The next tuner challenge..

  • Thread starter Leonidae
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Its pretty similar in several respects to proposals already out there. I'm working on combining them all into one competition layout.

As N-tires can be considered the "great equalizer" since they impose their own practical limits on levels of sustainable power and speed, I'll likely suggest only one very open and loosely restricted N-tire division, which should produce more heated and interesting competition. The displacement classes (which are the ones likely to involve a budget) will probably offer the possibility of using S-grade tires, if it falls within the individual tuner's budget.

Expect a detailed proposal either later tonight or tomorrow.
 
nd 4 holden spd
You can put your new tuning skills to the test, and I will put your test to the ultimate test, as I'll be judging most categories. When it comes to Tuner Challenge judging- I can be really harsh if I want to be. I'll pick on every little fault the car has and mark you down for it :mischievous: Don't worry, just do your best and I won't criticise you for trying. That's why I think I should be a judge guys
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well bring it on then, i'll see what i can do.., :sly:

VTiRoj
Yeah thats right, drive away, before I do something I might regret! :grumpy:

Damn Camaro drivers... :mad: *storms off cursing*
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LOL :lol::lol:

Leonidae
Uh, what offer? I will participate, but not as a judge or organizer, i'm too lazy for that.
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yeah, you DID say this:
Leonidae
yeah, but the thing is that he hass a full day job and I am at school, studying to become a car mechanic this spring, so we're short of time.. which rules us out as judges. besides, there's one more factor in my case: I'm notoriously lazy, have bad memory and my prejudices towards certain cars would get in the way of judging. :dopey: :embarrassed:
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nd 4 holden spd
I thought you offered to organise- ah well. Maybe I should do it, but I'm not great with rules and guidelines. If someone could give me the rules and categories I would run the deadlines, judge's lists, results etc.
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no, he is not offering to organize, he just wants to have a tuner challenge..,

nd 4 holden spd
Not bad, maybe best not to limit the parts you can buy and replace that parts limit with a budget limit each time. The FF category might have S tyres, but the rest should all have N grade tyres.
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how about we combine the power and budget limit?? just a suggestion..,
 
I'm down for whatever is decided, but I like a budget cap for some categories. I said earlier that there were too many ideas coming in for me to consider all at once. (Mainly because I like Leo am very lazy).
 
Okay, here's the proposal I've got. We'll put it up for a vote afterwards, and beyond that any changes that need to be made can be made. After this point though, I really do have to bow out. Things are getting FAR too busy for me to be able to give running a challenge like this the concentration it needs. I'll volunteer to judge a few categories for sure if I'm wanted, if the panel judging system is used.


Standard Tuner Challenge blanket rules apply - no cheating, modding, etc.

Two Phases:

Phase 1 is the Budget Builder Challenge. All cars in Phase 1 are subject to a maximum WPR of 3.0. All cars in the build specified by the tuner may NOT exceed 60,000 credits, including the price of the car. Prices of used cars are to be determined in one of two ways. (1) The price of the 6.2mi/10km special, if its available and the tuner choses to use it. (2) The LOWEST available used price for the car in question, to be researched and quoted by the tuner. There are resources on GTP that make this doable for the tuner, and verifyable by whomever moderates the challenge. Each tuner is allowed, if he so desires, to use, without penalty to the budget, both the rigidity refresher if his car calls for it, AND the medium-grade (semi-racing) suspension. The tuner may still opt to use a stock, sports, racing, or original suspension, but this WILL be counted against his budget, and he will receive no "trade-in" value for not using the allowed SR suspension. All cars in this division are limited to S3 tires and under - tires DO count against the budget as well.

P1D1: 1800cc and under
P1D2: 1801cc - 2499cc
P1D3: 2500cc and up
P1D4: FWD cars only

Do note that if the tuner so choses, FWD cars could also be entered in Divisions 1-3 as well, but D4 is strictly limited to FWD cars ONLY.

Judging will be done by a predetermined panel who volunteer for, and are chosen by the challenge moderator for the different divisions. Judging would follow a similar structure as previous tuner challenges - overall feel and improvement over stock settings and default settings would be the main criteria, but with a WPR cap in place and the cars sorted by displacement, lap times over a given track will play a somewhat more important role than before.

