In Progress Let's Play Automation Car Company Tycoon

[Burning Bridges]

The fastest car ever?

Even though it had been though that the limit of the 4 cylinder is reached, Popamol engineers always manage to find more performance.

Popamol oversquare turbo has now exceeded the power densitiy of the old (long stroke) family, while reliability has been greatly improved (44.6 from ~20).

Computed against the slightly increased weight of the engine, PWR (hp/kg) has reached 7.28 which is the highest value ever, while very good reliability was achieved.

1:37,39

The engine together with a new aerodynamic package improved lap times not only into the 1:38 but low 1:37!!

it also set a new record on the faster airfield track

0:57.09

This will be hard to match for anyone.

We think the 4 cyl turbo is reaching its limit with the RSX 3000, and development has been reduced. Instead efforts will be directed towards production versions that incorporate the great improvements of the race cars.

A RSX street version will be the shit.

Engines

Cars

 

[Burning Bridges]

Turns out someone forgot to set the correct Model year

With the year set to 2018 the time on the automation is actually 1:36,82 which is now putting Popamol Motorsport decisively in the lead again.

Airfield is 0:56,80

That is actually 0.75s faster than what anyone has posted in the Steam thread before. So I think I pretty much realized the full potential of this car now.

I also think that the Folgore 6 cylinder will have to admit defeat, though only slightly and it is still lightyears ahead of the rest of the competition.

But there are structural problems with weight that cannot be overcome, and the lighter car + 4 cylinder turns out to be King. It was still great fun to get so close with the unloved straight 6 cylinder.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I consider the two cars now finished.

I timed them for the last time and achieved pretty spectacular results, especially with the Popamol which thereby holds the record at 1:36,5

LAP RECORDS 2018-06-01

Instead of sperging for hundredth of seconds, it was decided to work on basic research again.

I wrote a lot of crap about V6s and it turns out it was wrong. I received new information from one of the developers that taught me something important: that V6 turbo needs to be treated exactly like an inline 3.

Why? Well if you look at it, it becomes quite obvious.

A V6 is nothing but two inline 3s with 2 turbos at each sides. So apart from minor adjustments, a turbo can simply be scaled up from a i3.

And this had totally eluded me! Instead I had assumed that I should use the same optimal values I had developed for inline 6s. But that is totally wrong, an i3/V6 is optimal at compressor 62, whereas for the inline 6 the compressor went as high as 87.

With the 2 huge compressors instead of 1, the V6 gets a powerband totally skewed to high revs and it also had the largest huge peak power by the way which had pussled me (8:1). Now that totally makes sense. the compressors were completely overkill and began working effectively much too late.

Now with all that finally realized, I could finally think about working on a V6 (and V8).

And the result is very encouraging! In the following table you cab see a completely new engine, the NV6, at the very bottom.

The engine already reaches higher hp/kg and perf/kg than the previously best engine (Popamol RSX 3000). ie theoretically it is the most potent I ever built.

It's just 8 kilogramm heavier than the Popamol but has almost 100 hp and 65 perf more.

Although that is only small progress. there is a lot of new refinement that could theoretically produce an even faster car. A bore stroke of 93x92.5 is a return to the old times, when this turned out the optimal size of a V6. This has long been one of my preferred bore/strokes for many reasons (in the 1970s it was called large V6) It has large displacement (3.8 L) a reasonable stroke (which means the engine can rev quite high without damage), and excellent power to weight and reliability. Everything is in balance. In general, any large square engine with 1:1 ratio is preferrable because it has no disadvantages.

The only snag is that it derives quite a bit from the 500cc per cylinder that seems to be the norm these days (BMW). But there is nothing that can be done, because I need as much performance as I can get. And I am only 25% over that. It also won't fit the Popamol chassis (otherwise I am pretty positive this would run the track in 1:35). It cannot compete against the 5L I6 Turbo in the Folgore chassis either, but there are other, lighter chassis and other companies who would want to take the lead again.

There are no cars with this engine yet but .. over 1250 hp in a form factor of an I4. In a small, nimble car like the Popamol this could be the ultimate increase in performance that could push the limit perhaps to 1:35s.

