Car ratings

[Krys TOFF]

And what about cheated cars used on other competitions ? FSC and WSC used other cheated cars.

They are minor competitions.

I made a mistake : it's WRC Stunts, not WSC.
No competition is minor to another. Competitions are not ranked according to CTG's participation level on them.

FSC had a track where you were supposed to create your own car  I think it would be hard to count all the cars from that one (though I guess there weren't many pipsqueaks)

Everybody used Lada Niva Comeback if I remember it well on this track.

[BonzaiJoe]

I don't know, but I can see from my listings that I won the track  :-)

Yes, Lada Niva is the best car, I also have my Default record in it: 21.60

[CTG]

No competition is minor to another. Competitions are not ranked according to CTG's participation level on them.

Yes there are. Minor competition = only a few pipsqueaks. Mine is minor too compared to ZSC but still another class compared to FSC (I raced in it), Stunts LOL (I raced in it) or WRC (I raced in it).

[Krys TOFF]

Minor competition = only a few pipsqueaks.

Then ALL competitions past and present are minor compared to 4DSL.

Half-minor comps (more than 20 pipsqueaks sometimes) : Kalpen's comp, ZakStunts, 4D Contest (by Lukas Loehrer in 1997-1998).

All others (including USC or ISA/IRC) are minor. :-D

Do you agree ?

[CTG]

Minor competition = only a few pipsqueaks.

Then ALL competitions past and present are minor compared to 4DSL.

Half-minor comps (more than 20 pipsqueaks sometimes) : Kalpen's comp, ZakStunts, 4D Contest (by Lukas Loehrer in 1997-1998).

All others (including USC or ISA/IRC) are minor. :-D

Do you agree ?

no

4DSL is the best example for high number of pipsqueaks but low quality. Just remember: when there were 50 pipsqueaks, a middle class pipsqueak of ZSC could easily finish in top5. And now check SDR: 7-8 pipsqueaks, but usually only the aces can be on the podium (except R3 - Pulsion, grrrrr  :lol: ).

[Krys TOFF]

4DSL is the best example for high number of pipsqueaks but low quality. Just remember: when there were 50 pipsqueaks, a middle class pipsqueak of ZSC could easily finish in top5. And check SDR: 7-8 pipsqueaks, but usually only the aces can be on the podium (except R3 - Pulsion, grrrrr  :lol: ).

Angry against me because I finished 3rd at Pulsion track, overtaking you by 0.05 seconds. :-D

About level of pipsqueaks of 4DSL, ok, but remember Chulk or Dark Chaser and numerous others were just beginners. Tsino and Gutix managed to win many tracks as far as I remember. And the dual scoreboard (south american separated from the rest of the world) was made to avoid trained pipsqueaks from Europe to always be on podium.

Anyway, it's not what you said before :

Minor competition = only a few pipsqueaks.

You never told about level of pipsqueaks.

[CTG]

Now I did.

[CTG]

Standings after 19 voters

1	Porsche March Indy	8,71
2	Porsche 962 IMSA	8,12
3	Jaguar XJR IMSA	7,85
4	Melange XGT-88	7,24
5	Audi Quattro	6,91
6	Acura NSX	6,91
7	Lancia Delta Integrale	6,62
8	Chevrolet Corvette	6,13
9	Porsche Carrera	5,41
10	Ferrari GTO	5,15
11	Lamborghini Countach	4,59
12	Lamborghini LM002	4,32
13	Knight Rider	3,97
14	Skoda Felicia	3,64

[Argammon]

I should code realistic performances for the Skoda,Lada comeback etc.........

[Krys TOFF]

I should code realistic performances for the Skoda,Lada comeback etc.........

Feel free to create new cars Agry, I'm always curious to test new cars.

[CTG]

I would be glad to see if those who haven't voted yet would send me their car evaluations... Like Duplode, AbuRaf, Ayrton.

[Duplode]

OK, here you have my scores. 10 is perfect(unused), 9 is great, 8 is very good, 7 is good, 6 is moderately good, 5 is bad with redeeming qualities and <5 is somewhere between plain bad and pure ****.

Originals:

Acura NSX: 6.5 - Very annoying handling for a rather slow car, but the unusual slow powergear adds some interest.
Audi Quattro: 9 - Textbook great car: nimble handling, much faster than it looks, amazing potential for crazy tricks.
Chevrolet Corvette: 6.5 - Odd handling, the awful rev-meter almost cancels any gain from the digital speedometer, and I never adapted to it. But not really bad - it has distinctive looks, has a nice, hard-to-reach powergear, and is less frustrating than NSX for being slightly faster.
Ferrari GTO:  9.5 - Beautiful, fast, and challenging in a rewarding way. The long gears and the powergear capabilities are added bonuses. When not in powergear, the combination of trick handling and powerful engine give a very nice realistic sports car feel. The extra .5 over other "9" cars is just personal flair...
Jaguar XJR IMSA: 8 - The IMSA cars are all very fast and very pleasant to handle, even if slightly bread-and-butter (that's why they are a notch below the best cars). Jaguar stands out for being the prettiest one of them (even if the 3D shape looks very unlike the real car).
Lamborghini Countach: 5.5 - Arguably the worst original car in terms of power-to-performance ratio. Anti-powergear is quite interesting but irritating and handling is awful (with the GTO at least you expect to have more trouble on corners due to the higher overall speed).
Lamborghini LM002: 7 - Extra points for originality, with the distinctive driving height and the possibility to round corners so close to the top speed (even if its very slow...). The sluggish reactions do get frustrating at times, however.
Lancia Delta Integrale: 8 - Much like Audi, but a little less spetacular.
Porsche 962 IMSA: 8 - Very much like Jaguar. P962 is not so pretty, but ranks the same for being very slightly faster and because it is the IMSA I usually perform best with.
Porsche Carrera: 7.5 - It is a quite nice car actually, if a bit boring sometimes. Great for relaxed driving in appropriate tracks. The low real top speed (~180mph) contributes to a satisfactory perception of realism.
Porsche March Indy: 9 - Staple, staple, staple... many available tricks, excellent handling, and a dizzying feel unmatched even by faster cars.

