This should be interesting to most of you, in today’s Little Dev Update I go down the list of planned changes to the car designer for the next big update.
Note that there is a lot more than “just” what is mentioned in the video. Discuss below!
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Biggest issue I don’t see on the list is probably revisiting the effect of the torque curve on drivability. I know I’ve brought it up before but essentially modern turbos with a sharp rise and wide flat torque peak are heavily penalized for drivability when they shouldn’t be in real life. And extending the redline past the horsepower peak also hurts drivability. My suggestion was, instead of fitting a line between the very start and end of the curve, fit it between some common driving RPMs. This could be taken from, say, the average cruising RPM and the peak HP RPM.
Also as I brought up in my other thread, I think the whole practicality vs. prestige dichotomy doesn’t really make sense; it should be practicality vs. sportiness. You said in the video that you’ll probably make doors not affect prestige - good - but why should seats or cargo space affect prestige either? Luxury cars need plenty of seats and big trunks; it’s the sports cars which can be lacking in those regards.
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I like a lot of what I’m seeing here - especially: Hooray for more separated demographics! I generally can’t wait for the v3 campaign.
@phale I can actually understand the drivability penalty on turbos. I’ve driven a BMW 530d (E39) a couple of times and it had a huge torque cliff around 1700rpm which I, being a low-end driver, found extremely annoying, as it forced me to rev it to close to 3000rpm (in a diesel, mind you) in 1st and 2nd to avoid that power jerk. I guess it depends on driving style whether this will just never bother you or annoy you all the time, so for a big numbers based average, I think a penalty is in place. I do agree on the practicality vs prestige vs sportiness thing, though.
Not bad changes, but I’ll wait for morph saving when changing variants too. Sometimes bringing up exact same morphs (because they reset) is quite problematic.
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You should tell the owner to change the turbocharger’s geometry actuator, it seems… The thing usually pulls pretty evenly from idle up to some 4200, at which point it gives up on producing power at all. I’ve driven numerous m57 diesels and they all have a good and fairly smooth torque curve down low and don’t require to go over 2300-2500 ever to be driven.
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I agree with maybe showing the diff/transaxle ratio (for real world rebuilds), but can’t see any benefit to having all of the gear ratios. All in all, they’re not hard to figure out and even a really picky type would only need to see the top gear (be it overdrive or direct) ratio… unless they’re like UBER passionate about accuracy (I know they’re on the forum somewhere). Just my 2 cents.
I’ve added the torque curve effects to the list, the revving past peak power definitely should not affect drivability negatively.
The practicality vs. prestige dichotomy you speak of will be looked at, but my argument here is that things with little to no purpose are the most prestigious things, because only those with the means can afford to own such a thing. If you have a good counter argument to that I’m all ears. 
That makes sense, but only for the most extreme markets - particularly hypercars. It doesn’t really make any sense to penalize the prestige of big sedans and SUVs in the premium and luxury markets. As I said in the other thread, it results in the best luxury cars (which value prestige 30% and practicality 0.2%) being mid-engined two-seaters. Is a Rolls-Royce a worse luxury car than a McLaren because it has a big trunk and rear seats? Would chopping off the trunk of a Rolls-Royce make it more desirable? According to the current dichotomy, the answer is yes.
Changing the dichotomy to practicality vs sportiness makes so much more sense for other demographics as well. For instance, Light Sport values sportiness over prestige, while Muscle values prestige over sportiness. So naturally a Light Sport should have less practicality (Lotus) while a Muscle should have more practicality (Challenger). Currently the best way to make a muscle car is to have as few seats, doors, and cargo space as possible, which is the opposite of real life.
In real life, I think it’s far easier to build a car that has lots of practicality and prestige (look at all the luxury SUVs on the market today) than a car that has lots of practicality and sportiness. And when you have something like a BMW M3, people will always want to buy a BMW M4 which is identical except that is has two fewer doors - not because it’s more prestigious, but because it’s more sporty. An SL-class is not more prestigious than an S-class, but it’s certainly a lot more sporty.
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Fair points! I’ll consider that. Thank you.
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It’s pretty late reply but the sl vs s class comparison. Cl is an s coupe, and it is more prestigious