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CrazyEight has GearCity

11 Jun, 2021 @ 12:43pm

Turbine and Nuclear Engines.

Previously I discussed using STEAM POWER in the 1970 as a cheeky solution to the oil crisis. It was fun, But talking with my friends has got me wondering about other things the car industry attempted that never took off.

While not practical AT ALL, 2 projects that were experimented with in real life were Jet Turbines and Nuclear Power. This may sound like some Bond Villain was drafting car designs but no, at one point in time these were very real concepts. The Auto industry wanted to move in this direction but for obvious reasons, abandon both ideas.

Turbines came very close to being a reality. A few fully functional examples even exist today. The issues were that Jet Turbines are expensive and LOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUDDDD!!! Good luck driving down the street without racking up 16 noise complaints.

Nuclear Cars were kicked around when we were fresh into the Atomic Age and were exploring our radioactive probabilities with stars in our eyes! After all, It was clear, efficient, and had no long term safety concerns what so ever... oh, except for the risk of radiation! Containment leaks were a constant concern, in addition to the engines being tremendously heavy. And what about repairs? Does your mechanic have a degree in nuclear engineering? What about a radiation suit? Still, concepts like the Simca Fulgur or the Ford Seattle-ite XXI show that interest in Nuclear power was a very real thing.

I think if Gear City ever gets extra funding these bizarre and outlandish concepts should be added... with particular difficulties. They should be expensive to develop, produce, and in the case of nuclear engines be big, heavy, and MONSTROUSLY expensive...

But...
And this is important...
The idea in game wouldn't be to build these engines for your cars. YOU CAN, of course. But you shouldn't... ever...

No no, the idea was for something else entirely. CONTRACTS.
WW1 and WW2 there are many contracts for tank, plane and boat engines for the military although airplanes eventually fades away. I love the idea of contributing to war machines with military contracts. And even a few civilian contracts could request these for ships or aircraft. I feel like these engines could potentially be profitable in these fields.

But hey. Maybe you can be the psychopath who makes a consumer nuclear car. Live out your Fallout Fantasy and have your cars announced by Todd Howard so he can convince your investors that "it just works".

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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

ShadyEd

11 Jun, 2021 @ 9:45pm

We already have Radial and Rotary engines that aren't really used much outside of aircraft in real life so I would love if turbines were implemented. I have previously tried a Engine manufacturing playthrough and turbines would really help there.

Eric.B [developer] 14 Jun, 2021 @ 9:09pm

As shady ed mentions, we already have circular engine types in the game. So a lot of this stuff can already be implemented via the mod tools. I added a turbine (I believe that's what I call it) flag to the engine layouts for circular engine types like Radials, Wankel, and Rotaries. So you have some of the tools there to mod in turbines. Maybe not well, but it's there.

I'm likely not adding anymore car engine layout types via the feature bounties, unless there is a lot of demand for it. But are a lot of them out there, some quite obscure. We are more likely to get various options to the layouts, such as cylinder angle, etc. Funny enough, some of the tickets I have planned would elemental the need for many of our sub-components.

The only types I can think of that would get added are turboprops, probably as some sort of attachment to military related bounty. If we add some vehicle types that has an engine type that is niche to it, (I can't think of any off the top of my head) that might a thing too.

All subject to funding though.

Originally posted by Shady Ed:
We already have Radial and Rotary engines that aren't really used much outside of aircraft in real life

Actually, Radials are used in tanks. And Rotaries (real ones, not wankels) were used in a couple of cars models, but did well in some motorcycles. The big problem with them is that they slung oil all over the place.

CrazyEight has GearCity

14 Jun, 2021 @ 9:38pm

Originally posted by Eric.B:
As shady ed mentions, we already have circular engine types in the game. So a lot of this stuff can already be implemented via the mod tools. I added a turbine (I believe that's what I call it) flag to the engine layouts for circular engine types like Radials, Wankel, and Rotaries. So you have some of the tools there to mod in turbines. Maybe not well, but it's there.

I'm likely not adding anymore car engine layout types via the feature bounties, unless there is a lot of demand for it. But are a lot of them out there, some quite obscure. We are more likely to get various options to the layouts, such as cylinder angle, etc. Funny enough, some of the tickets I have planned would elemental the need for many of our sub-components.

The only types I can think of that would get added are turboprops, probably as some sort of attachment to military related bounty. If we add some vehicle types that has an engine type that is niche to it, (I can't think of any off the top of my head) that might a thing too.

All subject to funding though.

Originally posted by Shady Ed:
We already have Radial and Rotary engines that aren't really used much outside of aircraft in real life

Actually, Radials are used in tanks. And Rotaries (real ones, not wankels) were used in a couple of cars models, but did well in some motorcycles. The big problem with them is that they slung oil all over the place.

As long as we have your attention.
I know Nuclear Engines probably will never get added, But I would still like to hear your opinion of the crazy nuclear concept cars that companies were researching back in the 50s and 60s.

ALSO... If its possible to MOD in Turbine Engines using the rotary tool, would electric engines be a similar platform for a nuclear engine MOD?

Eric.B [developer] 14 Jun, 2021 @ 10:18pm

Originally posted by Crazy Eight:
As long as we have your attention.

Well, everything has my attention. I just haven't been on a computer all that much in the last few days, and hate typing on mobile devices.

I know Nuclear Engines probably will never get added, But I would still like to hear your opinion of the crazy nuclear concept cars that companies were researching back in the 50s and 60s.

As far as I know, they never got beyond the marketing material stage, so there isn't much to comment on. As someone who grew up in a literal nuclear family, useful nuclear reactors in those years were fairly dangerous, but there are concept which could render small portable nuclear reactors feasible and relatively safe. Of course, it's only been recent years that those sort of concepts have been put into practice in attempts to do energy generation on other celestial bodies.

Anyway, just the lawsuit issues of allowing general public access to a quick cancer causing substance would have rendered every company selling these things to go out of business. And that's leaving out the other dangers, such as someone buying a few dozen cars and building a dirty bomb with them.

So really, it was all prototype marketing. None of them were seriously going to be released.

ALSO... If its possible to MOD in Turbine Engines using the rotary tool, would electric engines be a similar platform for a nuclear engine MOD?

Not sure the question here. You could make a nuclear engine using the mod tools. But a lot of the pros and cons of such an engine aren't modeled in the game, and you wouldn't be able to mod those in.

I'm hoping the electric engine system will get a major overhaul in the Feature Bounty program. Along with other sub-components that have major paradigm shifts over 100 years, like turbos/cvt's etc.

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GearCity > Suggestions > Topic Details

Date Posted: 11 Jun, 2021 @ 12:43pm

Posts: 4