At this point I need some tests, so here's the prototype of the building after a very short delay. Just download the zip and extract its contents into C:\users\<you>\BeamNG.drive\vehicles and you can spawn the building in the game. If it doesn't appear in your list, then double-check to make sure you extracted the zip correctly. This is really an attempt to see if the current state of the building is suitable before I add more parts and send it to the mod repository. I am already aware of a few things; the prop has more nodes and beams than any of the vanilla vehicles in the game, so it might draw more resources from your processing unit than usual. Some of the blocks stick through each other as well as in other vehicles or props. Not sure why, because this thing is col-tried from top to bottom. Also, the blocks on the front collapse on their own sometimes; resetting the building a couple of times tends to remedy that most of the time. Please send suggestions for this prototype if you have any to offer, and I will fix the most important issues before sending this prop to the repository (which I had promised will be on 17 June). After that, I'll trickle down the list to see what else can be done to improve the building. This is no longer available since the mod is already released.
Ok, cool! I might have to go back to the newer version, because I am on a 2015 version of beamng for nostalgia.
Suggestion: OPTIMIZATION! Seriously, on Gridmap I can get around 55 fps with the stock truck, and that will stay pretty consistent when other vehicles are spawned in as well, but when I spawn this in, my framerate falls flat on it's face, and next thing I know, the game is running at 18 FPS. I'll include my settings for the game and specs, if needed. Graphics settings for BeamNG: High overall, light rays off, V-Sync off, running at 1440p. Specs: 3.40 Ghz Intel Core I5-7500, 8 gigs of DDR4 RAM, clocked at 2400 Mhz, and a Radeon Pro 570 with 4 gigs of GDDR5 VRam.
So I can't really promise significant optimizations at the moment, without going through and maybe checking to see if some things can be whittled down a bit. --- Post updated --- Might help to reduce your graphics settings; low lighting and partial shadowing might help, but if you have to remove all lighting or shadows, then that would give your game a bit of a boost as well.
Right, I am really not sure why I waited until just now to mention this... I'm really not sure how to optimize the mod so that it will run smoothly on every computer out there. The current format is desirable for functionality and the closest thing I can get to optimization is making more variants of walls which have fewer blocks, and consequently fewer nodes and beams than the solid walls already in the game. Even then, I've been on a bad tangent during the past month and haven't made any progress on the mod. However, I have been thinking... and one of my thoughts involves changing the way the blocks stack on top of each other. The current format is known as "jack on jack" bond and consists of straight columns of blocks from bottom to top (the one on the left). The concepted change would change this to "running" bond, where there are not perfect columns, and instead one block is placed upon the halves of two blocks beneath it, a lot like the Concrete Retaining Wall that's already in the game, except it's a full wall barring cutouts for doors and windows (the one on the right). I would like your feedback on this idea... maybe at some point I can get back to work on the mod. And I can't say that going either way will be more complicated than the other, and I'm not sure if it will improve the use of system resources. The fact is, though, that you might have to wait until something in the game itself changes, because I don't know what I can do to the mod to make it run well, and I would really only add more to it eventually...
I'm not in the mood to explain the situation, but I will say this. I want to keep working on this project, but unless I get actual feedback about how the development of this mod should move forward, I'm not going to be doing anything to it because I seem to not know what middle ground there is between what I want the mod to be and what will work well enough for the vast majority of players. All I seem to be aware of is that "the building bogs down the performance of the game" and while this is not intentional, the building was going to be designed to be as uncompromising as possible in terms of functionality, customization and destruction. So, I don't know what to do. Before I get back to trying this again, I need to understand what direction I have to take in order to make this mod both entertaining and performance-friendly for people who want to use it. Do I keep the blocks or do I use solid "breakable" walls instead? Would a flat roof be better than a sloped one? Should I ditch the idea of having an expansive platform from which you can create larger buildings or even houses (which was kind of the basis of creating a modular building in the first place) with this mod?
So, I don't know if you will respons to this treat, but I will try it First of all I want to say that I allready like your mod, and I see potical in this mod. I also enjoy to play with it. I would say you should add a modular building, which we can modify as we want or just have several moduls that we can clip toghter. That would give us great ways to create creativs Buildings. I hope that I could help you a little bit.
