Any reason for the price penalty for an inline 6 engine? I would have thought that many cars that have V8 as higher trim options would include an inline 6 as a base level engine.
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To improve parity with the V6. The de rigueur engine lineup for the segment would have been a base I4 and an optional V6, the Cherokee itself being the notable exception with its I6. In Automation, the I6 is cheaper than the V6, but in real applications, V6s are often less expensive to the manufacturer to produce thanks to the packaging flexibility allowing them to amortize the production costs across a lot more vehicles/platforms. Given the I6’s massive smoothness advantage as well, reducing if not eliminating its cost advantage over the V6 feels appropriate.
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Give me imperial units on measurements so there is no ambiguity
Will you care about utility brake fade? Because that’s a thing that is generally totally bonkers on a high vehicle with leaf springs, if you don’t want to have a silly maximum payload you have to make the springs soft as sponges, if you have decent spring rates you need brakes that would be unrealistic for the era and car type if you don’t want huge amounts of utility brake fade.
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I would like to know if it’d be possible to apply faux diesel rules here— many of the cars mentioned in the inspirations (especially the Japanese ones) could be had with 4cyl turbodiesels, after all.
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Does this mean that having solid front and rear axles will incur a $1.5k AMU rebate (subtracted from the car’s base price), even if the rear solid axle is coil-sprung? I’m sure it does.
In any case, you’re making the right decision in making every rear suspension type other than a leaf-sprung solid rear axle an extra-cost option (whose cost will be added to the car’s base price) for balancing reasons. However, given that a 4x4 drivetrain behaves identically to a RWD one when not engaged, it’s not surprising that it isn’t a no-cost option, whereas an AWD system is.
Also, I’m sure that “standard unleaded” refers to regular (91RON/87AKI) unleaded, and the wheelbase rounding refers to the nearest 0.1m.
Anyway, this is reminiscent of what JOC6C would’ve looked like if it were set in 1990.
not the host, but just my two cents - with how limiting the ruleset already is, particularly for a QFC, i would think faux diesels are better left off the table, makes it easier for everyone.
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How I’m reading it is: Rear solid axle coil is +$2500, but then if the front axle is solid too it’s -$1500, for a net increase of +$1000.
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Are convertibles allowed?
Globus Montana
Offroad cars are thirsty, dull, cramped and hard to drive?
This might be the truth to some extent, but Globus provides an all-terrain vehicle that suits daily driving for a price not higher than a midsize sedan.
The new Montana is the swiss knife, but made here in America.
Available are the trims LE, LS, LX and LT, and three engines from four to six cylinders, suiting any budget and driving profile.
Globus. Buy clever, regret never.
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I understand all these, these makes sense.
Even these, although I don’t understand why not allow hard long life tires? It’s a family oriented car after all. However…
Why? Why is there a minimum tire diameter? What? Wheel diameter sort of makes sense, although I would ditch it.
This is what my car looks like with 685 tire diameter and 15" rims. It barely fits in the wheelwell. They are cartoonishly large. Why not just leave the tire diameter up to the contestant? I don’t think QFC should have such restrictive rules. The entire challenge is literally just “make me a Jeep Cherokee” right now.
I don’t think this refers to the body’s actual wheelbase, but the value shown in the body set and body style choice tabs. For example:
This body set has a 2.85m wheelbase, which, when rounded to the nearest 0.1m, equates to 2.9m (0.1m above the maximum); however, the thumbnail lists a value of 2.8m, so should I trust that instead? In any case, I understand why there is a minimum wheelbase limit, but should the maximum wheelbase limit be increased? If not, I’ll be happy for the latter to remain as it is.
At any rate, in addition to reminding me of JOC6C, this QFC has elements of Road Kings, but set at the very start of the decade immediately before the one that RK took place in.
Alright, let me get this straight…
Prepare for some rants.
Oh boy.
That’s such a tiny window. At this point you might as well give a list of approved bodies, it’s so narrow. Maybe open that up a bit.
I beg your pardon? 4WD? This has already been a point of question lately. There is no 4WD in Automation right now. Is this meant to mean 4x4? Is this the “custom” description of AWD with extra cost?
You want a “family oriented” SUV… without family oriented tires? I find that hardly makes sense. Do you want an off-roader that doubles as a family car, or a family car that doubles as an off-roader?
Okay, what the hell is this? Now you’re just copying spec sheet data, aren’t you? Is this a design challenge or a replica one? Why is this even a rule?
Quick edit P.S: Just give us profile regulations or something. People do that. But I find that almost too much for a QFC.
…if you’re going base-spec and can get away with manual steering, does this really matter? Just let people make this decision themselves and judge it accordingly. C’mon. Splitting hairs here.
Why are you even specifying this? How does one even make something take this long 0-60 mph without seriously underpowering a brick with a traditional slushbox or something?
Okay, what…? What the [censored word] is this, dude? You’re upcharging for COILS? By 2.5K?! Who the hell is using multilink here anyway? Why does wishbone cost 6K?! That’s enough to buy half of some entire cars. And that upcharge for AWD? Why are you upcharging for 6-cylinders? And failing to even acknowledgeV6s with it, too? What’s even the goal here??? Again, is this a challenge to MAKE A CAR or are you just telling everyone to make an off-label Cherokee???
