What if You Could Upgrade "My Home" in GT5?

[JohnBM01]

So you want a bishoujo Gran Turismo game, GTRacer4 ?

Another inspiration for purchasing more land comes from a game from the European gaming brand of Electonic Arts, Bullfrog. My land-buying idea isn't from the successful "Theme Park," but from 1997 or 1998's "Theme Hospital." In Theme Hospital, you build up your hospital and meet all sorts of demands and maintenance issues. Once you get past the first level, your next hospital will allow you to purchase extra land to further expand your hospital. While pretty expensive, you would be able to buy land already there. All you have to do in that game is unlock them with your money, or with the tricky loan-making system.

That idea of buying extra land to expand your levels is really based on Theme Hospital. There is a difference. In Theme Hospital, you're able to build up all sorts of facilities and clinics from the GP Office to the Operating Theatre. In my upgradable "My Home" idea, the facilities you purchase will allow you to upgrade your home from a small collection of cars, to your own indoor museum, which also serves as a garage. Of the many facilities and services available, you have a few things already: an underground garage with up to 20 cars, and a TOCA2-style testing facility, but giving you only an oval and an infield skidpad good for skidpad testing, or drifting. Here are some of the things you can purchase from my idea: dynomometer, wind tunnel, race shop, your own racing factory for building and manufacturing Production Cars into Racing Cars (be able to create more powerful engines in a process of displacement, engine, and aspiration as well as make fabricated race cars out of your street cars or make racing replicas).

Though I didn't like this specific race car, think of it like this. My idea of taking a street car into a racing machine can be thought of as taking a Nissan R33 Skyline proudction car, and be able to modify it completely to be something like the Calsonic Skyline (not the JGTC variant).

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

Ow yeah, maybe you could have a 2 part game of GT5. An ultimate BEAUTIFULL racing game, and a simple gameboy kinda map of your home, but a bit more beautifull!!! Look: the races and cars are very beautifull, and they're pretty much whats the game about. But that doesn't mean that "my home"should be as beautifull, you could just have a kind off 2D map hat allows you to do MUCH settings and allows you to fiddle with numbers ONLY, without thinking of a SUPER BEAUTIFULL "My home"!!

Get it? A sort of overlay map for my home, and the same beauty of GT4 in the racing part of the game. I want a few comments on this, I think it would be VERY possible to do this,if you all understand me a bit

 

[Dave A]

I get you, as far as you're home goes I have a slightly different idea, a kind of cross between Toca Race driver and PGR2. You could have the main menu, like a kind of office, you have variouse items and doors which are the options menu's, replay theatre ect and ways out or to the mechanics are or garage ect. As you upgrade you're home the menu's may change, for instance if you leave you're tatty shed like building you'd start in and move into a nicer office, this is reflected in the look of the menu's.

The garage area should be fully 3d and you should be able to move around freely, you should be able to press a button say start to bring up a menu so choose walk, floating camera, options ect. So unlike PGR2 you can view you're cars from any angle with the floating camera as well as walk. Another idea I actually got from the new Test drive game was while you're looking at you're cars you can get in them, out them, pop the bonnet or boot, turn the engine on, windows up or down ect. So you'd have this immersive 3d garage which would also alter in appearence as you're home gets upgraded.

It would probably be an underground garage so when you alter i, add more space it's created from generic block but maybe you could number the levels and break each level into a few sections with names on the walls so you know where you are all the time, you'd have ramps down a floor, a lift could be installed perhaps when you get quite a few floors, a stair well. For the garage you'd be able to go back out to the main office screen or to the mechanics area which is where all the work is done on the cars.

When you're having youre cars worked on you could be able to watch you're mechanics actually doing the work in this area. You could setup a schedule for the mechanics, rather than buy a part, install now ect, you buy a part/parts, go back to you're garage and go to the mechanics area, look in the schedule and tell them what to do to the car, if theres a lot of work to be done it may take more than the one game day. Yopu could tell them, once you've finished that take xxx car, wash it, change the oil and fit xxx part/parts to it. to do this, you'd also need an inventory system.

