Automation Legacy Challenge Thread 2 - Round 5

[AMuteCrypt]

Previous Thread: Automation Legacy Challenge (LOBBYING PART TWO, AND A BONUS ROUND!)

Why A New Thread?

As you may have guessed by the link at the top of this thread, this is not the first thread for the Automation Legacy Challenge. Yes, there was a previous thread, so why make a new thread? Well, there’s a few reasons, but the biggest one is just that I am overhauling a lot of the ways things work, and differences to LHC that I wanna specifically call out. Rather than having a bunch of strikethrough in the original thread, or hiding the old stuff somewhere, I decided to start fresh. This also means that I can collect a bunch of information across the first few posts here, and have stuff broken up more.

CORE RULES

Rounds will have a three-phase cadence: Submissions, reviews, lobbying.

Also, join the Discord for quicker updates, outsourcing and more!

SUBMISSION PHASE

• The submission phase will last for at least four weeks, but may be longer based on IRL events, game updates, my mood, whatever. I’ll try to stick to the timetable initially posted in a round’s thread, but no promises there.
• At the start of the submission phase, I will make a post outlining the rules, regulations, expected timeframes, current market effects and some worldbuilding.
• During the submission phase, entrants may submit a bunch of .car files. You can send in two cars, two non-cars and potentially bonuses.
• Cars are, uh… Cars. In particular, they are anything that Automation is equipped and designed to make and handle. Coupes, sedans, vans, wagons, that sort of thing. Standard automation fare.
  – Your two cars should be on the same broad family (wheelbase variations are acceptable). For instance, a car on 78_CLux_3DR_CPP and one on 78_XLux_Sedan_CPP are a valid pair, because they are wheelbase variations of the same family.
  – Cars should have similar mechanical underpinnings. Some variance is fine - I will never, ever bat an eyelid on swapping from monocoque to partial monocoque for a ute or adding rustproofing to a model, but changing everything will bat an eyelid. This is a little subjective, so I will try to make sure to pre-screen entries. If you submit with more than a week before the end, I will guarantee that you get screened. The closer it gets to the end, the less certain it is - if it’s only hours before the end, no promises.
• Non-cars are the opposite of that. Planes, trains, trucks, sandwiches, 6x6es… Stuff like that, which Auto can’t handle.
  – Your two entries should look at least a bit related, similar to the cars. This is looser, but there should be some relation between them. A fire truck and a crane. A tanker truck and a chassis cab. A jumbo jet and an AWACS. Stuff like that.
• There may also be a bonus round. This will allow you to submit extra cars. Please do not submit the same thing to a bonus round if you also submitted it to the regular one.
• During this phase, you may submit “write-in lobbying”. This is your chance to send suggestions or ideas for what the lobbying phase will include. It won’t impact lobbying power, and it may be ignored completely as well.
• There may also be simple yes/no lobbying or “pick a number” lobbying. I’ll try to get answers from people on the yes/no and pick a number, but not on write-ins.
• Posting in the thread is no longer required, but strongly recommended.
• Submissions can be sent in either in a forum DM or via Discord - this is new too. I reserve the right to refuse or check entries on Discord if I suspect that your account is an alt or being used to evade a forum ban.

REVIEW PHASE

• The review phase is where your entries get reviewed.
• Yes/no and pick a number lobbying from the submission phase will close. There may be new ones which come up. Write-in lobbying will stay open.
• Reviews will be split into roughly four groups. Those are sport, utility, standard and premium.
  – Utility is the simplest category. If you have a van or ute with a bunch of cargo space, it goes here. An offroader probably goes here too. At my discretion, wagons may be cross-shopped here in addition to the other groups.
  – Sport will have 2-seater sports cars. In addition, stuff like hot hatches, super saloons and muscle utes may be considered here depending on amounts - they may go in other categories, and may be both here and there.
  – Standard is anything that’s not a utility or sport car that’s below a certain price point. Premium is anything above a somewhat higher point. There will be a grey area between the two - these may go in one group or both.
• Certain categories may be delegated to co-hosts. Please offer to co-host, I’ll have more on what that entails later.
• I will aim to get reviews up in the span of a month. However, due to the fact that co-hosts operate at different speeds, there may be sizeable gaps between reviews.
• Depending on how your car fares, you may gain or lose spending tokens or lobbying power. If you sell well, you can expect to gain. If you egregiously violate the spirit of the rules, you will receive a warning at the start of the review phase. Depending on the severity of the violation, you may be able to write an in-character response to get out of a penalty.

