GearCity 1.18 Progress

[Eric.B]

SDL2 for Linux has been ported to the 1.18 code base. Also thanks to some help I believe I have fixed the Hardware mouse keyboard issues in Linux.

Tonight I'll balance out the car stats, do some stress testing and fix up the assisted designer some more, and test the Linux build on Ubuntu.

I might not do the GUI changes before the 1.17.5 release, so we could be releasing this sometime this week.

[Eric.B]

Running a bunch of sims right now, so I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs while all my good computers are tied up playing the game. (This is a good thing though, because it gets me data and I can fix some bugs. I digress.)

Here is what I got done since the last update.
-Car Stats balancing
-Vehicle Fuel, Power, Cargo stats are now directly from specs and do not decrease.
-Vehicle Performance stats now use more specs.
-Increased Contract Cargo requirements slightly. (Vehicles are larger now)
-Fixed few minor bugs in view contract rnd GUI, will be getting a make over later.
-Combined City and Highway fuel mileage into one rating called "Combined" (Will make it easier to user selected units in the future.)
-Fixed bug in advance gearbox designer which zeroed out the number of selected gears if you change gearbox type while in the sliders mode.
-Tweaked assisted designer results for engines and gearboxes.
-Fixed a couple of bugs introduced by new features.


I've got a little more stress testing to do. 2 or 3 minor things to clean up on the Linux build. I'll do testing in different distro other than my dev box, and then we should be good to go feature lock for 1.17.5!

[Eric.B]

Early birds catch the worm. You may have noticed a new "Testing" build in Steam. If you want to try out 1.17.5 before the announcement tomorrow, go get it.

Here is a little guide I drew up if you do not know how to switch versions: http://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2594

(12 hours earlier than the Steam guys get it, pays to check the main site eh? )

[Frankschtaldt]

Awwww yeah!!!!!

[Frankschtaldt]

Is it too late (or too early ) to bring up major balance issues with the new engine numbers?
Stuff like revs being less than half realistic numbers and turbos still not behaving realistically.
I will have a bit of time to sink into it in the morning but with the quick fiddle I just had I get the feeling I'm going to have a pretty big list of suggestions.

[foreverska]

Hate to pile on but overall displacement slider seems to be broken. Built a single cylinder for a truck, pulled overall displacement all the way right and came up with a $800 engine. Returned it to mid and instead dragged stroke. Overall displacement jumps below bore immediately upon moving stroke and stays well behind. Then I pulled bore all the way right and overall sticks about mid. Displacement of the engine and power stats are the same as pulling the overall displacement slider all the way right but engine price is now $138. Big advantage producing a 'vomit inducing' 2hp for $138 in 1901 but not right.

I do enjoy the fact the advanced windows try not to stack anymore and the bit of history lesson I got when I saw the new head types.

[Frankschtaldt]

Hate to pile on but overall displacement slider seems to be broken. Built a single cylinder for a truck, pulled overall displacement all the way right and came up with a $800 engine. Returned it to mid and instead dragged stroke. Overall displacement jumps below bore immediately upon moving stroke and stays well behind. Then I pulled bore all the way right and overall sticks about mid. Displacement of the engine and power stats are the same as pulling the overall displacement slider all the way right but engine price is now $138. Big advantage producing a 'vomit inducing' 2hp for $138 in 1901 but not right.

I do enjoy the fact the advanced windows try not to stack anymore and the bit of history lesson I got when I saw the new head types.

I didn't pay any attention to the displacement slider because there's a UI overhaul coming later is 1.18 that will get rid of it anyway (thank god!!!!)

The windows not stacking is probably the greatest thing to ever happen in my whole life (until the displacement slider gets removed).

[Eric.B]

Stuff like revs being less than half realistic numbers and turbos still not behaving realistically.
I will have a bit of time to sink into it in the morning but with the quick fiddle I just had I get the feeling I'm going to have a pretty big list of suggestions.

Which valves are you choosing and which turbos? The valuetrain effects RPMs, so be sure to compare apples and apples. Also turbo now has 4 stages. Stage I is pretty weak. The larger stages give a bigger boost.

Also note, the RPMs are no longer readline, it's Peak Power at RPMs, but that being said, I did match up stats for a few dozen engines between 1920 and now. So if you think it's off, you'll need some hard data to prove me wrong.

Hate to pile on but overall displacement slider seems to be broken. Built a single cylinder for a truck, pulled overall displacement all the way right and came up with a $800 engine. Returned it to mid and instead dragged stroke. Overall displacement jumps below bore immediately upon moving stroke and stays well behind. Then I pulled bore all the way right and overall sticks about mid. Displacement of the engine and power stats are the same as pulling the overall displacement slider all the way right but engine price is now $138. Big advantage producing a 'vomit inducing' 2hp for $138 in 1901 but not right.

I do enjoy the fact the advanced windows try not to stack anymore and the bit of history lesson I got when I saw the new head types.

The displacement slider is just a simple (Bore Slider + Stroke Slider) / 2. It does look like it's bugged. Nice catch. That being said, displacement slider is set to be removed here in the very near future. (Next few days probably) So don't put too much salt into it. Use the bore and stroke.

The reason it costs so much is because anytime you move a slider to the right, it will exponentially increase the costs. If too many sliders are moved to the right it starts to x^4 the costs.

You probably should use a bigger engine these days. Single Cylinders have been greatly nurfed.

[Frankschtaldt]

Stuff like revs being less than half realistic numbers and turbos still not behaving realistically.
I will have a bit of time to sink into it in the morning but with the quick fiddle I just had I get the feeling I'm going to have a pretty big list of suggestions.

