Bruckell Bastion

It's a matter of practicality that things like that must be correct right from the get go. Too much fiddling for something as self-evident as this, I think.

 

I absolutely love this car, although I do worry that the interior looks quite dated and cheap compared to other cars that came out around 2015.




Compared to other cars for sale at the time, the Bastion's interior is incredibly spartan and simplistic, composed almost entirely of the same single hard plastic material, with vast and empty squared off patches of blank space everywhere in the interior, and especially on the dashboard. The screen is relatively well sized for the time, and the gauge cluster's center display is even advanced for 2015, but the rest of the interior, due to the squared off design language (except for the center vents, as they are actually ironically a bit too bulbus in comparison to the rest of the interior design, which makes their rotund-ness look out of place and uncomfortable) and lack of variety in material choice, just feels devoid of character and flare, and out of touch.


Again, the door panels are violently simple and composed solely of one hard plastic material and a soft cloth insert (not counting the very modern vent design, which again feels out of place due to the spartan nature of the rest of the interior's design), with plastic switches, no trims whatsoever, and a generic plastic L shaped door release.


Other cars released at the time used leathers, chrome, fabric and different shades of gray and black plastic to give depth to their interiors, all of which look much more advanced in design language.





Which is especially true when you consider my second issue with this car- It never had a facelift.


The Dodge Challenger, for example, was refreshed in 2015, and received a larger center display, a new shifter & shifter surround, guages, HVAC controls, and steering wheel.


The Chevrolet Camaro had a facelift in 2016 that completely redesigned the interior, featuring an all new style, a larger digital touchscreen display, and a new gauge cluster.


And the Chevrolet SS received a small facelift that included a new Shifter and shifter surround, with a drive mode selector.



In general, the bastion's interior design much more resembles that of early 2010s retro-future interior design, such as that of the Mustang from 2014.
It carries the harsh edges, square design language, and overall is much more spartan and empty than common design language at the time, again a harkening back to 2014 and older design language in American vehicles.
The bastion also has the same simple and squared off door panel design, with a simple L shaped door release and hard plastics, with little to no material variation.


where, considering its release being in 2015, it should match the more rounded and refined 2016+ mustang interior design language.


By comparison, the Bastion essentially sold a pre 2014 interior design all the way until 2021, which, while an ironic commentary on FCA's incredibly aged dodge products, still feels far fetched.

 

Completely agree with all of this. The interior also feels like there is no line to follow in the interior, unlike the ZL1 Camaro. I don’t like the Bastion. Just feels so chunky and heavy and boring to drive in all honesty.

 

Yeah the Bastion is super chunky, which is great for being an american sedan, but it leans into that chunkyness too much, and it has some real line flow problems. See below:



To start, the car builds up from the bottom with some solid horizontal foundation lines that tilt up and separate as they reach the rear, setting a nice slant that gives the whole car a mean and haunched, sporty stance, while still feeling structured and strong.


Then you get to the identity lines, which in this case are the rear haunches, and, of course, the front fender bulge... which... dips? for some reason?


If you follow the line's trajectory (which your eye natrually does) it for some reason is designed to make a sharp curve straight down ninety degrees plummeting into the earth. I have no idea why this was done, and i'd love to hear from the designers why they chose to do this, as from my perspective all it succeeds in doing is making the bodywork feel taller than it needs to be, which in turn makes the windows feel smaller and slowly disrupts the proportions of the car, especially at certain angles.



It also weirdly separates everything before and after the car's A pillar, since it feels like all the gentle line flow built up thus far just slams into the wall created by this fender line.





Then we get to the rear haunch, which also presents a problem, in that it is somewhat undefined... Here, let me explain.

This line can be traced in one of two ways- the first being that it is intended to connect to this very faint belt line here:


And the second being that it is designed to mirror the front fender's downturned curve:



If you look closely, it was clearly intended to connect to the belt line:



But since the belt line is so faint in comparison to how defined every single other element on the car is, it's easy to go unnoticed. That, combined with the fact that such a gentle and sloping curve suddenly reverses itself and turns back horizontal in a very short space, causes eye tends to wander between following either the trajectory of the lines curvature, or taking the sharp turn into the belt line as it was intended.

The center belt line is also a bit odd, because if traced by the eye it is intended to move like so:


But, you can clearly see the continuation of the center belt line in the grille. Trouble is, the two aren't at the same height, and the grille belt line fades away quickly.


And, while it is possible to connect the two mentally, the line created through the negative space has to be very slightly at a different angle from the actual trajectory of the line.



