As of right now, the behaviour of the beamNG thermal system is pretty basic and rather unrealistic, by which I mean the engine slowly warms up to 90C and within 90C the thermostat can be open anywhere from 0-1 (closed to fully open). Now this does work fine, however a real thermostat isn't that pinpoint accurate, with some slowly opening at about 80C and fully opening by about 95-100C, variable by the thermostat type. This combined with no radiator thermals, leads to situations where the cars in beamNG, when properly cooled, rarely deviate from 90C coolant temperature, whereas most real cars would variate between 85-95C when working properly. This does also mean that idling vehicles in beamNG do not go over 90C under normal conditions, meaning the radiator fan very rarely turns on. So, while I have been doing some modding research, some aspects of this are at the core of the game, making a realistic thermals mod rather difficult, but I may work on it. In the meantime, a few suggestions: 1. Have a wider range of thermostat coolant values to be opened. I believe there already is a mod that roughly does this (in fact, here it is https://www.beamng.com/threads/adjustable-thermostat-radiator.66773/), but having this implemented into the game would be nice 2. Consider adding radiator thermal support, adding one more layer to the coolant, oil, block and cylinder head simulation currently present. This would improve the way thermals behave and allow for the cooling fan/vehicle movement to have a greater effect on cooling. The temperature of the radiator would increase once the thermostat starts opening, being cooled by the radiator fan or moving air. 3. Increase the volume and effectiveness of the radiator fan currently present, it's rather quiet and the effective cooling of the fan as of now is very low, often taking minutes to cool the engine from 100C to 95C, the threshold for the fan to turn off. Also an unrelated suggestion but another thing nonetheless, engine RPMs while not in gear fall down wayy too quickly, immediately parking themselves on the idle RPMs once hit. Looking at other sims, like assetto corsa, most cars gently reduce their RPMs while not under load until their idle RPM is reached, which is currently not present in BeamNG, which feels rather awkward. This also causes manual shifting on controller without an analog clutch to be very juttery. All of this would greatly add to the imersion already present in BeamNG, and with the amount of detail already present in the game, I trust that some of you will at least have a look at this and consider what can be done. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go back and figure out how to mod this manually into the game lol.
What I would add: When I compare my IRL car engine heat up behaviour, I notice that the engines in game heat up very slowly, would like to see the "rework" bring that closer to real life
Yep! I noticed that too, especially at idle. Seems like engines at idle just don't produce enough heat in beamng for some reason, at least generally. To be fair, some cars IRL can exhibit this behaviour too as idling is comparably light work, but not to this extent.
I briefly mentioned engines heating up too slowly in a similar thread I made as well. It didn't get much attention, but I really hope the devs start updating the thermal simulation as it's one of my favourite features in BeamNG. My thread: https://www.beamng.com/threads/suggestions-and-improvements-for-engine-thermal-simulation.94185/
I just realizes how long ago the thermal update came out and, by extension, how long the engine thermal simulation has been "left alone" a bit. I hope that, with the tyre thermal update (whenever that is), that the engine thermals also get a revamp.
