Cloning Locks all the Chassis Settings

[Slickstir]

As the title says, cloning a car locks all of its settings in the "Car Model" category which is comprised of step 1, "Model Body," and step 2, "Chassis." It locks every option on these steps for both the original car and the clone.

For example, if I made a truck with double wishbone front suspension, and I wanted to make a heavy utility version with a solid front axle, I wouldn't be able to unless I edited the original truck (replacing it) or remade it front scratch, because cloning it would lock all of these settings. Or what if I wanted a sports car with optional carbon fiber panels, like some new BMWs and their roofs? Same issue - cloning to make a new version "model locks" that setting too, making it unchangeable.

On a new version of the same car, it makes sense to me that you wouldn't be able to change the model body, chassis type, chassis material, and engine placement. However, I strongly think you should be able to change the panel material, front suspension, and rear suspension if you want. Bunching all these settings into one category and locking them upon cloning kind of sucks. This just seems like an unnecessary restriction to me, and I deal with it a lot.

That said, I love the game overall and have almost 600 hours played in roughly 1 year of ownership. This is meant to be construction criticism. I hope an Automation developer sees my opinion, but I'm also curious if other people see this as an issue.

[ssgtbaloo]

When I want to clone a body and then change the chassis settings, I clone the model family, prune out all but one, and then it will allow me to change the settings on that one model variant. Any clones of that variant will have the same settings.

[Slickstir]

Thank you for replying! Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by, "I clone the model family, prune out all but one.."

How do you clone the model family? I see the option to clone the trim, and the option to clone the variant+trim. Both these options seem to lock all the chassis settings on the clone and the original, whether the vehicle was complete before cloning or not. And what is being pruned out? Sorry, I just don't follow.

[ssgtbaloo]

When there is more than one model in a family of cars, the game locks the chassis settings.

If you're playing the campaign, some or all of this may not apply, but in sandbox mode you have the option of cloning an entire family of cars, duplicating every car. Then, to unlock the chassis, you select the family of just-cloned vehicles, then delete all but one of them from the duplicate family. That unlocks the chassis in the new family, while leaving the old one intact.

[Slickstir]

Ohh, I see. I didn't know you could copy the entire family by selecting it. I would only ever click the drop-down arrow to see the trims, and fiddle with them within the family. So they have to be separate models as far as the game is concerned, but that doesn't really matter to me personally. That solves my issue then. Thank you very much!

[thegreensteem]

Originally posted by Slickstir:

As the title says, cloning a car locks all of its settings in the "Car Model" category which is comprised of step 1, "Model Body," and step 2, "Chassis." It locks every option on these steps for both the original car and the clone.

For example, if I made a truck with double wishbone front suspension, and I wanted to make a heavy utility version with a solid front axle, I wouldn't be able to unless I edited the original truck (replacing it) or remade it front scratch, because cloning it would lock all of these settings. Or what if I wanted a sports car with optional carbon fiber panels, like some new BMWs and their roofs? Same issue - cloning to make a new version "model locks" that setting too, making it unchangeable.

On a new version of the same car, it makes sense to me that you wouldn't be able to change the model body, chassis type, chassis material, and engine placement. However, I strongly think you should be able to change the panel material, front suspension, and rear suspension if you want. Bunching all these settings into one category and locking them upon cloning kind of sucks. This just seems like an unnecessary restriction to me, and I deal with it a lot.

That said, I love the game overall and have almost 600 hours played in roughly 1 year of ownership. This is meant to be construction criticism. I hope an Automation developer sees my opinion, but I'm also curious if other people see this as an issue.

yeah, at the very least,panel, front and rear suspension being locked makes no sense to me.

[Traceypup]

Originally posted by thegreensteem:

yeah, at the very least,panel, front and rear suspension being locked makes no sense to me.

Ultimately there are very few examples IRL where the same model has switchable panels or suspensions.

HD Ford and Ram trucks obviously do with independent front suspensions on 2wd and live axles on 4x4s. But if you try to order parts for these, you'll find that while the cab and drivetrain are nearly identical, almost every single thing like motor mounts, radiator supports, fuel tank straps, even the width of the frame rails can be different. This from an engineering standpoint is more like having two nearly identical models in game with a different suspension, even tho IRL the different "models" are branded the same.

But the other examples that exist are much more specialty designs, and the arguement could stand that enough engineering was done to make it a different model entirely. Things like how the Civic Si had double wishbone while the base civic got mcpherson struts, or how the 99-03 Mustang Cobra got an independent rear suspension instead of a live axle. These are so few and far between, and were also highly specialized versions, that the in game way to represent this is with another model. This way the cars are built on a different assembly line which represents a realistic approach.

This is much like how the Ford "Modular" series of engines compares to the game: The iron block aluminum head 16 valve engine came out in 1991, however the all aluminum 32 valve DOHC engine wasn't released until 1993. While the engines share a relative bore/stroke, as well as things like head gaskets and oils pans to mount in the exact same holes in whatever car they want to put it in, the 16 valve design was an in house effort, while the 32 valve design was partially outsourced to Porsche and took much longer with far different designs and components. Same is to be said about how the small block chevy and the LT-1/4 engines differ, while they look nearly identical when disassembled almost nothings is the same, not even the water flow inside the block or location of the distributor.

There is an argument to be made for an engine having multiple different cylinder counts within a given bock and head arrangement(I4/5/6 or V6/8 using the same design and material) as there are many of these examples(4.3 GM, ford triton V10, GM Atlas I4/5/6, volvo I4/5/6) that were widely used in alot of different vehicles. This is also how several V6's came to be when their V8 version died off.

There is also a bit of an argument to be made about panel material, but that would require limits the game may not support. Sure its typical for cars with steel bodies to be upgraded to galvanized or treated steel as production capacity grows, maybe get aluminum panels with a facelift or on a higher trim, and wouldn't be too far fetched for a fiberglass car to have an all carbon model. But since there is no partial carbon panel design, nor would you see a full steel car having a carbon or aluminum body without serious changes to the underpinnings, I wouldn't expect this as that's probably alot of coding to have that many variables between trims of a given model for, just like the reason we don't have hybrids, a very small amount of the market.

[Killrob]

Originally posted by klutchfox:

Lots of coherent and accurate assessments.

Steam really needs to introduce that like button to forum posts. Good stuff!

[irocziv]

For sure