It won’t, that part is really only about trying to keep the focus on “sensible cars within the segment” and also me being completely lost.
This being said doesn’t it make a difference in gearbox? Has anyone tested whether you make less power losses? Also the aero graph seems to translate across more faithfully now so that will make a difference too.
It does make a difference, but not even so much that it can change a car from bad to acceptable. For the given example the gearing or aero adjustment itself would affects the car way more than giving it an extra one or two points in quality.
But all this I am only assuming that the test drive in BeamNG is the main crux of the challenge.
Given out of principle I’m trying to generate a comprehensive ruleset, I’ll probably be allowing people to focus on different things by trying to review cars across different metrics just like some motor magazine shootouts. There’s best outright performance, best bang for buck, best all rounder (although I’m iffy on relying too much on the Automation stats like comfort especially) and potentially others. So while my testing focus is seeing how the Beam performance stacks up to the Automation figures, I figured why not get into the spirit of things?
In that case Techpool rule make sense.
Another thing I’d like to suggest is a ban on invisible aero device. If making sure the car make sense is a priority then banning people from putting massive invisible wang on the bonnet in order to generate massive downforce that doesn’t make sense would be good. Perhaps a limit on amount of aero device as well?
As an example, aluminum chassis of any kind (monocoques and semi-space frames included) were very rare in the 1990s (the most notable sports car/supercar applications from that decade being the Honda/Acura NSX, Jaguar XJ220, Lotus Elise S1, and Ferrari 360 Modena, although all of those were mid-engined and therefore outside the scope of this challenge), but they became more and more common from 2000 onwards.
These limits make perfect sense, especially when combined with this rule:
So in theory, you could use +5 techpool everywhere (as per the default settings) without being penalized for overusing techpool overall or in any given area.
And as for this:
I find this limit to be sufficiently generous to allow for a very diverse field of entrants across all three decades, but when combined with the penalty system for overusing techpool in a particular area, it prevents entries from being too technologically advanced for their time.
The most sensible solution would be to impose a maximum of one lip fixture each on both the front and rear, and a maximum of one spoiler/wing fixture on the rear only - with the additional stipulation that all functional aero fixtures must be visible (i.e. for each and every such fixture used, do not hide them by setting the material for every slot to transparent).
I believe that aero in beam is now fixed to the graph, such that fixture size no longer matters. I’ll double check this to be sure. If that’s the case I’ll go back to the rule I suggested at the start, which was a maximum of 1 wing OR spoiler plus 2 lips.
And if that’s also the case then I think I wouldn’t have to really require that they be visible, though again in the spirit of things, it makes more sense if they were because it’s not like we’re using advanced underbody technology tunnel effect in this car it’s not an Aston Martin Valkyrie 
One of the things i’ve noticed when doing some testing for some potential challenges is that techpool actually makes tires worse in beam. the difference in 0 techpool and +15 is about 1.5 seconds in favour of the 0 techpool ones, strangely enough. This was medium tires but it’s something to keep in mind.
And regarding Aero-fixtures… As long as they are visible and not over the top (racecar type downforce, ie 200+ kgs combined front and rear downforce or more) i don’t see the reason to regulate them, rather regulate the amount of downforce created, as they can give the car a more (or less) aggressive look and feel.
There is a budget, and techpool points reduces costs a by a ton
Yep, I did some testing before and absolutely noticed this also across other compounds. I had a speculation it was due to the rigidity of the wheel mesh and the more rigid it is, the worse the contact patch. When I used 15+ in particularly high powered cars it was like driving on glass.
That’s why the techpool on the wheel tab is strictly set to 0.
I suppose so, but I wanted to allow people to select the variation themselves instead of cheesing the downforce. With a limited number of fixtures that simulates the limited aero efficiency available as one then has to choose the balance between drag and reducing lift.
So does that mean that both techpool and quality on the wheel/tire tab must be set to 0? If so, I’ll tweak my test mule accordingly to account for this.