At the conclusion of the challenge, the winners of each Phase 1 division will go head-to-head in front of the judges to determine an overall Phase 1 Champion. This judging would NOT take lap-times into consideration, given the differences in displacement.

Phase 2: Pro-street Touge Showdown

This is much simpler.

Any road car (no racers, tuners or concepts) is allowed, running on N-grade tires. No power cap or budget is in place since the tires themselves impose their own limits. Keeping with the Pro-street theme, downforce is limited to 8, both front and back. Aside from that, there are no restrictions. Simply build the best-handling, quickest, most harnessable car you can. At the end, a predetermined panel of judges will select a group of the best cars (either three or six, depending on the number of entrants) to compete in a Touge-themed spot race to be held at a location to be determined later by the moderator and judges.
 
Sounds good CLS, I'm in. I want to enter 2 categories but I wanna judge most and should only enter 1.

Edit: Now I've been contemplating- and I have to make sure I read this right, the price of the car is the lowest possible, so I could buy a low mileage Camaro and count it as a high mileage price and save $4k? And is it just me or should wings be excluded completely from phase 1?
 
I'd add a few more restraints on the "Phase 2" section. Firstly, a front downforce of 8 is quite high, especially when the front of a car offers little to enhance downforce. I had 3/7 front/rear maximums in mind and they are relatively realistic values. You can definitely feel an obvious difference between, say, 4 and 6 (well, at least it's night and day to me); any higher will, like S and R tires, completely dissolve a car's road feel and inherent stability. Downforce units in the game are *much* stronger than some think.

And the game's weight reduction is quite unrealistic. A road-legal BNR34 dropping to well under 1400kg is not going to happen. D1 Grand Prix has a "street" class for competitors wherein one rule is that the car must have a full interior and audio equipment. So, by taking a queue from their insight in street-legal competitive tuning, weight reduction should be disallowed altogether, solely because GT4 doesn't offer the opportunity to just replace the bonnet, seats, decklid, or exhaust piping for a total maximum possible real-life reduction of some 20 to 25kg. Also, the weight reduction clause would mean many players would choose, for example, a completely stripped GT-R with maximized downforce. It effectively eliminates the car's unique heavyweight and understeering characteristics. So you've substituted deeper tuning to combat its sluggishness on real road tires with (what amounts to) high-grip tires. We're back to square one.

Center differential and brake bias controllers are definitely a no-go for realism. They are race car-only devices.

Regarding locations, there are very few locales in the game that offer a "touge" experience:
-George V Paris
-Citti d'Aria
-Motorland

You can use the timer gates in Citti d'Aria for start/finish checkpoints, rather than a full lap around the entire course. Likewise for Paris. Ideally, you'll want the first timed section of Reverse Citti d'Aria as a touge since a 700ps GT-R isn't given the opportunity to do a disappearing act at the track's two straightaways.

Also, will there be any driving feel evaluations, and not just who can win the race? These will be completely subjective to the judges' tastes, but multiple input on the same car will leverage out any slanted evaluations. It's just the time-competitive idea doesn't really float well without an online mode for direct competing nor any proper touge-permitting tracks.

And, off the record, is anybody else an avid viewer of the Best Motoring franchise?
 
I've been watching few episodes, since it's pretty similar to Top Gear, but with tuner cars..

1.) How on earth did you get the most nimble GT-R, an R34, to understeer? Even R32 oversteers if you know what you're doing.

2.) Paris and motorland would be out for these reasons.. A: motorland is too small and would favour smaller, lighter cars, and B: paris has straights where power might very well solve the race. I'd replace those with Trial Mountain, Deep Forest or Autumn Ring..

Besides, Greycap recently confirmed his theory about the weight reduction being based on a formula.. and then there is the fact, that the mass of some cars is the dry mass, for example Focus RS weights 1175kg IRL, not 1050...
 
i'm in for the Touge Showdown !! (as it says in my signature :sly:) 👍

yes, Citta 'di Aria does provide the "perfect" touge experience :sly:.., but i will have to agree with Leonidae, George V Paris and Motorland should be replaced with Trial Mountain, Deep Forest and Autumn Ring (the Mini version also counts) are better.., also how about Costa 'di Amalfi??
 
