Update Speculation thread

Good question. I'm not going to pretend that every single modern car is a masterpiece, but not not every modern car is bad either.

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Isn't that a bit of a minor thing to get all worked up over? I honestly never noticed that at all.

 

Absolutely, but it still drives me nuts. Wheels are round, they should stay round when you spin them.

 

Yeah I do prefer older cars myself, but this thread loves circlejerking about how bad modern cars and how older cars are superior.

 

Rover wants a word with you (I've never driven one of these, but it looks like the steering wheel is fairly off center in this Rover 200 series.

 

uggh my dad had one... slow but annoying interior

 

And the way I look at things, I find appreciation in all generations of vehicle production, from 1886 all the way to the present. I think it's somewhat closed-minded to think that only classic cars can ever be good.

 

Personally I wouldn't mind having one of these, I quite like the interior design, though I'm a bigger fan of the Honda Concerto and the 4th gen Civic, design wise.

As for on-topic discussion, I'm still awfully curious to see what this mystery vehicle might be. A mid-2000s minivan would be a really interesting choice to fill in the massive gap for both that time period and vehicle segment in BeamNG. Imagine something like an Opel Zafira in this game

 

I'm hoping we will get a 4wd estate

 

I've stated my position before, but I believe that modern cars, meaning from the last 10 years or so, are some of the worst ever built. They are the worst not because they lack capability or functionality, which they absolutely don't, but because things like tuneability, "unintentional sportiness", and even, to a large degree, control of the vehicle itself, have been regulated or developed out of existence. I stopped taking Road & Track seriously when I saw their column this month singing the praises of the ridiculous computer setup that allows a turbo I4 to substitute (poorly) for a V8 in the new Silverado 1500 - that truck's ECU is so complicated that there's barely even any relationship between how far the gas pedal is depressed and how far the throttle valve opens, and somehow that's a good thing? Seriously?

I remember some material I once found regarding the connection between the analytical left brain and the creative right brain. It was very definitely from a spiritual Judeo-Christian perspective, and the conclusion it came to was: the two halves of the brain, or, you might say, the "heart" and the "head", were intended to work as a team, but the heart - the creative right brain - calls the shots, and the analytical left brain concerns itself mainly with the details of execution. In a practical sense, this would mean the creative side comes up with appealing product ideas, and the analytical side figures out how to actually build them in a feasible way. Well, in modern car design, we have that precisely backwards. The left-brain "head" is not only running the show, but actively attempting to "seek and destroy" any remaining trace or refuge of the heart, except for trivialities like the graphics of the overly complicated navitainment system.

To put it simply, modern cars are too clever by half, due mainly to the overzealous safety/emissions/economy regulations that many on this forum actively embrace.

This is why I say car design peaked in the 1990s - we knew just enough to make a car reliable, streetable, and fast all at the same time, but not enough to deliberately engineer all the joy out of driving it in pursuit of increasingly infinitesimal emissions/MPG improvements (and then engineer fake joy back in to sports models only via sound-induction tubes, artificially-altered powerbands, over-the-top "sport mode" theatrics, etc.).

 

Taking away the dislike button was the worst decision the site staff ever made.

(updated post)

To bring this back to BeamNG: I think the modern ETKs in this game are way too nice to drive. They have the breathless, awful-sounding 2.0L (of course) turbo (of course) I4 (of course) with the artificially flattened torque curve, and the killjoy Electronic Stability Crutch too. But the throttle is way too direct and responsive. It needs at least a half-second of tip-in hesitation, and maybe some input smoothing too, combined with either another full second before the gearbox catches up with the throttle in automatic versions, or lots and lots of wonderful planet-saving rev-hang in manual versions. Putting the ESC in Sport or turning it off could cut the hesitation to only a quarter-second and dial down the smoothing/rev-hang so the lapdogs in the car press can gush about how wonderfully sharp and responsive the car is.

Also, the parking brake should be barely sufficient to hold the car in place on a slight incline, or outright electronic and only engageable at a dead stop, and the stability control should be only partially defeatable, or should lie to the driver and still be active (but with reduced intervention) when set to "Off". Installing the race ECU (though I can't even remember if there is one for that car) should put the gauges, interior screens, ESC, ABS, and maybe, in a future update, limited-slip differential(s) all completely out of action due to "everything integration". If later updates bring more complex engine tuning, a reflashed factory ECU should revert itself to stock at random intervals because of wireless firmware updates, requiring you to pay $5,000 for a tune from an "approved" ETK skunkworks.

 

You know something? I probably spent well over an hour, if not two hours, trying to make a good response to you, but I decided to give up.

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Any other time I would agree, but not here under this context.

