rec.autos.simulators

Have you ever seen Flight Sim Toolkit?  What you're talking about would be
the F.S.T. of auto sims.  You could decide the car type, design the appearance,
determine performance, what suspension parts are adjustable, dash layout.
You could also design new tracks or model existing ones.  You could define
all the rules for a new racing series.  It would be a LOT of work to do,
though.  You would want to have some ready-made cars and tracks for those
who would just want to tinker.  I designed one plane in FST, and it was
very time-consuming.  It would probably be a niche market program, but I'm
sure it would sell.
--

"Feel Lucky, Scubaboy?" - Discovery Channel, Shark Week, 1995

I've been kicking around this new idea lately, but I'm an artist not a
programmer, dammit, so I thought I may as well mention it here and
maybe somebody else could do something with it.
Would'nt be incredibly cool if you had a program that had something
like 100 cars in it (okay, more like 30-40), that you could drive on
already existing tracks?
You could have Muscle Cars, VW's, Customs, Concept Cars, Trucks,etc..
complete with a PaintKit that would allow you to customize the look of
each. Now, the realistic handling of each car would have to be
dramatically reduced to something simple. And many particulars in car
setups would be out the window, but it would'nt it be great to be able
to drive /Your/ car around Laguna Seca? Or Race your friend's Nova?
***pits could be done without going overboard.
There are plenty of tracks already that people love and are used to on
ICR2 and Nascar. I know, I know, these belong to Papyrus.
It just seems like a good idea to me that will probably never even be
pitched because it might be hard to rake in the cash from such a
novelty.

Oh well, just my Susan B. Anthony;

Or Hot Wheels could come up with one that allowed you to drive their
cars! Now we're talking.     Do I have too much time on my hands or
what?

Raevyn

The Need for Speed or The Need for Speed Special Edition is the closest you
are gonna get to this...

It would be ok to use the tracks from Papyrus - so long as the program did
not distribute these, forcing the consumer to buy the NASCAR or INDYCAR
Racing game.  However, your idea is a ton of work - you are basically
talking about writing a driving simulator ala Papyrus's.  Sure it is
possible, but the driving model is quite complex.  Now you are throwing in
a complex driving model too, because you want to model a lot of different
cars.  Also, you are throwing in a lot of graphics modelling since you want
the NOVA's dashboard - not to mention the research required to build the
car set.
/THansen

There was a Hot Wheels game on the Commodore 64.  I remember you could
paint your car in the paint shop, drive it to the gas station, drive it to
the demolition derby, drive it to the oil change shop (do-it-yourself
place, of course) :)  Had some other weird things as well...  anyone else
remember this game?