Upgrades system

I know, I know... this matter has been discussed in the Chit Chat forum, but is time to make a serious suggestion with a load of reasons in the right section.

I also know that it is possible to add pre-made upgrades system, but that is like ask for a cheeseburger, I'm talking about make your own recipe and make serious testings.

I've been modding for some years and I've put all my efforts specially in physics modeling. As you modders know this kind of feature is actually present in other simulation software. I'm actually capable of covering whichever kind of aftermarket part and the direct impact in physics.

I'm not talking about add spoilerz and rimz, this is not gran turismo, this is supposed to be a serious simulator, so I'm talking about the real possibility of make a common street car to be a homologated race car throught upgrades like: tires, engine management, suspension sets, sway bars, alignments, differentials, gearboxes, clutch, weight reductions, etc. It is actually possible to make separated car mods like street and a racing version, but it is possible to cover all the entire racing version through upgrades and make it behave 100% the same just adding parts with the required physics modeling knowledge.
Otherwise you have the possibility to make a common street car slighty tuned, or make a basic track day car, a SCCA slalom car, a tarmac rally car, time attack... there are lot of possibilities that could be covered with a serious upgrades system.
So this way, it is possible to make a single car mod full of options and ways to check how far can you modify it.

I managed to make possible that each part can be able to modify inertias, mass, mass distribution and the center of gravity height, just to mention some features, all in real time just switching the right parts.

Actually I have created some mods for other sims, specially for my own testing. This is an example of the content available from one of them, just to make an idea of the possibilities. Let me make a list to make you think of the possibilities and explain what physic part is affected. I will try to avoid manufacturers, just will mention parts and numbers.

Please, take in mind that all parts has been based on real data from deep researches (sometimes making phone calls to manufacturers)

Car premade builds: Street (stock parts), Slightly tuned, Track day, SCCA autocross, Official Cup, FIA homologated group A (racing), FIA homologated group A (tarmac rally)

Bodywork parts: 4 body kits, all selectable by parts like fenders, bumpers, rear wings, etc. all affecting aerodynamics and general behaviour.

Chassis: two sets of strut bars, six points rollcage (this affect all mass, inertia and center of gravity related). In one well known sim this affect chassis flexing.

Weight reductions: x5 levels of weight reduction affecting inertias, mass distribution and center of gravity height.

Interior parts: extra gauges like oil pressure, water temp, etc. racing steering wheel, naked interior for racing porpuses (this affect weight, weight dist., inertias and center of gravity height). And yes, a racing steering wheel use to weight around 1kg or less, this has been taken in mind for physics.

Tires: x2 street tires, x4 semi-slick sets, x4 slicks, x3 tarmac rally slicks. All tires have their respective weight impact cause materials and sizes, not to mention all tire physics modeling related. Of course weight modifiers have a direct impact on inertias.

Rims: x7 set of rims, lot of them covering all the catalog colors. Again, this affect weight and inertias, like tires. Of course the main wheel inertia is modified specially if the wheel track is affected depending og what offset do you desire.

Brake systems: Stock and a special sport/racing kit. Not much to said: brake torque and inertias.

Engines: x12 different engines, covering ECU addons, etc. Of course each engine has their respective inertia and you will see that on how the tacho responses. Inertia wheels have been taken in mind, with their respective inertia modifiers. Also if you add a turbo upgrade, this will have a direct impact on weight and weight distribution, inertia and center of gravity height too.

Gearboxes: x6 types of gearboxes: stock and mostly racing related. All ratio groups taken in mind.

Differentials: x5 differentials, two of them for 4WD porpuses (yes, some cars have mods like this in real life). Physics: weight, weight dist., inertias, center of gravity...

Clutches: x9 sets of clutches. Not much to say, it will modify the clutch disk torque and weight.

Suspension sets: x15 sets of springs and dampers. Yes, 15, some cars have a wide market related to springs. Each springs sets have their respective spring rates values stracted from the manufacturers and will have a direct impact on handling. Some suspension sets could add a gas bottle that has been taken in mind in terms of weight addition.

Anti roll bars: x5 sets rear and front. Depending on the diameter and bar materials they have their respective impact on physics.

Alignment specs: x6 premade alignment specs. This is most related to the mentioned builds. It incluides the original stock alignment from the manufacturer.

Impressive, isn't it? Mix all these options sometimes makes you do a bit of engineering to search your own setup. Not to mention that some petrollhead used to perform monthly track days will be pleased to check all theese part features and how them can affect to the car behaviour.

As said, this is totally possible in other well known platform and offers a wide range of possibilites to play and make races totally egalitarian if you race between different car models. Isn't it all the racing related? correct me if am I wrong.

Devs, this is my suggestion, like it or not, but I hope you take it in mind. I think this must be a part of a real sim.

Cheers and thanks for reading.

 

Nope.

Not happening. What this would do is completely divide the multiplayer community, and make the cars extremely unbalanced. With having specific upgrades only, it means that everybody can drive the same car, rather than everybody having 20 different engines, etc.

It'd also be extremely time consuming - time I'd much rather they spend on more content for the game.

 

Correct me if am I wrong, but isn't that part solved by the builds system?

 

Sure, if you have 300 different pre-set upgrades covering every possible combination of parts.

The thing is, what it'll do is confuse people, there could be 300 different servers all running 300 different variants of the same car, why is it necessary?