LOBBYING PHASE

• Lobbying is only open to people who submitted in the previous round, or any inter-round bonus. Inter-round bonus submissions will always have the number of the lobbying round they make you eligible for. For instance, the drag race round required cars labelled “ALC4D” - so it lets you lobby in the lobbying after ALC4.
• By default, entrants get 75 spending tokens and 100% lobbying power. All bonuses are additive - not multiplicative. Getting +10% lobbying power and +20% lobbying power leaves you with 130% lobbying power, not 132%.
• If you provide submissions to two separate categories, you will get an extra 50 spending tokens and 20% lobbying power.
• Each entry can get additional spending tokens based on how successful they are in their categories, and how well their different entries complement one another.
• Bonus rounds will offer a variable distribution of tokens and power.
• You will have at least four weeks to lobby. I will try and make sure that this phase is where the majority of the delays due to updates and IRL happen.
• During the lobbying phase, you can spend those spending tokens and lobbying power to influence the rules for next round.
• For instance, you can change the taxes for next round, the safety regs, emissions standards and such.
• In any given round, there will be several different schools to invest in. Each one will help boost multiple different techpool areas. However, the further “ahead” you get, the more money it will take to stay ahead and get further ahead.
• You can always spend 35 tokens for an extra 50% lobbying power, or 70 tokens for an extra 100% power.
• You can save up to 30 lobbying tokens between rounds. If you do not submit anything, you will retain just 20 tokens - this is a compromise to avoid punishing people too much, but still incentivise participating somehow.
• You can only spend whole numbers of lobbying tokens, but you can spend any amount. 11, 16, 69…

OUTSOURCING

A brand new mechanic is outsourcing. Want help on some element of your car? Want to work on even more cars than you are currently allowed to? This section is for you! Note that this only applies to cars, because there’s not enough division in non-cars where engineering doesn’t exist. In addition, requesting a crate engine means you cannot request outsourced styling, and vice versa. Here’s how it works:

• Join the Discord. This is absolutely needed to make administration possible.
• Make a post in either the “In Search Of” channel or the “Portfolio Sharing” channel. Posts here close halfway through the round.
  – The “In Search Of” channel is to be used if you are looking to oursource part of your car. You should state what segment and type of car you are making, give a design brief, and specify what part you want help with - exterior styling, interior styling or exterior+interior.
  – The “Portfolio Sharing” should show what you can do. Link to other past challenge entries, show your stuff. Say what you are available for. Also give an indication of how many cars you want to work on. For crate engines, feel free to show specifications if you have already made one!
• Discuss with other users in the general chat. Once you link up with someone, use the handy dandy bot instructions I have installed to create a channel with the two of you in the server - importantly, a channel that I can see. (We had a bot, it didn’t work, so plan B.)
• Discuss further points in that channel. Share design concepts, ideas, etc.
• Avoid doing anything besides your role. If you are doing styling, either send a mule with stuff at defaults, or get a WIP from the other person. If you are doing an engine, just send it in a mule with the bare minimum done outside the engine.
• The person having their car done can request further tweaks, but the person doing the car doesn’t have to do them if it’s too far.

What do you get for doing all of this, for doing someone else’s car? You will receive extra spending tokens, if you put in an honest effort - how many depends on how much effort and how well you do. Spamming one engine everywhere won’t do as well. The goal should be to have your end of the bargain done with about a week or so to the end of the challenge. I’ll compare what you supplied to what you promised, and allocate tokens accordingly.

[AMuteCrypt]

WORLDBUILDING

This will be and expanded as the series continues and as time permits. Feel free to ask questions whenever, here or on Discord!

BROAD GEOGRAPHY

I have made a provisional map of the ALC gameworld! For size, Araga is roughly equal to Kazhakstan in Area; Windon is about as large as Algeria.

Height Map

Political Map

List of states:

• Araga: One of the three major powers. See below.
• Windon: The fiercely anti-communist, oil-rich neighbour of Araga. The second of three major powers, and distinctly American in culture.
• Elefthera: A communist state in the far east. The third great power, with numerous neighbouring satellite states in the Eudaimonia Pact. Culturally similar to modern Greece. Araga maintains cordial relations and certain degrees of trade with the bloc, while Windon despises them.
• Other states: The various blue states (the ones with three letters after the name, and the Tripartite Workers’ Federation) are Elefthera’s satellites. The various purple ones are aligned with Araga, while the red and yellow ones are aligned with Windon. The assorted green states (Winsaland, Swanwing Isle, the Greater Amis Republique and the Democratic Republic of Anderwald) are non-aligned.

