It has been 5 months since you participated in the Powerful American Insanity National. You have still not recovered from the trauma you experienced during that one race, even after countless amounts of therapy. You’re currently taking a long break from motorsports, desperately hoping to keep your mind off of it.
But then, you see a mysterious letter in your mailbox:
Your intrusive thoughts immediately take over, and now you’re fully committed to entering this other mysterious event which is definitely not affiliated with the guys behind PAIN. You cancel all your future therapy appointments, otherwise you’d be taking money away from a brand new race car. There is no turning back now; you’re already gravitating towards the race like a cartoon character floating towards a pie. Help.
Welcome to ZERC, the next chapter of Autobeam insanity. This time, it’ll be so random, that even I don’t know what to expect yet.
This time, there are 2 car classes to choose from; a more restrictive road car but with a greater budget, or a less restrictive race car but on a tighter budget.
The cars will then be taken through a series of randomly decided tracks, which have yet to be decided just to add to the anticipation.
RULES
Both
- No year restrictions, and engine variant and car trim year don’t have to match
- Tire profile must be at least 30 or the tires will burst in beam
- Any aero fixtures must be visible on the exterior of the car, and not stacked in one area
- Open wheel mod bodies are banned
- Must comply to one of two rulesets listed below
Road Rage
- Max budget: $50k
- At least 2 front seats
- No parts with “race” in their name (this means semi-slicks are allowed)
- Quality sliders no lower than -2
- At least any standard form of safety at 0 quality
- Max loudness: 62
- No more than super unleaded/leaded fuel (98 RON)
- Minimum +5% gearbox reliability
- Minimum 20 comfort, -.2 for each year before 2020 (for a reference point, this would be 14 in 1990) calculator if it’s still to hard to figure out
- No more than 5% engine stress on a component (this includes power density)
- Must comply with emissions standards based on the car’s trim year:
- Pre-1976: no requirements
- 1976-1991: WES 6
- 1992-1996: WES 7
- 1997-2000: WES 8
- 2001-2004: WES 9
- 2005-2008: WES 10
- 2009≤: WES 11
- This might blow you the fuck away, but it’s probably impossible to meet them without a catalytic converter before you ask
Track Attack
- Max budget: $40k
- At least any basic form of safety at 0 quality
- Any tire type is allowed (even non-race tires) except soft or drag tires
- Any fuel type is allowed except methanol or nitromethane
- No more than 10% engine stress on a component (this includes power density)
- Minimum +3% gearbox reliability
What the FUCK is gearbox reliability you may ask?
this number right here
make sure it’s above the minimum requirement and you’re good
Description Modifier (singular)
If you go to the description box (in the testing tab) of your car and enter these following phrases, it will affect your car in beam in the ways described. Here are the rules regarding them:
!ev!: allowed since the torque curves don’t suck and range anxiety isn’t a concern anymore. Still, make sure to properly tune the gears for Beam, since this is still an experimental feature.
Techpool
- The sum of both engine and car techpool must not exceed $30M, and don’t set any of the techpool values to a negative number. They should not go any lower than 0. Yes, it’s just 2 numbers to add, but if I get ANY complaints that this is too much work, I swear I will fucking lose it.
(just add these 2 numbers together)
examples of what not to do
Advanced Trim
- No settings that change the size of the wheels (wheel width, diameter, etc)
- No lowering the suspension
- Wheel offset is only allowed if it is necessary to fix fitment that the actual offset can’t
- Wheelbase adjustment is only allowed if needed (centering the wheels in the arch, moving the arch, etc)
- Anything else is allowed, but if you need an exemption to anything above, just ask
Submissions
- Submissions close 2024-02-02T04:59:00Z
- Model name: ZERC - (your name here)
- All other fields are free, but make sure to specify which class your cars are in when submitting
- Each person is allowed to submit up to 2 cars.
- You can resubmit as much as you want until 24 hours before the deadline, when at that point you get one last resubmission, then it’s final. I won’t tell you if your car has broken a rule or not, so make sure to double check.
The Racing Part
Now for when the chaos really kicks off. The cars will be taken across 6 randomly selected courses of almost any type, including real circuits, rally stages, and street races, just to name a few.
All together, there are over 400 tracks to be chosen, so good luck trying to make any kind of prediction on what to expect. The least I can provide is the full track list, but don’t expect this to be much help.
Again, I’ll be driving the cars, but you’re allowed to as well; this time it should be much much easier to do so. If you can beat the time I set on a track with your car, it’ll count. You have until I finish every run to do so, but I’d still prefer if I knew if you want to do your own driving in advance.
Guidelines in case you want to drive your own car for the challenge
- To start, either go to the time trial section of the main menu and select the required map and time trial selected, or open the map in free roam and find the marker with the trial there to begin the time trial.
- Record your best lap and trim it from the starting countdown to the end results screen showing your final time.
- Make sure to abide by the track limits. This will usually be at least 2 wheels on the track, but sometimes this can differ.
- Send me a video of the lap in whatever way possible. It has to be a full video; just a screenshot of your time will not count.
Scoring
The position a car finished in each race will be added together to its score, with 1st place being equivalent to the total number of entries, then going down by 1 for each position.
Your car’s aesthetics score will improve your final score by 0.5% for each number higher it is, with a max possible of 5%.
NOTES
- The cars will be exported with every option checked except for Expand Body Bounds so this doesn’t happen.
- Most cars should drive fine in beam, but if you are really unsure if it will implode or not (I get it), you can send it to me early to test it.
- Try to make your car not die on every single corner. If I struggle with it too much, I might just give up and bin it.
- Engineering won’t be scored. Since there are 2 different classes to compare and there isn’t much point of a starting score now, the starting order will be randomized for each round.
- I finally got a wheel, and will use it for this challenge. Now you can physically harm me by ripping my arms off with force feedback too immense to handle! Yay!!11!
- If you car is a complete shitbox and I get a track that is way too long, I have full rights to refuse to drive it.
INSPIRATIONS
Mercedes-AMG GT-R
Nissan GT-R Nismo
Porsche 911 Dakar
Rivian R1T
Saab Aero X
BMW XM
Lamborghini Diablo
Ferrari 512 S Modulo
Mega Track
Audi Sport Quattro
Porsche 935/78
Ford Mustang GT4
Toyota GR Yaris Rally1
Lancia Delta S4
Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak
WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETERRRRRRRRRRRR
Mercedes-Benz T80
Chaparral 2J
Dymaxion
Benz Patent Motorwagen
BelAZ 75710
NASA Crawler-Transporter
Changelog
- added more “inspiration”
- added a comfort caluclator
- made techpool rules a bit clearer with just a slight amount of emphasis
