Visual Entertainment and Technologies Forum

Hi everyone,

I've been talking about a mod I'm intending to make (and have made a start on) over the last couple of days but it doesn't have its own thread yet so I figure, even though it's no where near ready and will probably be made obsolete soon by new versions of the game, I'd start a thread to discuss it and eventually share it.

Goals:
In order that I intend to tackle them...

1 - Introduce different valve trains via the introduction of different "fuel" types.
My full list of fuel types for petrol / diesel engines will be:
2 stroke gas
4 stroke gas - early *
4 stroke gas - sleeve valve
4 stroke gas - side valve
4 stroke gas - OHV
4 stroke gas - OHC
4 stroke gas - DOHC
2 stroke diesel
4 stroke diesel - OHV
4 stroke diesel - OHC
4 stroke diesel - DOHC

* - Early is intended to cover the various unusual and inefficient methods used from the 1860's to the early 1900's.

I may also introduce new "fuel" types for Wankel engines at some stage but I'll need to research them further first.


2 - Adjust what can be made at the beginning of the game.
Currently, in easy mode there are a number of engine layouts available right at the start of the game but only single cylinder engine are available for normal and hard. While I feel this is fine for hard mode I think 2 cylinder engines should be available on normal mode.

3 - Re-balancing dimensions/weights/costs of various engine layouts.
There are a number of unusual anomalies in the stats for the various engine layouts. For example, V engines are narrower than straight engines. I don't think it's possible to have the engine dimensions to be accurate as such but I think I can massage the numbers so things make a little more sense.

4 - Balancing the relationship between number of cylinders and power/cost/weight etc.
If you open up the game and make a series of engines with all their sliders set to the same point and with the same capacity but with a different number of cylinders you will notice a number of things happen. As the number of cylinders increases the engines get lighter, less powerful, massively less fuel efficient and cheaper to research. These are all the exact opposite of what should happen.
Getting this one right will be the hardest as I feel it needs an alteration to the equations the game uses to work properly but I'll do my best to make it work in a mod.




I've attached the first playable version of the mod for people to have a play with.
It's titled "Components mod0.1.XML"
You will need to re-name it "Components.XML" and replace the file of the same name in the scripts folder.

Don't forget to back up the original!!!!

Franky's Mod V0.1
- All of the gas fuel types listed above added (not diesel yet though)
- Easy mode should have access to all the fuel types first turn but normal and hard should only get 2 stroke, 4 stroke - early and 4 stroke - side valve. The others open up normally as you do stuff.
- Normal and hard mode should now be able to start designing Straight 2, V2 and Flat 2 engines first turn. Both appear to start at the same skill level so I cant give these to Normal and not Hard like I wanted too unfortunately.

---

Franky's Mod V0.2
- All of the changes in V0.1
- Made RR platform available from turn one at all difficulties as the Benz Patent Motorwagen was an RR platform as were a number of other very early cars.
- Made RR cheaper to research than FR because they are. This is why they were so popular for various "peoples cars" during the early parts of the century. This is countered by there generally inferior performance, hence why they are no longer popular.
- Made Electric engines available from first turn. I've been doing some research and discovered that there were companies manufacturing Electric powered cars in Germany, France, UK and USA before 1900.
- Added the above mentioned diesel fuel types from Goal 1.

P.S. If you manage to forget to back up your Components.XML original.... Here it is for quick and easy retrieval =)

It all looks great so far. I haven't had a chance yet to play, but looking over what you have here, sounds like you have a wonderful basis to get thing going, and really increase options.

I do have a few thoughts though:

1) I like what you've done so far, but I wonder if maybe you've put some thought into further limiting the options on Easy. I almost feel that 4 and 6 cylinder engines are a little too much for the very beginning. Perhaps set it up so that with the 2 cylinders, since you're also adding them to Normal, you give Easy both V and Straight models and Normal has only one of those options - probably straight - though that would depend on your design philosophy.