 

Just LS swap it in career mode. Problem solved. LS swap everything. Everything.

 

Then you'll just love to know I came up with even more ideas after I posted that. Maybe it could have an automatic collision-avoidance system that malfunctions and throws you into full-panic stops for no good reason at random times (but especially when there's a T-series right behind you!), or a lane-keep system that fights you if you forget to signal a lane change or just have to swerve for some reason. Maybe have the stock ECU detect and negate any power gains from other upgrades (it was a sports car that did that in real life!)

The next generation of the ETK 800 Series, meanwhile, if there ever is one in game, should park itself on the shoulder and call the police if you accidentally go 2 MPH over the speed limit. And then occasionally malfunction and do this when you're on a racetrack too. (I heard Volvo wants to include something along those lines in their next cars; even for them, this sounds a bit rich, so hopefully this idea will fail the laugh test in front of someone important).

 

You mean profile posts?

 

That's a good idea to raise awareness to car enthusiasts, to dislike "smart" ecu tunings that disobey drivers.

That's why we should use free and open-source software on engine tunings.

Laggy and inconsistant vehicles are deathtraps, literally.

Sportiness? Direct and instant throttle response because of course.
Economy? Direct and instant throttle response. If the throttle is laggy, the driver will be forced to apply throttle more aggressively, to comphensate the lag. This lead to to much throttle(after the lag time) and the chance of braking afterwards is increased, which hurts economy.
Safety? Direct and instant throttle response. If there's complex relationship between throttle valve and the gas pedal, the driver have to outsmart the car to apply the gas correcty, which greatly increase the chance of fatigue. And laggy throttle contributes to unintentional acceleration and rear-ending collision.

 

First of all, let me remind you that this is the forum for a video game, and you're talking to people who play that game, not Volvo executives.

Second, your hate for almost any advancements in automotive technology since the catalytic converter became mandatory is, in my mind, misguided. You have to remember that the average consumer buys a car purely to get around and nothing more. The main things they want in a car is safety, comfort, and not having to pay money. So you shouldn't be surprised that the majority of cars produced today (excluding most SUVs) have computers designed to keep the car from hitting anything and make it as fuel-efficient as possible. It just doesn't make any sense to make all of your cars with "heart" when computers can make them more suitable for the average driver. Not everyone is a race car driver, and the type of person who buys a Toyota Corolla isn't going to complain that there isn't a direct connection between the gas pedal and the camshaft.

In summary, you may enjoy some threads in the "Off-Topic Automotive" category. But this is the Update Speculation Thread, not the "Technology Sucks" thread.

 

Supposedly, most aren't quite that bad, but I know the Jaguar-Land Rover 2.0T specifically is. The problem is, it's not like before when there were relatively large fuel-economy improvements to be had in relatively comprehensible ways. Now, the fuel-economy game is played over infinitesimal gains in ways largely irrelevant to the end user. See below.

On one hand, I felt like a filthy exaggerator for specifying a half-second of throttle lag and not applying sarc tags, but well... there was that time when I nearly got hit because of DBW lag so I do consider this a valid concern. Supposedly, the Silverado's system does an alright job of increasing wheel torque in response to pedal depression, but tip-in delay, in cars that suffer from it, is a "hesitation multiplier" and a genuine safety issue.

I'm not sure what that Silverado does when you throw the hammer down all at once; you'd think it would just deliver "full throttle, full boost, lowest gear" as expected but you never do know with this kind of stuff.

I would consider it a major misconception to believe that these kinds of things happen because of consumer demand. Most fuel-economy technology (stop-start, anything DBW related, etc.) isn't there because customers asked for it, it's there to play the game of fleet averages, guzzler/polluter tax ducking, and "standards must constantly get tougher" regulation in a way that Mr. and Mrs. Cantdriveforbeans hopefully won't notice too much, most of the time. The DBW lag is a perfect example - who wants their car to respond slower when stepping on the gas and drop RPM slowly during upshifts? The only kind of car where this would even be vaguely desirable, luxury sedans where smoothness is paramount, already use automatic transmissions which naturally tend to take the edge off throttle inputs. No, the reason this was done is twofold. First, a poorly understood phenomenon known as "super knock", which seems to have appeared along with the current wave of high comp/turbo/DI eco engines. Second, because the ECU in an older cable-throttle (and, thus, instant-responding) car would have a brief moment of "open-loop mode" when first cracking open/stomping on the throttle, during which emissions would be higher than normal. It was a very brief moment, so it probably didn't make all that much difference in terms of air quality... but smoothing it out helps meet arbitrary government standards, so it gets done, even if the result is awful throttle response. I very strongly suspect that "rev-hang" is more of the same. Cars used to make those wonderful popping & crackling noises naturally when lifting off the throttle at high RPM, but that was probably planet murder somehow, so it had to be engineered away and then faked for sports models.

