All of this seemed to go down while I was at work. I just wanted to say however, in addition to making me a better designer, this has also made me a better writer. My lore page was undeveloped and unfocused, more comparing myself to IRL cars, and the bodies that I wanted, rather than what was available, etc. By progressing the story, I became a better writer (at least until I got busy at home).
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Lemme put my two cents in.
Was Leo right in asking for the round to be rerun? No. Its an overreaction imo.
Are the issues he pointed out wrong? No. (apart from maybe the spreadsheet thing idgaf about that really)
First off lets ask why this accident happened on the first place. Leo’s car was put in the upmarket categories because Vic thought it had premium seats. Assuming every other stat was correctly noted down, this would mean Vic entirely bases whether a car is premium or not on what seats it has as opposed to the price or prestige. I can further back this up seeing as two rounds back, my entry, despite being cheaper than even some of the entry level sedans, was put alongside luxury cars, just because I had premium interior. IMO, this is a terrible way of doing it and was bound to lead to someone being put in a market they never intended to compete in. Just think about it, how pissed off would you be if your truck was placed in the upscale class and had to compete with luxury cars? (extreme example but bear with it) You would be pretty pissed off. Even if you would do better in that category as opposed to the one you intended to be in. Which brings me to this point.
So what? Isn’t the entire point of generations to compare cars of the same class? So what if it does shit? That’s happened to me many times and if that car was placed in the wrong category and did better, of course I would pissed. And I’m pretty sure someone else was running this challenge and it happened to you, you would be equally pissed.
Now onto the next point, does this challenge have arbitrary scoring? I would argue yes. Back In round 7, my entry did poorly scoring under 80. Now is that score fair, yes. Was it fair that it was touted to have poor handling, yet had one of the highest driveability in class? No. And just in case anyone thinks I’m just being salty that my car scored poorly, I know it had poor reliability and had mediocre stats else where. What I’m pointing out is that my car had poor handling despite being one of the best on driveability. You know why it was touted as having poor handling? Because a barge had better lateral gs than me entry. If that isn’t arbitrary I don’t know what is. I get that flavour text is needed, but ffs make sure it isn’t something stupid. You could have said it was unreliable, poor value for money, literally anything but poor handling, yet that was what was said. Not only was it wrong, it was misleading. I read the round 7 review on when I was away from my PC, and I assumed that I had lower driveability than the rest, only to find out later it was pretty normal.
Next onto how people minmaxing and using incredibly advanced tech. I know Vic said he cant actually ban people using advanced tech, and I agree. But at least do something more than just “you have to use cars that are old and you cant make totally new cars each round”. That doesn’t solve the issue it hides it under a rug. I’ve already said this, but taking ET into consideration would be a surefire way to mitigate the number of people using highly advanced tech early on. Also handing out more penalties for using vastly advanced tech. IIRC there was only one time where this happened, back when TSR first entered, but nothing else since. I have no doubt that some of the basic cars entered into round 9 had multi point fuel injection, despite the fact that it would have been an incredibly rare sight to see, or in the rounds prior to that using mechanical injection. Point is, not enough is being done to attempt to dissuade those from using really advanced tech in their cars. If nothing is done to change this, I expect to see direct injection being used in early 2000 shitboxes.
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It’s a non-issue really, because the car would have scored so bad anyway. Nobody lost anything, there was only gain for the user submitting the car.
Vic is doing great work managing this competition and mistakes are human. He accepted the mistake. Let’s move on.
Also @Dorifto_Dorito, drivability means how easy the car to drive. Handling might be part of that but it doesn’t need to be. Some older cars were very drivable in every day life, but if you took a corner at 50mph they’d keel over. They had bad high speed handling but were excellent commutors. Likewise an old Cadillac was extremely drivable and luxurious, but handled like a boat.
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Right, I acknowledge Vics done a great job so far, but we all need to acknowledge our flaws and this challenge has some severe ones imo.
EDIT:
Yes this is indeed true, but you have to ask, why do lateral Gs matter in a family sedan in the first place? I don’t think the average Joe buys a family car only to hoon it and take it round the track completely stock. I mean someone does ofc, but 99% of the people who buy family cars dont care about that.
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Dorifto - Thanks for your two cents. After the discussion the other round about people putting unrealistic stuff in their cars, it actually seems to have gotten better, just strictly on an honor system. For the record, the entry level cars this time around were all pretty realistically made as far as engines go. Either carbureted or SPFI. Even several upscale models were carb’ed. And nothing was really out of whack with suspension design on them either.