Further Details - Minor States

• The Eudaimonia Pact members (Tannheim Democratic Socialist Republic, the Amidor Worker’s Social Republic, the Tannheim Democratic Socialist Republic, Samarskya Federated Socialist State and Luzi Federal Worker’s Republic) all have some amount of independence, but generally follow instructions from Elefthera. The Tripartite Workers Federation is part of the pact, but substantially more self-sufficient, relying on limited imports due to its distance from the Pact. It still receives some, but they generally have to go through (or even come from) Araga’s sphere of influence.
• The Kingdom of Cridicza and the Runicza U.W.R. both claim the entire peninsula as their own territory; the two were previously at war, but the conflict has died down to smaller border disputes. The kingdom receives substantial support from Windon - but the trade routes to get from Windon to the Kingdom both have to go past Araga. Similarly, Runicza is supplied from the Pact - but they are reluctant to escalate the war.
• The land and people of the Amidor W.S.R. and Greater Amis Republique have been variably united and split - but it has never been an equal land. Historically, the South was rather rich while the North was mainly poorer farmland. When communist sentiment started to spread through the continent, the North pulled away - but with much less popularity in the south, they were reluctant to push South. The South, meanwhile, feared the potential reprisals from the Eudaimonia Pact. As a result, both states agreed to the new state of affairs, each recognising the other.
• The Democratic Republic of Anderwald has recently begun to question the sovreignty of the Commonwealth of Elthend. This has caused Araga to begin weapons exports to Elthend, passing through Terspach - generally surplus weapons recently replaced by the latest models. These exports currently go via sea, passing near the Windon-aligned Islander League.

Want to help with worldbuilding, put your stamp on the world? Join the discord!

INTERNAL GEOGRAPHY

Railway Map and Major Cities. Smaller cities, additional road connections and smaller railway lines exist too, this is high-level. Where railways cross into another country and stop abruptly, that’s because I don’t wanna do foreign railways yet.

For reference, the equator is somewhere around Gartive, but sees milder, less humid summers than IRL. As far as weather goes:

• Eddie’s landing is like London, temperature-wise - but with less rain.
• Krets and Grens are like Perth in the Autumn, but have stable temperatures - being at the equator and all.
• Bawron is a little cooler then Krets and Grens.

In terms of what each city does… I’ll fill that out later, but I would suggest Central Junction, Technia, Tristream, Lakeview, Atun or Tesrel for manufacturing.

POLITICS

• System: Multi-Party Parliamentary Democracy. Opinion steadily increasing.
• Parties: As of 1970, three major parties - the Aragan Stability Party (conservatives), the Modernist Party of Araga (progressives) and the Organised Labour Party (socialists).
• Overton Window: Steadily moving left, with large acts by the government becoming ever-more acceptable… Along with increased taxes.
• Neighbours: Araga’s most prominent neighbour is Windon, a country with a conservative anti-communist government and large oil reserves.

ECONOMY

• GDP: High in the early 60s, falling in the 70s amid the crisis
• Average Wages: High, but many people have recently been forced to look at new jobs.
• Industries: Forestry and tourism at the top, joined by assorted burgeoning high-tech industries and a small amount of mining. No oil and gas.
• Inequality: Relatively low.
• Education: Primary and secondary education are both entirely controlled by and paid for by the state. Like all other developed nations, literacy is high. The curriculum tends towards breadth rather than depth, aiming to create high-skilled, adaptable students. Tertiary education is free to students, but a substantial portion of the funding comes from public-private partnerships, where companies pay for the ability to be involved in research and network with the best and brightest.

INFRASTRUCTURE

• Highway system: Well-developed, with many well-maintained, paved roads.
• Speed limits: Using road hierarchy terms: 100 on controlled-access and rural/undeveloped, 80 on limited-access and some arterial, 50 on some arterial, all collector and some local, 30 on school zones and some local.
• Use of public transit: Rather high, especially for between cities, as there are rail links between the major cities and within them.

CULTURE

• Opinions towards safety: Buyers will seek out safe cars in the next round.
• Car culture: Modifications are popular. Turbos are in, displacement is out.
• Racing popularity: Rallies, endurance and GTs are common.

MILITARY

The biggest difference between Araga’s world and the real world is that nuclear weapons and energy do not exist in this world. There are no megaton-class bombs capable of levelling a military base with just one warhead. There is no hyper-dense fuel source capable of allowing naval vessels to continue to operate at sea for months and months on end. Why? Well, OOC, it’s because I wanted the war round with two superpowers. IC? Take your pick. A lack of uranium deposits to refine, a lack of refining techniques, a lack of the theoretical foundations or a lack of the practical implementation… It’s beside the point. There’s no nukes, there’s no nuclear ships. Build accordingly.