Likewise, the fuel-economy improvement provided by stop/start or DBW lag/hang to any one particular car are probably within margin of error (and, in the case of stop/start, are probably not enough to pay for a starter battery that dies before its time), but when you think in terms of fleet averages, all those imperceptible improvements start to add up... and fleet averages, rather than practical benefit to the end user, are what determines whether you can actually sell the car without governments trying punish you for making it/your customers for buying it. Apparently, that turbo I4 Silverado actually gets slightly worse gas mileage, in the real world, than a plain old V8, and of course long-term reliability is still a major question mark, but it likely out-efficiencies the V8 on the EPA dyno, so it gets built anyway despite no demand, mediocre actual performance, and widespread derision. The difference between the legal maximum exhaust emissions for a diesel passenger car and the actual emissions of the "cheating" Volkswagens was so minuscule as to be detectable only under laboratory conditions; in the real world it was imperceptible background noise. Roadside sniffers set up specifically to detect emissions violators could not tell the difference.

A question for you: if all this is due to consumer demand, then why does the Camaro SS 1LE DBW lag like a family SUV? Why is the new Corvette, probably one of the top 5 vehicles most likely to be tuned, going to have a deliberately-untuneable ECU, justified with some revolting double-speak about how we want to be sure "who the good guys are" when it comes to ECU tuning? I'm sure you could find some cybersecurity justification for the last one, since obviously a car can't just be a self-contained mechanism anymore, but more likely it's because GM has contracted stage 5 terminal woke.

That's the true difference between an older car and a newer one. Older cars could definitely be unsporty and designed more by the head than the heart, but the new ones are actively anti-sporty - often even the sports models. The XV10 Toyota Camry wasn't designed as a sports car, but you could still tune it to be one and drive it like it was one.

Demand for "safety" systems is frequently manufactured or irrelevant. Back in the 80s and early 90s, no one wanted mandatory airbags, mainly because no one could figure out how to make the stupid things work without doing more damage than the crash they were supposed to protect against. But they were made mandatory anyway. Meanwhile, the auto-braking systems dangerously overreact to non-problems and are rapidly becoming detested by end users. Things like parking sensors and auto-braking also condition drivers to depend on them, so when they randomly stop working one day... CRUNCH. "Why did you back into me? Don't you have eyes?" "Uh, I dunno, the thing didn't beep so I thought I still had room!"

Once again, to bring this back on topic, I do honestly believe that BeamNG should attempt to replicate some of the... tendencies of DBW and the modern computerized car in general. I mean, if you're going to try to make the ultimate vehicle physics simulator, you might as well go all the way, right? The ability to track and react to the position of another car already exists within the AI system; the ability for the simulation to alter or countermand the inputs of a player-driven vehicle already exists via ABS and ESC, and if I'm not mistaken the modern ETKs already have some sort of setup that stops the car automatically after an impact. The trick would be combining all those things. It's probably not a high priority as even hardcore sim-type games usually don't bother with things like DBW lag, but then, BeamNG has always been the type of project to bother with things that no one else cares about so it really should be a priority of some kind.

Also, it's unrealistic to have the ESC status be independent of the ignition. Current regulations, to the best of my knowledge, require driver assists to default to "on" every time the car is started.

 

ok boomer, let's get back on topic.
I wonder if JRI will be included in this update, and if it also has a bunch of new offroad trails on it?

 

JRI, to me, seems pretty "packed out" as it is. But it's definitely ripe for an update; in its current form it's a transitional step of sorts between the rough-around-the-edges early maps such as Small Island, Dry Rock Island, East Coast, etc. and the more-impressive but also more time-consuming maps that came after - it definitely has more polish and detail than they originally did, and it definitely isn't just a straight rehash of the usual deserted-tropical-island theme, but some of the curves still look a little straight-edged and it still uses a lot of the original "abandoned industrial" assets from DRI/Port/Industrial Site.

Also, it would make no sense to ignore JRI while refreshing Utah which is much more polished to begin with and, to my mind, perfectly adequate as is.

I know the ECA and Hirochi Raceway refreshes reduced my FPS on those maps quite significantly (though it did remain over 60 everywhere but the Hirochi Raceway rock crawl course so that's good). Hopefully the same doesn't happen with JRI and Utah, as I have Utah in particular mentally bookmarked as the map with plenty of safety margin, in terms of FPS, for high-settings recording.

Also, using "boomer" as an insult? Really? Do you think it's better somehow to be a Gen Z gallon smasher?