I’ve been using interior trim to do sorting of sedans for a bit (note: sedans… cars that are clearly sports or utility vehicles get placed in those categories automatically). Size alone can’t determine whether something is entry or upscale. Let’s go back to the 90’s for an IRL example. You could get a big old Pontiac Grand Prix with a really blah interior, basic AM/FM only radio, even crank windows… or you could get a nicely loaded BMW 3-series. Tiny compared to the GP, but also clearly above and beyond with fit and finish and comfort. The 3-series is not an entry level car, and the GP in its base trim is not an upscale car.
I admit fault for classifying his car wrong. As I’ve said already, I probably had the wrong tab in the sheet open and didn’t notice it. I’ll redouble my efforts to check before recording each individual entry. But even with standard/standard in his interior, his prestige and comfort numbers were high enough that they didn’t seem out of place in the upscale category. So even using a number threshold would not have stopped the error in this particular case.
It’s not unusual for me to get a car that does legitimately belong in two different categories, and I end up having to make a choice as to where it goes. This is usually when someone offers something that would in reality be a luxury coupe.
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pretending not to read anything above
also i’m way too late as this is for the last round and not this round. but life happens and i haven’t got anything done so far
GREHET SUPREMACY
The Future is Now Here
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Also, I see it like this, in the limited universe of Automation, there is hard to get a completely fair category system. In the real world there’s no way that a Porsche 959 would have been compared to a base level Chevy Camaro of the same year, or that a Suzuki Samurai and a minivan would have been competitors. But then, for them tons of cars are tested every year, here it is only one model each from a very limited amount of manufacturers, if there would be loads of categories most of them would maybe hold only one or two cars…and almost everyone would be “best in class”. Not much point of competition then.
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Go drive in Texas sometime. 
Did I start a trend?
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You’ve started a good thing
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It was inevitable that I would take a jab at Caliban at some point, but yeah I think you prompted me to finally do it. Thanks!
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Haha, wonderful, I love advertising battles…
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Having read all of that, it tells you have clearly misjudged where I’m coming from. I don’t care for winning or losing - if I were id be min maxxing my cars all the way through, instead I’m sticking to suboptimal choices, old engines and fairly low tech.
The problem I’m having, which I had discussed with vic in private before and not gotten a satisfactory answer, and that I have discussed with others in private too, is how the buyers preferences seem to change without any indication of the trends. I disagree with the system currently available in the game, where each target market gets a specific score which tells you how well a car does. However, knowing which trends are being more valued by the market is something car companies know and have information on.
On the topic of calculations, of course the challenge has numbers spit out of a spreadsheet, and it is possible to automate such a process, as me and others have done before. I was offering this method which would take only the time required to transcribe the stats so vic could make better use of his own time.
Just, to finish off, I love how I was called rude despite being extremely polite. Yet people cheer and like a post with a snarky remark and suggesting I’m not welcome. But whatever.
Carry on.
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Moar smol cheep carz!
The late 1970s were a trying time for all US automakers, Fenton Holdings included. When the Winthrop first came out in 1979, it got caught flat footed on the economy front with a V6 engine. Though still quite economical, the next generation of imports were better. Initial sales were lower than expected.
The bulk of the effort that went into the car after 1979 was to do one thing - make it sip gas. Most of the remaining effort went into quality engineering thanks to the horrible experiences that were the 2nd gen FHL S-bodies. The result by 1988 was a car that got 28 US mpg and that they confidently offered a warranty of 5 years or 50,000 miles, whichever came first.
1988 being the last year for the 1st generation Winthrop, it was a somewhat dated design but was not going down without a fight against newer cars on the market. And it had one thing that patriotic buyers would spring for - it was American.
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To the neutral observer you were not friendly. You strongly demanded a complete redo for a silly mistake in a competion that you couldn’t win and where you don’t care you win. It’s good you flagged it and Vic should take measures to prevent it. Your other points on trends and scoring might be valid - although for me buyer preference in each era seems fairly obvious and Vic seems to following historical trends and realism. The score you get is - correct me if I’m wrong - an indication of how you score relative to competitors, and not an absolute score standing separate. And you basically threw a fit when you didn’t get what you wanted. And then you try to get the moral high ground.
Friendliness is more than not cussing at someone.
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Has anyone actually read and properly understood Leo and Vic’s original disagreement? Because this just seems to be descending into a petty debacle of who agrees with who.
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