How loud is "too loud", and how quiet is "whisper-quiet"?

[ssgtbaloo]

When designing an engine, how much loudness is acceptable? For a luxury car, I'd think it ought to be rather quiet. If I were designing something to be a competitor to a Rolls Royce or a Cadillac, how loud would be too loud? Likewise, when designing a street-legal sports car, how loud is acceptable, and when should I cut it off to avoid being pulled over for being too loud?

The loudness of most of my engines ranges from about 20 (plus-or-minus a few ticks), and the loudest cars I've made are about 45, with maybe one or two going past 50. If the loudness numbers were in decibels. I could easily compare the loudness/quietness of my cars to something in the real world and build accordingly.

Right now, I feel like I might be leaving some horsepower in the barn by keeping my cars as quiet as I do, but I still haven't figured out how the loudness of an engine affects the car's desirability.

[[CAMSO] MrChips]

Loudness in Automation doesn't correspond to any real-world unit of sound energy or loudness, and contrary to popular belief, it's a measure of loudness in the cabin of the car, not outside!

Loudness plays an important role in the sportiness and comfort scores of your car. For a luxury car, you'd want it to be as quiet as you can get; anything under about 30 is a very quiet car indeed, because you want to maximise your comfort in those cars. If you are making something very sporty like a hypercar, you actually want a car with a fair bit of loudness, but not completely unmuffled at the same time either!

[ssgtbaloo]

Originally posted by CAMSO MrChips:

Loudness in Automation doesn't correspond to any real-world unit of sound energy or loudness, and contrary to popular belief, it's a measure of loudness in the cabin of the car, not outside!

Well that makes a bit more sense.

Originally posted by CAMSO MrChips:

Loudness plays an important role in the sportiness, driveability and comfort scores of your car. For a luxury car, you'd want it to be as quiet as you can get; anything under about 30 is a very quiet car indeed, because you want to maximise your comfort and driveability in those cars. If you are making something very sporty like a hypercar, you actually want a car with a fair bit of loudness, but not completely unmuffled at the same time either!

Still, how loud should a street-legal vehicle be to not be viewed as an obnoxiously loud vehicle? Is 80 too loud to drive slowly (at or below the speed limit) through residential neighborhoods at night without waking every member of every household you drive past? Does it matter at all?

[Medu Salem]

For anything that is not sport you can basically throw double reverse mufflers everywhere. The quieter the better because they all care a lot about comfort, so it will increase the desirability.

On sports just throw 1 straight through muffler on it and you are all done. Any further is a waste already because the sports demographics won't like it.

For sports you can even go with no muffler at all, not like the game will punish you in campaign for acting like in those memes where that one girl gets blown with a huge tuba/trumpet directly in her face.