Micro Blog(s) - 2018-Current

The last days we have been working on implementing an expression based system for variables in jbeam.

To recap, that's how variables in jbeam are currently used:
Define the variable(s):

Code:

["$wastegateStart", "range", "psi", "Turbocharger", 8, 6, 36, "Wastegate Start", "Pressure at which the wastegate begins to open"]
["$wastegateLimit", "range", "psi", "Turbocharger", 10, 8, 38, "Wastegate Limit", "Pressure at which the wastegate is fully opened"],

And then use it to adjust whatever you need to adjust:

Code:

"wastegateStart":"$wastegateStart"
"wastegateLimit":$wastegateLimit"

Now that system has enabled us to offer lots of tuning options, from tire to pressure, over turbo and engine settings to things like spring rates.
However, all the time the system was quite limited, you could just assign a single variable to a single data point.

With the expression based extension of this, we aim to allow for simpler, yet more powerful tuning options.
The goal is to essentially allow the creator to use math inside these variables to allow for finer control and easier tuning.

Let's take a look at the example from above simplified with expressions:

Definition:

Code:

["$wastegateStart", "range", "psi", "Turbocharger", 8, 6, 36, "Wastegate Start", "Pressure at which the wastegate begins to open"]

Usage:

Code:

"wastegateStart":"$wastegateStart"
"wastegateLimit":"$=$wastegateStart + 2"

As you can see, you can now avoid having two different variables and just use a fixed offset.
One could also allow to tune the start value + the offset and use it like so:

Code:

"wastegateStart":"$wastegateStart"
"wastegateLimit":"$=$wastegateStart + $wastegateRange"

We also plan to allow the use of certain math related functions like:

• min
• max
• abs
• sin
• cos
• tan
• sign
• round
• square
• etc

We haven't finished working on this yet, so details may or may not change/disappear/appear. But in any case, this is a much needed extension of the jbeam variable system, made to allow for much greater customization while keeping stuff more simple to use.

 

Repo is back on - 2.9 GBit/s max peak, 17.5 M hits and 26.8 TB mods delivered in two days.

 

A little bit more detail for the new ETKs:

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Adaptive brake lights and brake light usage when the ESC becomes active. (Not sure yet if the ESC part will be enabled by default)

 

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Coming sometime in the future

 

Late for an appointment..

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RGB and performance improvements for the ScriptAI:

Video - Click to Play - Direct Link

 

In our latest hotfix, @thomatoes50 introduced a small but useful change to the in-game repository and Automatic Updates.

Previously, if a mod you were subscribed to was missing (ex. the ZIP was deleted manually), the game would automatically download it back. That sometime did not reflect what the player wanted to do.

Since 0.16.0.3 this is handled a bit differently. If a mod you are subscribed to is missing, they get marked as missing:


From this new category, you can choose whether to:

• Download all the missing mods (at once, or singularly)
• Unsubscribe from the missing mods

That should prevent from mods being automatically downloaded when maybe it's not what the player is willing to do, or manage all subscriptions more easily

 

So I heard you like cryptic teasers?


That's what my current setup for the new driving dynamics stuff, that I am currently researching, looks like.
There are some new ideas based on this in there: (Have fun reading it )
http://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/8069/1/2018-01-31_Bechtloff_Jakob.pdf

I hope that new system can better adapt to the wide variety of cars and setups we have now.

 

Researching....

 

Got something very very WIP for you today. I'm playing around with something that naturally happens IRL but is not supported in the game yet. What I'm talking about?

Crooked steering wheels of course. In reality, if you slightly damage your steering and/or suspension, the car will most likely still travel straight, however, to do that, the steering wheels ends up being not centered.
So while the wheels still point mostly straight, the steering wheel essentially got a new center position.

In the game, that's not possible with keyboards or gamepads atm since the input that comes from your device is forced onto the steering, even if that steering doesn't want to rest there.
With FFB wheels, stuff works as expected since the wheel can then find a new center.

This leads to basically unusable cars with keyboards and controllers even with the slightest misalignment.

To fix this, I'm trying to let the steering find its own center position when there is no input. So instead of actually forcing that 0 input onto the steering, I kinda let it loose and use the FFB forces to find the natural center point.

Here are two videos showing the behavior, first one is as is, without any changes, the damaged steering makes the car very hard to drive since it constantly turns.
The second video has a very crude version of above idea implemented, when not giving it any input, it tries to self correct the steering position via the FFB forces.

Without correction:

Video - Click to Play - Direct Link

With correction: Note how the steering wheel isn't centered anymore after the damage happened)

Video - Click to Play - Direct Link

Also: This is very crude as is and I'm sure I will run into weird corner cases when using this, so please understand that this is research and could very likely not end up being in the game.

 

Video - Click to Play - Direct Link

 

Random experiment of the day: Making the wheelspeed correct itself for our tire expansion.
Before:


After:


As you may or may not be aware, at higher speeds tires are under incredibly huge forces, making them expand a little. (force goes up squared with relation to speed, which also tells you why those highspeed tires are much more expensive than normal ones )
This is true for real life as well as our game, however in the game it happens more than in reality.
What it leads to is wheelspeed readings that are quite off at high speeds which in turn throws off everything that works with wheelspeed...

Above is just an experiment, not sure if it will end up being in the game...

 

This video is completely meaningless, but being 100% in-game it is pretty cool to share

Video - Click to Play - Direct Link

 

New TCS retrofitted to eSBR (which really needs this the most)

Video - Click to Play - Direct Link

This was just a quick test and likely won't be in the next update due to time constraints.

 

A little something I've been working on