Given that comfort and drivability are 4-star priorities, while reliability is a 5-star priority, balancing all three may come down to transmission choice - a manual trades drivability and comfort for better reliability, while it’s the other way around for an automatic (advanced or not). With this in mind, should anything with a manual transmission receive a multiplier for drivability and comfort, for balance reasons?
Fuel economy will also suffer with an auto, which is a 5 star priority, and I guess an advanced auto will eat a bit into the budget in this era, not being the most viable choice. I can fiddle a bit with the test mules and see, but preliminarily I don’t think transmission modifiers will be needed.
CVT gives me mad amounts of comfort, drivability, and it also significantly lowers the fuel consumption. I feel like CVT in 1986 is too much cheese so I’d consider adding modifiers for CVT or just outright banning it.
CVTs were used around that time so why is this too much cheese?
CVTs did exist back then but they were very uncommon. None of the cars in the inspirations were offered a with CVT.
Let me do a comparison
Drivability with 5-speed manual: 54,7
Drivability with CVT: 60,7
Comfort with 5-speed manual: 20,6
Comfort with CVT: 26,6
That is nearly 11% raise in comfort and over 29% raise in comfort. And the overall price with CVT is only $120, or 1,2% higher. It is definitely overpowered.
I looked this up when contemplating if I should use one. While the pioneering VarioMatic CVT was indeed in use in small 300-series Volvos (as inherited from DAF) around that time, it was basically an older style with rubber belts and even more severely limited power tolerance than the style used these days.
That is not the self-contained, steel-belt CVT used in real-life cars; those were introduced a year later than this challenge, in 1987, specifically for supermini-style cars like the Ford Fiesta and Fiat Uno of the day.
Knugcab admittedly probably knows a LOT more about the Variomatic style than I do, including whether or not it’s fine to consider equivalent to the in-game CVT.
Advanced auto and to an even larger extent CVT feels like the elephant in the room at the moment. I’ll come back with an answer later. I see that there is at least one entry built with a CVT, and well, this is why you shouldn’t hurry to build cars during the rules delib I guess.
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I’m feeling very confident about my entry 
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Since I am a bit short time to check some things out, I will lengthen the rules delib to friday. Yes, a very selfish move but I feel that I need to check the gearbox thing out better before I can decide something, and I don’t really have that much time now.
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While not having the time yet to check stuff out, what I am leaning towards is to give CVTs a price penalty that would require you to skimp on other stuff in a budget as tight as this. Opinions?
If a CVT were to be treated as an extra-cost option (whose price would be added to the car’s initial approximate cost) for balancing reasons, then why not do the same for an advanced (rather than regular) automatic gearbox? And if so, by how much should they increase the price (if fitted)? I’d suggest $200 for an advanced automatic and $500 for a CVT.
Given how much CVT boosts stats, I think the price penalty should be more than $500.
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I’m not sure if that’s realistic, CVTs were pretty cheap to make, maybe just reduce the stats that CVT gives (drivability, comfort, and MPG)
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I personally would lower drivability and reliability of a car with cvt on the basis that early ones were prone to breaking and people hated driving with them (that’s what I’ve heard anyway)
I’m not Knugcab and I am not trying to take over hosting this challenge, however I’ll just offer you my two and a half cents.
A price penalty is much easier for the host as opposed to a set % penalty to certain stat(s). Instead of just adding a set amount of dollars to the final price, the host has to calculate how much the, let’s say 10% penalty is to that given stat. That will mean that reviews take longer, since the percentage penalty will need to be calculated individually for each car.
With all that being said, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
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Yes, Hilbert is right here.
Not everything is about realism. If a technology in game gives unrealistic numbers for its era, the “realistic” thing would be to ban it TBH.
Recalculating stats is out of the question. The idea with a CVT price penalty is not to bump up the price, it is about having to sacrifice stuff to be able to put in a CVT at the same price point, making the car shittier overall. So if you still want a CVT, you will be able to put one in, but with sacrifices on other points, meaning that you can’t make the super-meta-perfect car with both a CVT and everything else you want.
I am too tired to explain, but I hope this makes sense.
8 Likes
So here’s a Question. would an offset of quality work?
Example -5 for advanced autos and -10 for CVT to make them era correct less reliable?
I’m not trying to waste your time just curious on built in solutions
With the minimum and maximum wheelbase limits set at 2.40m and 2.60m exactly, is this body set eligible for use in this challenge? I’m sure it is.
Never mind the fact that its default unlock year is 1989 (3 years after the required trim/variant year for this challenge), I think it looks modern enough for the era.
Yes it is, as long as you have boy TP enough to unlock it.
