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From: R Andrew Hayden <rahayden@*****.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU>
Subject: I'm back. I think we need to regroup.
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:47:03 CET
Hi everyone, I think I'm back now.

Apologies for not being around as of late, but I've been so busy
gearing up got this move that I simply haven't had the time to
deal with everything adaquately.

--------------------------------------

I'm about to make a suggestion that is going to anger many people,
but in reading over the pages and pages of equations, and
arguments about whether they make use of the correct physics, I
think it might be a faster and more workable solution.

My suggestions are:

----------------------------------------------------------------

))) RE: acceleration

Let's forget coming up with an equation. Instead, we can include
a nebular table for each vehicle type where acceleration is based on
engine-power vs. vehicle weight. There are a couple of reasons for
this:

A) It ends the arguments we are having and allows us to
move on.

B) Different vehicle types have different acceleration
characteristics. By using an arbitrary table for each type,
we avoid the problem of having to argue acceleration
equations for nine different vehicles.

SAMPLE (not very realistic) ACCELERATION TABLE:

Accel Power (as % of vehicle wt)
---------- ----------------------------------------
25 m/s*s > 100%
20 m/s*s > 80%
15 m/s*s > 60%
10 m/s*s > 50%
5 m/s*s > 40%

I know what you are thinking. This isn't really very realistic of
an approach. I know that, but I also know that we are getting way
too many equations floating around here, more than we need to
have. Even if we boil down those pages and pages into a few
relatively simple equations, I still think it is too much.

I don't necessarily consider myself math illiterate, but I know that
when building a car I want to punch the calculator keypad as little
as possible. So if we can eliminate an equation in favor of simply
cross-referencing on a table, I'm all for it. It is faster, easier,
and generally much easier to live with than a series of formulas that
may or may not be totally correct.

----------------------------------------------------------

)))RE: Cruising Speed and Redline Speed

Ok, don't kill me for this, but what if....

We pretend that all cars are inherently geared towards a cruising
speed of 120 km/h. At any speed less than 120 km/h, they get
maximum fuel economy. Redline speed is 200 km/h and between 120 and
200, economy is 20% of max.

Now, you can increase cruising and redline with various accessories
such as overdrive or streamlining.

What does this accomplish? First, it eliminates having to compute
anything. Second, it is very easy for any dimwitted moron to use
(like me).

Pretend for a minute you are an 8th grader again and you've never
had much math of any kind. This 8th grader should be able to write
up a vehicle without having to spend 2 hours punching numbers into
a calculator just to determine performance specs. They want to
make a car . . . their car . . . and take it out and kill things.
I'd want to do the same things

--------------------------------------------

*sigh* sorry, I'm probably not being very coherent here, but I'm reallying
beginning to have problem with putting to much math into all of this. It
slows down this project and will slow down design and game play. I don't
want to do that. Utter simplicity was a goal before we even got going and
we have to keep that in mind. Unfortunately, utter simplicity and utter
realism do not go hand-in-hand very often and we have to strike a balance of
some kind. For all of these performance things, I guess I'd rather hedge
towards simplicity.

So, this begs the question: does anyone have any really deep-seated
objection to backing up a bit and approaching this from the standpoint of
relatively arbitrary performance stats? This way, we can get that done and
get on to the more important parts, like accessory design.

----------------------------------------------



[> Robert Hayden <] [> ____ Come out, Come out <]
[> <] [> \ /__ Wherever you are! <]
[> rahayden@*****.weeg.uiowa.edu <] [> \/ /
[> aq650@****.INS.CWRU.Edu <] [> \/

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