Which valves are you choosing and which turbos? The valuetrain effects RPMs, so be sure to compare apples and apples. Also turbo now has 4 stages. Stage I is pretty weak. The larger stages give a bigger boost.

Also note, the RPMs are no longer readline, it's Peak Power at RPMs, but that being said, I did match up stats for a few dozen engines between 1920 and now. So if you think it's off, you'll need some hard data to prove me wrong.

I take back part of what I said, RPM's aren't too low. I'm pretty sure I was making a 2L I5 (in 1950) using a T head but I must have been using a 2 stroke or something because it was peaking at about 1500rpm. It's not behaving that way now so I must have done a booboo in my tiredness. I will say though that I think SOHC and DOHC might actually be revving a little too hard.

As for turbos, I'm not talking about the amount of power they give (though I do believe they are still too low, but I haven't seen stage 4 yet so not sure) but how they produce it.
In almost every real life engine that I have seen that has been released to the market in a natmo and turbo version, the turbo gains more torque than power and peak power output arrives at a lower RPM. Your turbo's do exactly the opposite.

Some examples:
natmo then turbo
Ford Barra 4L I6 - 195kW@6000/391Nm@3250 vs 270kW@5250/550@2-4000
38%more power vs 41%more torque

Hyundai 1.6L I4 - 103kW@6300/166Nm@4850 vs 150kW@6000/256Nm@17-4500
46% more power vs 54% more torque

Porshce 3.8L flat 6 - 294kW@7400/440Nm@5600 vs 383kW@6000/660Nm@2-5000
30% more power vs 50% more torque

BMW N52 vs N54 - 190kW@6600/310Nm@2600 vs243kW@5800/450Nm@15-4500
28% more power vs 45% more torque

There are a hand full of exceptions but they've been very carefully engineered to get around the natural behaviour of a turbo which is to lag at idle, push really hard under power at low to mid range and then peter off again at high revs.

[Frankschtaldt]

Actually, it's not turbo's that aren't powerfull enough. It's natmo that's WAAAAAAY op. Cop this monstrosity, a 2L I4 pumping out 750hp in 1998. That's spastic over engineered over boosted F1 engine numbers and the sliders aren't even all the way to the top.

[foreverska]

then peter off again at high revs.

That depends on the turbo sizing. Many OEMs do it this way but if I stuck a GT35 on my 1600cc air cooled vw motor it would lag a LOT and still be pulling hard when the valves start to float.

Same turbo on my 2.5L might behave closer to what you describe. Definitely so with a head spacer and Ti valvetrain.

Point is, without knowing the turbine size it's really a crapshoot as to how it will ultimately perform.

[Eric.B]

Most likely it's the DOHC that is over powered, try using something like I-head

[Frankschtaldt]

Most likely it's the DOHC that is over powered, try using something like I-head

It's still pretty bonkers!

[Eric.B]

Yea, something is defiantly wrong there. You're in 2010 year?

[Frankschtaldt]

Yea, something is defiantly wrong there. You're in 2010 year?

I've been zooming through designing a new engine every couple of years (not actually selling anything, just started with max $$$ so I could focus on engines).

I think your problem is two fold:
1) Power level increase exponentially, they should probably be more linear with the developments of new tech giving you the power hikes you need to look like what happened historically.
2) You're letting torque get way too high. The average modern NA car produces between 90-110Nm/L, the highest specific torq from an NA engine that I know of is the E46 M3 that puts out 112.5Nm/L and some REALLY bad engines might make 80-85Nm/L. You've got so many variables effecting that number it is just resulting in too broad a range of potential results.

There's a few other factors effecting it but the above two are the big ones.

[Eric.B]

Actually the problem seems to be length and width sliders effecting torque...
Part of the problem anyway...

[Eric.B]

Working on a hotfix for 1.17.5,
Here is what I've done so far

-Having too low of a top speed now effect sales.
-Advance/Assisted menu will automatically close when top buttons are selected.
-Minor weight adjustments to vehicles
-Fixed length/width sliders effect on engine torque
-Reduced late game year torque amount.
-Reduced bore/stroke effect on torque slightly.
-Reduced RPMs slightly.
-Adjusted SOHC and DOHC.


I'm going to fiddle with one or two more things before I build the hotfix and send it out to you guys.

[Frankschtaldt]

I have another quick question.
You've said no floating numbers for bore and stroke values but they are definitely in 17.5 (was looking at other marques cars and seeing xx.x mm bores and strokes all over the place).
When you refer to doing away with the volume slider and only entering in bore/stroke. Are we actually going to be entering in the bore and stroke we want or will it be a number between 0 and 100 still?

---

Also, hot fix sounds good!

[Eric.B]

I have another quick question.
You've said no floating numbers for bore and stroke values but they are definitely in 17.5 (was looking at other marques cars and seeing xx.x mm bores and strokes all over the place).
When you refer to doing away with the volume slider and only entering in bore/stroke. Are we actually going to be entering in the bore and stroke we want or will it be a number between 0 and 100 still?

---

Also, hot fix sounds good!

You'll have to wait and see.

Hot patch isn't looking good for tonight, seems like the length/width issue is deeper than I thought.

[foreverska]

My Linux version (Debian Sid running [testing] version of the game) is a bit goofy.

Non hardware mouse you see the hardware mouse plus a game pointer. Playable but the hardware mouse warping all about is a bit goofy.

Hardware mouse works perfectly. I like it better than in Windows where the game steals the cursor.

No keyboard. None.