This could be done in the form of a database on a computer in the mechanics area, the parts could be sorted from age, value, what car/car they'll fit on (different parts may fit several cars, for instance, if you by a racing suspension kit for a Civic Type S, you win a Type R later, the same kit would fit both ect), condition of the part ect. So you'd select the car to work on, open up the database, filter for parts to fit the car you've chosen and just tick off the parts you want to fit. Exit the database back to the shedule and choose an option to fit selected parts to chosen car, and it will go into the schedul when whatever work already in is done.

 

[JohnBM01]

I think to keep things classy, I'd recommend the 2D overlay we're all used to. It would be crazy if all your unlockable content for "My Home" was shown in a map as big as the Gran Turismo Resorts. I don't have an XBOX, but I remember seeing the PGR2 review courtesy of X-Play. I remember watching the showroom floor with the Ferraris. I like the 3D garage idea, but I'd like to keep things simple. Now, when you go to your race shop (when unlocked), then you'll be able to take your car into the Race Shop to do whatever you please. I think instead of your dorks in yellow shirts and brown pants, I think you'll want to think about what color shirts and pants to wear. Next post: more ideas on Race Shop options.

 

[JohnBM01]

So let's use a more common machine. If you have your R34 Skyline taken to the Race Shop, let me try to come up with a map of what you can do:

RACE SHOP

Add Body Cage
Level 1 - reinforce windows
Level 2 - multi-point roll cage for increased rigidity
Level 3 - full roll cage while increasing overall rigidity
Create Works Car
Out of Normal Car (Stage 3 Lightweight required)
Touring Car
GT Race Car
(requires Stage 2 NA or Turbo and all racing drivetrain parts)
LM Race Car
(same requirements as GT Race Car, but includes widebody parts, lightweight and aggressive body parts, extra lighting, and a performance-tuned rear wing and front splitter. Upon completion, you will be able to add NA and Turbo upgrades for more power)
Fabricated Replica (Stage 3 Lightweight required)
Touring Normal
(look as close to stock as possible, while being completely capable. Great for Speed World Challenge. Includes Racing Mediums.)
Supertouring
(light body, more powerful engine, and some aero tweaks. Includes Racing Medium tires)
Grand Touring Club
(Adds GT wing and lighten the body considerably)
Grand Touring Supermodified
(it's similar to making a Trans-Am race car out of a Jaguar XKR, for example.)
Grand Touring Sportscar/Endurance
(extra lighting, lighter body parts, more rigid body, and more capable)

This is just a way of me mapping out the Race Shop. Any other ideas?

 

[standard235]

I figured.... you could upgrade the house and the environment that your driver is in. It could affect hiis mood and temperament and affect his driving in our B-Spec. But, as his skill increases, he is less prone to be affected by this. Also, I liked how you mapped out the race shop John. I just want an engine swap feature. Make it so it costs LOTS of money to fabricate, say, a Viper-V10 into a Miata. So a 13B would be exponentially cheaper than what Iwas saying. Sorry if anybody is affected by this post as it is Late(1:22AM) and I need sleep. G'night.

Zach

 

[Dave A]

I like the engine swap idea, however it needs to remain realistic. That would rule out a Viper engine ever being put into a Miata, the 13B would fit as would a tri-rotor engine, think about fitting a 24B into other cars, or the AJP8 engine into a medium sized saloon or coupe.

 

[standard235]

What I meant was, you can fabricate ANYTHING to go into a IRL car. BUT, the more fab needing done, the higher the cost of the project. If they could implement that... it would be amazing.

