Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 217: The Automation Build Generator

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 217: The Automation Build Generator

Following on the CEL Challenge Remix, 20 Color Picker, and Automation Build Year spinner wheel sets, I decided to combine elements of all three into one new set, as shown below:

Above, from top: The Automation Build Generator Spinner Wheel set, inspired by my earlier CEL Challenge Remix set, but simplified and reorganized, and with the entirety of two of my earlier stand-alone wheels integrated into the set of 6 (as opposed to 8 in the CEL Challenge Remix).

This latest set of mine, in addition to generating a specific type of vehicle (as shown in the Type wheel, which has been reorganized compared to the Class wheel in the original CEL Challenge and my later CEL Challenge Remix sets, but still has 20 options) and the market it's built for (as indicated by the Market wheel, which has 16 options), will also generate a specific year (of which there are 75 options for the model, trim, family, and variant years - a much more effective tool than the Era wheel in the CEL Challenge Remix, which only specifies a certain decade for all four), in addition to an exterior color (of which there are 20 options, up from 10 as in the CEL Challenge Remix), and whether or not to activate Quirks (of which there are 10, as listed on the new Quirk Type wheel). 

Regarding the quirks on the Quirk Type wheel, most of these are self-explanatory, except for Respin All (which requires a respin of every wheel except for the Quirks and Quirk Type wheels - although if you spin those two wheels as well, you must ignore both of their respective results) and Choose Any Year From Decade (which allows you to choose from any year from the same decade as the one the Year spinner landed on). These changes remove the need for an "Any" option on the Type, Market, Year, and Color wheels, since no more than one Quirk can be active at any given time. Finally, unlike in the CEL Challenge Remix, there are no wheels related to Lucky or Unlucky modifiers in this set, due to the possibility of some combinations of those modifiers being incompatible with each other and/or unrealistic with some year options on their own.

In addition, this set is meant to work equally well with the Ellisbury stable release and the Al-Rilma open beta. So with that in mind, I decided to generate a few random combinations with it.

Above, from top: Some random combinations spat out by the Automation Build Generator spinner wheel set, the last of which was the only one of the four to be affected by Quirks. In its case, I had to respin every wheel (except for the Quirks and Quirk Type wheels).

After a respin of each of the first four wheels in the set due to the Quirks wheel landing on Yes and the Quirk Type wheel landing on Respin All, the new combination was as follows:

Above: Following a full-set respin (due to the fourth combination having Quirks enabled and the Quirk Type wheel landing on Respin All), the first four wheels now yielded different options. Instead of a brown/bronze 1957 American concept car, they suggested a red (as in bright red, not dark red/maroon) 1952 British full-size sedan.

The next combination also led to a respin, but only for the Type wheel, since it landed on the Custom/Tuned option:

The initial result of my fifth full-set spin of the Automation Build Generator (above) compared with the final result from the Type wheel after a respin (below), forced due to that particular wheel initially landing on the Custom/Tuned space.

It should be noted that although any color (of any material) can be saved to any car made using this spinner wheel set, the actual background exterior color used must match the one the Color wheel landed on (unless the Quirks wheel landed on Yes, and the Quirk Type wheel also landed on Choose Any Color, in which case any exterior color can be chosen for the build.

In short, it felt great to be able to reimagine the CEL Challenge once again, without the prospect of having incompatible combinations of modifiers, and with a few additional details such as exterior color and specific year added in their place.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 216: Another Birthday Gift

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 216: Another Birthday Gift

As part of my impending 33rd birthday celebrations, I have decided to give myself a special gift: a fully detailed Automation build. This one was originally built for a recent Discourse forum challenge (as shown here), and a more detailed writeup can be found here if you want to take a closer look.

Above, from top: As my 33rd birthday gift to myself, and in honor of everyone who follows this blog, the AMS Acheron 1.6R is a reflection of the virtues I desire most in a performance car - light weight, agile handling, minimal electronic assistance, sharp throttle response, and modest dimensions, with the right amount of power and braking force to exploit its chassis, thus preserving an ideal balance.

I enjoyed making this build, considering that I had prior experience with this body set (albeit not in the variant with a detachable hard top, as shown here - I simply changed its material to transparent to hide it) and found it to be very useful for lightweight sports car builds due to its small size. Here's to many more happy birthday celebrations!

But if you find the R trim to be a bit too hardcore, the slightly detuned S trim, with its softer suspension tune, regular sports compound tires, and premium interior/sound system (with the Touring Pack) may be for you.

Above, from top: The S trim offers most of the thrills the R package offers, but its greater level of standard equipment makes it slightly more usable.

In short, whichever trim level you pick, there's no chance you'll be short-changed by the AMS Acheron and its otherworldly ability to leverage a small, light platform with a modest power output.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 215: What Year Is It?

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 215: What Year Is It?

Complementing the random color generator wheel I had made earlier, I recently made another spinner wheel - one for determining the model, trim, family, and variant years for an Automation build, but independent of my existing CEL Challenge Remix wheel set. Here it is:

Above: What a standalone Spinner Wheel for model, trim, family, and variant years (for random Automation builds) would look like.

I spun it a few times, and it came up with these:

Above, from top: Two of the results generated when I spun the random year generator wheel.

