WIP Beta released BeamNG Off Road Open Desert Trails 4096x4096 1.8.1

Having some incredible pursuits on your map, I love it! Nice to play in cinematic camera in slow motion!

AI isn't always following the road but will more likely cut and go straight on you going offroad depending on where you are. Having them following the road would be nice, but I feel like having them not always following it make some chases better.
They also lose control more oftenly which looks nice.

About that last one, I love the fact that some cars will just roll over in the sand if they lose control on the road at highspeed, it looks super nice to make movies! Keep it that way!
I wouldn't say no to have a wider map with more asphalt covering long ranges, with some sand paths cutting sometimes to catch an other asphalt road, if AI couldn't take the turn they would mostly roll over even more and stuff!

Here are some screenshots taken before the last update (Feel free to use the pictures as you wish)

 

again

weeee

stanced

reeeee

JUMP

finish

yaaaay

 

I finally did it. I used only a keyboard and mouse with the stock off road sunburst no tuning. I only flipped the car over once.

I also lost the skid-plate.



Addition. Also @runnertyler idk if you can make time trials but it might be a good idea to add them if you know how : ).

 

This map is really nicely done , just bumpy enough to ruin a car's suspension yet the abundance of trails that normal road cars can tackle means you can complete it without purpose-built machines

BTW , can confirm that a base pessima can make it to the finish line . It was done with me being a complete moron who went full throttle 2/3rd of the entire trip , tho I did bend the chassis a bit from the repeated batterings with the landings , the images should be able to print a clear picture of the result.

 

More stuff plus alot of terrain smoothing...

 

runnertyler updated BeamNG Off Road Open Desert Trails 4096x4096 with a new update entry:

Many Terrain Fixes, Add Two Time Trials, More Assets

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

Great map! My only request is that you make the people less dense (such as bushes on utah) Because you kind of cannot see them on low settings.

Also I found some holes. Same jeep as the 1st pic for reference.

 

I did try with a Strato, but it does not fit trough starting gate, so I did ctrl-e and chose DH Gnat instead, that is why it shows as Strato, but there was no cheating, no signs stating flying crafts should not take part

Oh and I did dive in for last checkpoint crashing the vehicle. It is actually kinda fun with a helicopter because you have to make all those turns and checkpoint works only very close to ground so there is challenge to get fastest possible time.

 

Just finished for first time, used the D15 with the custom 4 link mod. this truck plus this map is the best part of the game right now!
Thank you for making this map

 

I'm really liking the map, but I have some small nitpicks. I am not an expert, but I do live in the Sonora desert... which is close...

Anyways, the vegetation is too much, I turned it down to about 30% and it gives a more realistic result. With the base it's more like grassland than desert. As another small nitpick or just general suggestion, add in a couple different flora variations of the bushes and cacti that grow there, but I know that can be a lot of work.


I like that you sort of switched through a couple different biomes, hard packed dirt, mountain, sand dunes, wash/riverbed, and dry lake bed but this presents some issues... Most of the track is the same hard packed dirt trail, which doesn't make any sense on the top of a sand dune, or following through a river bed. It's kind of weird because in the middle of the track you have the 3 way split into the high mountain road, lower mountain road, and lower sandy area which has a trail that isn't hard packed dirt. It also makes for a weird thing where going slightly off the trail gets you "stuck" in sand.
A small improvement would be to swap the trail type in the sandy areas for the sandy trail. Another fun thing you could do is just throw some random deep sand patches across the trail at various points, it would add a bit to the realism.

The abandoned mining town is a nice touch, but the scale of it is huge. That's a LOT of buildings for a mining town, and there's no abandoned equipment... I didn't really look around but I didn't see any abandoned cars, and a playground swingset or something would be cool, if there' isn't one already in the empty lot.
Most abandoned mining towns are only a few houses or trailers, the size of that place is a pretty big mining operation, but there's no evidence to suggest so. Just a bit of worldbuilding I guess.

I don't really like the rocks on the mountain road next to the town... There's the couple shortcuts for Jeeps to climb through, which is fine, but the random giant rocks in the middle of the trail make it hard for regular rally cars n such to go through. The surrounding isn't big or unstable enough to pretend like there's a rockslide or something either. The assumption would be that this is where the nearby town was mining (Maybe sneak in a few abandoned mineshafts if you haven't already) but the miners would keep the road pretty clear. The rocks are just... unnatural. On the side of the road is fine to punish any who stray from the road, but the road itself should be clear.

