Time Trial Competition – Car Submissions OPEN until the 29th!
Remember to check your Quality Bonus on the website under the “Factory Cars” tab—some cars have had their bonuses updated. These changes occur either due to updates in the calculation system or shifts in shares caused by new car entries.
For your Competition Car, you can use all quality sliders up to the number assigned to the Factory Car. Doing so, especially for the engine, will allow you to push the settings further.
Right now, I’m sitting at the table having a serious conversation with Tati, Benny, and Rusty about their recent insubordinations and salary raise requests as we work on finalizing the blog post.
Yes, it’s a big one—massive, even. I know most of you will probably skip straight to your own car’s review (and hey, no judgment there), but it’s out there for all to see!
Just a heads-up: the cars are ranked by sales, from lowest to highest, so if you’re not seeing your ride right away, keep scrolling.
Putting this together takes a lot of effort, and despite our best attempts, me and the AI team still manage to slip up here and there. But hey, as AI continues to improve, the process should get better… though I can’t make the same promises about myself.
A quick preview of our next competition! The lap wasn’t the cleanest, and I still need to tweak the graphics, but one step at a time. I’m facing a bit of a dilemma, though. I know your cars are going to be faster, but as you’ve probably noticed, a lap around the Automation Track takes roughly 3 minutes. While I’ve had my fair share of experience with both real-life race cars and sims, quickly adapting to new cars has never been my strong suit.
Since these cars will handle completely differently, there’s a significant risk that if I only do one lap, I might make mistakes—or worse, crash one of your masterpieces. On the other hand, if I try to do too many laps, it wouldn’t just take a really long time—it would take forever.
Here’s what I’m thinking: I could do 3 laps per car. The first lap would be about getting a feel for the handling, the second lap would be a more conservative attempt at completing a clean run, and the third lap would be all-out, pushing as hard as possible (and possibly crashing).
But as excited as I am to see even an earnest attempt at this, I have to be honest, that the state of Autobeam exports - especially with the “latest and greatest” (cough) version 0.34, which I tried last night and promptly reverted to 0.27 - is discouraging. A straight line haul is one thing, but this drives like it looks, and I’m running into dead ends trying to improve it:
I even got the steering wheel to work. I truly appreciate that the developers took the time to add this functionality… but how hard can it be to code it as “this rotates around an axis, end of story”? It wobbles like a jellyfish.
On a cool seasons morning 2 cars showed up. One making quite a loud jarring noise, while another was more refined. It seems that 2 long time competitors were finally getting along, they even have similar numbers! I’m sure the second they get on the track that will change, but here’s hoping!
You can’t change the body, but adjustments can be made through the Advanced Trim Aesthetic Setting under the Fixtures tab, as I believe you’ve done before. Be cautious, though. Automation seems quite concerned about any changes made in this area.
Future plans involve the release of variations, like @Kreator did, but for now I need you to keep it simple.