You could also just… make the budget tighter…? And ditch these ridiculous surcharges entirely? I think if I were a new player in challenges like I was back with my first QFC, which I tried because of how approachable it was, I’d be much more frustrated to be binned not for “unrealistic choices,” but because some normal enough choices somehow got me binned because my tires were just randomly considered too small, or I decided to have STA in the back and the MASSIVE PRICE JUMP made me go overbudget. Really, what is the point here???
This is meant to be QFC… if your goal is to turn people away quick-fire style, you might be on to something. Otherwise, I’d suggest reevaluating this jumbled and needlessly complex ruleset. Sorry if some of it comes across as harsh, but this all just rubbed me wrong and I needed to say it.
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You have a point - adding too many restrictions to this QFC has made it too much like a CSR, which is a longer-form challenge with a greater focus on realism, and hence less beginner-friendly by comparison. Removing (or relaxing) some of those restrictions could make this round more in keeping with the original purpose of QFC - a CSR-like challenge with shorter submission periods and generally looser rule sets.
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The brief should have imperial units for everything but tire width now
No, that statistic is really strange right now. Utility as a whole, unfortunately, is not in a state where I want to take its score into account.
I’d rather not dive into trying to fidangle a ruleset for rake diesels. It is too easy to accidentally make them completely useless or completely OP.
GassTiresandOil got it right; if both axles are solid but rear axle is coil sprung, it is a net increase of $1000.
Yeah, some of the SUV bodies have a lot of convertible variants, feel free. I won’t be making any adjustments to their stats to compensate though.
Part of the theme of the challenge is that certain parameters are locked in to be close to what was used in this class of vehicle at the time. Everything in the segment was in this range of diameter, width between 215 and 245, with 15" or 16" wheels. The upper bound on diameter is generous and I made no upper bound on width.
It is a QFC and an attempt at a different approach than what is typical for these challenges; with certain aspects limited, it is playing with the other options and the fine tuning that will make the difference here.
The rules now go out to two decimal places for wheelbase limits.
Trying something different, and attempting to tackle some of the innate imbalances this game contains in sandbox. IRL, this entire class of vehicles fit within these rules, and as I said, the point of the challenge is to see how well you can work within those parameters. QFC seems to me like a great place to be experimental because it is fast. If you aren’t a fan, the next one won’t be a long wait.
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To be frank, I don’t think it’s working.
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I appreciate the paradigm and I’m not categorically opposed to the restrictions, but some of them seem excessive. I would do away with the wheelbase, power steering, tire type, and tire dimension restrictions altogether. 14" rims should be allowed.
Solid rear axles should not allow any toe or camber.
TP should allow negative values, but I won’t press this issue here.
Coil-sprung solid axle penalty is too steep IMO; $1-1.5k is more reasonable. Monotube dampers also don’t cost anywhere near 1K over twin-tube; more like $200, if that. The AWD penalty is also rather high, especially for 1990 when there was abundant real-world experience with it, and was present on relatively lowly cars (Lada Niva, Subarus, Corolla AllTrac…).
SVC and weight distribution penalties are enough to balance the various 6-cylinders. I would do away with those.
I’m for diesels being options.
I would invite consideration of the relative costs and effects on safety (and the importance assigned to it in scoring) of ladder vs. unibody construction.
I’m not sure about requiring 0 toe angle on solid rear axles - although adjusting rear toe angle with a live axle of any description doesn’t have as much of an effect as an independent setup, it still affects the car’s handling characteristics.
Yes, it has a effect, but it is unrealistic on a non-steering axle. Very minor adjustments can be made on race cars, but this is very hard on bearings and implausible for an OEM to do.
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“4WD” is an informal term usually just equating to 4x4; it’s not rigidly defined as “full-time 4x4”. Whoever told you that it did was mistaken.
As far as I know, this paradox was exactly the norm in the segment at the time - and this is the running moral of the challenge. It adapts a hard-to-simulate market, and the reason it’s hard to simulate is because automation is not entirely objective.
This is, again, an Automation objectivity thing. We know pretty much for a fact that with non-3500+ lbs cars in this game, manual ball steering is just way too good. Donut told me in private conversation that he specifically didn’t want to dole out realism penalties and the like in this round - precisely because it is a QFC.
This is a challenge to make a midsize SUV in 1990. The type of vehicle prevalent in the segment was so uniform that even the Cherokee was actually “revolutionary” in what it was. I also think the surcharges are excessive - but I believe the way to fix the problem isn’t necessarily to remove them, it’s to reduce them and make comfort a lower priority.
For what it’s worth, I think all IRS should have the same penalty - since STA basically didn’t exist even in the crossover segment and incentivizing it here would be unnecessary.
Entries haven’t started. I will definitely contribute unless work swamps me… So don’t write it off because you’re salty your swoopy crossover isn’t what the brief asks for.
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