Any chance of modeling adaptive cruise control, lane keep assists, auto parallel parking, and basically a car that is 'drive by wire' (not fully automated like google car) so to help the user experience that it would be like to be in a vehicle that has these hard code protections?
Well, I think Incognito has coded an effective and cool Cruise Control Lua script: http://www.beamng.com/threads/2195-Simple-cruise-Control Not quite sure what you mean by adaptive...
By adaptive I mean simulated lidar, if there is a car ahead of you, and you are distracted, and it calculates you will hit, then it will hit the brakes for you.
These are all very new tech things in cars and so far the devs of this game are very keen on having older cars in the game. I'm sure newer ones will appear but I'm not sure they will be quite this new. Also not really sure how these things will really help in the grand scheme of things because this game is "Drive" and those would sort of take away from that. I think that's why we're seeing so many older cars because they were harder to drive and in the case of the Bolide you actually have to drive it unlike a lot of modern day supercars which by comparison are very easy to drive. Not that I know from experience because I've never driven anything really that fast...
Doesn't it refer to how the throttle is connected. Isn't drive by wire the new thing they are doing with gas pedals that are electronic instead of mechanical?
Yes. Fuel injected cars are typically drive by wire for throttle. Hyundai are supposed to be releasing a car without the steering column being connected so it will be drive by wire steering. Apart from that, no consumer car has 100% drive by wire. Typically though it refers to the controls not connecting to the rest of the car mechanically and instead being read by a computer which then operates hardware elsewhere. Airliners are all fly by wire now I think, the flight stick is read by a PC which then operates the hydraulic systems for the flaps/ailerons etc. The farm I live on also had a complete drive by wire vehicle, tractor with caterpillar tracks but had a normal control layout from an automatic car (steering wheel and all)