In short, I had proved the viability of a standalone spinner wheel for generating an individual build year for Automation - just as I had done with a standalone wheel for generating random colors.

Hotshot Tales, Part 16: Back in the Wheelhouse

Hotshot Tales, Part 16: Back in the Wheelhouse

In creating a new spinner wheel set for generating event type/car choice combinations in Hotshot Racing, I had to consider a lot of possibilities within the set. Not only did I have to take into account the map and track variant hosting the event, but I also had to plan for the type, speed class, and length (in laps) of the event in question. In addition to this, I needed to create two extra wheels: one for the team being chosen, and one for the car that will be entered from that team. Finally, to shake things up further, I added an eighth wheel: one for wild card modifiers. I designed that wheel to have a 50% chance of not generating a modifier, as well a 50% chance of generating one modifier that required me to spin one or all of the wheels if it landed on such a space. There is, however, a caveat in that this wheel set does not apply to Grand Prix mode (which cannot be played using any rule set other than Arcade Mode, or any distance other than 3 laps, except for the Boss Level GP, whose races are always 4 laps long, and even then, each Grand Prix always consists of four events raced consecutively, with each one taking place on a different map from the other four, although the actual variants used differ between GPs).

After my first attempt with the options for each wheel definitively finalized, the wheel set gave me this result:

Above, from top: This is my first viable result created using the Hotshot Racing Random Event Generator spinner wheels. I would have to pick Alexa's Balanced car (the Stallion) for a 7-lap Single Race in the Expert speed class on Heated Highway, the third variant of the Coast map. No wild cards were active on this attempt, though.

I then decided to attempt the event with the specified conditions, and somehow, I won - which was no mean feat considering how challenging the track was.

Above, from top: Some highlights from the randomly generated event whose parameters were created using my new Spinner Wheel set. It was tough, but I prevailed in the end, winning this grueling 7-lap battle by less than a second.

In short, I had a lot of fun with this new Spinner Wheel challenge - and it could even be adapted to multiplayer, with the Wild Card and Team wheels removed (seeing as I find them to be unnecessary for any multiplayer mode, in which players must be given the chance to choose their teams freely, with the additional requirement that no two players can select the same team) but with all other wheels retained and left as-is. In fact, I like the idea so much that I could even create a second set of spinner wheels for this game - but this next one could be based on customization options for a given vehicle from a particular team, for use in any game mode.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 214: Taking Back The Wheel

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 214: Taking Back The Wheel

With the Al-Rilma update for Automation still in its open alpha phase (albeit with even more content than before), and the current stable release still as highly viable as ever, I decided to revisit my CEL Challenge Remix Spinner Wheel set, adding two new wheels and revising the others. The first new wheel, Color, determines the exterior color that will be used for the randomly generated build, and has 10 choices (Red, Orange/Brown, Yellow/Gold, Green, Blue, Purple/Pink, White, Silver/Gray, Black, and Any). The second new wheel, Year, denotes the last digit of the car model, car trim, engine family, and engine variant years of the build. Other changes involved replacing some redundant options on the Class, Era, and Location wheels with an "Any" space (just like the Paint Color and Year wheels had), which allowed the user to select from any option on those wheels.

Once I had finalized the changes, I decided to generate a random build combination using it, as an example of what it could do. The resulting configuration was as follows:

Above, from top: The first randomly generated combination from the revised and updated CEL Challenge Remix spinner wheel set. No modifiers could be used, but the car had to be American and from the 1990s - on top of that, in addition to having a black exterior color, it would have a model year of 1998 (since the Year spinner, which determines the last digit for the build's model, trim, family, and variant years, landed on 8), and with the Class wheel landing on Luxury, I would have to fit a luxury or hand-made interior, in addition to spinning the Class wheel once more.

After making a second spin of the Class wheel (as the rules stated), here's what it spat out:

Above: With the Class wheel landing on Sports Car after the mandatory respin, the build would be set as follows: a black 1998 American luxury sports car, with no positive or negative modifiers.

I later made a test build with the parameters I was given, and it turned out quite well, despite (or due to) the lack of modifiers. It should be noted that given that the Automation calendar begins in 1946 and ends in 2020, any build derived from any combination with an Era result of 2020s and a Year value  greater than 0 must have its model/trim/family/variant year set to 2020; for the same reason, any builds resulting from any combination whose Era is the 1940s and Year value is 5 or lower must have their model/trim/family/variant years set to 1946.

In short, the latest revision to the CEL Challenge Remix makes it far more relevant than it once was, and in addition to expanding and revising the CEL Challenge Remix wheel set, I also created yet another wheel set - one based on another game I own. You'll find out more about that one in my next post.

Update (6 August 2025, 10:10 am, UTC +7): I forgot to mention this earlier, but the US and Canada options on the Location wheel have now been merged into a single option (US/Canada), since despite these markets having significant differences from each other, I still consider them similar enough to treat them as a single region for the purposes of the CEL Challenge Remix. This merging of two options on the Location wheel also left some room for an "Any" option there. On that note, if the Class, Era, Location, Paint Color, and Year wheels somehow all landed on Any, you would have free rein to develop anything you want, from any year in any era, for any location, in any color.