Perhaps. And though it's early, I think I might have actually found 1 or 2 chassis that could theoretically have the right potential.

But even another car that can compete with the two to teams would be satisfying, because this has stopped beaing easy long ago.

And btw, if I add this information together I already know that a 6L V8 based on the Popamol 3L would probably be the killer of all those engines, including the V6. But one step at a time ..

 

[Burning Bridges]

Vive le Moteur!

The leading companies have their own engines and Popamol cannot even fit anything wider than their 4 cylinder. So there was no way to continue the development with one of the available cars.

Instead the new engine has been snatched by the French Alpine!

They are no newcomers and many new technologies began as French developments. But now it was decided that the time is right to go Grand Prix racing.

The French have a philosophy of supporting great ideas. It will have to be seen how their ideas can be realized in the game.

Ahh .. I just came

No chassis was found that truly resembles the vision, so we had to make do with what we have.

I think we can at least pretend that this is the Alpine.

This is what it originally looked like, so we did a pretty good job!

On the performance side, things look much better. This chassis is nothing but spectacular. On it's very first first run with the V6 it timed at 1:37,7 A time that the other cars only got after laborious tuning!

When the car was properly setup and tuned, the 1:36 fell quickly, matching the Popamol. And finally

1:35.49

there was no point in further increasing the lead, because everyone was drunk with red wine already.

The Alpine has improved the all time best by 1 second over the Popamol and taken the lead. What's even greater is that the other teams have no recipe to catch up, because they are already at the limit of their cars.

So maybe this one is for the history books, because it is hard to envision a car that can improve on this practically perfect combination of car and engine!

 

[Burning Bridges]

The Return of the mighty V8

The American Dillinger company also enters the race with their first new model since the 1970s.

Dillinger are a well known name and were one of the first companies to enter this LP, when they made the then sensational 3L Cosplay DFV. These days they have been absent from racing for many decades and left with no option but to reanimate their 60s GT. This ailing car is not bad and still looks pretty good, but is not a match to the latest competition cars.

But the Americans have practically unlimted money. They are able to push money into this project upfront and go through several stages of a learning process.

And since the competition has already realized the potential of 4 and 6 cylinder engines of up to 5L, the Americans chose favor the relative brute force approach of a V8.

The first of this engine already looks really massive in the car. That's a lot of weight in the back of the car, ca 100-200 kg extra.

But the V8 engine also develops unheard of power.

Where previously the Germans have a little over 1100, the French ca 1250 and the Italians 1500-1600 hp, the 5.8L V8 enters the race with almost 1900 horsepower!

The flatplane V8 also sounds great now!

Converting this into immediate results is not so easy though. The engine has incredible power but the weight of the car is something that causes the mechanics great trouble.

Currently the cars run in the range of 1:38 and thereby has at least caught up with the pace of the Italian Folgore (at least with some optimism). This is not the victory yet but a very good result, especially with such an obsolete car.

Especially impressive is the top speed of over 400 km/h and incredible power-to-weight ratio.

 

[agentorange]

what the fuck

 

[Burning Bridges]

Daytona V8

The performance of the GT2 had gradually improved to low 1:37s but it became clear there was no real point. It would never catch up with the newer cars.

Therefore it was decided that a new chassis was to be introduced. And since Amerrycka cannot design small, agile cars for shit, it had to be found overseas.

Luckily one of the remaining competitors of Folgore had been working on exactly that car. It was called Stronzo or something and had been intended to debut the Group B season but the cash was never available.

The Italians were at first skeptical about selling the entire company to the Americans.

Mr.Dillinger smiled and said: I write down a figure, you look at it and then tell me again what you think.

That took care of the problem.

The car was dubbed "Daytona", brought to Amerika, repainted and equipped with the latest V8 from the Dillinger GT.

This engine had already matured in the hands of the GT project. Somewhat unusual, whereas other teams had made their engine larger and larger, the V8 had been mitigated and scaled down until it would be competitive. In the end it has 5.1L almost exactly like the Folgore 6 cylinder.

It still has stupendous power but is a lot less on the undrivable side. It also weighs just a bit over 200 kg, 20kg less than the inline 6 and only ca 40-50 kg more than R4s and V6s, making it much more reasonable that the V8 idea first appeared.

