Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 62: Crisis of Confidence

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 62: Crisis of Confidence

The rule set for CSR 105 - to build a small, economical and affordable commuter car for the European market in 1979(!) - didn't inspire much confidence at first. Having to design late-70s economy cars after three consecutive rounds of making more modern machinery came as quite a shock to me, especially since there had not been a CSR round set in the 70s for a very long time. In particular, the technology available in 1979 was much more primitive compared to what would be available just five years later - in the Automation timeline, multi-point electronic fuel injection and treated steel body panels would not be available until 1982 and 1995, respectively. However, three-way catalytic converters were available by 1979, which proved to be helpful with regards to emissions reduction, especially since the maximum engine emissions were capped at 1800 for this round.

After taking a few minutes to understand the rule set, I set about making some test cars to see which one would be most appropriate for submission. Eventually I settled on the GEC GC1 1.4i, a small hatchback powered by an all-iron, single-overhead-cam, 1.4-litre inline-four with mechanical fuel injection. Underneath, it had a fairly conventional front-wheel-drive layout, with struts up front and a torsion beam at the rear. Standard equipment included a four-speed manual transmission, four-wheel disc brakes, an 8-track player, front fog lights, and power steering. Safety equipment was typical of the era, as was the exterior styling, with a boxy, sharp profile in anticipation of the automotive design trends of the coming decade. However, it was finished in bright green - a typical color for cars made in the 1970s - and this helped it stand out even more.

It's definitely no sports car, but for affordable, economical, and comfortable motoring, the GEC GC1 will easily get the job done.

The little GC1 had two doors on each side and a decent-sized boot - some of the entries had only one (or, worse yet, neither) of these attributes - and that made it quite a practical choice indeed. It was reliable, too, with an all-iron engine and tried and tested underpinnings (struts up front, trailing arms at the rear). What really stood out, however, was its powerband, which had plenty of low-end torque (for the era), and that contributed to its decent economy rating of just 8.6 litres / 100 km. Moreover, with so much torque available in the lower rev range, the GC1 was quite easy to drive even with the four-speed manual transmission, especially with the comfort-biased suspension tune. To prove a point, here are some screenshots showing various aspects of the GC1's tiny engine.

Above, from top: The GC1's 1.4-litre inline four-cylinder engine is fitted with hypereutectic cast-alloy pistons for reduced emissions; a mild cam profile guarantees a smooth idle and improves economy, with more low-end torque to boot; and despite the lean-burn mechanical fuel injection setup, retarded ignition timing makes the 8.1:1 compression ratio possible, thereby improving efficiency further.

By today's standards, however, the GC1 was very slow, taking over 14 seconds to reach 60 mph and totally incapable of reaching 100 mph. Then again, the GC1 was never meant to be a sports car - back in 1979, with the car market having been disrupted by the second oil crisis in less than a decade, outright performance was the last thing on most car buyers' minds. In addition, the brakes proved to be adequate for daily driving, nothing more, while the car's comfort rating of 14.0 (as submitted) is deceptive: 40 years ago, this would have been decent for a small budget hatchback.

In the end, though, the GC1 didn't trouble the top 6, but it still had plenty of merit considering its humble roots. The winning car, the Rhisuki Trekka B-12AT, was a less conservative car by comparison, with a smooth, torquey flat-four which lacked a catalytic converter (an omission made possible by the use of an aluminum block) and was fitted to an automatic transmission for drivability's sake. The low service costs helped compensate for its slightly below-average reliability - another consequence of using an aluminum block.

The winning car, the Trekka, known for its more advanced engineering - a cutting-edge contrast to the GEC's relative conservatism.

And so one of the more entertaining CSR rounds in recent memory came to an end. In the next round, I will show one of my recent Automation projects: to improve a car which was not known for being as good as it looked, but still had potential.

The Challenge of Infinite Space: A New Game Mode Suggestion

The Challenge of Infinite Space: A New Game Mode Suggestion

Even now, four years after its initial release, Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars continues to impress with seemingly endless replay value, more balanced gameplay and some of the best audio and visuals of any sci-fi roguelike on the market today. The campaign mode is the best it's ever been, and the Combat Simulator mode finally allows you to mix and match ships from different factions - and customize them to your liking for good measure. However, as a suggestion, I would propose a new game mode that could make it more compelling - for obvious reasons, I would call this the Challenge Mode.