And indeed I did just that - after further tuning (mainly by fitting smaller wheels/tires), it now weighs 1480kg and costs exactly $25k, thus rendering it exempt from cost penalties for its era.
Congrats Strop! This sounds like a good one 
I’ll definitely be joining!
lemme get back to you on that one specifically because my sandbox set itself to +5 everywhere, but I suspect it’s just the quality that needs to be kept at 0.
The penalties that any entry using any of these components will incur should make sense, given that all of them reduce production efficiency to some extent.
But what about fiberglass or fully aluminum body panels? Will either (or both) of those also incur a penalty, and if so, by how much?
oh yeah I forgot about those. Will address in the next update.
When I have time I’ll also show people an example of the judging process as a guide and hopefully we’ll eventually be ready to begin submissions! (in reality this will probably take another fortnight)
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned here (until now) is the requirement for a naming scheme. I’m suggesting “FM4 - (your user name) - (decade)” as the required model and family name, with the “decade” being one of three options: 90s (1990-1999), 00s (2000-2009) or 10s (2010-2020).
Update: progress is slow because I am currently building my template cars for each decade. I’m, uh, one and a half cars through 3. Also because I tracked my Civic today but I’ll talk about that elsewhere.
In short you will be going up against generally faithful replicas of 1) a 1997 Mazda RX-7 Spirit R (but with a 1.3L 3cyl instead of a rotary, though I took care to match the weight and the power output as much as possible), 2) a 2002 Honda S2000 AP1 3) I’m not sure yet. A Nissan 400Z is too late but is pretty emblematic of what this class has become. How do people feel about an A90 Supra?
At any rate I will then confirm the rules and then hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks finally ready to accept submissions.
An A90 Supra would be representative of the newest category for the type of car that’s the focus of this challenge, even though it didn’t receive a manual gearbox option until a few years into its life. Ditto for the new (400)Z, which is too new in real life (it debuted in 2021) but would still fit into the newest group performance-wise.
After a couple of frantic weeks of trying to wrap up my work, turns out that I thought I was flying to Japan a day earlier than I was, so that gives me just enough time I need to finalise the rules and open entries!
Tyre width (mm) = vehicle mass (kg)/6 + (2020 - model year)/2 + 25Name your submission in the following format. Do not deviate from this scheme or I’ll probably lose your entry!
Model:
FM4 -
your username
Trim:
The name of your car
You can name the engine whatever you want.
and there will be no resubmissions due to time constraints on my end.The courses I will drive the cars on will be: West Coast USA Street Course 1, Mountain Course, and Bathurst - Mount Panorama. I’m just going to set it to open session and once I’m confident I’m consistently maxing out the performance I’ll record the best time. While I’m not really looking to crown winners and boo losers here, there are a few ways to rank the vehicle so I will be rating them on a number of metrics.
I will have benchmark cars of my own, not optimised but rather 3 different vehicles that represented each decade in different ways. They will be:
That’s all I can think of for now. I’ll check feedback during my stopover in Singapore, and see if I can get things kicked off.
Exactly as I expected - I tweaked my test mules with this in mind. Then again, increasing the tech pool for wheels and tires would make them more difficult to drive in Beam, as you have previously stated.
I’d also recommend that entrants included such flavor text in the lore post for their submissions on this thread, although this too would be optional.
I’m sure that the rear row of seats, if fitted to a compatible body, does not have to be full-sized - a +2 or +3 arrangement is allowed.
In other words, if you make a fully detailed interior, don’t make it too complex (by putting too many different fixtures in it).
An example of a penalty-free techpool distribution for the latter would be 5 points in all areas except wheels/tires (which must have 0 quality and tech pool as stated above).
Currently transiting through Changi airport so quick reply:
I mean you can write whatever you want if you’re posting your entry info to this thread, but I’ll only quote what’s sent to me in DMs.
I wanted to use one of my mule cars to show you all an example of how I intend to format it hut alas, I did not have the time. Maybe when I get back.