Caterpillar 789D

[Foxpup]

Introducing the Caterpillar 789D 200-ton mining truck, which I believe sets the record for the largest custom car in the game to actually be a car by some loose definition of the word. While most trucks this size use electric transmission (where the engine spins a generator which powers electric motors), the 789 series uses an entirely conventional mechanical transmission, making it behave remarkably similarly to any ordinary car. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite have the performance of one, and thus it has slight problems with certain stunt elements. It jumps as well as an elephant (ie, it doesn't at all), can't fit through the corkscrew the normal way (and even cutting it is dicey), however the loop is surprisingly doable (albeit barely) if you can get the machine close to top speed. Some of these performance problems are due to the machine's very short gear ratios, spaced tightly to take full advantage of the engine's torque rise, resulting in phenomenal low-end acceleration (and, in real life, hauling capacity up steep grades) at the cost of a dismal top speed of 37 mph.

Since the engine's peak torque exceeds the game's limit of 1024 ft*lb, I had to reduce the vehicles' torque, mass, and aerodynamic drag by a factor of 12. I also gave it a significantly higher idle torque than peak torque to simulate the stall torque multiplication of the torque converter, and a slightly higher max rpm than redline so it can get a little speed boost on ramps, making it a bit more dynamic without being too unrealistic.

Note that due to the vehicle's enormous width (22.4 feet) preventing it from fitting next to another vehicle on the starting line, you cannot race against AI opponents unless you use the replay-breaking truck-launch glitch. (Not that there's much point, though it is pretty funny to put Skid in the big Cat and watch him immediately wipe out at the slalom on Default because the AI doesn't take vehicle width into account...)

Layout: Rigid double-axle, front engine, rear-wheel drive
Engine: Caterpillar 3516C MEUI V-16 quad-turbo aftercooled diesel
Displacement: 78080cc
Peak torque: 8275 ft*lb @ 1200 rpm
Peak power: 2100 bhp @ 1650 rpm
Transmission: 6-speed
Empty machine operating weight: 300,000 lb
Nominal payload capacity: 415,000 lb
0-60 mph: Nope
Quarter mile: 29.45 sec @ 37 mph
Half mile: 53.30 sec @ 37 mph
Flat top speed: 37 mph
Real top speed: 49 mph
Power gear: No (bug-free)
Seating capacity: 2
Cup holders: 1
Colours: Canary Yellow, International Orange, Eco-wash Green, Corporate Slate
Price: $1,100,000

[dreadnaut]

Standing ovation 👏

Belated welcome, and thank you! Can't wait to take this for a ride

[HerrNove]

Glorious! I love how it does not even fit in the showroom screen

[Foxpup]

Glorious! I love how it does not even fit in the showroom screen

And that's despite the showroom model being scaled by a factor of 10 (same as the Ikarus 260) instead of the usual 20. In fact, this truck is almost as large as the garage door at the gas station. (What the heck is up with this game's scale, anyway?)

[Matei]

(What the heck is up with this game's scale, anyway?)

The cars are ~1:2 scale models. Does the tipping cargo bed work?

[Zapper]

That is quite an achievement on making that "fit" into Stunts, either in terms of performance and appearance!

[alanrotoi]

Beatiful!!! I'll make its wiki article as soon as I can!!

[Foxpup]

That is quite an achievement on making that "fit" into Stunts, either in terms of performance and appearance!

Thank you! Especially regarding the appearance; getting that damn model under 256 vertices was by far the most difficult part of this project.

As for the vehicle's performance, this whole thing actually began as just a goofy experiment with giant cars, but I decided to get serious with it after implementing the torque curve and gear ratios of a real machine and seeing just how well it works in the game. Torquey engines just hit different, and this one's as torquey as they get. We need more cars with torquey engines in this game, though probably more reasonably sized.

Beatiful!!! I'll make its wiki article as soon as I can!!

I had a feeling you'd like it.

Also, here's the physical parameters page in CarWorks showing just how ridiculous this machine is. (Keep in mind that the mass, drag, and torque values have all been reduced from the realistic values by a factor of 12 to make the torque curve fit while keeping the power-to-weight and drag-to-weight ratios constant.)

[Matei]

Attached screenshot from program view3d available here (colours might be a little wrong, I don't know why), details inside:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/simple3d/files/SDL_grf/

Also attached archive with programs which convert *.3SH files from Stunts into text files usable with the program mentioned above, or with my games. Details in README.txt. Program 3sh2txt.bas was written by Cas.

[Matei]

Converted program mentioned above from FreeBASIC into C, archive attached again, file README.txt updated.