Thomas is 30 years old and wants to buy himself something new. Being 30 and now ultimately old means also that Thomas priorities have shifted. An used sports or luxury car can be kept alive by him, but - the women his age are more impressed by something practical, modest and reliable. Also, Thomas wants to have a car that just works. No more fixing junk - Thomas wants to found a family and therefore spend his time wise, now that he enjoyed his youth a lot and is ready for the next chapter.
I will frown at full cast iron constructions, but they are not binned - still, an iron head was an odd thing back then for that type of car.
SOHC or DOHC valvetrain
minimum horsepower 100, maximum 200 (keep it sane!)
WES 8 (good luck trying without converter!)
Premium fuel was well accepted for performance engines in the early 90s, unleaded of course
Car:
Hatchback body, three or five doors
Model year 1983-1993
Trim year 1993
Five seaters only
max. weight: 1300 kg, minimum weight 850 kg
FWD only
Medium compound tires
Techpool: 47 Million total, these cars were made by mass manufactors and not by some shed with wooden frames somewhere in England, so a generous TP is alright. For Al Rilma, the TP is fixed, it is +6 on everything except turbos, where it is +3 to not disadvantage NA builds.
I will come to the maximum price later.
Naming convention HH16V-Username for model and family
PRIORITIES
Very high:
Design - Thomas wants a car that he likes to look at when washing it by hand.
Drivability - Thomas wants to let the girls he dates do the drive home when he is drunk, and he does not believe in others being such a good driver as he is. Plus, Thomas is way too old now to have to deal with sketchy handling, it´s no more fun.
High:
Sportiness: Thomas wants fun on a twisty country road. Period!
Reliability: Being a mechanic means he already fixes cars 40 hours a week for a living, and now that he developed boredom and routine in his job, he can do without having to repair cars in his spare time. Since these cars are mostly proven mass-model technology, Thomas will expect that the car isn´t a diva and absolutely avoid something that is below average here.
Economy: Thomas wants to keep the car long and drive it a lot. So a gas guzzler would make him look for something else. There is a reason why he dumps his old six cylinder Primus.
Price: Thomas is not afraid to use up the budget, but if a bargain delivers really good value, he will definitely visit the dealer.
Medium
Comfort - Thomas back is heavily used at work, and the car must be a pleasant daily driver and also do the holiday trips. A prison bunk bed is out of the choice.
Practicality - Thomas might become a father sooner or later with his frequent dating activity. Buying a new car again is not useful when paying alimony.
Prestige - Thomas used to drive old large sedans or sports cars with some power to show off. Although he has outgrown that habit, he wants to …uuh, not extend, but not shrink a body part in the lower front of him with his new ride.
Service cost: Thomas is a mechanic, yes, but I need that stat for balancing NA and Turbos.
Low:
Environmental resistance: This exists to not be flooded with Astra GSI by you.
Safety: Euro NCAP became suddenly aware to the public, and deathtraps were called out as such. Needless to say, Thomas does not want to sit in one.
NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT!
I run the challenge on both stable and open beta. You are allowed have ONE ENTRY, depending on what version you are. So, this is basically two challenges with the same brief. Al Rilma cars are not judged against Ellisbury cars, of course.
But when checking the test mules (see them above) I found that Al Rilma cars are inferior. So, to have at least a good chance to compare the stats of the performance, I hereby set the price limit to
20.000 for Al Rilma and 18.500 for Ellisbury. Yep, Thomas is a damn cheaptard because he spends it all on beer.
NA test mule: Primus Persua GT, 1.8 16V, 120 hp. Cheap dirt for being a Primus…
I doubt that any of these cars came with what we’d call Medium-compound tires. Should be Sport or Hard IMO. Or better yet, unrestricted, and let the consequences of semislicks play out in the stats and reviews. I’d also ditch the weight restrictions.
As far as I remember, at least the German manufactors didnt use high end tires. Well, they were rarely generous at all. But sports compound tires is what you would propably find on a 911 or 535i at that time.