• The Aragan military recruits evenly, with no selection along lines of race, gender or sexuality. It’s my world, I’ll make it how I want.
• The standing army is a professional body, with the reserves being relatively small compared to the full-time soldiers. There is no compulsory service, but all adults within a certain age range must register with the draft office and undertake regular physical examinations. In times of war, the government has the authority to draft anyone to civic or military service. (This is a similar system to the USA).
• Aragan Military Doctrine relies on the concept of questions and answers.
  – A question is a threat posed to an enemy force, while an answer is any way to prevent that threat having a real impact on your soldiers. A bomber flying overhead is a question. A fighter or AA battery is an answer.
  – The best questions are those which are inherently hard to answer, and the best answers are those which suit a wide spectrum of questions - or which pose questions of their own. A deep penetration bomber taking out a railway or airport is a good question. An single-platform vehicle which can be refitted easily into an APC or SPAA is a good answer.
  – Questions need to be asked under the right circumstances. It is hard to predict when an opportunity may present itself - as a result, individual divisions are expected to act autonomously when possible, and make good decisions. This reinforces the need for flexible, well-trained divisions able to take any opportunity that comes. The worst thing to do is nothing - an attack that does not fulfil its aims with a low cost to materiel is not a failure.
  – This autonomy is exploited to create asymmetries in battle. Aragan divisions are expected to outperform enemy ones in confusing, complex battles where variables quickly change and plans have to go out the window - so there’s a tendency to ask as many questions, continue to harass the enemy and make sure they cannot regroup - even if that means forcing one’s own soldiers to improvise.
  – The resulting form of war is fast, furious and frantic, seeking to overwhelm opposing officers with task saturation and force mistakes. Find any advantage or difference, exploit it as much as possible, wash, rinse, repeat.
• TLDR: Third generation warfare - move fast and break things, have the ability to do as many different things as possible, overwhelm the enemy and force mistakes. Equipment should be flexible and have a wide variety of uses, be naturally hard to counter or similar.

Oh, also - this image by @ldub0775 is a good design for military uniforms that will fit well, I like it, it’s canon.

Further Details - Divisions

The Aragan military is divided into 4 sections - all generally cooperative and integrated, with a litany of liasons and such. The sections are:

• Aragan Ground Command (AGC) - consisting of regular infantry, artillery and logistics.
  – Aragan Infantry Group (AIG) - the bulk of the general infantry, instrumental in the grunt work. The AIC is also tasked with managing occupied territories and are trained in essential police skills such as conflict de-escalation.
  – Aragan Artillery Group (AAG) - responsible for long-ranged bombardment. The artillery corps typically coordinates with the ACAC to deliver an overwhelming quantity or breadth of munitions.
  – Medical Administration Support Hospitals (M*A*S*H) - nobody makes it out unhurt, but the doctors are here to minimise fatalities. Not just for combatants, of course - civilian hospitals are often disrupted and require supplemental resources.
• Aragan Combined Aerial Command (ACAC) - combined from several prior bodies and reorganised several times. The Air Force used to be split between naval aviation, fighters/bombers and ground support, but the divisions were changed to improve cooperation between branches.
  – Aragan Fighter Tactical Group (AFTG) - responsible for escort, interception and interdiction. Fighters take off from both land and sea.
  – Aragan Unified Support Group (AUSG) - handles tactical bombers and ground support. If it’s of a small to medium size and attacks the ground, it works here.
  – Aragan Strategic Purposes Group (ASPG) - the ASPG generally performs “force multiplier” duties, anything away from the front lines and usually with larger planes. In addition to heavy strategic bombing, they perform recon flights, battlefield management and fighter coordination.
• Aragan Naval Command (ANC) - the ANC doesn’t have as many divisions, built mainly around small integrated fleets. The ANC plays a substantial role in projecting Aragan interests to the west of Araga.
• Hybrid/Special Forces
  – Aragan Logistical Service (ALS) - the unsung heroes of the war, the ALS works across land, air and sea to ensure that every soldier has food, materiel and fuel.
  – Aragan Marine Corps, Aragan Paratrooper Corps - sometimes, operations need to be performed combining land and sea, or land and air. For that, there’s the AMC and APC.
  – Aragan Military Intelligence (AMI) - an organisation of classified strength using classified methods to produce classified information. Even the budget is not fully revealed - a single broad pool often exceeding 1 billion AMU is shared between multiple intelligence organisations.