Tuned:

Melange XGT-88: 8 - A member of the IMSA family, and a pretty good car too. What it loses in pure looks to the original IMSA cars it gets in coolness, so it deserves the same grade.
Skoda Felicia Kompressor: 3.5 - Well, unlike most cheat cars at least it is possible to drive it in a rather normal way.
Knight Rider: 2.5 - Very slightly less awful than the other crazy spaceship cheat cars IIRC (I only have driven it once or twice), but still horrible.
Lada Niva Comeback: 1 - Aaargh...

And since we're here...

All other rocket cheat cars: 1 - At the very most.
Coconut Car Coronet Pulsar STi-R: 6.5 - IMSA-like, except it has a very unpolished dashboard which is not nice to look at.
Speedgate XSD: 9 - A great alternative to rocket cheat cars, as it is slightly faster than Indy on flat ground but has tangible grip limits and no powergear. Additionaly it calls for a rather different style of driving for effective performances.
LWT-ZR1 GT3 MkII: Not ranked, for obvious reasons...

[CTG]

Thanks for the detailed scores! They are added to the database... 

[Duplode]

Thanks for the detailed scores! They are added to the database... 

Looking at that nice table made me think of taking your stats a little bit further... due to your background, maybe you have heard of PCA or Factor Analysis at some Statistics class or somewhere similar. The general idea is to pick a dataset with a lot of possibly correlated variables (in this case, ratings for different cars) and generate, by performing sums and subtractions, a new set of variables in which correlations are, as much as possible, removed (for instance, if tastes for P962 and Jaguar were equivalent among the pipsqueaks their scores would be lumped together on the new variables). That procedure allows to identify trends more easily and to drop many redundant or otherwise non-relevant variables.

What I did was to take the data table and pass it to R (the same statistical analysis program I used to make those polygon maps at the Dissecting thread), so it would perform the PCA analysis and produce a graph, attached below. On the graph, the most relevant (horizontal axis) and second most relevant (vertical axis) variables are plotted. The arrows indicate how much each car contributed to the variables (opposite arrows => opposite trends, larger arrows => more polarizing cars, arrows in the same direction => car ratings highly positively correlated). Finally, pipsqueak names are placed according to their scores on the combined variables, so that close names indicate close tastes (with horizontal axis being more relevant than vertical in that respect).

For the calculations, I included the eleven original cars and all pipsqueaks except for Renato (since a few of his scores were missing). Since there are not that many answers the plot is still a bit unclear, but some trends are clearly visible:

• Cars that mostly everyone likes (Indy), hates (LM002) or is indifferent (Lancia, Carrera) have little bearing on the results, while GTO, Countach, Vette and Audi are the really polarizing ones. As expected... 
• Powersliders (Zak, BJ, Argammon) are far apart at the left corner, opposite to IMSA fans (Mark, CTG...)
• Fine-handling enthusiasts (CTG, Usrin, Doc) are close to each other in the upper-right corner, while folks who despise slow cars (BJ, Akoss, Werda) are far on the lower half.
• Not only Ferrari/Countach and Jaguar/P962 pairs are highly correlated, Vette/Audi scores tend to be quite close too...

Now, check the plot and find your own inferences!

[CTG]

I did only STD, individual points correlation to average points, mass taste index (how different are the individually given points from the average) and a cross-table for correlations between each pipsqueak's points.

Some interesting high and low correlation values:

0.90 Gutix - Mark L. Rivers
0.86 Akoss Poo - Gutix
0.86 CTG - Dottore
0.83 Gutix - Werda
0.82 Gutix - Vamologocomisso
0.81 Dottore - Vamologocomisso
0.81 Mark L. Rivers - Werda
0.81 Usrin - Vamologocomisso
0.81 CTG - Vamologocomisso
0.80 Akoss Poo - Werda

And the most negative ones... Cork dominance

-0.53 Argammon - Vamologocomisso
-0.45 Argammon - Gutix
-0.45 Argammon - Mark L. Rivers
-0.42 Argammon - Werda
-0.39 Bonzai Joe - Chulk
-0.36 Bonzai Joe - Usrin
-0.36 Bonzai Joe - CTG
-0.36 Argammon - Akoss Poo
-0.35 Duplode - Renato Biker
-0.28 Argammon - Dottore
-0.28 Chulk - Zak McKracken
-0.28 Akoss Poo - Chulk