2) Have you considered adding Steam as another engine source? I know that it's going to eventually prove itself as useless, but I imagine that you could do a lot of interesting things with them, though of course by the end of the initial boom-and-bust period (about WWI), they should be markedly inferior to most engines. This would give you an interesting choice - create cars that are better in the short-term by sacrificing experience that might be needed in the long...or deal with inferior gasoline engines until such time as they do noticeably overtake other engine patterns and fuel sources?

(02-01-2014, 08:55 AM)Geredis Wrote: [ -> ]1) I like what you've done so far, but I wonder if maybe you've put some thought into further limiting the options on Easy. I almost feel that 4 and 6 cylinder engines are a little too much for the very beginning. Perhaps set it up so that with the 2 cylinders, since you're also adding them to Normal, you give Easy both V and Straight models and Normal has only one of those options - probably straight - though that would depend on your design philosophy.

I learned after doing some research for another thread on this forum, that one of the most iconic vehicles of that era is probably the Model T from 1907/8, which had a 4 Cylinder Straight engine.
Currently from my experience on Normal, you can get access to 4C pretty quickly after a design or two. So to me, it does make some sense that Easy would have immediate access.

Im not sure how i feel about the mod, or whether i intend to use it before the game is released, but i thought i could at least contribute to this part of the discussion

I didn't realise the T had a straight 4 either, but I suppose in this case, it does make sense to keep at least the 4's, and by extension 6's I suppose, since I assume that they'd be going into trucks, tractors, etc. But that said, I do think that V and U engines should be more severely restricted on Easy than they are now, no? Perhaps rework the logic so that yo go from Staight to U (given the description it seems that it's just two jerry-rigged straights to create one bigger engine) and then V's as you refine U's.

Again, mostly me musing. Like you (I imagine, Arakash) I'm not exactly the most literate when it comes to vehicles, especially the early stuff and their developments.

(02-01-2014, 09:50 AM)Geredis Wrote: [ -> ]I didn't realise the T had a straight 4 either, but I suppose in this case, it does make sense to keep at least the 4's, and by extension 6's I suppose, since I assume that they'd be going into trucks, tractors, etc. But that said, I do think that V and U engines should be more severely restricted on Easy than they are now, no? Perhaps rework the logic so that yo go from Staight to U (given the description it seems that it's just two jerry-rigged straights to create one bigger engine) and then V's as you refine U's.

Again, mostly me musing. Like you (I imagine, Arakash) I'm not exactly the most literate when it comes to vehicles, especially the early stuff and their developments.

On the Engines:
I don't really know enough about the difficulty of designing V/Flat/U engines, so i dont think i could answer that with any confidence. However, I think you might get some interesting and useful answers by asking Eric about this.
The way he has set out the skill requirements for various vehicles seem to suggest what he thinks is more difficult to develop.

E.g. On normal, i think we start at 10 skill at game start. Design reqs for various types are listed below:
Single-C at 0
Straight at 4.5
Flat and V are 9.5
H and U is 14.5
There are others, like W which are much higher, but i don't think they are relevant to this specific discussion.


On my knowledge base and yours:
Yes, i think we share that in common i think. I usually stay out of too technical discussions as its really beyond my knowledge, but if i feel i can contribute a specific bit of knowledge, like the Model T stats, i share it.

In an attempt to answer everything briefly...

Steam - no. It really doesn't behave anything like IC engines so really can't be simulated in this game well.

U engines - Should be available later than flat, V and straight engines. They were never really anything more than an easy solution to quickly fill a need for a bigger engine. Rather than designing an entire new engine just trap two existing ones together. It's not as good, but it's cheaper.
Obviously this means that you have to make an inline engine before you can bolt two of them together into a U.

The model T being a 4 - there were a number of 4s before it too. The first that I'm aware of is the first car to carry the Mercedes name, the Mercedes 35up which was released in 1901 but it was VERY advanced for its time.