 

[JohnBM01]

One thing I'd point out is that if you want to make a Works Car out of your machine, this assumption is that you can do it to almost ANY car as long as it isn't a Special Car or anything. By using GT4 as a basis of tuning, ANY car from GT4 that you can race against others is eligible. In order to be able to create a pure race car out of your regular street car (by the way, if you do this, you cannot reverse the level of tuning. So if you have a Nissan 350Z as a completed Race Car and you want to race it, you must purchase a new 350Z to have as your Production race car), here are some elements that I think will help it qualify as a certain type of car:

=
CONVERTING PRODUCTION CAR TO RACE CAR
=
Touring Car Requirements (must have no more than 276hp and less than 2000cc Displacement):
Port and Polish, Full-Engine Balancing, Displacement Up (if applicable), Full Customize Transmission, Triple-Plate Clutch, Racing Flywheel, Full-Service LSD (optional), Carbon Driveshaft (if RWD or 4WD), Racing Suspension, Sports or Racing Tires, Stage 3 Lightweight, straight-type GT wing

GT Race Car Requirements (must have more than 2000cc displacement and/or coupe):
Port and Polish, Full-Engine Balancing, Displacement Up (if applicable), Stage 2 NA or Stage 2 Turbo, Full Customize Transmission, Triple-Plate Clutch, Racing Flywheel, Full-Service LSD (optional), Carbon Driveshaft (if RWD or 4WD), Racing Suspension, Racing Tires, Stage 3 Lightweight, 3D Type GT wing

LM Race Car Requirements (must have more than 2000cc displacement and/or coupe):
Port and Polish, Full-Engine Balancing, Displacement Up (if applicable), Stage 2 NA or Stage 2 Turbo, Full Customize Transmission, Triple-Plate Clutch, Racing Flywheel, Full-Service LSD (optional), Carbon Driveshaft (if RWD or 4WD), Racing Suspension, Racing Tires, Stage 3 Lightweight, 3D Type GT wing

More to come... until then, reply on with any more ideas on "My Home" upgrading and race shop work.

 

[paddworth]

Why not just upgrade your home depending on how many A-spec points you have?

 

[Dave A]

Because then it wouldn't seem realistic, nice idea and it may well work but it's not the kind of angle I'd like to see in a GT game, should these idea be implemented along with control over you're pit crew, it would be more of a racing team sim which would give something new for the series.

 

[nightkid86]

This is a great Idea. I hope you would be able to buy a hot dog stand for your home

 

[JohnBM01]

Okay, now we're coming up with nonsense for this My Home upgrading. The idea here is being able to upgrade your home base for useful stuff.

All I did was share some of my ideas, and you all are free to share yours. One such thing I read was unlocking parts of your garage using A-Spec points. To be honest, I don't really like that idea. As our fellow GTPlanet member from the United Kingom, Famine suggested, A-Spec is basically a joke. Just a measure of your machine's power and weight as opposed to the competition. So I wanted to make it easy. Everything is there for you to purchase and have added to expand your home. You know, it's like "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." Everything is already there for you to buy. Only difference is that in a GTA game, you have to complete a bunch of missions to unlock and buy certain things. In my idea... oh, you know what? Let's say that in order for you to get your race shop, you MUST have the Super License. Then, you will have the Race Shop available for purchase. Usually, I try to clear licenses before worrying about racing. So this would work to my advantage as long as the Super License Final isn't one lap around Le Mans in a no-handling Cizeta V16T.

In thinking about a race shop upgrade, I like to think of it like Dale Earnhardt Inc. (or DEI) for NASCAR fans, Scuderia Ferrari for F1 fans, basically, my idea is about having a great garage complete with a test track to test your car, dyno services, wind tunnel service, and most important- a race shop. If you just want to know your car's wind tunnel settings, you can. Want to dyno that Plymouth Superbird? You can! Want a test track of your own instead of paying for another? You can! Do you want to take your tuned ride into a pure race car? You can! I'm not trying to be the successor to Kazunori Yamauchi, but I'm kind of thinking about taking GT to the next level. The key highlight for me would be the return of the Racing Modification, and then some. In addition to Racing Modifications, I'm thinking of taking the original engine from your car and purchasing a new engine with more power and maybe greater displacement, granted it all fits. Maybe create your own engine to power race cars with. Carry on.

 

[rovens]

For the test track, i would love to be able to drive the top gear test track.

 

[Oil Slick Rick]

Upgraded garage is a fanstic idea.

Paint shop

tune Shop

Decals

Wings

OIl change

rims

testing facilities !