Further Details - Force Strength, Public Opinion

The most important word to describe public opinion of the military in Araga is neccessity. Sure, people would prefer that those dollars went to social programs, lower taxes or similar… But when you have a threat on your border building up its military and throwing its weight around, what can you do? The military exists to protect Araga, to safeguard its existence and freedom. A world without war may be desirable, but it is not reality.

Speaking of the threat on the border, Windon fields a larger military, two or three times the size. However, Araga’s military fields

[AMuteCrypt]

ROUND 4

OR: THAT TOOK A WHILE

This will be and expanded as the series continues and as time permits. Feel free to ask questions whenever, here or on Discord!

The round will be open until 11:59PM UTC on Thursday the 29th of February. This is extended due to some IRL.

The era is 1970-1976

Also - have you joined the Discord?

LOBBYING & SPENDING

We had decent spending in just about every area. Industrial design had a lot. Curiously, it was chemical engineering that had the lowest amount of spending, which was somewhat unexpected. After modifying for the low response rate: Art, Materials Science and Chemical Engineering all got 100-150 tokens, Chemical Engineering, Aeronautics, Pure Physics and Mechanical engineering got 200-300, and Industrial Design got 500! Running this through some RNG, this gives us the following techpool:

Techpool
Family,6.0
BottomEnd,7.0
TopEnd,6.0
Aspiration,7.0
FuelSystem,6.0
Exhaust,5.0
Body,8.0
Chassis,7.0
Interior,7.0
DriverAssists,8.0
Safety,7.0
DriveTrain,9.0
Tyres,7.0
Brakes,6.0
Aerodynamics,7.0
Suspension,8.0

Meanwhile, several people happened to lobby for the exact same measure on turbos - a 60% increase to taxed displacement. There were also a lot of people clamouring for additional metrics to be included in taxation, but the government has elected to retain the existing system for the time being.

In addition, only one company elected to be nationalised - that would be Centurion Heavy Industries, by @ldub0775 . For this round, I’ll send some requests privately soon.

SAFETY SCORING

Okay, let’s pull back the curtain a little, and reveal what I was initially thinking of, versus what I settled on.

The original idea was to massively expand the way stats work, to implement several qualities of driver. A high-quality driver would be unphased by a manual, seeing no penalties to drivability or comfort thanks to some smooth, perfect shifts - while an atrocious driver would see stuff like penalties to reliability from grinding their gears. Here’s the issue: That’s waaaaaay too much complexity. While I could provide an exporter for that, y’all would have to do a ton of work to find out how your car will be received. Would it actually make the challenge better? I don’t think so.

Why am I saying this? Well, because I already partially introduced this system last round, with those safety changes. So, what happens next? Well… I’m still changing safety, but with some caveats. The new Aragan Safety System… Uh, Aragan Register of Safety Engineering… Uh, Aragan Driver Protection Rating (ADPR) includes the following factors:

• 50%: “Safety technologies” - this refers to the safety tab plus driver assists - but with ABS being unavailable in this era, that’s just the safety tab. The following values are designed to roughly line up with the effects in the game
  – Basic 70s Safety scores you 10 points.
  – Standard 70s Safety scores you 20 points.
  – Advanced 70s Safety scores you 30 points.
  – Advanced 80s Safety scores you 40 points.
  – Each positive point of quality adds 1 point. Each negative point of quality subtracts 5.
• 30%: “Body rigidity” - this is to simulate that certain body types just do better in crashes. It’s also based on ingame stuff.
  – Monocoques (full or partial) get 30 points.
  – Space frames get 20 points.
  – Ladder chassis get 10 points.
  – Fibreglass panels lose 10 points.
  – Each point of negative chassis quality subtracts 1 point.
• 20%: “Driving characteristics” - this is the special sauce, this is what we add. Cars start at 20 points, then lose them based on certain test failures. For this, the tests are:
  – Terminal Oversteer - any amount as shown under drivability in detailed stats loses 15 points.
  – Insufficient highway performance - taking more than 20 seconds to go from 0-100km/h loses 10 points.
  – Insufficient braking performance - Effective braking distance is your 100-0km/h braking distance, increased by your drivability brake fade. For instance, a car with 45m braking distance but 10% fade on front and 15% fade on rear has 56.25 meters effective distance. A car with over 65m effective braking loses 10 points.
  – I reserve the right to penalise cars here for anything else that I view as unsafe, such as excessive body roll, lift sufficient to send the car flying, etc.

