Update Speculation thread

Those taillights look great.

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Also, to add to the discussion, isn't it a common practice in the auto industry for the same body and frame to be produced for a long span of years with only a few tweaks here and there?

 

The squarebody GMs were used for more than 20 years, but the problem is that the Roamer exists. Why would they not share parts? Literally every early SUV shared everything except rear doors, interior, and windows with their pickup counterparts. If Gavril were a real car company, they would have a pickup bed on a Roamer cab after the Roamer was introduced.

 

I personally don't think the 2000s facelift on the 90's body is the problem, while they do differ IRL from the 90's bodies, like the GM models shown below, the 80's truck still has a much more vastly different body shape.
I still think if they should entirely remodel a body, that effort would be better directed towards the pre-facelift.

 

No, cause if they do that, we're gonna have yet another car before the '00s, not after, which we really need more of.

 

but the '85 D series already exists. this is just making it more fleshed-out.

 

The issue is how you define "long span" and "only a few tweaks". It is not uncommon for these trucks to keep the same frame for a fairly long time but have a new body placed on it once in awhile. This is actually already represented by the Roamer: it is a new body on the same frame. Minor facelifts are very common and major facelifts do happen. Again already represented with the pre-facelift and intermediate fascia's on the D-Series and the facelift on the Roamer. However, continuously slapping on a new fascia to an old body is not so common, especially for 21 years as will be the case with this facelift. The fact that the Roamer's 1999-2006 facelift fascia & rear bumper has made it's way onto what is supposed to be a 1985/1988 truck, so far with the only other changes being to the door handles, is just odd. Especially since we already have the Roamer, which was the perfect cab for this era of D-Series as it's already a truck based SUV on this platform, which as far as I know always uses the cab from the truck that they are based on anyway.

Like I mentioned earlier today, I don't think this is impossible to pull off, but if this is the finished product I would have to agree with SuperAusten. I already love the look of the rear bumper on the pickup. If they get rid of that chiseled bodyline to make it more round overall and put a new interior in it then I'll be fine with stretching this body for such a long time.

It is possible for both of these to happen actually, which IMO would be the best case scenario both in terms of content and realism since it would get rid of that weird quirk with the Roamer's body being unique. We could take the Ford Superduty route and split the D15 from the D25/35, so that the Roamer cab gets the D15 and this facelift gets the D25/35. That gives us a lot more options to play with for a relatively low initial resource cost, since the only new parts would be modified versions of cabs we already have and new pickups beds. The drawbacks of this would be high maintenance costs (3 generations of the standard/extended/crew cabs, plus the Charro, Kentarch, Roamer, and Roamer XL that we already have. If I had my way there would be a Charro Roamer in there as well) and it could be confusing for casual players, especially since there is absolutely no good way to tackle this with the UI we currently have.

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As for this conversation above with the 1980's pre-face-lift... I see two options here.
A: Just push the model year back to 1988 and adjust the rest of the line's mode years accordingly. It would take like 60 seconds to do and would then make sense.
B: As cool as a square body stand in would be, it's just so much more work than option A...

 

lol

 

Don't really have a good answer for why Gavril would do that. The only thing that comes to mind is possible intent to make the Roamer as unique as possible from the D-Series, and even that probably doesn't even come close to explaining it. I'm not even satisfied with that answer, but right now it's the best I got.

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I wrote my post with vehicles like the 1997 - 2011 Ford Crown Victoria and 1990 - 2016 Land Rover Defender in mind. I think there's also the instances of the original Volkswagen Beetle, the new Dodge Challenger, and the Lada Niva/4x4. I know those aren't the same kind of vehicles as the D-Series, but I think they check out when demonstrating my point.

Here's a few guesses of mine.

A. Instead of redefining the D-Series from below the ground up, Gavril finds it cheaper to use mostly the same stuff from the earlier D-Series models, only adding a few new stuff when needed/required, saving money in the long run.

B. Gavril adopting a "if it ain't broken, why fix it?" kind of mindset, especially if the D-Series is selling really well, despite the oddities.