 

[British GT craz]

i thought it might be good if u could actually have your own number plate on your cars so they would look a bit more real

 

[British GT craz]

For the test track, i would love to be able to drive the top gear test track.

i wud like to as well it would be a more challenging test track and a track based in England for once

 

[Dave A]

Race cars don't wear number plates, their for road use only, it'd be less real if you saw the cars racing around a track with numberplates on.

 

[JohnBM01]

Oh, I see what you mean in terms of driving plates. I'm normally referring to having a race car on the track, with a little number on the side, maybe on the hood, on the rear as well. You know, using JGTC race cars as a model. I think the Mini Cooper Works Car in GT2 had a driver plate to it. Then again, it's been a while since I've PLAYED GT2. Ridge Racer V gave you the option to change the Driver Number on your car later. When you started RRV, your number was #99. Then when you get more racing experience, your racing number goes from #99 all the way down to #1. When you reach #1, you can freely change your racing number. Any car you happen to modify in my model, you can use that driver number in any style driver number arrangement you wish. To look at a number of driver number arrangements, let us compare different styles you can look into based on GT4. I don't have pictures, so I'll try to describe as best as I can.

A. JGTC race cars feature white driver number areas for GT500 machinery and yellow fields for GT300 machinery. The Autobacs logo is above the driver number, then some other stuff below the number in the driver plate.

B. In the sense of more modern Le Mans race cars (in this example, the Toyota GT-One), you'll see the driver number, and the Gran Turismo logo above, since you probably won't see "24 Heures Du Mans" within the Driver Number.

C. Away from outlandish-type race cars, the BMW 320i Touring Car features the number 42, and a logo of Life is Good (or simply, LG).

In addition to designing up a street car or a race shop-fabricated version of a production car, I'd like to maybe do driver numbers any way I choose. I certainly don't want to do things NASCAR way, in which the driver number is elaborately expressed on the side of the car and on the roof of the car. Besides, you designed the race car. Shouldn't you be responsible for making it look cool as well?

 

[British GT craz]

Race cars don't wear number plates, their for road use only, it'd be less real if you saw the cars racing around a track with numberplates on.

i didnt mean number plates on race cars just road cars and maybe rally cars u could have like a little number to identify it to consider it as a legal car to drive

 

[F1GTR]

That would be nice

 

[JohnBM01]

Just now, I seen a rerun of Speed Channel show "Sports Car Revolution." In it, I seen a Pontiac GTO made to race in the Speed World Challenge series. I don't have pictures, but the new-school GTO looks b****in'. I still had plans of buying a 2004-ish Pontiac GTO in GT4 to make it my own drifter to show Rhys Millen what's up. However, if you look around online, the Pontiac GTO Speed World Challenge race car looks pretty damn menacing on track. It even sounds sweet too with that Corvette motor.

Of course, Speed World Challenge is primarily about tuned-up, race-fabricated versions of production cars. I believe Forza Motorsport has the Speed World Challenge cars. Hell, if you wanted to, you can take an early 1990s Fiat Panda and make it a formidable rally car. That's part of my vision. Be able to make Works Cars out of production cars, or make replicas of production cars complete with maybe bigger engines with higher displacement or perhaps mor horsepower. Or, just create an engine more like the current Honda S2000 versus the previous S2000. You know, the older model was a 2.0 Liter engine with 240 hp, while the newer one is 2.2 liters with 240 hp.

If I can find some websites for you to give you an idea of taking your regular Garage/Home into a pure race shop (with garage and home intact), I'll provide links just to kind of express my idea a bit more.

 

[Evolution.]

Okay, now we're coming up with nonsense for this My Home upgrading. The idea here is being able to upgrade your home base for useful stuff.

All I did was share some of my ideas, and you all are free to share yours. One such thing I read was unlocking parts of your garage using A-Spec points. To be honest, I don't really like that idea. As our fellow GTPlanet member from the United Kingom, Famine suggested, A-Spec is basically a joke. Just a measure of your machine's power and weight as opposed to the competition. So I wanted to make it easy. Everything is there for you to purchase and have added to expand your home. You know, it's like "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." Everything is already there for you to buy. Only difference is that in a GTA game, you have to complete a bunch of missions to unlock and buy certain things. In my idea... oh, you know what? Let's say that in order for you to get your race shop, you MUST have the Super License. Then, you will have the Race Shop available for purchase. Usually, I try to clear licenses before worrying about racing. So this would work to my advantage as long as the Super License Final isn't one lap around Le Mans in a no-handling Cizeta V16T.