The premise of Challenge Mode is as follows: you have a selection of preset battle scenarios, and completing the current challenge unlocks the next one. In each challenge, you are assigned a faction and flotilla of up to five ships, each of which has a preset weapon loadout and equipment configuration. You would start out with cheaper, lower-end items, but in later challenges you will get to use the more expensive high-end stuff. And you will most definitely be needing it; your targets will be more numerous and/or more heavily armed as you progress through Challenge Mode. Completing a challenge requires you to destroy some or all hostile ships and/or protect a vital allied ship or space station from enemy units. While I'm at it, I might add a separate tutorial for Challenge Mode to help you understand how it would work.

I'd suggest 15 to 20 challenges for this mode, to strike a balance between quick completion and a deep gameplay experience. Also, when you complete a challenge, you would earn a gold, silver or bronze medal depending on how many points you scored, with gold requiring more points than silver, which in turn requires more points than bronze. Fittingly, this mode would deserve several unique Steam achievements, most likely four of them: one for completing the first challenge, another for getting your first gold medal, still another for completing every challenge, and one final achievement for earning every gold medal the Challenge Mode has to offer. But how would this mode be introduced? Making it a paid DLC item might not be required (or even desirable), because with the base game, you already get plenty of bang for your buck, and forcing customers to pay extra for this mode weakens the game's value equation. It would thus be best to patch Challenge mode into a future update for the game for free, as has been the case for any and all content added to Sea of Stars throughout its entire history.

In short, Challenge Mode, as I have explained above, would be a worthwhile addition to the game. Not only would it appeal to those who have already fully completed the campaign on the highest difficulty, it would also allow beginners to learn the basics of combat without having to jump into the campaign. Moreover, you get the chance to improve your skills by making the most of various preset loadouts. Because as you may or may not know, there is more to Sea of Stars than attempting to score 250,000 points during the campaign on the highest possible difficulty.

Doll Maker's Diary, Part 25: Cover Girl Duets

Doll Maker's Diary, Part 25: Cover Girl Duets

So far, many of the dress-up games I have tried have some sort of fantasy theme. However, there are quite a few of these games which are focused firmly on modern fashions. The Cover Girl Dress Up Game is among them. Uniquely, it allows you to create outfits for exactly at once: an elegant one on the left and a more casual one on the right. Here are two examples.

Above: Two examples of sketches made in the Cover Girl Dress Up Game. In this particular game, the doll on the left always has a more mature and elegant look, in contrast to the carefree, relaxed style of the second doll, and the list of items available for them differs accordingly.

As expected, the items available for the first doll tend to be more conservative and formal, while those for the second doll are more whimsical and flamboyant by comparison. But as always, with either doll, the possibilities for outfits are virtually endless. And there is very little for me to complain about, although I would suggest more color choices for the items, additional background patterns (a horizontal gradient is the only one available) and the ability to swap the dolls' positions around.

When you compare the two item sets available to your, it soon becomes apparent that the one for the doll on the left lends itself well to a mature, tomboyish look, and the other item set (for the doll on the right) exudes a more youthful and feminine flair. Best of all, however, the game allows you to do both at once, as shown below.

Thus ends my summary of the Cover Girl Dress Up Game. Stay tuned for the next entry in this series.

Doll Maker's Diary, Part 24: Fairy Tale Scene Maker and Other Doll Game Discoveries

Doll Maker's Diary, Part 24: Fairy Tale Scene Maker and Other Doll Game Discoveries

Recently, I have been trying out another one of the various Azalea's Dolls Flash games on the Internet - specifically, the Fairy Tale Scene Maker. It is quite similar to the Goddess Scene Maker, but instead of a Greco-Roman theme, it is heavily inspired by Grimm's Fairy Tales and adaptations thereof. Here are a few examples of artworks I created using this game.

 Above, from top: Examples of artworks made using the Fairy Tale Scene Maker.

You can have up to eight characters (which can be either male or female) in a scene at any one time. As usual, the first few menus are reserved for the character's basic appearance (face, skin tone, hair style and color, etc.); the next few ones after that are about the color and type of the clothes they will wear - underwear, tops, skirts, pants, shoes and so on. From here you can add accessories, from jewelry and hand mirrors to books and even weapons, among other things. You also have three backgrounds to choose from: a village, a path leading to a castle, and a dense forest.