On the topic of rocks... they look like potatoes. The texture on them is really not great and the wrong type of material. I think I have a couple photoscanned rocks if you're interested, or at least some other rock textures. For the record... well, maybe it's different in the Mojave, but here the rocks are primarily granite, with other various volcanic forms mixed in. So, whites, greys, reds, and blacks.
I'm also wondering how hard it would be for you to make them more embedded in the ground, with just a bit poking out instead of sitting completely on the surface. At least for most of the ones on the trail, it would help seat them into the world better.
Again, based on the Sonoran, but the rock foundations we have here happened with volcanic eruptions thousands (If not hundreds of thousands) of years ago, but after all that time they start to erode or get covered in dirt, so surface boulders are pretty rare outside the mountains.

I like the dry lake bed and the only nitpicks I have are
1. The trail only goes through a really small part of it. XD I just wish it was bigger, or went lengthwise.
2. Dry lakebeds by necessity need to be lower than the surrounding terrain, and it doesn't really seem to be...

Oh, 1 more minor thing... after coming off the high split mountain trails there's a really long flat straight that's great to top out in BUT... it is really flat... adding in some washboards or small whoops so you can still flat out but have it not be smooth wold be amazing.

So there's my long list of little nitpicks. It's a great map, and I've been wanting one like it for a few years. I like the trail layout, and especially how you utilize just about all of the map that you can by having it squiggle all over the place, really makes it feel bigger than it actually is. The general feeling and atmosphere is REALLY good... besides the potatoes all over. XD
I had a great time getting a poorly modified Gavril D-15 to the end... just can't figure out the suspension... It'll definitely be a go to map.


Oh, one last final thing, not a big deal, but the tent you start next to, if you turn right out to the highway and look at it... I forgot what you have written on it, but it's a big ol typo... Something like Dessert instead of Desert or something...

 

I think some of these are limitations with the map editor, since there's a limited variety of props included with the vanilla game available to place and if a map maker wants more variety they have to find or make their own model to use.

But otherwise this is really good feedback and is exactly what the forums needs more of

 

Well, adding in more Mojave specific flora sure would be, other than the textures I'm not sure what all is vanilla content. The rocks could potentially just be a texture swap, or like I said I've got a few photogrammetry assets.
Adding in little details like mines... Utah has some little wooden mining buildings around, not sure how well that fits with the corrugated metal ones he's already got in place though.
The trail differences are already adjustable in game, and he already has a section in a wide open sandy area with a sand trail, the rest of it just needs some tweaking.

Otherwise the map is like 90-95% complete in my eyes, just a couple little tweaks and it'll be darn near perfect.
Oh, I also looked up some pictures of the Mojave (since I'm Sonoran) and most of the flora is pretty similar to here, but the other thing that I think was subconsciously bugging me about the flora is it seems too tall. Most of the flora should be about half shin high, which I know is a bit of a useless measurement. XD I don't know if there's a way to shrink down the grass in game though.
It's all a bit finicky, and plant life in the desert really changes pretty drastically based on the biomes, so the mountains would have different plants at different altitudes, up to full pine or maybe redwood forest.
The hard compacted earth would have primarily small, dry, shrubs with some creosote and cactus scattered around.
I'm not an expert on dunes, but I think I've seen some very sparse buffelgrass around, which also isn't very tall in that particular biome.
The river bed would have the taller buffelgrass, creosotes, and trees with a few more cacti scattered around. I think on average the riverbanks would actually have too much water for a lot of cacti.
The lake bed should be pretty sparse and barren as it is, but could much like the dunes have some really tiny bits of dry dead grass around.
And now that I think about it, most of the cacti around here being Saguaro's and Prickly pear tend to grow more in the rocky foothills of the mountains, but they're also a bit different from the Joshua trees and other cacti in the Mojave... I also don't know if Joshua trees are cacti... I don't think they are...

 

mod instructions unclear, brought my burnside lowrider and my ME-262

 

Reality:


Thing is that area changes wildly from photo to photo, probably seasons affect a lot etc.

 

Locale and season can play a big part, though here it's pretty much all the plants year round. That photo is taken from a relatively low angle which makes it look more dense than it should, but that is a particularly dense patch.



So sure, there's some dense areas, but there's also a lot of much less dense and completely barren.

 

Also there is gameplay point, it is much more fun to be lost in taller bushes than to have boring open wasteland where you can see everything, so I think that as there is some more barren areas already dried lake kind of thing and deeper sand area, it is kinda well covered for gameplay needs, even it might be that in reality it would be bit different.

 

Saudi drifting, at this moment I knew something is wrong:

 

I made it in 43min 26 seocnds in a modded War Rig from that Mad Max mod I cant think of the name of.

 

I am overwhelmed with all your feedback guys thank you so much.
I took notes for everything you guys suggested and i will get to work to make it happen.(not promising anything lol)

Thanks you all

 

Let me know if I can help in any way. Your map is one of 3-4 I'd recommend. The others primarily being Road Atlanta and Pikes Peak. It's a great map.
Also send me a PM if you want my photogrammetry rocks. I got em from BlenderGuru from some free tutorial, and they'd "blend" in a lot better than what you currently have.