Where are we going?

I'm going to guess that @fufsgfen has it right here. There's a lot of highly technical back-end work going on right now which is rather boring to read about in a dev blog or watch in a YouTube video, but which is important for the accuracy and polish of the final product, and many of the supposedly "random, unfocused" content additions are probably there to tide us over until the next big thing comes along, while also giving us a taste of what the finished game will have in it. Bus mode? A preset style of bus stop made in a few variants and added to the existing maps (though people who've said they degrade some maps may be right; Jungle Rock Island doesn't strike me as the kind of place that would have ever had bus service, though I may be able to "lore" them anyway), and a new type of checkpoint.

Light Runner? Four glowy skins, four new configs, a reskin of the track builder they were upgrading at the time anyway, and what looks to be a fairly simple map, and you have an attention-grabbing way to show off the work you're doing on the course builder while adding some interested value to it as well (I know I'd be a lot more likely to use the course builder now that you can 80sify it).

Automation collab, now, that might take up more time with its back-end work and a full-size, full-quality map, but I'm guessing a lot of that back-end work was on Automation's end i.e. creating a mostly-foolproof way to take Automation's cars and make them fit the existing BeamNG structure. The result infinitely increased the amount of content available for BeamNG (FailRace and ConeDodger240 still have plenty of mileage to get out of it), while giving the Automation community something they've wanted for years, i.e. the ability to actually drive the cars you design.

A lot of people are comparing this to full-on AAA racing games. The difference is, you can get away with slamming those for lack of cohesion where appropriate, because they're released fully finished and have a fairly narrow focus on driving/racing - so yes, it does annoy me when they run off adding shiny trinkets while strangling the core gameplay with a rope made out of abusive MTX/DLC practices, poorly-thought-out or poorly-implemented mechanics, an over-focus on "online eveything" at the expense of the single-player campaign, and an overall gameplay style that cuts out menus and "arcade" modes (i.e. "pick any car, pick any track, pick some settings, and race" modes) to promote breezing across the map going from thing to thing to thing. BeamNG was never intended to be "just" a racing game as such. It started as a derby simulator/proof-of-concept, but considering that cars like the Pigeon and maps like Dry Rock Island started appearing or being promised almost immediately, I don't think it stayed in that phase for long. As it is, I seem to recall that their goal is "to make anything possible"... which means a lot more than just racing. It wouldn't surprise me if things like bus routes turned out to figure heavily in the eventual career mode - perhaps the current bus campaign will lead into a career as a stuntman-for-hire, which you use to fund racing activities or start a delivery business, etc. The Crew 2 brags about having bikes, planes, boats, hovercrafts, helicopters, etc. but BeamNG seems to be slowly working towards a "hold my beer" moment with those things, and all of them already can in fact work somewhat realistically (probably more realistically than in TC2, for that matter).

So, is it perfect? No. Is it finished? Also no. Remember that we're very much on the frontier here, very cutting-edge stuff going on. It's going to take time, and a lot of it, but I for one am still excited to see how this ends. Imagine a game that combines The Crew, Gran Turismo, MX vs. ATV, Truck Simulator, Spintires, Wreckfest, whatever the bus game is called, and about a million other things, all into one game, with customization to surpass NFS Underground 2 and Forza Motorsport put together, and it can pull it all off easily because it has the best physics in the world, literally. That's where this has the potential to end up.

 

BeamNG will eventually reach the point that it becomes the industry wide "hold my beer" sim in terms of vehicles considering the current version already does cars better than pretty much every game

 

We basically built the early version of the Automation exporter, then came to BeamNG and said "Hey check out what we made, can we get some help to finish it and integrate it properly with BeamNG?"

They were very helpful with making changes to the back end of stuff so that the exporter would work better, helping us work out the complexities of exporting suspension JBeams etc, having an artist work with us on the level, helping promote everything, and lots of other little things


But yeah, it was something we wanted to build anyway, it just so happens that the Beam developers loved it too and wanted to help as much as possible so we could make both our games more interesting
--- Post updated ---
So I guess what I'm saying is that the majority of the time spent was probably by our team, and that it was our idea anyway, so I'd not be too harsh on the BeamNG devs for deciding to help us out and do a bunch of work to make sure it worked as well as it could (and came with a new level!)

 

Most likely hell.

 

I would've rated this "funny," but here, have a like.

 

This forum have been going more down the shitter when they got rid of that rating.

 

a new level that i never use, and i stopped using the exporter since the cars look nothing like the standard cars already in the base game

 

The automation test track is a pretty nice level, lots to do on it, and a fairly unique race track. It certainly has more to do than hirochi raceway, and some of those test tracks are pretty useful.

 

Your loss. Also, did you expect the exported cars to be dev quality?
Can you imagine the outrage of modders who worked hard to make a dev quality mod (e.g. S-Series, Satsuma 210, Gavril Gladiator)
just seeing a simple tool in another game that does all that in 5 seconds? The exporter was made to give people a chance to drive their cars in Automation. It was not made to rival mods that took work to make.

 

IMO it’s the best map in the game. Beautiful, runs well, and lots to do.

As for the exporter in general, I’m still hoping for an engine exporter. And yes I still know that engine swaps are fairly easy to do manually.

 

no but at least look better then they do now
--- Post updated ---

and no its not the best level, that winner goes to west cost USA

 

Well tbh the thing that the Automation Test Track still lacks IMO is proper day/night cycle support. Other than that it is good.

 

IMO its lacking behind the other maps (except industrial site and a few other maps from like 2014) a little bit

 

Can you give some examples to prove your point.

 

Yeah. Like how WCA was barely playable on release and still isn't very playable with lower end PC's after they fixed it.

 

If it would mean more dev-quality cars, they could get outraged all they could and I wouldn't care.

 

Well that's a great way to ruin a games modding community.

 

Obviously you don't know how hard it is to make a mod. If you want more dev quality cars, why dont you:
A. Be patient, more official cars will come in due time.
B. Make them yourself. If it's so easy to make dev quality cars why don't you do it.

Be grateful it's even possible to make our own car mods without having to learn anything about modding.

 

We're assuming Automation would make dev-quality mods.

Well, that'd be farewell to old snowflakes.