Again, the time thing comes to mind - it'd take ages, and would make any already made skins incompatible, too.

 

Sorry, but I think you have missed the point. I'm talking on a upgrades system not of the existing pre-made build system. You could select your pre-made build and go online with the restricted setup options, but in a separated way you could add the parts you desire.

I'm not talking of adding 300 different builds. Lets say that you can have 2-4 different pre-made builds to race online, but also the option to have an extra build where you can add the parts you want. That could be solved through served admin options that shouldn't be hard to code.

 

That's what I'm saying.

Doing that would confuse people, you'd still have 300 different versions of, say, the BMW M3 E30 in different servers, so you can't really practice for a single build, because you don't know what build you may end up with.

And, yes, it may take "just a few lines of code", but it'd take days worth of time to create the individual body kit parts, and creating specific physics for every single combination of parts. That time could be spent creating new cars and tracks, rather than dicking around adding unnecessary stuff.

It's. Not. Happening.

 

Not in AC, but yes in other sims. Maybe cause people from other sims don't use to get confused and devs see this option reliable to being part of their code. Don't get me wrong, maybe I'm not pointing to the right people.

 

Name a sim that has an upgrade system as complicated as the one you described.

And don't say rFactor, because nobody uses the rFactor vanilla content.

 

Why not rFactor? I'm not talking about the vanilla content, if you've read my first post I'm talking about a mod made by me with all these parts working between them. If we were talking abour rFactor be sure that it supports all these features, and not vanilla, as said that is what I have taken advantage of the sim code to implement all these feauteres.

Again, I think you've missed the point. If this feature were available for AC, let's say you could select your premade build. Let's say that you can get three builds for the Assetto Corsa X-Bow, for example (just imagine it): X-Bow R, X-Bow RR and X-Bow battle (with a generic setup), but you could also select a "free build" where you could set the parts you want. That would be 4 builds where a free build system could be added, and the other three have their own restrictions to play online without no problems.

AFAIK you can actually make a selection of cars that could be available for a race event, isn't it? ok, again, let's say that you can select Build1 and Build2 to be available for that race event, so only Build1 and Build2 will be available for users. Why not be able to add the Free Build? Are you so worried about the people confusion? ok, so stick with the Build1, Build2 and Build3 and ignore the Free Build. Or are you implying to think that people are soo retarded to understand that?

 

Kunos already offers a street version and a racing version for some cars. With your idea we'd transform all street cars into racing cars.. why wouldn't Kunos instead just license the racing version instead of street version. We also like to race pure street cars, or cars which are a mix between legal street and track racing. We have a fairly nice selection of everything in the game.

 

'Cause this sim is moddeable, or isn't it? I'm not talking about modify the generic content, I'm talking about make modders to have this possibility, or need modders to license their content too? AFAIK no.

 

BerScott, what your saying, a pure upgradable system, rfactor like, is not possible in Ac, at least not currently. What there is, physics speaking, is the S-versions of cars, being Std, S1, S3...and so on.

 

I know, that's why this is a suggestion in the suggestions section.

 

Upgrades would be a nice addon imho. No there would not be 300 different versions. If someone's mod has 300 bits then either he is very thorough or adding lots of junk. Upgrades could be used even for race cars as setup bits. Wheel covers, different rear wings (high and low drag), different bumpers. For nascar such system could be used for grille tape, for formulas taping the brakeducts etc. For road car modders it would allow to be more detailed with different trim levels.

Such system is really far away. Ac doesn't even support skins in multiplayer properly. Not to mention server needs to preload all cars which would totally make any kind of upgrades system completely meaningless. I agree that upgrades system is a good system to have but almost all the base features such upgrades system needs are missing from ac.

 

Regarding the different aspects of the setup-ability, you can more or less create a few presets, limiting the selection, for example, damper; lets say you have an 2002 and youd like to limit the player selection to the oldies Boges or front Steins, rear Konis, the you can mess with the setup.ini and set the minimum settings (bump, fast bump, rebound, fast rebound) as thr Boges, and a maximum as the upgrades, with an increment that will add up from Boge to Konis exactly. The same works for springs, bumpstops, ...

You can also create pre-set gear ratios, for every gear if youd like, using .luts and or the setup.ini

 

I dont think its too far away to be honest. All that is needed is to allow all the different setup.ini components to accept a .lut selection. Thi way one could for example, just like tyres or gear rations, create a set and call it Boges Std, and it would call all the entries of this damper set, and the other called Konis, which would do the same, but* for this Koni set, you could let the player "adjust it" a few increments, just like real adjustable Konis.

 

this of course has to be studied more before anything, but I hope you don't feel like kunos must do this, and prepare for this idea that it won't be looked up for a long time. there's many other aspects kunos wants to fix or implement, as well as the community, something which is more crucial for the actual game.

 

Of course, I totally agree with that and as a modder I still need to have some basic features working. But I have no hurries and I just want to make Kunos consider this, even for a longterm.

 

How does it work in rFactor multiplayer, anyway? Drivers can pick any options they want? Is it ever used in serious racing?

 

Making a car setup file and setting it up in the host server. This is just a way to go, but AFAIK it is possible other ways, I've not tried it. Also AFAIK, yes, this has been used for serious online racing. Or if you mean real racing, yes, there are lot of championship rules estabilished in order to race different car models, usually rules are related to power, weight and tire sizes; maybe some specific aerodynamic limitations too.