Costa di Amalfi provides very long straights. I say just use Citi di Aria. You could use forward/reverse versions of it and get a very different track both times, or you could use the different sectors and count them as different tracks. Weight Reduction should no way be removed. Even manufacturers shave as much as 200kg (Lamborghini Superleggera anyone) off their standard cars so weight reduction's in. Why would I need a sounds system anyway when I can listen to the magic of V8 power? And I certainly don't want to take passengers the way I will be driving :scared:
 
Im definitly up for this!

Whats happening about who and how many people can enter? Will it be a first come first served type thing or what? and how about 10 people max per category to prevent becoming too overcrowded?
 
It won't get overcrowded, and if you want to participate that's great. We haven't got a confirmed set of rules in place yet. Judges will be pre decided.
 
we're still throwing out ideas at the moment but we're definitely getting somewhere, thanks to CLS' and setsunakute's proposals.., 👍

come to think of it, Costa 'di Amalfi does have long straights after every corner.., and the steep uphill section on Reverse Mode demands torque.., Citta 'di Aria, anyone?? :D
 
In a way the Citta di Aria is just as bad, with two very long straights on the backside of the track and then that huge climb from the last hairpin.
 
The straight is hardly lone enough to reach any real speeds, plus that hill climb has a fair few corners in it you must slow down- given the tightness and narrowness of the track I can't see a firebreathing torque monster doing well there. I wouldn't even drive my C1 Corvette there, maybe my Triumph Spitfire.
 
Citti di aria would be a better bet for a touge style battle. It has plenty of tight corners and there arent any straights where you can get alot of speed up.
 
Even so, we could just use the downhill sectors in the track as the "touge track", and leave the uphill sectors out if people get too worried.
 
The problem with Costa is that the hairpins on the hillclimb limit you to a given speed no matter what, it seems. (Fine, better tires mean a higher cornering speed, downforce helps a little too, but not much) So a car that can get out of the corners faster will lay faster laps, not the car that corners better.

Also, if we're going to use the downhill of Citta, use the downhill on Citta reverse... The speeds any vehicle will generate will be limited only by the amount of balls the driver has and the car's cornering capability.
 
There a few problems with Citta that I forsee.

While the idea is to remove any favoritism towards bigger more powerful cars, Citta doesn't just equalize things. It's so tight and uneven that it strongly FAVORS smaller cars.

If you use just the downhill sections (and if memory serves, a strict "touge" run includes both an uphill and a downhill phase), it's VERY short.

I've got to agree with Leo as well. Trial, Deep Forest, and Autumn Ring are the best tracks of practical length for a touge battle.

Theoretically though, picking certain sectors of the Nurburgring would be better than anything. The track is of the right width to simulate a mountain pass, and many of the undulations and curve structures remind me a great deal of Blue Ridge Parkway driving (a very mountainous thrilling twisty road running the length of the Appalachian Mountains, for those who don't live in America).
 
The best part of the Nordscheife might be the one beginning just after the Mutkurve T6 until the Pflanzgarten II T9. Only my opinion of course but it has most of the trickiest corners of the track squeezed in one succession.
 
That's the exact sector I had in mind actually. It's by far the most technical part of the track, and offers a brilliant test for any machine of any power level.
 
And which judges are going to drive half the trach full pelt, remember where T6 starts and T9 ends, and then do the maths afterwards, very time consuming the lot of it. And take it from me that Trial Mountain greatly favours the car with the most torque, even a similar power to weight ratio and handling the car with more torque can still win by a fair few seconds.
 
CraftyLandShark
Theoretically though, picking certain sectors of the Nurburgring would be better than anything. The track is of the right width to simulate a mountain pass, and many of the undulations and curve structures remind me a great deal of Blue Ridge Parkway driving (a very mountainous thrilling twisty road running the length of the Appalachian Mountains, for those who don't live in America).
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I agree with using the 'Ring. It's as close to a track as the Blue Ridge as you can get. I love that parkway! Sure, I wasn't old enough to drive then, but it's still fun.
 