PWR is higher than even the latest French cars, and top speed over 410 km/h. And this is WITH aero!!

With such specs it was clear that the car was destined to break the lap record again.

1:34.87

in the race for the fastest laptimes, the new car has yet again improved by a second. Even the mighty French Alpine's must take 2nd place for the moment.

It should be said however that the Dillinger isn't particularly good in terms of reliability and the engine sticks into the passenger space, so there are voices saying the car should be required to be rerun with those problems fixed.

But that didn't worry Mr.Dillinger much, as for the first time he completed his task of defeating Folgore and the other European teams. How much money this cost him? Better not ask.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Hill and BRC try something different

Because of the unbalancedness of the competition it was decided that from the next season on front engine and rear/mid engine cars will be ranked separately. There is no point to keep them together if the mid engined cars have 8-10 seconds advantage, and there are a lot of interesting front engined chassis.

This is of course great news for the Hill / BRC cooperation, who were somewhat pissed off by the competition of more and more mid engined cars.

The Hill Mk1 had been a very beautiful car, has been further refined and improved and painted in British Racing Green and dubbed the Mk2

The BRC engine had never been a bad design, and while the first 1.7L was relatively tiny, Mark 1 achieved already pretty impressive power to weight ratios. For the new season BRC developed a new 2.2L liter powerplant that delivers the highest hp/litre of all engines (412)!!

It appears that the BRC engineers think they found the optimal bore with 92 mm. They took the idea from Maserati engines, which are in 92x80 mm, and it produces great results. this also proves more and more that oversquare engines have been stealthily changed in the game, because 2 years ago they were absolute crap.

This makes the Hill the current leader in its class, a lightweight, attractive car with 900 hp from a rather small engine. Demon Hill receives thousands requests to produce a road car.

low 1:45 are not times that the mid engined cars fear, but for front engined it's ca 4-5 seconds faster than the competition!

There are not many other companies in the front engined classe. Folgore is known to have developed a new flatplane, 90 degree V8 that is very similar to the BRC, just bigger and more powerful!

it delivers slightly more power than their I6, while being 30 kilogram lighter and more reliable. They used it to secure the 3rd place in the MR comp (overtaking Popamol again) but it should prove superior against the Hill. And in the Fantasma, they have a very good front engined chassis which - with almost 700 extra hp - should be superior.

 

[Burning Bridges]

The Red Ghost

While the top end Folgore V8 arduously regained the third place in the championship from Popamol, there was also another car that has seen quite a rollercoaster ride.

The Fantasma began as the first supercar that scratched the 1:50s then was dethroned by the Popamol and shortly after that, totally declassed.

With the new frontengined class however this car could finally have a niche of its own, as there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, it just cannot compete against mid/rear engines.

When it came to preparing a car, a first rate engine had been developed beforehand. But the plan to install the V8 was abandoned when it was compared with a new V6, which immediately went several seconds faster.

This shows that Folgore now also follows the trend that larger engines are not always better.

Even though it only has a 3.3L engine, it goes fast, 416 km/h

The car quickly outpaced the competition and even without extensive tuning, its laptime is 1:42.65

Which is over 2 seconds faster then the Hill Turbo.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Not to make a new thread I hope you don't mind if I ask in this one.

Would anyone be interested in LP of campaign mode? I've been playing Forza Horizon lately since that came out on steam and I started thinking that I'd like to make my own cars. If people would be interested I could upload cars from LP to BeamNG mod repository so you could take them out for a spin and tell me how much they suck or something. Well that's actually main reason I even consider doing LP, it should be interesting to hear other peoples opinions. It does seem like they made significant improvements to exporter since I last played and cars handle and behave a lot more like the actual BeamNG cars so I thought that could be fun.

So anyone interested?

 

[Burning Bridges]

I would be interested.

I am also playing the Automation/BeamNG combo and working on the best sports car of all time. With BeamNG there has come a real incentive to make good, driveable cars and not just 1000hp monsters.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Oh well. I guess I'll just start working on first update and see from there if there is actual interest in this LP.