I really want to create a monster of a roamer using the parts from the Hopper Crawler, However anytime I seek info on porting parts from a "donor" car to the "target" car the instructions seem unclear as to what i should be doing. if anyone could direct me in the right direction that would be really cool. Thanks.
this thread explains it pretty well: https://beamng.com/threads/tutorial-porting-engines-and-other-parts-inbetween-vehicles.28730/
And that's probably where I'm going wrong because I'm trying to port the crawler suspension to the roamer. Is there anything on that? --- Post updated --- I've looked at that extensively but I still can't quite wrap my head around where these files are being modified. I'm still not understanding, but thank you for linking the thread for easy access.
to get the suspension to show up, you'll want to copy the hopper crawler's .dae file, main.materials.json file, suspension (and probably chassis) .jbeam files to documents/beamng.drive/mods/unpacked/new folder/content/vehicles/roamer/crawler. at this point, the game will be able to read that the files are there, but because they still say "hopper" inside, there's no way to connect them. however, with the nature of the hopper's suspension, there are two ways you can mount the tops of the springs/shocks, you can either copy the mounting nodes from the hopper's chassis and put them in the suspension jbeam, or you can make a modified version of the roamer's chassis. which has the extra mounting points. If you're going the first route, which will be easier initially but will be more work to get it to function in the end, the first thing would be to change the slottype from "hopper_suspension_F_crawler" to pickup_suspension_F (since the roamer uses pickup suspension in the common folder) at this point, if you ctrl R reloaded the roamer in game, you should be able to select the suspension in the part selector, but it will probably not be mounted at all, and will be in the wrong position. for the sake of making all of the JBeam breakgroups line up with the standard roamer stuff, you pretty much want to use "find and replace all" in notepadd++ to change the instances of hopper to roamer, as they're littered all through the file, and kind of a pain to swap out manually.
I've looked at that extensively but I still can't quite wrap my head around where these files are being modified. I'm still not understanding. I've never done anything like this before Thank you so much for taking the time to give me this help. using these steps I've successfully put the crawler suspension in the roamer files. it is however invisible and non functioning. with the mounting nodes mentioned, which nodes are they in the jbeam files for both the hopper and the suspension? and do i simply paste them in or replace the other mounting nodes.