If you're ever back out there, check out the Tail of the Dragon :sly:

It's a stretch of road that's a part of US 129 near the Parkway in North Carolina near Waynesville and Maggie Valley. It's SICK... some sort of index that measures the number and severity of curves-per-mile indicates that it's just about the most challenging road in the world. The unofficial count is 318 curves in 11 miles - Nurburgring territory. All kinds of car clubs meet there in the Spring... just don't go when NASIOC goes, or when there's a biker meet. Cops EVERYWHERE. There's a radar expectation map on the site in the link below if you ever go - take it. Seriously. It saved me a potential $500 ticket on the Cherehola Skyway nearby.

http://www.tailofthedragon.com/maps_dragon_road.html
 
Even I've heard of the Tail of The Dragon, and I'm in Australia! One of the best driving roads in the world supposedly, but then Mount Panorama Bathurst is a public road the rest of the year :sly: Just experiencing that elevation drop would be so cool.
 
This is a public road as well - albeit a dangerous one! There have been something like 20 deaths just on bikes since 2000 - that doesn't count deaths in cars or trucks.

We had an SVX meet up there last summer, and one of the guys in our group put his right into a rockface :ouch: Luckily it was in a slow speed corner, but he tried to take it too hot. He wasn't hurt, and his car was repairable, but still ...
 
I mis-wrote that, I meant that Bathurst is a public road as well, not that it was and TOTD wasn't. But yeah, sounds like a dangerous road alright. Don't cops hang around there and fine people for driving it without purpose?
 
CraftyLandShark
If you're ever back out there, check out the Tail of the Dragon :sly:

It's a stretch of road that's a part of US 129 near the Parkway in North Carolina near Waynesville and Maggie Valley. It's SICK... some sort of index that measures the number and severity of curves-per-mile indicates that it's just about the most challenging road in the world. The unofficial count is 318 curves in 11 miles - Nurburgring territory. All kinds of car clubs meet there in the Spring... just don't go when NASIOC goes, or when there's a biker meet. Cops EVERYWHERE. There's a radar expectation map on the site in the link below if you ever go - take it. Seriously. It saved me a potential $500 ticket on the Cherehola Skyway nearby.

http://www.tailofthedragon.com/maps_dragon_road.html
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Can't say I've ever been there. I'll go though in my life. I lived round Ashville for a year or two, then moved out to right in between Winston-Salem and Greensboro.

I think just taking some of those turns at the speed limit would be fun. Kinda like driving in the mountains in Kentucky, when a sign is warning you of a turn ahead, and it says 25 MPH, it damn well means 25 MPH.

Wow, every time I post here it makes me feel so much older than I really am...
 
Ahhhh gotcha.

Sometimes there's a huge police presence, but usually only when they know there's going to be a big meet. They only stop you for speed or reckless driving though, they can't really stop you for driving without a purpose, as most of those roads exist for scenic reasons - i.e. no other purpose than driving without purpose :sly: We scheduled ours deliberately so that there'd be the least activity possible, and had "advance scouts" run all the routes we planned before we ran them. We also STRONGLY suggested staying in the lines, but a few people didn't listen... and one ended up in a rockface :dunce:

<edit> That's crazy Mustang... I'm guessing you either lived in Kernersville or High Point? Literally less than twenty minutes from me. I'm technically in Clemmons.

And yeah. Those speed limits are limits for a damn good reason :sly:
 
CraftyLandShark
Ahhhh gotcha.

Sometimes there's a huge police presence, but usually only when they know there's going to be a big meet. They only stop you for speed or reckless driving though, they can't really stop you for driving without a purpose, as most of those roads exist for scenic reasons - i.e. no other purpose than driving without purpose :sly: We scheduled ours deliberately so that there'd be the least activity possible, and had "advance scouts" run all the routes we planned before we ran them. We also STRONGLY suggested staying in the lines, but a few people didn't listen... and one ended up in a rockface :dunce:

<edit> That's crazy Mustang... I'm guessing you either lived in Kernersville or High Point? Literally less than twenty minutes from me. I'm technically in Clemmons.

And yeah. Those speed limits are limits for a damn good reason :sly:
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Dead in the middle of the Piedmont triad. Kernersville. I had a friend that moved to Clemons.

I imagine summer after my sophomore year I'll head on up there and take a look. But first, I'll find out if my car oversteers or understeers at the limit:nervous:
 

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