Released Formula Bee 1.11

Inspired by one of the most popular racing series in the world, I present to you the Prokar Formula Bee.



General features :
-Lightweight aircooled engine
-Revolutionary rear suspension design
-Lightweight chassis (sub 500kg)
-Optional aero package
-High power to weight ratio



I'll probably fix the thread up a little later. I didn't have one ready when I posted the mod, and generally prefer to avoid making threads for WIP mods, but it should still be enough for discussions.

It is quite oversteery, however that is also a thing the RL Formula Vee is known for. This is in large part due to the swing axle rear suspension doing swing axle things, because it is subjectively horrible design. There's a few "hacks" they use to make it less worse, like the "zero-roll" suspension design I've replicated, which offers no roll stiffness and depends on the inherent roll resistance of swing axle suspension for anti-roll purposes, however it doesn't fully eliminated the jacking issues.

@Blijo had a great example of why swing axle is inherently terrible with the LeGran Prototype, although I'm not sure if it still works with the new update. However anyone who ever tested it will understand that trying to make that handle right is like polishing a turd.
https://www.beamng.com/resources/legran-prototype.6484/

The jbeam is also fairly simple, which allows me to keep the weight low, since physics engine limitations make it difficult to make something that is both complex and lightweight. There are a few examples on the repo with those issues.

There also isn't a ton of things that I feel would need to be made breakable in addition to what is already breakable. While I agree that some areas need more fine tuning (the front wing is a good example), just keep those points in mind when commenting about the jbeam.

As for why I chose an inherently terrible single seater design for my first single seater, you just need to have a look at the current date It's essentially a high effort meme mod.

 

Cool!

 

this feels great! feels close to the F-Vees in Automobilista/RF2 which means it's probably accurate lol
as a wheel user though i'm wondering if you plan on improving the force feedback? currently slides feel borderline impossible to catch compared to other cars in the game, and i'm pretty convinced it's an FFB thing

 

Awesome. Just one question, will there be a custom steering wheel for it?

 

The RL car runs smaller sized off the shelf racing wheels, which is pretty much what the current steering wheel is (I scaled it down so it fits better)

I'll have to play with it a bit more, see if I can get it somewhere decent. I personally don't play beam much with a wheel, in part because it's hard to get the FFB for mod cars to a level that is "correct", as instabilities that aren't even visible in the stress debug can cause major FFB vibration.

 

fantastic mod in everyway other than it pulling to the left oddly

 

If optimal handling is the goal (I don't know if it is), I would suggest four corner double wishbone suspension, rather than the current torsion beam front and whatever the rear is. My main problem with the rear suspension is that it behaves like a solid axle and is easily upset.

Great mod otherwise!

 

buggy mode

 

This is really really nice! but i'm wondering about 2 things, will it have more skins? And will you able to have a dummy (or Stig) in the driver seat? By all means you don't have to, just putting some ideas out there. And keep up the great work!

 

The running gear is ex-Autobello so it has to be torsion beam and swing-axle pepega suspension, developing a custom suspension setup for a league takes more money than buying old cars and using the suspension from them

 

Pretty much. While the costs aren't as low as they were, since some of the components are getting harder to find (especially engine bits), Formula Vee use stock VW suspension and swing axle drivetrain in order to reduce costs, along with a spaceframe chassis that was, at least in the earlier days, often made in a shed. (Most chassis these days are professionally built, but still have to be a steel spaceframe chassis)

The spaceframe construction is part of why that thing doesn't really crumple like a modern car, or a modern carbon monocoque single seater. Bad crashes will tend to result in the chassis getting tweaked, but other wise the general shape of the chassis doesn't change. It's a similar thing that you still see with NASCAR for example.

As I said in the first post (and which can be clued in by the release date), at the end of the day this is a high-ish effort meme car, also partly made based on a jbeam tutorial/template that I'm working on.