The grille line itself, for what it's worth, also has a weird upward curvature to it, which, if followed, leads up into the badge and just doesn't really fit, compared to all the horizontal flat lines below it:


Speaking of horizontal lines, the bumper is full of it:



(there are more in the lower grille, I know, but it would be too complicated to look at in conjunction with these broader lines, and would muddle my point)

Now, this alone is great, as it creates a sense of strong structure and stern-ness that fits well with the rest of the design, and the emotions behind the car itself- a stern, brick-like but sporty car that's old but confident (v8 engine)

...Until you get to the headlights. Which for some reason, that I cannot fathom, chose to ruin all the work put in by the supportive horizontal bumper lines, by being built on a curve that appears nowhere else in the design and does not parallel any of the lines near it, or even contribute to them as an extension of an existing line. It goes too far into the grille, and it bends in and up on a slope that doesn't make sense in the context of the front ends downward slanted design, and it's quite frankly uncomfortable to look at, like it's squinting at you, or it really has to sneeze.



Every single line on the front of the car in some way parallels the one nearest to it, or expands upon it (in the case of the lower vent design)


Except for the headlights, which make use of this weird angle that doesn't match any of the other angles on the front of the car...


It would have been easier to make them a lovely squared off shape or downwards angled shape, like so:


Which, in turn, would then perfectly match up with the rest of the lines on the car:


Instead, it wouldn't have been particularly hard to line it up with the shapes around it, like so:


There's also a few other things, such as the factt hat the actual design within the headlights tilts forwards at a weird angle, but that's a bit too in depth for now.

Also, another weird choice, they for some reason decided to make the sport models look taller instead of lower to the ground (which is usually the opposite case in real life, the sporty models tend to have graphics applied to make them appear lower, longer, and sleeker).

They've done this by changing what was originally black sideskirts, lip spoilers, and rear diffusers, and painting them body colored, which makes the wheels look disproportionately smaller, and makes the whole car look chonkier, less sporty, and higher off of the ground. (also the lower grille design is weird and has lines that don't really go anywhere but that's for another time.)



By the way, none of this is to say I hate or even dislike the car- I Love it, and that's why i am so hard on it, because I see so much more potential to improve!

 

Glad to see I'm not the only one who sees the awkwardness in it's design... glad to see someone can put my thoughts into words.
I must say, designing a car seems awfully hard, trying to get all those lines to fit just right... trying not to make it too bland, but at the same time trying not to over-do it must be a hell of a challenge.
A second set of eyes and a fresh perspective can go a long way in the design of something--anything--really.

 

but at the same time, doesn't the slight incoherence of it only add to the realism, if anything?

 

I can see where you're coming from, but in this instance? No. I don't see any modern automaker in this class making a vehicle with lines that clash this hard.

 

It would be cool to see bastion ute In the game

 

Bastion's suspension is fragile, as shown
Unlike most Murican Muscles

 

to be fair, GM's Aplha platform borrowed a lot from opel's older V-bovy (used in the rekord, omega, commodore,etc. ) and the modern FR chryslers are built on a leftovers they got during the chrysler-mercedes merger, so realistically there's little reason to suggest it should be all that much stronger than an equivalent ETK.

 

Wrong detail time: the Battlehawk, both in Manual and Automatic guises (the standard Battlehawk that is, not the Battlehawk Redtail) has the Speed Limiter Delete while there's a Limiter specifically designed for it: the Battlehawk Speed Limiter.

 

I'll mention it here and in the bug thread:

One shouldn't be able to start the manual transmission Bastion without the clutch depressed. Some cars in the game you can't and this should be in that group.

 

Na Mate, it is not bug and it will not happen on gameplay grounds. This "push clutch for start" thing is North America only thing since nowhere else in the world has this.

 

cars that have keyless entry, and a push button to start will only start when the clutch is completely depressed.
how do i know? ive got a suzuki Dzire petrol, manual, with a push button starter.
if clutch is not pushed in, it just cycles through acc and ign modes.

 

You can always find ways to beat it by hacking in some wires so that it will think that clutch is held in. All the others from what i have seen where i live without push button start can start without clutch held in. I feel it bothersome if whatever you drive breaks down or runs out whatever it needs for running and you cannot crank it in gear to shift it by the roadside or off the road.

 

but that's a shortcoming of those cars in real life, and thus it probably should be simulated, just like how ESC sometimes gets in the way of sliding through a corner, or an automatic transmission might shift at an annoying time.

A good compromise would be to have it tied to the ESC part, so you don't have to hold the clutch in on the racing versions.

 

not true. my dads 2011 golf estate wouldn't start without the clutch being pressed. i live in uk

 

The Mk2 Renault Scenic also needs the clutch to be pressed in or else it won't start
Definitely not a North America only thing

 

Agreed bud our R52 Cooper S 2008 needs the clutch pressing down