I spent over two hours typing this thread and then lost it all because Firefox froze trying to upload an image. Repeatedly. And then when I thought I'd Ctrl+C'd my most recent shortened post, it didn't actually copy for some stupid reason I don't even know. So, cliffnotes: I've come to believe that The Crew's system of "specs" (not recommending you play that game with its sweary dialogue, by the way) is actually a useful framework for thinking about which types of modifications, and pre-upgraded "presets", might be appropriate for a dev/modder to add to the existing cars of BeamNG. Four things only will I actually bother to retype at this point: I added a couple of specs to the framework. "Monster" in this case means a production-based hillbilly custom a la the original Bigfoot, not a professional-level monster truck with a full custom frame. TBD means I couldn't decide of that type of modification was appropriate for that car. This list includes cars coming down the pipe but not actually in the live version of the game yet. The rest, you can probably figure out even if you've never heard of The Crew. If you have any questions about what something means, ask. Anyway, list finally incoming! Comments? Additions? Subtractions? Am I talking out my backside? Did I miss something? Which way should the TBDs swing? How good an idea would it actually be to add more modifications to the game's cars, or to use this as the framework for doing so?
I personally think that there should be more in terms of lightwieght parts. Like come on what hillclimb car do you know of that weighs upwards of 1200kgs. Im talking about you sunburst and Sbr4 which weight upwards of 1400kg (dont quote me on those exact figures but they are pretty close). I have personally ventured into the realm of wieght reduction and have been successful-ish. In one test i managed to get the h series weight from around 200kg by lightening only the body add ons without even touching the frame or body and the jbeam did not deform or break beams on spawn. Another type of part I think should exist are some proper racing slicks and aero parts for cars like the bolide or hillclimb cars. The type of slicks I have in mind would be some high profile ones similiar to F1 or Nascar that are mounted on smallish rims so that the cars can run stiff suspension for extra grip and have the tires take the role of the suspension instead. Last quick thing is fuel tanks that can have adjustable fuel and with that, a relationship of the amount of fuel and the wieght of the tank. If you are making a racing config of something like the pickup or barstow. Im fairly sure the fuel tanks are around 80 litres , now if we where able to adjust fuel load. Atleast 50kg can easily be lost from overall weight and if you have ever raced anything that has minimal power (like the covet) you realise how much that amount of wieght actually slows you down. Its good that you decided to make this thread as i was going to make a similiar one asking what sort of mods (like my wheel hub mod) the community would like modders such as myself to make because they improve the feel and variety of the game. Who doesnt want to put off road wheels and tyres on the covet or put some tiny miramar wheels on the roamer. Typed reasonably quickly so dont complain if there are some mistakes. CreasingCurve out.
I don't recommend implementing their entire system, just using it as a framework to determine, like I said, the different types of parts and presets that might be appropriate for different cars. The current BeamNG system, allowing any physically-possible parts combination, would be preserved. Originally I was a little more clear about that, but then I lost my post about four times and decided "forget it, it's 1:30 in the morning, I'm going to make this as short as possible and then go to bed."
So you want a system that determines what setup is optimal for certain type of road? the same way it already is right now?
Not... necessarily. When I say what I said, I mean more on a meta level. Stuff like the chart I posted is simply a starting point for trying to determine, in an orderly fashion, which cars should have what types of upgrades available to them. It's up to the player (or, when setting non-factory configs like the Sport, Custom, and Off-Road Gavrils, the Special, Race, and Drag Moonhawk, etc., the developer/modder) to then pick the right car for the job, or not, if they decide they want to get some cheap lols by flying a pure track car off a giant ramp. All this framework would be used for would be determining which cars get pure-track-car parts in the first place.
So basically you want custom variants and non factory configs to be separated into branches that depend into what conditions they are optimal to? not the worst idea, but then again, carefully modifying the cars to fit those jobs yourself isn't exactly a hard job.
That's part of it, but the problem is that a lot of cars actually have very few parts, often only one or two of each type and usually very few types as well. The D15, for example, shouldn't have just one bull bar available to it... it should have 3 or 4 or 5, each of which should then have chrome, gloss black, flat black, body colored, etc. versions. The the 200BX shouldn't just have one racing hood with body color and carbon versions, it should have multiple, each with the aforementioned versions plus partial-carbon/partial-body-color variants. The Covet shouldn't have just one body kit, and so on.
So all of this boils down to you wanting more parts per car? yeah i want that too, however i have no doubt that they are working on it. I think that if they can make cars have so many different ways to be customized they would be worth much more than different cars altogether.
Now you're starting to see. But that, then, is the whole thing... which cars should have what? Which cars should have off-road parts and which ones should have more road-oriented parts, which ones should be able to be converted into pure race cars and which ones should get only street-oriented parts, and so forth. Appropriateness is one determinant, but not the only one; a Gavril D or H patterned after the "silly period" of GT1 racing would be utterly idiotic, but still awesome, while a 200BX with similar modifications would actually be rather appropriate as Nissan did actually a 240SX in some high-level GT racing series at one point.
I know you can, i have done it. I tried with the t-series but the problem was because the set amount whether you set it to 5L or 200L, the nodes still wiegh the same. You can read the next paragraph but is a bit useless and took a while to write so im leaving it. It could be solved by adding the same variable for the nodewieght and the fuel amount but they would need to be adjusted and would not work properly. This is because if you want to have 40L in the fueltank you would need to have 40 nodes that each wiegh 1kg but then if you want 4L you cant then make the nodes wieght 4 kg as the tank would then wiegh 160kg. The devs currently have a system for te fuel wieght decreasing as the car gets driven but with almost zero knowledge of lua i have no way of making the set fuel amount the same as the wieght of the tank. Scrap all that actually. What could be done is simply adding 1 central node in the fuel tank that accounts for the amount of fuel you set which would also make the mentioned node the same wieght but because you are messing woth the system it may not figure out which node is meant to reduce in wieght as cars gets driven. There you go community a mod you guys could make in minimal time. But yeah @Mr. Twiglesworth I do know my way around 95% of jbeam but i gave up at the time becuase i simply couldn't be bothered and it wouldn't be a mod that i would use/enjoy.
in a real life scenario you would actually be able to set up optimal path through very careful customization. BeamNG should just allow us to modify very careful suspension parts and allow us to get a wheel in any car to set up any tire (which they pretty much allow and what they dont mods make up for it) and that would get rid of a big part of the problem. And that's not getting technical with it.