Feel free to give thoughts and questions on this system. It’ll be open for discussion until the 14th.

FIXTURE RULES

Remember, these are the regulations for a road legal car. You can enter a track toy that cannot go on the road, and the market will react accordingly. Of course, if what you submit is not a car, these rules don’t apply.

• Headlights: at least one pair required. Must use yellow or white glass. A total of 20,000 square mm must be illuminated.
• Turn signals: When looking from the front, there must be two visible on the front face, towards the left and right corners. When looking from the rear, there must be two visible on the rear face, towards the left and right corners. When looking from the side, there must be two visible towards the front and rear. This is not particularly strict, and you can use wraparound headlights to fulfil front and side, or rear and side. (Changed from previous era)
• 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: at least one pair. Must be white. (Changed from previous era)
• Light visibility rules (Changed from previous era):
  – You must be able to see one of each light on each side from the Light Visibility Measure-inator, as measured in the head of the dummy.
  – Headlights must be 100 square cm or larger. This means a 10x10cm square, a 5x20cm rectangle, a circle with 11.3cm diameter, etc.
  – All other lights must be 25 square cm or larger. This means a 5x5cm square, a 2.5x10cm rectangle, a circle with 5.7cm diameter, etc.
  – There will be leeway for complex shapes in this. Also, if a light is broken into multiple parts, they’ll all be added to the area. Four 5x5cm headlights is fine.
  – Just about every single unscaled vanilla light fixture (and most mod ones) is legal for this.
  – This measures the illuminated area, not just the bulb.
  – MID-ROUND CLARIFICATION: These measurements will be taken with the ruler aligned to the cardinal directions, rather than following the surface of the light. In particular, this means that only the portion of a wraparound light which faces a certain direction counts. I’ve posted some images in the discord about this.
• Mirrors: One on each side required, may be mounted anywhere but should be fairly visible from the driver’s seat.
• Gas cap: must be mounted externally, placement is free but should make sense
• Wipers: one wiper required on the front. Windshields are also required. (Changed from previous era)
• License plate: any (unscaled) plate will be allowed, in the narrow, wide EU size. Images of the plate format can be found below, but this design does not need to be used. (Changed from previous era)

OTHER RULES

Everything in this section has been changed from previous eras.

• Your car should have the trim and variant years between 1970 and 1976. Model and family years may be earlier.
• 70s safety is required, and a positive ADPR is required.
• Race interior, race tyres and loudness over 55 are not road-legal.
• Cars must pass WES 5, including track toys.
• Leaded fuel is banned. Unleaded 91 RON fuel is available, as is E10.
• Tyres: Radial tyres are strongly dominant on the market.
• Your cars should be named ALC4C1 - YourForumName and ALC4C2 - YourForumName. Your non-cars should be named ALC4N1 - YourForumName and ALC4N2 - YourForumName.
• Vehicle Taxation:
  – The existing displacement tax has been increased. The new equation is Tax=1.7^((displacement-3000)/1000)*500, and new cars will be charged 3x this value upfront. Cars with turbochargers will be treated as if their displacement is 60% higher. There is a 2000CC tax break on cars with dedicated non-passenger spaces around 40% of length or more - this applies after the multiplier from turbos. This is a slight decrease for cars below 3 litres, but a decent increase above it.
  – Cars with a 0-100km/h time below 10 will also incur extra tax. Times between 9 and 10 seconds pay 150, times between 8 and 9 pay 300, times between 7 and 8 pay 450 and times below 7 pay 600.
  – Note that these taxes do not apply to non-cars, or to track-only cars not intended for road use.
• Advanced trim settings which do not mirror existing engineering choices are free. Those which do are somewhat restricted. In general, if something can be achieved by engineering - even if it takes multiple steps, like changing morphs then widening wheels - the trim setting should not be used. If you have already used the maximum possible, however, it’s allowed. The settings to be careful with are:
  – Wheel offset, wheel width, wheel diameter, camber
  – Tyre diameter. To a small degree, all tyre settings.
  – Ride height, unless the two add to zero. +2 front and -2 rear is valid.
  – Wheelbase offset. A little is actually fine here, but around 10-20 is starting to get a little suspect - can you use a different model?
  – Engine scale, exhaust size. The game is actually accurate with this sizes, as far as I can tell. Small changes for aesthetics are fine, large ones aren’t.

MARKET SENTIMENT

• With the economy falling down and down, people are uncertain and tightening their belts. They are less likely to spend money going forward, and the market is going down. Anything above 17,000 is considered premium, with 12,000 and below solidly standard.
• Following the results of the Aragan Drag Championship, turbochargers have much more of an association with performance than displacement. Small engines are no longer associated with lacklustre performance.
• Metallic paints are in fashion now, and consumers absolutely want them.