Starting availability - I do intend to play with these but there's only so much I can do. From what I can gather easy starts with 10 skill and normal and hard both start with 0.

Shared V0.2.
Enjoy =)

Yes, i have some suggestions.
And here we go!

#1 Rotary engines. I just LOVE rotary engines.

#2 Torsion beam and torsion beam axle suspensions

See also:
the suspensions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_bar_suspensio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twist-beam_rear_suspension
rotary engines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_200_Condor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_190

after you have seen the DEATH FROM ABOVE you are probably wondering why not have a car with a supercharged rotary engine with over 9000!!!... horse power, well there is no reason not to do it so just DO THE HARLEM SHAKE... I mean... JUST DO IT LOL

And i olse ... i mean aslo... god dammit... ALSO you have done goofed keep it up ; (

Edit: You have done good, keep up the good work

1) I believe I said I'm going to add rotary engines. I forget, someone with some time to search let me know
Cylinderless engines need some fixes, which is why electric and wankles are currently disabled.

2) Torsion Beams are in the game already. Get better at designing stuff!


Death From Above? Being a Mechwarrior myself, that makes me think of the ol' Battletech move: http://0-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board...436595.jpg

Mmm' Giant Robots.

Just to let you know , you mentioned rotary engines under
surviving ww1 thread

If we're talking about potential engine content to add, how about turbines? I wanna build a Batmobile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbine_en...acing_cars

Also Eric, if you're around reading, an idea for electric cars to closer follow real life more would be to put an extra "battery capacity" slider or stat for vehicles when you're designing them since the main obstacle in ye olde electric cars iirc was range. It would also extend to modern times and beyond when you're talking hybrids and plug ins like the Model S.

If memory serves me, turbines were brought up before and they will make it in along with radials after I fix the cylinderless engine bugs.

I'm always around reading. I read everything publicly written about the game, multiple times!

"Battery Capacity" slider is actually a pretty good idea to help balance electric's advantages over the other systems.

Hello,

As a real freak of automotive history and a big fan of GearCity (since recently) I find your project very interesting.

I have already sugested some new features to Eric (LINK), but he told me to propose them here as well, because it is too late to implement them in the official vanilla game.

What I would like to see in the game is more choices in the following fields:

-valvetrain: add SOHC 4 valve, DOHC 4-valve and also both of them with variable timing. Maybe sleeve valves could be an interesting temporary solution (they were really popular in luxury cars between 1905-1925),
-gearboxes: add planetary and preselector (the latter could probably be added officially, though), and maybe decrease the number of gears early in the game (the 5th gear was very rare before 1970s and extremely rare before the 1950s, while in the game I have 6 speed transmissions during the I WW !!)
-fuel delivery systems (modded as fuel types): for gasoline - 1/2/4-barrel carbs in sets of 1, 2 or 3, plus mechanical injection and electronic single/multipoint. For diesels - indirect/direct/common-rail injection.
-air cooling as an option for the most common engine blocks (sinlge, twin, flat),
-ideally also a couple of brake systems (mechanical 2-wheel, mechanical 4-wheel, hydraulic drum, front disk, 4-wheel disk, vented disk), but I know it will be difficult to find a place to mod them (somewhere in chassis types...?)
-suspension: cantilever leaf springs dor luxury cars in the 20s and 30s.

Also, I haven't seen my favorite car type in this game - the European GT / American personal luxury car - I know that the 2+2 coupe is similar, but in the game it is rather a kind of a sports car. I do not know if such a modification is possible in a mod?

What do you think about these?

BTW, if you need any help with historical accuracy of the particular components (dates, popularity, advantages and disadventages, etc.) I will gladly help you. I can already answer your question about the 4-cylinder engines - yes, it is true that the first ones appeared around 1900-1901, but they became widespread almost immediately (in expensive cars at least).

Good luck with your project!! Looking forward to play the mod!!