 13 is possible.
You would get 5 points for participation and 20 points for performance, instead you only get a total of 10.
And this brings us to the Superlite, which does use a wing. It actually accelerates less at the lowest speeds than the DCMW or the Renner, but it maintains that acceleration right up until it hits 280 km/h - at which point it drops off, because the engine cannot keep up with the drag. It runs the kilometer in an impressive 15.37. The Dragbreather actually ends up ahead of the Superlite at the halfway mark, but a substantially more powerful engine pulls it back up at the end, hitting a 382 km/h final speed which is only marginally behind the Nitrobreather’s 387.
You get 5 points for participation, plus 15 points for performance.
6 Likes
Pure sock-aged Limburger, no doubt. Especially with the Free-fuel one, I had so many LUA errors in testing that I gave up screwing with it weeks ago and hoped for the best.
No beef whatsoever about lost points - to be honest, I think I completely forgot about emissions altogether. My first time even attempting a drag car, I loved doing this and learned a lot, primarily that chassis tuning matters more than engine, especially after a certain power point.
How about posting the final times in a chart?
2 Likes
Whoa, ~15 seconds would be quick for a 1/4 mile, never mind a full kilometer.
I took your notes to heart, for the Swanson un-retarding timing amounted to two tenths off the time. For the Renner, I forgot to upsize the exhaust, this netted a full +200 hp.
Combined with softer suspension and way higher RPMs this shaved off…drum roll…half a second. But it’s not touching the DCMW or Superlite.
2 Likes
I knew I am not good at that, but I see it this way: Now I have 4 points, if I didn´t try, I would still have zero and another person would have to live with the disgrace of being last
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DESIGN NOTES
Okay, let’s start with some broad notes for every car. Interestingly, the entries far more strongly resembled regular road cars than I honestly expected. Only two entries lacked license plates, only three entries lacked wipers and only two entries lacked mirrors. These cars really could roll out onto the street, if not for all the many compromises taken to make them quick in a straight line. There was also a rather interesting difference in design between the cars from entrants who submitted Free-Fuel cars, and the ones who only submitted modified ones so… off we go!
Left:Globus Dominator by @Happyhungryhippo. Middle: Capable Connector by @Vento. Right: Mrdja Cars Drag Prototype by, uh, @MrdjaNikolen.
Okay, let’s start with the three people who only submitted modified cars…
Let’s start with something interesting, you all kept the stock-looking bumpers and trim.
This does feel like a little bit of a nitpick, but the Globus allegedly has one seat, and you fixtured in all five. I also have to knock it for having its rear tyres clipping through the fenders in a massive way. It’s a shame, really, because from a distance, when you don’t look at all those minor details, it really does look great. It’s a really good car, but I’m not sure it’s super well-executed as a dragster rather than just a muscle car. No points for aesthetics, the small bits hold it back.
Now, to Vento with the Capable Connector V12… And it’s wing. So, here’s the issue, it makes zero sense. This sort of wing placement and mounting, it actually looks like, uh, a Chaparral 2F? “Let’s mount the wing on two pylons to keep it up above the turbulence of the body, rather than integrating it properly.” The issue is that this wing looks nothing like that 2F. The wing on the 2F was a simple design because it was an earlier time - literally two simple struts and a basic aerofoil. This design… is not that. It’s a complex, intricate design with carbon fibre. You picked a vanilla fixture, but it just doesn’t fit at all. No points either.
Okay, Mrdja, let’s see shall we? This honestly has a decent amount of things that make it subtly look like a funny car rather than a basic modified chassis. Side-exit exhausts, our first livery item (a sticker on the fuel door)… And also being super empty. It really needed more of a livery, but it’s still pretty cool! Default steelies aren’t great though. +3 tokens for getting those little touches right!
Left: Dragbreather. Right: Nitrobreather. Both by @moroza
Okay, next we get two identical entries from DCMW. The interiors here are formed by yanking the passenger seat out from a regular car and keeping everything else - something simple and easy which I would have loved to see others do. Using the new custom materials to create custom plates is a great idea which I will absolutely steal. Matte black and custom wheels, angry headlights, aggressive fender flares… It looks like a modified car, something tweaked and tuned in a garage to match the owner. It’s possibly some of the goofiest fitment I have seen in a while, but I expected that. +5 points for aesthetics across the two - you only submitted one car, aesthetically.
Left: Superlite Aero - not a dragster. Right: Superlite Zero Super D, both by @Danicoptero
Okay, and now onto the Superlite which is uh… Well, I initially thought it was just the superlite from the regular entry. The general shape is the same. The lights and wings are similar. You painted a stripe on it, big deal. I figured I should at least spawn in last round’s Superlite to check… And I am glad I did. A lower roll hoop, a lower windshield, slimmer sides and - most of all - an aerodynamic engine fairing. There’s a bunch of tiny little tweaks and changes - like they altered the car for drag. +5 tokens for all those changes.
