The physics in BeamNG are great, but what bothers me are the strange deformations of the windshields. Maybe they should also be detachable, but I think that wouldn't be very realistic neither. Will this issue be solved in the future?
Probably. Drive is still in a very early alpha. Many things are going to be improved/implemented in the future.
If you crash in the right way, you can basically stretch the windshield out a lot more than it realistically should be able too. It isn't too noticeable because it is kinda hard to crash in such a way that it actually happens.
Windsheild is technically a 3d model with a transparent surface texture and a change in the texture when modified(wreck). I'd say this is just a place holder until some realistic glass physics are written. Also, on the detaching thing. Yes its realistic. I have a good example, buddy of mine just finished putting a new windshield in his eclipse and just got it rebuild and running. Raced him in my size a few hours later and smoked him [] well the 3 run he lost control of the car and hit a tree doing about 50, windshield shattered and half of it wasnt even connected to the car, the glue was still setting lol.
Windshield acts like its made of the same material as the rest of the car body so just bends and stretches instead of breaking. But its alpha software, sure it will get fixed.
well, the windshield could tear and break but it would kind of act like the rest of the body since it's tempered. The side and rear windows should shatter though.
Have you ever seen a windshield shatter? Even tempered glass acts nothing like it does in BeamNG (having witnessed it first hand), but BeamNG is alpha software so there it can probably just go on the bottom of their very long todo list
Modern windscreens are laminated and are made of safety glass, which shatters into tiny pieces. Once shattered, the polymer laminate would be holding the shards together; it should act like a flippy piece of plastic, which is kinda sorta happening in Drive. However, it shouldn't stretch at all. Side windows are also made of safety glass but aren't laminated, so bits will go all over the place if you whack it with a hammer. Or a T75.
And, needless to say, tempered glass is VERY hard to break. A few years ago, we were getting rid of an old microwave/stove combo thing, and it was laying down in the back of the truck, and I was trying to break the microwave door glass. That stuff was STRONG. I was standing over it, hitting down on it with a baseball bat, with both arms. It probably took 9 or 10 hits before it finally broke, and when it did, it like friggin exploded. Went everywhere. It was loud, too. Oh, and while we're on the subject, I saw and accident just on friday, on I-75, where someone had managed to wedge an impala under one of those cable things in the median of and interstate(Tennessee's real big on those). It had just happened, no emergency crews were there yet, and someone had just run over to the impala, checking on whoever was inside. The bottom cable caught the windshield, and the A-pillar. The windshield was very crumpled, but it wasn't shattered, and it was still in place. So, yeah, they don't shatter. Just a little off-topic here, but I got to thinking. If that cable hadn't have been there, we could have come across a major head-on. And the head on would have been on our side (the Impala was going south, and ended up in the north-bound side: We were going north). A head-on at those speeds isn't gonna turn out well. We could have come across a fatality. That would have sucked. Anyway, cable walls save lives.
