Frame Off: A Chassis Design Challenge

[MustangPorsche67]

DISCLAIMER: While I believe anyone can improve their skills and be great at building cars, this will be a solely design-focused challenge that is not for the faint of heart. If you are unsure of your skills or new to the game, be warned that you may not make it far into the competition. I discourage nobody from trying and will still judge everything fairly, but be warned, this challenge is aimed at more experienced players.

With that out of the way,

Welcome to Frame Off!!

This is a challenge designed to test your design abilities in several ways. Entrants will be tasked with building a race car from any era of their choosing, however, the chassis, running gear, and suspension will be the true star of the show here. The aim is to showcase the art of automotive engineering that is often overlooked by most, and push your skills to the limit. The design of the car is still relevant but will be judged separately from the chassis.

Rules

As this is a creativity and design-based challenge, the rules are pretty relaxed. However, there are some strong suggestions that one should take into account.

Race trucks are allowed as well as prerunners, racing semis and other obscure vehicles, but do note that a couple of frame rails and a roll cage will not yield particularly great results.

Electric vehicles with skateboard battery platforms are also not encouraged. If you integrate the motor and battery into a frame of sorts, however, that would be allowed.

The age limits are from 1905 to 2026, so don’t go make some cyberpunk futuristic spaceship thing, (ykwim) and don’t throw some bicycle tires together and call It a prewar racecar (however don’t take
this as a don’t do that, if you can pull off an early century racecar that would be badass)

Do note any gray areas or clarifications will also be added here

Judging Criteria

The Chassis design will be judged separately from the overall design of the car, with a maximum of 15 points given to each category. There will be winners for both categories aswell as a best overall winner with the most points. Entries must be sent to me via DM and must also have a showcase post here.

Naming structure:

Trim: Frame Off: (Username) Variant: Car name

Inspiration

Ferrari 330 P4

Ford GT40

Porsche 917

Mercedes Benz 300sl

Porsche 956

Ford F100 prerunner

Auto Union Rekordwagen

BRM P48

Mclaren MK1A

Corvette IMSA GTP

My own personal build, the Cagliari Palermo LM

These are only a few, let your imagination run wild!

The deadline is flexible depending on entrants, however for now I will set the Deadline at Febuary 28

Entries will open this Friday, 1/24/25

And with that, ask any questions or clarifications you’d like, and happy building!

[abg7]

A challenge to build a chassis (visually, that is) for any kind of race car? In any case, what game build are we using?

[MustangPorsche67]

Forgot to specify.

I don’t like Al Rima because of the instability, however, if you absolutely must use it, go ahead, just be sure to specify what version of the game it was made on.

But I anticipate these being quite intricate so it may be best to stay on stable, as most engineering stuff doesn’t matter too much.

[the-chowi]

do we submit two files, one with the exposed chassis and one with the full car?

[moroza]

The Judging Criteria section doesn’t say anything about judging criteria. Detail? Stiffness, weight? If so, how those are determined? Versatility? If so, relative to engine variety, body variety, or something else? Do you want just a frame, or suspension, driveline, body, interior…?

[MustangPorsche67]

If possible, yes, that would be preffered.

[MustangPorsche67]

This is a design challenge, so typical challenge rules specifying statistics and such are almost completely obsolete. Because of the wide range of vehicles one could build for this challenge, there are very few if any rules at all in that category.

[MustangPorsche67]

Also, just a quick note, I’ll post a rule revisions list the day before submissions open so people have a chance to look it through and make sure their car is compliant in the very slim chance it is not.

[moroza]

Rules are rules. Judging criteria are judging criteria. What are they?

[MustangPorsche67]

I’m afraid you’re missing the point. This challenge is a design challenge, meaning it challenges the creative aspect of the game. The object of said challenge is to build a Race car, alongside a detailed chassis. The rules are designed to be relaxed so stuff like this can be ‘embraced’ and widen the demographic. As cringe and cliche as it sounds, the point of this challenge is to think outside the box and be as creative as you can. A general objective has been made clear, and it is now up to the entrants to decide how to interpret it.

[moroza]

No, I get the point, I’m just not confusing rules with criteria. So… creativity a judging criterion? Level of detail as well, I assume?

[MustangPorsche67]

Just realized what you meant lol, my bad on that.

A set level of detail is hard to pinpoint exactly, however, you are correct; a chassis, engine, suspension, driveline, and interior are all necessities.

As a detailed chassis is the main objective of the challenge, the goal with the chassis should be to make something as realistic and close to a real life counterpart as possible to fit whatever kind of vehicle you wind up making.

Hope this helps

[AMuteCrypt]

What will the 15 points be given for? What’s the overall balance?

Is it “5 points for creativity, 5 points for detail, 5 points for realism”? Is it “10 points for creativity, 5 for detail”? Is it just “15 points overall based on how much you like it”? What are the actual criteria for how points are gained and lost?

Do you care about how likely it is that the car as presented would work? Are you going to perform full, rigorous Finite Element Analysis, for instance? Probably not. Do you just care about it looking like it might work? Do you care about it just looking good?

I’d recommend taking a look at how the criteria are laid out in other challenges. There’s multiple systems in use for challenges:

• List things in different groups based on importance, like Automation Team Challenge, Automation Game Challenge, Journey of Ownership Challenge and most other challenges.
• List a bunch of equally important things, like Themed Design Challenge.
• List a bunch of different areas along with how many points they’re each worth, like Cool Wall.

Note that, in many of these challenges, where a point is subjective - like “realism” or “design” - it’ll be elaborated upon further.

In addition… Are you specifically looking for a car with a space frame? According to the rules and criteria as written, there’s not really much of an issue with a straightforward, simple ladder chassis or with a stressed monocoque where most of the chassis is just panels… But you’ve implied that you want a space frame, with the inspirations, the way you discourage skateboard battery platforms (which actually take effort to design in a realistic manner, because any battery which can store a lot of power is actually a bomb) and the comment about frame rails and a roll cage not yielding particularly good results.

While I believe anyone can improve their skills and be great at running challenges, there is a certain expectation that hosts should be able to communicate what they want upfront. When your hosting history consists of one challenge abandoned without notice, you tend attract a higher level of scrutiny.

[ErenWithPizza]

More spam about judging… is it more about how the car supposedly works or how it looks? As in I make a 800 cc i2 turbo hydrogen hybrid with all the piping and explanations to go with: the exhaust comes from here to turbo which spins the generator that powers the front wheels, or is it more about “v12 good?”