CURRENT EVENTS

• Another whole-era event this time. The ongoing tensions between Araga and Windon are continuing to build, making people more and more worried about the future. In practical terms, though, Araga relies heavily on Windon for fuel imports. As a result, the cost of regular 91 RON fuel is steadily increasing. To respond to this, however, the government has begun incentivising the production of ethanol for fuel, rolling out E10 fuel and making it steadily more available and cheaper.
• Also, for your non-cars, please do not submit any military vehicles - those will be needed next round.

LOBBYING OPPORTUNITIES

• Write-in lobbying only for this round. In particular, opinions on tax are that the government wants opinions on the new performance tax, and suggestions for alternate metrics.

IN-ROUND BONUS

Yup, there’s one additional thing! I’ve mentioned it before, but this round’s bonus is presidential limousines, for the President of Araga. You’re making something like the US Presidential State Car - aka “The Beast” or “Stagecoach”. Something custom-made, bespoke, where only one exists. Of course, everything about that car and its ilk is classified and hidden away, with many old models being scrapped rather than preserved in a museum to keep it that way - so, y’know, I can’t really do much to line up to IRL. So, custom it is!

The following rules will apply to these cars:

• Name the car ALC4L - YourForumName
• Cars should be approximately road-legal. If you want to use a custom license plate with an odd shape or context or no license plate, go ahead.
• Any fuel may be used.
• Cars should be available for 1976, the end of the era. Set the year to 77 or later, it’s a bin.
• Cars should be engineered with two rows of seats (in any configuration - 4 seats is legal and recommended), but should either have an interior with six seats, or be shaped so it can conceivably fit three rows. Why? Because body choice is mainly SUVs, wagons and Minivans for 3 rows.
• Set the weight slider in safety to 0 (maximum weight) to simulate heavy armour.
• Maximum budget is 350 thousand. Service costs and value for money will not be considered. I swear to god, if y’all send in cars massively under-budget with premium interiors rather then luxury/hand-made again…
• I’ll allow non-cars here, but be careful. Make it especially, well, special. Make it stand out from the crowd, make it something a head above the rest.
• The following plate is recommended.

The following elements are all desirable:

• Uniqueness. The car needs to stand out, it needs to be different to what else is on the rest of the road. A Rosanda Sieben that can be picked up from the dealership will not do.
• Appearance. The car should look classy, stately, with a presence to it. It should look important. Integration of Aragan Purple (#800080), a livery or mounted flags will all be pluses.
• Interior design. An interior is optional, and good enough stats can overcome not having one, but a good interior will really boost it. In particular, if you design one, it should be possible for four people to sit behind the driver and have a conversation. This can mean rear-facing middle seats, or it can mean inwards-facing seats, or a curved couch, or… Whatever works.
• Comfort. Y’all have a budget of 350k and I have told you not to use premium, this is a bespoke model for leaders. Make it like driving on a cloud, make it an office on wheels. I will be removing the penalties to comfort based on gearbox and torque, reasoning that the driver is skilled enough to not have issues with a stick shift or a mega engine.
• Loudness. Yes, it impacts comfort, but this car will literally be paraded around. An ear-splitting race car is not desirable.
• Performance. If needs be, the driver should be able to floor it and get out of wherever the heck they are. I have test mules running 6 seconds to 100km/h and 0.75gs on the skidpad, some even higher than that. (One of these may or may not be a 1990 submission to LHC, hush)
• Range, Fuel Availability. You get 3 litres in your tank per square metre, and 0.02 per kilogram. Range is determined by taking your km/L fuel economy and multiplying this range. The further you can make it and the shorter it is to the next place with suitable fuel, the better it is in crisis - 91 or E10 are easy to find, 85 is especially easy to find, but Nitrometh… That may be difficult.
• Emissions. It’d be nice to say it’s a clean car.
• Safety. C’mon, you wanna kill the President?

The following won’t be major issues unless they’re really bad:

• Drivability, sportiness. These will be driven by trained professionals who are completely sober and alert, who spend substantial amounts of time practicing this particular car. They don’t mind driving stick or snappy handling, etc.
• Practicality. For various reasons, this is too constrained to review. You submit something 15-20m long, though, expect a raised eyebrow.
• Offroad. This will mainly stay in city centres and highways.

[abg7]

@AMuteCrypt

Leaded fuel is banned. Unleaded 91 RON fuel is available, as is E10.

