Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 167: One More Patch... Followed by Another

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 167: One More Patch... Followed by Another

After yet another patch, the current open beta build of Automation is now more polished than ever. In addition to some welcome bugfixes, there have been a whole host of tweaks and balancing changes intended to make the game more realistic and engaging than before. As far as I know, these have largely been beneficial to the game as a whole, especially since the gearing tab now shows total ratio and torque limits in addition to drivability, sportiness, and reliability multipliers - and at all times to boot.

More significantly, sandbox mode allows you to install race tires of various types, with each compound being tailored to a specific situation. However, all of these are more expensive than any other tire type. To balance this out, the default unlock year for semi-slick tires (a halfway house between a sports tire and a race tire) has been pushed back to 1997, assuming a tire/wheel techpool value of 0 is in use. The upshot is that we are finally able to create actual race cars without the limitations of street-legal rubber.

One side-effect of this patch is that all of the cars we made in prior versions are now in need of significant revision - and not for the first time since the open beta was first released. Indeed, for some of my favorite builds, I have done just that, in keeping with my longstanding practice of updating or remaking older builds to ensure their viability in later versions. This is particularly important for anything intended for a forum challenge - what was once eligible before the patch will either no longer be viewed as such, or be far less competitive.

Thankfully, I have been quite diligent with my inspection of all my challenge builds, ensuring that they remain compliant with their respective rule sets, while also retaining their competitiveness. I advise you to do the same with yours, if you have any. There may be further patches planned for when the 4.3 build of Automation becomes the new stable public release - watch this space.

Update (December 15 2023): The 4.3 open beta build of Automation is now on its sixth patch, and calculations for all techpool cost allocations have been revised, with total costs for engine and trim techpool totals now being calculated separately. Unfortunately, this has rendered all techpool values uneditable, although on the upside, engine and trim techpool are now calculated separately. Moreover, all of my builds have had their stats changed, and I have once again been forced to rework some of my cars to compensate. However, I have generally been successful in this regard.

Update #2 (December 16 2023): Techpool values are now editable freely once again, but there have been no stat changes as a result of the seventh open beta patch. This is a huge relief for everyone, given that adjusting techpool values for every individual car made in sandbox mode has been an integral part of Automation ever since the feature was implemented a little over a year ago.

Update #3 (December 21 2023): The open beta branch has finally been merged with the public release - and I am eternally grateful for this. I have been craving that extra bit of realism and attention to detail the new game build has brought us, and I finally got my wish. In fact, this new version is the Christmas gift I have been waiting for.