If I make an other similarly winged/powered car with double wishbone suspension, it's probably going to be a completely separate design with a different engine, although some bits might get recycled.

Skins are something that I'll look into. I didn't have a ton of time to make skins as I was targeting an April 1st release.

When it comes to adding a driver, my main issue is that it's an added thing to flop around and affect the handling. Or I make him essentially rigid, but that will bring it's lot of complaints as well, and is liable to cause issues from weird deformation and/or clipping through bits of the car in some situations.

 

For a meme car.. Pretty well done, I'm a fan of it, though as mentioned before the FFB isn't so hot. iRacing recently announced the Formula Vee for their game, so those cars have been on my mind lately. Glad to see that I get to drive one around & about right now.

 

I have a feeling this is going to be a blast with a wheel. With a controller it really reminded me of how the open wheelers would handle in Live For Speed back in the day.

 

I made this over 1 year ago, but stopped working on it as it had just insane lift off oversteer:


It does not look much, but I had accurate rear suspension, both two types of rear suspension, zero roll and Z-suspension setup, did a huge amount of research on these and build it from Autobello in manner one would build if Autobello would be real vehicle, but as it just spins around I ditched it.

I have tested this @TrackpadUser's mod and I find handling is pretty much same as what mine had.

When I drove side to side with same tires and 1.3 engines with only 2hp difference (bit different configuration), I found out that Formula Bee has more violent lift off oversteer than my unfinished mod, but difference is like 65kph vs 75kph in speed where at new gridmap banked loop track I lose control of these.
I would think that my version has bit more weight and softer rear suspension, that might really be greatest difference there, we both have very similar solution to rear suspension. Z-type rear suspension I never got to work quite so well, this Zero roll type I got to be bit better.

Obviously mine is ugly as moth and my jbeam as well as design is not quite as nice as Formula Bee, but I find it interesting that we had so similar ideas without knowing about each others work.


I wanted to have quite square go kart like wheelbase/track ratio and it is likely that mine is bit too short for realistic proportions, even though I did try to fit human sized boxes inside when designing, steering bits get on way of legs I guess.

With new 0.23 game version, I find that it is much easier to drive these cars as I get bit earlier warning of tires starting to slide.

Overall difference in driving is surprisingly small, considering weight difference and wheelbase difference in percentage is quite a bit, but it is really great how different solutions here enrich gaming experience.


As I found out about your mod, I'm probably not going to finish mine, it has quite few issues that I'm not too fond of and I don't really have time to work on it as I have one project that takes all my time, but if you would like to investigate of handling difference and where it eventually comes from, I guess I could attach it here or someplace, but it's fine if you don't want to

 

TrackpadUser updated Formula Bee with a new update entry:

Jbeam fixes, digidash and PBR materials.

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

Thanks for the update! And congrats that you're in Beam Team!

 

I love that the shifter works !!

 

So I've watched a bunch of Formula Ford/Vee wrecks as references and you are right, it's actually way sturdier than I thought! So yeah incredible mod overall, but now is there a way to make it grippier, even at the sake of realism? I have a FFB wheel and it must be the hardest car to drive in BeamNG. I've put the wheels further out, used larger tires and changed the wing setups but I just get a lot of oversteer which usually end up in a wall. The suspension might be the key but honestly I don't know how to properly set it up. I'd love to make it a bit faster through settings, do you have any advice for that? I'm using the Super Bee for this.

 

I'll have to play around with it at some point, but a large part of the problem is still the quite frankly horrible rear suspension design. (Front suspension isn't great either)

Keep in mind this was originally meant as a high-ish effort meme mod for april fools, being a single seater, but pretty much the most inherently terrible single seater you can have.

I'd like at some point to make something similar to a Formula Ford, an other entry level single seater with no/low downforce, but with suspension that isn't an 80 year old design made by people who didn't understand that things like "reasonable camber gain" and "properly positioning the roll center" are important factors in suspension design.

 

I managed to make a Skip Barber Formula 2000 Car out of this!