C. How long would the older D-Series actually use the parts from the 1999 - 2006 Roamer? Who's to say Gavril wouldn't throw on the newer Roamer parts onto the old D-Series for a while before finally introducing a completely new D-Series?

D. All of the above?

In the end, I'm probably way off.

 

The Roamer is a family SUV, so it gets the latest in styling, comfort and technology. The D-Series, on the other hand, is first and foremost a work truck - it doesn't need all the extras, in fact it's probably better off without them.

 

It's not actually that unreasonable for the same cab to be used for ~20 years. Ford used the same cab and doors in 3 facelifts, from 1980 to 1997. push that forward 5 years, from 1985 to 2002, and consider that the cab design was a bit ahead of its time for '85, it starts to seem somewhat plausible.

you know what still isn't plausible? OHC V8s in pickup trucks in 1985.
Wen Relez OHV conversion devs???

 

I mean.. it could be for the South American market.

Thats not far fetched in the slightest really.

 

At first I didn't notice many novelties except the new taillights, the new bumper for the D-series and its new door handles.
But if we look closely we can see that the hinges at the back of the van are now hidden and the glass on its rear doors has thicker black edges.
Moreover on the pickup the rear wheel arches are now black and the tailgate has a smoother shape.

 

I noticed that roofline looks more round and more modern.

Almost as if It not just a minor change

But a new generation?

 

That's what I thought

 

See this is why I don't go online of the forums anymore. It just a mess of people saying ''GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR YOU DIDN'T ADD SOMETHING I WANTED'!!!''

Can't we just appreciate the fact the devs are giving us a great game and great updates. and our job is to suggest and improve upon it rather then bashing the devs for something so minor.
Let just be grateful the devs are giving us a great update.

 

The taillights look very high quality, those meshes took a while to make.

 

It's more comfortable on stuff like the Squarebody and Dodge D-Series since those were older trucks. By the 2000's styling trends had changed a lot. Assuming this gets the Roamer's model years we are talking about a truck going deep into the 2000's. Like I said, it isn't impossible to pull off, but the details will be what makes or breaks this for me.

As for engines... Still no sign of a big block either. The biggest gasoline motor we can put in the full sized 1990's truck is a 5.5 (compared to a 7.4 for the GMT400 and squarebody, 8.1 for 1st gen Silverado, a 5.9 for the Dodge D-Series [The lack of big block plus dated styling were two of many reasons that this truck barely sold any units in 20 years], 8.0 V10 for first gen Dodge Ram, 7.5 for contemporary Fords and 6.4 V10 for gen 1 superduties)

Truck based SUV's, especially of this era, generally get the cab and a similar interior to the pickup they are based on. Having an entirely new cab on a vehicle that isn't even a luxury marque version is really odd. It isn't a case of "family luxuries", but a case of how these vehicles are designed. Besides, by '97 Ford had certainly realized that many people were daily driving pickups instead of using them purely as work trucks, so it makes sense for the mid 2000's D15 (specifically the 15, as the 25/35 would still be work trucks) to have a lot of overlap with the Roamer.

 

I don't think these facelifts are meant to be overly complicated matters, yeah it's a little weird that a truck body that old is still being used into the 2000's but you could rationalize it in about a 1000 ways as many other people already have, overall these facelifts are just cool additions to help flesh out the vehicles more and to give the players a bit more to play around with. Also cool job antagonizing the devs by calling them "Peak Lazy" for a completely free update with content that you can totally ignore if you want to.

 

it would sort of make sense to have power windows in the d series and of course door panels with armrests and/or captains chairs with armrests too if it's gonna go beyond 95, as it stands even the high end chief ranch has manual windows

edit: another miniscule contribution to the thread. when you put on roof/bullbar aux lights no aftermarket switches appear in the cab. would be nice to have something like a custom overhead console or something with switches to clear that up

edit 2: I'm just turning this into vehicle suggestions at this point


EDIT 3: would be very nice if it had a new cab lineup. Using the same frame would make sense fine but the body lines are a bit dated for post-2000. they could just chop the roamer body off at the rear seats and go with that. Basically like the gmt800 (which was literally the opposite but y'know)