Hi, just a quick disclaimer, I recently googled this and I don't think anyone has came up with this idea (or at least not yet, because the 2020 V0.20 water particle update is very new) and by the way, I don't mean to steal somebody else's idea by posting this here. If there is a thread covering this that was created before mine that I have missed, please send me the link to it and this one will be removed. Ok, onto my idea. About 4 days ago, the BeamNG Team released the update titled, "The 2020 Summer Release - BeamNG v0.20" which I personally was very excited about and even more happy when I read the patch notes. As soon as I installed the update, I double clicked the game, and loaded up the, "Cliff" map to test the new water particles and was totally amazed about the extra immersion this added into the game. Then suddenly, I had a brain wave, only one thing except sound was missing to make this fully realistic; Water flooding (I do realise that sound will be added in the next minor update). Think about it, wouldn't it be way more realistic if your truck or any other vehicle, when driven into water, would float, start to fill up with water and ultimately sink? Of course, the BeamNG Team is WAY more busy with other more important stuff than this, but I suggest this would be a nice addition to make the game much more realistic. As of today, the vehicles just plop into the water with little resistance and sink immediately. Simply put, it would work like this: Every stock vehicle will have unique "Buoyancy Areas" which would work in a similar way to engine flooding, but they provide buoyancy (Cabins, enclosed semi-waterproof spaces (T-Series Trailers, Pigeon boxed trunk variant, ect, ect. and possibly fuel tanks as the most common forms of diesel and petroleum fuel are both lighter than water, giving a slight boost in buoyancy). These "Buoyancy Areas" will have a preset buoyancy and flooding rate (the rate at which the specific area will flood with water, increasing the vehicles weight) which will be appropriately constant, except when they are submerged under water, the flooding rate will increase because of the increased pressure, and as expected the buoyancy will decrease until it reaches zero as the water fills the entire area. The flooding rate can also be increased for a certain area when specific jbeam areas are damaged or unlinked, (ex. windows being broken, nodes deformed, ect.). Here is a clip I found kind of describing my idea: (skip to 0:53 for what I mean) Summing up, I would be ecstatic if the BeamNG Team would take their precious time to read my post, and kind stranger, thank you for reading my post.
Sorry, I think you misunderstood. To clear this confusion, when I was speaking about "Jbeams" and "Nodes" I was meaning the vehicle's specific nodes and jbeams, when damaged, would affect the vehicle's buoyancy; "The flooding rate can also be increased for a certain area when specific jbeam areas are damaged or unlinked, (ex. windows being broken, nodes deformed, ect.)." Therefore, the water requires no additional jbeams or nodes. Thank you for your comment though! Have a great day and I hope this clears the confusion! Edit: Also, the areas that would provide buoyancy (cabins, enclosed spaces, ect.) when damaged (when there is a hole in the structure, ex. an open door, broken window, damaged body, ect.) increase the rate at which the area fills with water. The code would be fairly simple to write, as it would only rely on pretty basic calculations compared to other aspects of the game; first, the software in beamng would check whether or not the area of buoyancy is submerged underwater, at the same time checking what kind of area it is, and then calculating the preset value of "Natural undamaged filling rate" (the rate at which the area will flood naturally when submerged underwater, without anything else affecting or having an impact on the jbeam structure or nodes in its vicinity) which would be constant unless the nodes or jbeam structure in the vicinity is damaged (of the vehicle) and, the more damage there is, the more flooding the area will experience! simple
Hey everyone, just a quick update to my idea, I found a really good example on what cars that are completely obliterated from an impact (or that are just an empty shell) would sink like when put in water with the concept that I mentioned earlier ("Buoyancy areas") (skip to 9 mins and 50 sec to see what I mean): As you saw in the video, although the car's shell is heavy on its own (average of about 300 kg, or for my american readers, about 600-700 lbs) and has no covered areas (no doors, windows, ect.), it STILL takes about 7 secs to sink completely. I hope this clears up any questions about obliterated cars falling into water. Have a great day, bye!
Thank you for your comment! Have a great day! --- Post updated --- P.S: I'd love to hear all of the people's opinions that are reading, as only about 3 people out of the 150 have commented here, I would like to encourage sharing all your thoughts! Thanks!
Good morning everyone! I have yet another addition and update to my idea: Realistic drainage of vehicles when they are out of the water. For example, lets say you lowered the classic D-series into water, completely covering it and in the mean time, NOT damaging it. Got that? Good. Now in my opinion, if you were to gently take the D-series out of the water and put it on dry land, it should drain the water inside the flooded areas at the same rate they were filled up and reduce the weight of the vehicle simultaneously (the exact opposite if the vehicle is in water). Obviously, for the, "rate of draining" value to stay the same when the vehicle is either submerged or not, the vehicle mustn't be damaged at all, unless the damage does not affect the, "Buoyancy areas" that were mentioned earlier. Below is a very crude diagram explaining this visually, to avoid misunderstandings (please excuse my inability to make good diagrams): I would greatly appreciate it to hear your thoughts, thanks!
I find your idea really good and actually implementable, unlike some unrealistic suggestions we've all seen over the years.
I have wanted something like this for years, I am curious of the dev team have this planned or are not considering it or what,
I think this is an amazing idea, and I don't know why it hasn't been thought of yet! I think you've done a good job describing your general idea, and you've gone into incredible detail. I think it would be challenging to make this a mod, as every car would need buoyancy areas, and those areas would be specific to each car. And, I have to say, you are very active on the forums.
Ha ha ha! Thank you very much jon_miata! And yes, I have to agree that I spend a lot of time on the forums just reading about others' ideas. This is probably because this forum has been created recently, therefore I'm like "Ooo... another message! lets read it! " so yeah... thanks anyway! --- Post updated --- Also a big thank you to titantIs and LucasBE for your comments too! As I have mentioned before, I love this very supportive community! Be sure to add anything you like to my idea as I would really appreciate that