In addition, I stumbled upon a few discoveries when trying other games on the site:

• You do not have to make every character that you created in a Goddess game artwork be (or look like) an ordinary human being - you have the option to give them mermaids' tails or angels' wings. Moreover, you can add babies to your artworks - cute enough on its own, but heartwarming when you consider the fact that some characters in Greco-Roman mythology actually were descended from gods. And you can customize them as well - although your options for those are much more limited compared to the ones available for fully grown human(oid)s.
• The Four Elements game begins with a quiz containing 10 questions, each of which has four possible answers; once every question has been answered, the game will select a theme based on your responses. Further details on this process (and the game to which it belongs) will be shown in a future post in this series.
• The Lord Of The Rings Dress Up Game is actually split up into three different games: one for creating scenes with nothing but Hobbits, another devoted exclusively to dwarves, and yet another for creating scenes with other types of characters (humans, elves, etc). However, all of them share many customization options with the Tudors and Game of Thrones Dress Up Games.

This concludes my summary of my recent discoveries on the Azalea's Dolls website; stay tuned for further updates.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 61: Paint Box Problems

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 61: Paint Box Problems

The latest update to the color and materials system in UE4 Automation has opened up plenty of new possibilities for a car's aesthetics. However, it is not without its issues. In addition to overwriting all user-defined material colors, the layout of the paint/material selection tab has been significantly changed, with paint and material slots now being arranged into one of four different categories - a first for the game. This new may seem alien to Automationeers at first, but over time, it will be easily remembered - and offer more creative freedom to boot.

Creating an exterior paint color or editing an existing one used to be slightly more challenging than it is now, but the new paint editor offers much more variety of choice than before. For one, when creating or editing paint colors, you are taken to a basic paint editor, which is menu containing material type, hue, shine and flake presets. You can choose from high, medium or low levels of shininess and flake, as well as 147(!) preset hues and four material types (paint, plastic, carbon fiber and chrome). For even greater precision over color selection, you can open the advanced paint editor (a holdover from earlier builds) by clicking on its associated icon.

Above: The basic paint editor menu introduced in the latest update to UE4 Automation. From here, you can specify various aspects of an exterior color and its material type. Below: The advanced paint editor allows for greater precision over material color and type attributes, allowing you to adjust base and pearl colors by changing the hue, saturation and value for either or both of them.

As before, materials and color slots are still sorted into four categories: body, trim, wheels and miscellaneous areas. As before, car bodies can have up to four body color/material slots (primary body, secondary body, bumpers, and bonnet) and four trim color/material slots (main trim, window trim, wing mirrors, and pillars), while the car's wheels can have up to three (primary, secondary and lip) and brake calipers can only have one. However, trays and convertible tops can be recolored where possible - another first for the game, and a welcome addition requested by countless Automationeers.

Above: The list of body color/material slots in the redesigned paint selector tab. Below: There is also a similar list for trim slots.

Assigning existing materials and colors to slots is slightly more complex than before; however, the process required to do so is much more effective. Preset and user-defined colors and materials are currently sorted into three categories: On Car (i.e. those which were previously assigned to the car being created/edited in the car designer menu), Global (which includes every user-defined color and material) and Defaults (which includes all the default materials in Automation, with a few new ones, such as aluminum and leather, being added in the latest release); a fourth category, reserved for Campaign materials and colors, will be added in a later patch.

Above: The global paint/material group includes all user-defined materials and paint colors which have been saved in the car designer. Below: The list of default materials in the redesigned paint/material editor is much larger than it used to be.

In short, while the new paint editor menu may seem more complicated at first, it ultimately becomes a much more useful tool in the design phase once you get the hang of it.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 60: LCV3 Patch 5 Public Release Overview

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 60: LCV3 Patch 5 Public Release Overview

Now that Patch 5 of UE4 Automation 4.21 is finally out of the open beta stage, I have finally found some time to take it for a spin. So here's a rundown of my first impressions of this latest patch.