In thinking about a race shop upgrade, I like to think of it like Dale Earnhardt Inc. (or DEI) for NASCAR fans, Scuderia Ferrari for F1 fans, basically, my idea is about having a great garage complete with a test track to test your car, dyno services, wind tunnel service, and most important- a race shop. If you just want to know your car's wind tunnel settings, you can. Want to dyno that Plymouth Superbird? You can! Want a test track of your own instead of paying for another? You can! Do you want to take your tuned ride into a pure race car? You can! I'm not trying to be the successor to Kazunori Yamauchi, but I'm kind of thinking about taking GT to the next level. The key highlight for me would be the return of the Racing Modification, and then some. In addition to Racing Modifications, I'm thinking of taking the original engine from your car and purchasing a new engine with more power and maybe greater displacement, granted it all fits. Maybe create your own engine to power race cars with. Carry on.

I agree almost 100% with you JohnBM01.I think we should start out with a puny little home garage.Standard toolbox,just you,your car and your tools.Then as you progress you can buy new buildings and add on to them.In example:buy a big huge testing center for lets say 3.5 Million.Then you can add on maybe a Wind Tunnel testing service for lets say another 1,000,000 after you buy it.Then you decide to add a dyno (which GT REALLY needs an interactive dyno) for 500,000.Then you upgrade your tools for maybe 5-10K.Then you upgrade your Computers and testing equipment etc.the possibilities are ENDLESS!

 

[JohnBM01]

Well, I'd want to be feasible. Because let's face it. Not everyone can make upwards of 1,000,000 credits or more legally in GT4. I race to win money, unlock cars for Arcade Mode, and basically tune my cars. Guess how many top-dollar race cars I've bought in Gran Turismo 4 after more than 74% game completion? Only one- the Pescarolo Courage C60. Let's keep things simple.

As an example of keeping things simple, in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," some of the cheapest places you can buy are around $6,000 (mostly casinos in Las Venturas), while the most expensive is around $120,000 (a big house over looking Los Santos). It isn't really that easy making too much money. If I were to set prices for each service and facility, these would be my prices in Credits:

Paint Studio: 50,000 Cr.
===Paint Types Available starting at 1,000 Cr. to 10,000 Cr.
Dyno Service: 150,000 Cr.
Wind Tunnel: 300,000 Cr.
Race Shop: 750,000 Cr.
-Test Track-
Drag Strip - already available
Short Oval - already available
Infield Skidpad - already available
Road Course: Technical- 250,000 Cr.
Road Course: Suspension and Handlng - 250,000 Cr.
Road Course: High Speed - 450,000 Cr.
Road Course: Endurance - 1,000,000 Cr.
Rally Test Course: 500,000 Cr.

I have another little idea I thought of, but I'll save it until later...

 

[Evolution.]

Well, I'd want to be feasible. Because let's face it. Not everyone can make upwards of 1,000,000 credits or more legally in GT4. I race to win money, unlock cars for Arcade Mode, and basically tune my cars. Guess how many top-dollar race cars I've bought in Gran Turismo 4 after more than 74% game completion? Only one- the Pescarolo Courage C60. Let's keep things simple.

As an example of keeping things simple, in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," some of the cheapest places you can buy are around $6,000 (mostly casinos in Las Venturas), while the most expensive is around $120,000 (a big house over looking Los Santos). It isn't really that easy making too much money. If I were to set prices for each service and facility, these would be my prices in Credits:

Paint Studio: 50,000 Cr.
===Paint Types Available starting at 1,000 Cr. to 10,000 Cr.
Dyno Service: 150,000 Cr.
Wind Tunnel: 300,000 Cr.
Race Shop: 750,000 Cr.
-Test Track-
Drag Strip - already available
Short Oval - already available
Infield Skidpad - already available
Road Course: Technical- 250,000 Cr.
Road Course: Suspension and Handlng - 250,000 Cr.
Road Course: High Speed - 450,000 Cr.
Road Course: Endurance - 1,000,000 Cr.
Rally Test Course: 500,000 Cr.

