hi,
what other design aspects will be in the game, such as suspension, body?
do you have any screenshots you could show of these other aspects?
I’m not the developer, but AFAIK, there will be car designer, which will contain all these design aspects, excluding engine. And, citing zeussy:
[quote]The flow of the car creator will be similar to the following:
Chassis Type (Ladder, Monoque etc)
Car Base Size (Length, Width)
Wheel Base
Suspension Type, Brakes
Engine, Placement and drive type (FWD, AWD, RWR)
Seat counts and placement
Cargo area size and placement. (Long flat to make sedan, tall short to a make hatch)
Body Choice, from a large set of prefabs, these will have no headlights, handles, fixtures etc. These bodies will have handles on them to manipulate them.
Fixtures (headlights, handles, bumpers, wheels etc) to make your car unique.[/quote]
What is not mentioned in this citation, is the gearbox choosing, which also will be in game.
Internal components other than engine will have simpler designer, just choosing some preset (like 4-speed manual with 2 first gears synchromeshed, in case of gearboxes) and changing some values.
Work on car creator isn’t even started.
But, as I mentioned, I’m not a developer, they’ll explain it better, and propably more correctly.
Yep, that pretty much explains it perfectly.
There is only the engine designer so far, but once that is working well, we will start work on the car designer, and then the business aspects of the game, we’ve done a lot of destign work for the rest of the game already.
We did a proof of concept that our plan for the body designer should work.
The car designer should (we believe) be less work at least from the programming stand point than the Engine Designer.
^^. at least if there are parts of the code that can be reused.
Yeah, we decided to do the engine designer first because A: it makes a cool demo and will get people interested and B: Its probably the hardest and most complex part of the game, best to get it done early 
Makes sense. I supopose at least with the bodywork theres no calculations similar to the kind of thing you have to deal with when making accurate bhp/torque values on an engine. Any more info or ideas on the car designer as to whether its going to be a “pick a part mix-n-match” or more of a mould your own idea?
Yes, less calculation of complex and realistic stats, less animation.
It will be kind of a case of pick a part mix and match and then mould it
So you’d pick one of an option of designs for a front wing (for example) and then mould/bend it to your preference? (PS: Make something ford capri based 
)