Right off the bat, I was very impressed; not only did it look better, it felt better as well. Selecting colors and materials for exterior slots was more difficult at first, though; even so, I expect to find the color/material selection process even more satisfying than before. Moreover, the update has introduced plenty of new bodies, fixtures and photo scene locations (including several third-party mods for each). Finally, the game is much more stable than it used to be, while many existing bodies have had various issues finally fixed. Here are a pair of test builds I made in the new public release as examples of what's possible.

Overviews of two test builds made in the 5th patch of UE4 Automation LCV3 after the latest new public release, showing a mid-10s hot hatch (top) and an early-00s sports coupe (bottom). 

There will be plenty to discuss further about the latest update in future posts. The next one will be about the revised color and material selection system, so stay tuned for that one.

The Prince of Infinite Space: The Most Powerful Large Capital Ship in Sector Prime

The Prince of Infinite Space: The Most Powerful Large Capital Ship in Sector Prime

Earlier I described how the humble Terran corvette - available from the beginning in Sea of Stars and its predecessors - has the potential to be the most overpowered ship in the game, period. But what if, as is often the case, the Timeless Bauble (which is the only way to acquire a Nova Cannon in normal gameplay) is absent from the map, or if it is present you used it to create something else, such as a Limited Vacuum Collapser? The obvious solution is to go big - or go home. And by big, I mean really big. Specifically, I'm referring to the largest ship in the Terran fleet - the Terran destroyer.

First, the bad news: it costs at least 1100 credits to buy at the Terran home system, Glory, and that number increases if you trade in a Terran corvette or scout for it. Moreover, the Terran destroyer only becomes available for purchase after 4595 AD in-game, and its advanced variant (which carries a backwards-facing turret) doesn't go on sale for another two and a half years after that. Finally, like all ships of their size, Terran destroyers are quite sluggish, even if they are fitted with Reactionless Thrusters, the most advanced thruster type in the whole game.

On the other hand, there's still plenty to like about the Terran destroyer. It is among the most heavily armored ships in the game, and is easier to acquire than its rivals, some of which are only obtainable in normal gameplay if a specific quest is present. In addition, like its smaller cousin, the Terran frigate, it has six equipment slots, and its weapons coverage is as well-balanced as that of any other Terran ship. And if you hire the Moon Marauder's captain as a mercenary, you can even have two of them in your fleet at once if you then choose to trade in his Terran scout for it.

So what weapon configuration works best with this behemoth? The answer is simple: three Multi-Missile Launchers for long-range combat and a Proton Blaster for dealing with small stuff - usually fighters and ship-launched missiles. Multi-Missiles, unlike the Nova Cannon, do not automatically target fighters, partially saving you from the inconvenience of manually selecting a target, although they are less effective at short ranges due to the fact that the missile fragments need a short amount of time to arm after separation. Of course, if a Multi-Missile hits a target directly before the fragments have separated, it will cause more damage - but it's still a less effective weapon for ambushing a target in its blind spot at point-blank range than a Nova Cannon. Even so, the Multi-Missile outranges the Nova Cannon and has homing capabilities, making it more accurate from a distance.

Given that Terran destroyers come with six equipment slots as standard, it should come as no surprise that it has plenty of scope for upgrading. The first thing you want to install is an advanced targeting computer such as the Eidetic Matrix Bubble. To complement the destroyer's heavy armor, strong shielding (at least a Proton Matrix Shield) is also recommended. Moreover, a repair system (usually a Hyperfoam Injector, although a Multibot Repair Drone can be substituted if you manage to find one) will make its already stout hull even harder to destroy. Cloaking devices and electronic countermeasures systems are not really required due to the destroyer's sheer bulk, although they are nice to have. Even with all of the above items installed, the Destroyer will still have room for one navigational aid (a Hyperwave Filter Array, Continuum Renderer Array, Nebular Extent Calculator or Anti-Graviton Shunt), all of which make route planning easier, especially on maps set to have a strong alien presence.

A fully upgraded Terran destroyer fitted with three Multi-Missile launchers, a Proton Blaster and the most advanced equipment known to denizens of Sector Prime is one of the most fearsome capital ships imaginable - few ships are more effective in combat.

In short, while a Terran Destroyer will never match the agility and sub-light speed of smaller ships, it makes up for it with more space for cargo, armor, weapons and equipment - it is well worth the price and the long wait before it becomes available for purchase.