Left: RX64. Right: Cannonball
I saved the best for last! Two actual, real, genuine liveries! These announce to the world, big and bold that they. are. RACING CARS! These entries may not be the quickest, but they look the best in each of their categories. One of them is, of course, a tribute to one of the most famous liveries… And fittingly, it’s a livery which has been plastered across multiple different makes, which is why I can buy it being here. The Gulp RX64 is in the lower class, sure, but it looks great and professional - and I’m sure Bepis would have paid for some models to give away in a promotion or something. The actual design under that livery looks like a supercar that I just want to own too. The Cannonball, meanwhile, looks absolutely insane and eccentric. An old classic chopped up and rearranged, with its central reversing light and central headlight where they just don’t belong… And a unique feature on top of that, a wheelie bar! Yes, this entry can pop some sick wheelies, it looks unquestionably like a dragster! You forgot to remove the second seat fixture on the RX64, but that’s it - yes, the Cannonball has 2 fixtured seats, but it has 2 engineered seats too. Doesn’t matter. You get 10 points for aesthetics on the RX64, and 15 for it on the Cannonball.
MARKET IMPACTS, AND THE META
I touched upon this elsewhere, but there absolutely was a meta - which coincidentally lined up quite well with my expectations and with IRL dragsters. Skinny front tyres, the softest, widest rear tyres you can find, an engine behind the driver and minimal weight. What I didn’t expect was that fuel injection and turbochargers would be so dominant, and that the Free-Fuel entries would all use smaller engines than the Modified one. That’s right, Nitromethane led to smaller engines! Y’all generally realised that you didn’t need the extra displacement to go faster, because your fuel was just so good.
All of this brings us to the impacts on the market… And this is where it gets painful for some people. The American model was represented by the Globus - a big ol’ carbed V8, no turbocharger. It was also the worst. Meanwhile, the more European designs - smaller, more sophisticated entries with precise injection and turbochargers - did better. Maybe I was just setting stuff up to fail, but given how we have been heading before, well, the people of Araga no longer value displacement as a metric of performance. They’re hungry for turbochargers (especially with the earlier efforts of Ilaris in the space), and not for displacement. Will this have impacts on lobbying? Perhaps.
FINAL TOKEN AMOUNTS
- Moroza: 25 tokens for Modified Performance, 10 tokens for Free-Fuel Performance, 5 points for aesthetics. Total of 40
- Danicoptero: 20 tokens for Free-Fuel Performance, 10 points for aesthetics, total of 30.
- Ludvig: 20 points for Free-Fuel Performance, 20 points for Free-Fuel Performance, 25 points for aesthetics. Total of 65.
- Mrdja: 15 points for Modified Performance, 3 points for aesthetics. Total of 18.
- Vento: 10 points for Modified Performance
- Happyhungryhippo: 4 points for Modified Performance.
Suffice to say, I will not be running bonuses that allow people to double-dip like this again in future.
3 Likes
Now that the bonus round is up, I’ll also make a post fully outlining what’s happening with co-hosting for next round. I am currently looking for new co-hosts for the next round of the challenge. Of the three co-hosts I had before, one didn’t meet somewhat unwritten expectations and one is probably not in a position to co-host challenges.
So, let’s start by writing those expectations down, shall we? Let’s run through the whole process:
- Judging will most likely take place in February. For some personal reasons, I kinda don’t wanna judge ALC in January, I hope you all understand.
- Co-hosts will each have some sector to handle. Previously, it was premium, standard, sport, utility. I might be able to be convinced to do other sectors.
- I expect you to keep your entry decently far from your assigned sector. I will be publishing some expectations about what sort of price/characteristics each sector has to make this easier.
- I expect you to do your writing in a shared Google Doc which will be accessible by all the hosts. This way, I don’t need to ask you to find out how far it’s coming along.
- I expect you to aim to write some level of initial thoughts within 2 weeks, a draft of some variety within about 3 and the final results within 4 weeks. This isn’t set in stone - if personal circumstances come up, that’s fine.
- I expect you to strive for roughly similar quality of writing to the challenge as it is now.
- I expect you to communicate if you have run into some sort of issue which will cause issues on your end. I can accommodate, I can shift things around, I can take up some of your work, that’s fine - but I really want to make sure there’s some communication.
TLDR of expectations: Communicate, be organised and stick to a timeline. That’s all it comes down to, really, but writing it down helps.
If you are interested in co-hosting, feel free to shoot me a DM here, on discord, wherever. I’ll probably start trying to recruit if I don’t get interest, and I’ll update this if I get a few people being interested!
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