I have another little idea I thought of, but I'll save it until later...

I wasnt talking exact prices,but come on.We want realism,not easily gettable prices.PD can take out the 800K in 8 minutes races so it actually means something to get a nice garage.If you want it,you should work to get it,not just have it handed to you.

And you keep comparing GT to GTA:SA....two games that are so different from each other it's like comparing Soccer and the 24 Hours of Le Mans...no similarities.

 

[JohnBM01]

I'm talking in terms of features. Yeah, they aren't alike, but my philosophy has been on integrating ideas from other games, or perhaps making totally new ones. What, you want the make every upgrade 4.5M Cr.? You know, force people to keep their money in the game rather than spend it, even for just one little feature? All I'm trying to do is think of more feasible prices for these services so that people won't have to have unlimited money cheats to acquire the services. After all, this is a game, not real life. You can cheat some rules. Don't you want everyone to be able to get this stuff? I usually don't keep my money unless I'm unlocking cars to be used in Arcade Mode, or tuning up my cars. The bigger and better things cost even more than past GTs. I'm just trying to make things easier.

 

[paddworth]

Oh, I see what you mean in terms of driving plates. I'm normally referring to having a race car on the track, with a little number on the side, maybe on the hood, on the rear as well. You know, using JGTC race cars as a model. I think the Mini Cooper Works Car in GT2 had a driver plate to it. Then again, it's been a while since I've PLAYED GT2. Ridge Racer V gave you the option to change the Driver Number on your car later. When you started RRV, your number was #99. Then when you get more racing experience, your racing number goes from #99 all the way down to #1. When you reach #1, you can freely change your racing number. Any car you happen to modify in my model, you can use that driver number in any style driver number arrangement you wish. To look at a number of driver number arrangements, let us compare different styles you can look into based on GT4. I don't have pictures, so I'll try to describe as best as I can.

A. JGTC race cars feature white driver number areas for GT500 machinery and yellow fields for GT300 machinery. The Autobacs logo is above the driver number, then some other stuff below the number in the driver plate.

B. In the sense of more modern Le Mans race cars (in this example, the Toyota GT-One), you'll see the driver number, and the Gran Turismo logo above, since you probably won't see "24 Heures Du Mans" within the Driver Number.

C. Away from outlandish-type race cars, the BMW 320i Touring Car features the number 42, and a logo of Life is Good (or simply, LG).

In addition to designing up a street car or a race shop-fabricated version of a production car, I'd like to maybe do driver numbers any way I choose. I certainly don't want to do things NASCAR way, in which the driver number is elaborately expressed on the side of the car and on the roof of the car. Besides, you designed the race car. Shouldn't you be responsible for making it look cool as well?

John here gave me a great idea that I think might actually work. Here it is:

• The cars could actually look like they are in a race! Not just road cars found on the street, either by personal modification or by a set thing!

 

[Dave A]

John, you can make 500,000Cr in GT4 in less than 10 mins, you can make 900,000Cr in 15-20. Money in GT games isn't hard to come by, getting it fast just sometimes means doing a competition you've already done, or it might mean doing one you're not as keen on, but it's not hard to come by.

 

[Studentdriver]

Well, to solve that, maybe you could use a real-time calendar. So there might only be a rally race at a specific track every month or two. And the major championships might only come once a year. This would be a great way to keep people from racking up millions upon millions in an instant. It would also increase the longevity of the game. Instead of finishing the game in about five "years", as it looks as if I'll be doing, it might take fifteen "years", or even more. Like a real racing career.

 

[paddworth]

If at your home your gunna pay money for a studio, I know this is a bit off topic, but couldn't you:

• If you buy a race shop then if you pay like 1million credits you will be supplied with an infinate number of stage 1 turbos for all cars etc.