With this in mind, I’m surprised that a catalytic converter of some kind isn’t required yet, although using one may make compatibility with WES 5 easier to attain.

[AMuteCrypt]

Fun fact: Euro 1, brought out in 1991, did not mandate catalytic converters. It included rules around what needs to be included in the design of catalytic converters and keeping them uniform across a type, but it didn’t mandate them. It just set targets, and cats were a way to achieve that.

That’s what I’ll be doing for emissions. You wanna submit a car with carburettors and no cat in 2020? It will be completely legal to do so, if you can clear whatever bar we have at the time. Any approach is allowed.

Cats used to be a standard rule in challenges, because the existing numbers we had were just arbitrary digits with little context ingame or IRL. Now, however, we do have good numbers with their own context and with IRL context.

[MoteurMourmin]

Ok time to not absolutely bludgeon myself with a rear engine car it seems.

[shibusu]

Mine saw some success in spite of its flaws, you don’t have to give up!

[karhgath]

Btw, both those sections seems incomplete

@AMuteCrypt

In addition, only one company elected to be nationalised - that would be Centurion Heavy Industries, by @ldub0775 . For this round,

@AMuteCrypt

Write-in lobbying only for this round. In particular, opinions on tax are

[AMuteCrypt]

Fixed

[Vento]

Hey I have a question about the culture of Araga!!! What are the most popular motor sports, and is there a very active track scene?

btw what is a ‘crate engine’?

[AMuteCrypt]

IRL, a crate engine is an engine that turns up in a crate - all built and tuned, just stick it in a car. If I wanted to, I could buy a Chevy LS3 engine, and I’d receive a unit that just needs to have all the external stuff like driveshaft and fuel tank connected up. IRL, there’s a wide variance between systems - with a gearbox, without a gearbox, ones for road use, ones for racing, ones intended for small purchase runs or for large numbers in a line of cars. In particular, though, it’s not uncommon for car makers to buy an engine from someone else - The DeLorean DMC-12, the McLaren F1, the VL Commodore all bought someone else’s engine - sometimes great, sometimes not. Sometimes new and custom, sometimes just one they already had.

As for motorsports, I’ll flesh that out a touch more but there is a little in the worldbuilding post already.

[MoteurMourmin]

If it would be possible to give a general idea of what an Aragan license plate looks like, it would be good if it were posted here.

[AMuteCrypt]

Following some questions on discord about how to get Metallic Paint:

• For default automation paint, use a high level of flake, no pearl (or a very low amount), almost any level of shininess but values towards the middle work best.
• For PBR+, use a moderate to high amount of metalicness, and some roughness/clear coat roughness - the goal is metallic, not chrome.
• The overall effect matters more than the actual numbers. If it looks like a real car with metallic paint, you succeeded. Some examples:

[moroza]

@AMuteCrypt

Loudness. Yes, it impacts comfort, but this car will literally be paraded around. An ear-splitting race car is not desirable.

To clarify, is it important that the car be quiet, or you want some noise but not racecar levels?

[AMuteCrypt]

It’s important to be quiet, yep.

[AMuteCrypt]

Howdy all, just a reminder that we have around 2 weeks left. I would highly recommend starting your outsourcing around now over on the discord, to make sure that the other person has plenty of time to do their end of things!

[MoteurMourmin]

One question, are submissions open at the moment?

[AMuteCrypt]

Yup, submissions are open!

[AndiD]

Post is superseded by Automation Legacy Challenge Thread 2 - Round 4 Active - #30 by AndiD

[AMuteCrypt]

Hey all, just a few updates:

• I’m expecting to have to prepare for a rent inspection right in the window I was going to be using for judging. I ran a poll on the discord about 24 hours ago and the results were near unanimously in favour of a 2-ish week extension. I’ll let y’all know the final date once I know when my inspection will be.
• Some of you have used the Aragan plate image I showed, which is great! However, a bunch of you have run into an odd quirk of custom image materials. With roughness set to 1, one half will look brighter than the other. To fix this, set the roughness to 0.99.
  
  
  
  
  
• I’m making a slight change to the naming rules. If your entries are on the same family in-game, please name the family “ALC4C - YourForumName” - no 1 or 2. The same goes for non-cars. If it looks like this in-game, it’s the same family.
  
  
  
  In this example, the family name would be “ALC4C - AMuteCrypt”. If they were split, they’d be ALC4C1 and ALC4C2. If you have cloned your second entry to a new family, use ALC4C1 and ALC4C2. This rule is not retroactive.