2007 BOS Race Planned

AMC and GT held a conference mid-week that quickly evolved into the planning of the first-ever Beginning-Of-Summer (BOS) Race, decided for Sunday, May 6, 2007. The race will help to boost production in OTO, as usually follows from a race, as well as to help decide the winner from last year's EOS Race, that was cancelled due to bad racing conditions on the 4555.

The race will be held on the Satellite Race Track (SRT) to avoid this shortcoming, and will feature a very similar lineup of cars that were participitating in last year's race. The race has been given the title: "Carnival Grounds", and the logo below.

New GT Logo

GT has unveiled a new, simpler logo today, bringing it more in line with AMC, who recently revised and simplified their logo. The symbol is based on the old, circa-2002 GT flag but has dropped 3 of the 'stars', which symbolized various Legolands over the years, for simplicity as well as in recognition of the magnitude of OTO, the largest and longest running Legoland ever. The existing '4-star' GT flag will still be used at race events, but the new logo will be used in all new applications.

EH-1 Suspension Race Damage

E-H1 suspension system on a Gran Turismo during construction

The new suspension system (EH-1) introduced on two models (Turismo and M-42) in August has shown a number of problems related to race damage that have been seen on both cars.

The photo above shows the rear bracket peice of the EH-1 setup on the Gran-owned M-42 'E' which currently has a position of 3rd in the 2006 EOS race. One side of the bracket has sheared off of the meshbase, while the other side remains connected, however the base itself has split between layers of newsprint. During the 2006 EOS race, the EH-1 equipped Gran Turismo had a very similar failure, where the same rear bracket became totally detached from the meshbase and was hastily repaired on the track. Before now, it was thought that the M-42E had better withstood the stress of racing, but this recent investigation has shown otherwise.

This more serious flaw in the EH-1 system is coupled with the previously known tendency of the system to allow the cars to 'bottom out' on the track, causing damage to the backbone and restricting the amount of force that can safely be applied to the car during a launch.

In order to further investigate the EH-1 system and keep a record of future improvements to it, an 'EH-1' page will be added to OTOWiki shortly.

Cheetah and Venom Release Preliminary Details for Next-Gen Cars

AMC's venerable Cheetah has released some details surrounding the release of which is considered to be the most anticipated new car in the modern era of OTO, the 2007 High Voltage.

Details available at this location:

http://wikioto.pbwiki.com/Cheetah%20High%20Voltage

On their M-40 series website, Venom has also added some preliminary design details concerning the next M-40 car, the 2007 M-43.

See details at this location:

http://wikioto.pbwiki.com/Venom%20M-40%20Series

New 'Factory Factor' Simplifes Complex Delta System

Last summer, the Delta system in OTO was majorly revised, with the novel idea of setting one DLA equal to a single Meshstick. This led to cars being worth many times what they were valued at in the past system and so each team's balance was augmented accordingly. The precision in pricing allowed by the new system also raised some problems; how much should a team charge for labour on a given car or part? In other words, how was a consistent profit margin set up? After attempting to set a Delta rate on the amount of time/labour taken to build a certain part / car, OTO has now settled on a new idea: the Factory Factor (FF).

The FF is a numerical value greater than 1 by which the cost associated with buying parts for a part or car is multiplied to calculate the selling price for that part or car. For example, Venom has set an FF of 1.5 for it's cars. When the total cost to Venom of buying all parts associated with building one of it's M-40 series cars, the total is about 23 DLA. This value is then multiplied by 1.5 to arrive at the selling price of 34 DLA, which is very close to the time/labour-based price from last summer. Therefore, the profit to Venom from building and selling an M-40 car is (34-23) = 11 DLA.

Each company is able to set their own FF's, according to their prestige level, or the amount of labour necessary to build a particular part or vehicle.

GT has tentatively set the FF's for its teams as follows:

NNV: 1.3
Venom: 1.5
Nasa: 1.5
Stairclimber: 1.6

Using these FF's, the following prices for current/future models can be calculated:

Venom M-42: 34 DLA
Nasa HF-1000: 59 DLA

Interestingly, each Nasa HF-1000 would earn Nasa 18 DLA, and Pitz 26 DLA! This is due to the very extensive use of glass pieces in this model.

OTO's Delta System Undergoes Drastic Changes

On Saturday (July 1st), OTO's Delta system, that has been more or less solidly in place for the past few years, underwent drastic changes to meet the flexibility of the new age parts market.

The change happened during a late meeting to discuss how the current meshbase orders were going to be paid so that each team made a profit as well as keeping the price down. The real problem was that each time a meshbase was made, it would use meshsticks, but not a full order. Despite this, they would still add 0.5 DLA on to the price of their final product, to guarantee profit.

The drastic change hit to confront this problem. First off, all parts would be sold in units, not sets. The immediate problem with this new plan was that this would mean that delta sums as low as 0.05 DLA (1 meshstick) might be seen in OTO. This lead to the idea of multiplying all prices (and company sums) by 20, so that 1 meshstick is 1 DLA. This also allows much more freedom and flexibility for pricing.

The meeting was almost over, when a test case revealed a small problem with the new plan. A test case of the price of a car showed it to be about half the value of the classic Delta system, with a car weighing in at what would have been 2 DLA. The problem wasn't algebraic; it was really revealing how much waste there was before in OTO, when full orders had to be bought each time. However, this did lead to one more correction. To balance out this newfound fortune, the company sums of OTO were divided by 2.

Both teams came out of the meeting very excited about the future of OTO. The new system will offer a much more fair economy with greater variation and no companies facing a null profit. The Pitz Wasp will be the first test of the new economy; the first car to record its purchases on the new balance sheet. AMC and GT are enthusiastic about the results.

M-42 Mesh Vs. 'H' Damping Comparison Set to Go

Today Venom completed the 2nd copy of the newest installment in the M-40 series, the M-42. This car (green), uses the fragmented backbone system pioneered by the 2004 Cheetah High Voltage AWE, however the M-42 uses experimental H-sticks in the V-supports. This car and its orange twin, released earlier this week, will face off in a comparison test of H-stick damping versus standard damping. Next the cars will receive plastic windsheilds and light-panels in preparation for the 2006 End of Summer race.