Firstly, thank you for all the compliments about me hosting this round of CSR. As you may know (you will by now) that was my first time hosting a competition of any type and doing so on a well-known challenge series is quite a challenge in itself.
Secondly, the utility themed CSR was kind of unintentional to be honest. I did not expect to win CSR76 in the first place and when i did win, i had to come up with an idea fairly quickly.
And the first idea which seemed executeable was my Meatball team needing a Tow-Truck for their Meatball car.
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All in all, this challenge had a happy ending. The whole matter with Beam felt like a rough start, especially when the “saltiness” came in. But the good thing is that the matter was dropped without much fanfare or controversy, so the whole challenge could continue. For a first time challenge with this backstory, things could’ve gone a whole lot worse.
Obviously hosting the first BeamNG/Automation CSR is everyone’s dream, no doubt about it. But the Exporter is still newborn. Many things need to be fixed, and whoever decides to use the tools will need one hell of a well-laid plan.
Congrats to Sheep for his victory, and congrats to Eliz for sticking with the event even with its rough start. Next time something utlity happens, I’ll probably just plonk the Gimny’s engine into a Pressa, and be a little wiser about size differences… Those teachings alone made the event worth it for me. 
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I personally feel that CSR should stay automation only, if people are wanting an Automation + Beamng challenge, make one!
Overall, this was a nice challenge with some very close results despite the very different overall car design.
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I like the idea, maybe there could be a timed event series where you have to make a car with (enter restrictions) and have over 100 points in Sport Budget etc… and the best time after a few attempts wins. I know driver skill may limit a car’s potential, but that’s part of the challenge, making it fast yet drivable! And I know a few people with wheels (and I have a G920 as well, but I’m afraid my driving would be somewhat sub-par) and I also have a few courses in mind. (I already found a Hillclimb-type time trial course that I use as a benchmark for my own builds)
In terms of quotation, yes, but Beam can still be useful to write the reviews. If the Automation statistics show badly tuned breaks and suspension, driving the car in Beam makes it so much more easy to actually describe what is happening.
And I can tell you from my own competition and other people’s cars I tried that were all made before the news about the export to Beam: a good car in Automation is a good car in Beam. A bad car in Automation is a bad car in Beam.
Do note though, that the points rating per category is irrelevant here. I’m talking in good/bad purely regarding drivability and on the basis of the individual choices and tunes.
But I agree that the outcome of a CSR should not decided by Beam.
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“a good car in Automation is a good car in Beam”
Not true at all actually, the truck i made for this csr challenge is awful in beam, extremely unstable with terrible understeer. So if beam was any requirement or was even used, my tune would be 100% different.
Unstable? Suspension too soft? That should be clear in automation as well.
If you’re talking about high speed understeer and instability… It’s a utlity truck, for god sake. Judge how it drives in Beam at normal everyday speed, not how it handles around a track. I’m not advocating using Beam irrationally.
It drives pretty bad at any speed because its tuned specifically to meet the challenge, not to drive in beam. It will understeer even at 20-30 mph.
And you cannot see that in Automation!?
Automation shows it right along the line of drivability with .74g of grip. Like i said, a car tuned for a specific challenge like this or others does not always represent a good beam car.
Then Beam sounds useful as a simple filter. If completely undrivable, then eliminated, and rest judged in Automation. It makes little sense to me to optimise a car for a competition in a way that appears to trick the system rather than simply be good.
Would you mind sharing the .car file with me?
Yeah, cars in Automation might be undrivable in Beam.
I’ve built multiple cars that Automation say will do over 270 MPH, yet a lot will spin out at anything over 160 even if ESC is on.