For the weight rule… May I ask why it should be deleted?
I see medium and sport tires as comparably “ranked”, just with different purposes. Medium might be Pirelli P7 while Sport would be P-Zero or such. Cheap tires should be Hard/longlife.
I argue against weight restrictions because neither a buyer nor a regulation bureaucracy would impose such a constraint (apart from keeping weight below commercial truck levels). Similarly with wheelbase; how many real-world buyers use that as a criterion? I’d instead suggest an ideal range, and let the consequences of going outside it play out naturally.
Maybe I am drifting offtopic now, but I agree on wheelbase rules being a weird way to determine the size. However, it is the only way that is not awkward to the player, if you want some form of size regulations, since I was once in a challenge that had actual length restrictions and I had to start building on three different bodies before I found one I could make short enough. Considering how annoying that was, I will never go that way with the ruleset.
if I had a note, I might require people put “STABLE” or “ALPHA” somewhere in the naming convention rules similar to how other challenges ran on both versions of the game have, it reduces confusion on your part
For the tech pool, it seems the update after I did the TvS challenge broke it even more. So I will likely switch to a fixed TP for Al Rilma entrants. I assume +5 for all areas should be the equivalent to 40M of Ellisbury, correct? I cant look it up since I am already packing some stuff to leave home for a few days since an emergency forces me to.
At the moment I see no alternative to the default sandbox TP. Ellisbury users can distribute freely then. Its about time for another bugfix patch for the Open Beta as it seems.
Since everything on +6 gives a TP of 48,6 Million, (and everything +6 except for turbo, that being +3, a total of 47M. Therefore I would rise the TP to 47M also for the Ellisbury cars.
Now my questions:
Is everyone ok with having the fixed TP in Al Rilma at everything except turbos being +6 and Turbos being +3? This is made out of balancing to give turbos not a huge advantage, since those building NA cars can not use the TP budget for something else.
Since the different price limits remain for competetiveness between the game version for statistical questions, is everyone ok with the TP for Ellisbury being raised accordingly to 47M?
I have heard of some people building fat ass cars that struggle with the weight limit. The Golf, not really being a lightweight at all, was 1165 kg - I thought 1250 are enough. Buuuut, I would alter it to 1300 kg. But then it´s really the borderline for what to consider a hot hatch. I did that weight limit to ensure the cars live the hot hatch spirit, and I think a wheelbase limit would just limit body selection and creativity.
I thought about adding safety as low priority. In the early 90s, EuroNCAP came up and caused massive debates, making cars from the early 90s onwards a lot safer than before. I think the older ones among us can remember. Is there anything to speak against that addition?
If there is no profound protest/argumenting against it, this will then be the final ruleset.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think those rule modifications are pretty reasonable. Regarding the weight limits, I imagine that anything in that “heavier than 1.25t, lighter than 1.3t” range will be automatically balanced out by either lacking acceleration compared to the smaller cars, or just being more expensive in general.
I think part of what is causing weights to be high is not allowing the rear seats to be + seats. Especially on lightweight hatches, the rear seats tend to be on the less functional side. A 5 door hatch might get closer to full 3 seats in the rear, but 3 door hatches definitely not. They don’t even always have 3 seatbelts. Even stuff like my capri(premium version of the 3 door hatchback foxbody mustang) have what i would consider 2 full seats at best and closer to +3 in actuality(or +2 since only 2 seatbelts).
My father has the optional back seat in his R129 Mercedes SL, and there we can really talk about a “+" seat, fitting there as an adult is just a nightmare. A 90s Golf or Astra is like a stretch limo if you compare it to that. And there rarely were any differences in rear seat space between the 3 and 5 door models, they kept the same body shape for the most part, just with longer doors on the 3 door models.
Keep in mind that before the arms race started with soccer moms being hysterical that anything smaller than a 2 tonne SUV would kill their kids in a fender bender, cars in this class were just regular family transportation in Europe.
