Beta Desert Highway 2021.12.29

0.9 broke the old map glad you were fast at fixing it i love your map i use it all the time

Had this map before when it was 0.8. After the update, I try loading this in, and I think beamng drive froze to the extend where I had to restart the computer to get rid of the errors. Now i'm so happy!

Works pretty well, some fps issues but their okay.

Oh my gosh! Finally! I love this map and have been waiting for soo long! Looks like we finally got a repave on the roads!

Preface:
I'm giving this map 5 stars because of the fact it's very evident that a LARGE amount of time and effort has been sunk into this. Sure, I could possibly nit-pick a few things here or there - but I think anyone can do that about any map. As a map maker, I can appreciate the fact that if a map can keep you busy for an hour or two in one session- for me it was two hours, that's a very good thing and shows you've made a fun environment with lots to keep the player occupied. Good points are lots and lots of miles of roadway, great for testing out your car configs at full-bore - without being a bore! A whole lot LESS bumps in this version, this is a big plus, as old version 7 or so, use to launch the car randomly.

More to the point:
This is basically a rural desert interspersed with bits of civilization in the form of buildings or other man-made things like bridges and signs, and even includes an oasis to stave off boredom. Just when you think you've seen it all, there's a new road or two in the update to keep you exploring. Best of all the FPS is tops here on an AMD Radeon Rx 480 8gb (as expected), the older version also having run great on my old Radeon HD 7850/2gb.
There were very few MESH roads in this map. Thank-you so much for taking most of them away, only leaving the ones required by the terrain for things such as bridges, or mountain-hugging roads.
At the risk of sounding conceited, the road textures are beautifully used and really break up the monotony of what would otherwise be the same-looking road for the dozen+ miles it took me to cross this map (it's huge, sometimes bigger IS better). After-all, not every road is paved at the same day, with the same batch of stone, from the same hole in the ground. Something I've learned is you can never have too many types of different road textures, with a large environment like this.
A sound-stage* is also included, something I don't even have much of in my own maps. Immersion is important, and for what it's worth, it's here!

A few things I've noted:
There looks to be good AI support here, with only a few bridges lacking crossing ability for the AI (there's other ways around, however, so they aren't stuck. I can so entirely help on this, as I have a few tricks for this.
My tires went flat when taking an injured car on the 'main' road's bridge over the stream, but not at all when the car was working 100%. I didn't mind as that was the ONLY time that happened, once, in 2 hours.
Intersection decal work could use a bit of TLC. I can make T and + intersection decals for you if it would help, always will help a fellow mapper.
The car didn't notice the water, when it was submerged... so I made the best of the situation and drove about underwater and still had a hoot.
The things I've brought up in this past paragraph, aren't so much negatives, as they really didn't detract much at all from the enjoyment or immersion, but they're here. This is a formal review, and I am honest as could be here. It's what I'd want for myself.
Let's not forget the primary objective...
So what did I do? Cruised a good hour or so in various cars on the roads. Then chose to experiment jumping off the jumps-disguised-as-hills that are everywhere off the sides of the roads, all over this map. I can not overstate the fun of doing such. You could do this all day, and I for one, plan to. Nothing like getting up to 200mph+ and NAILING a hill, for this is why we play Beamng.drive! I then proceeded to take a Ibishu DOVE (mod vehicle) and drive ALL OVER the landscape, enjoyably flying and crash landing to my hearts content, because I killed the 'Legranny Bucket' a bit too easily. There's plenty of high hills/cliffs to go flying off of, and if you toy with the gravity settings (moon gravity, or Jupiter gravity), you can have quite a chuckle at the results when falling into a deep crevice or mini-canyon. There's a lot of fun to be had slamming into the map edge mountains at 200mph also, like the ones at the bend in the road near the starting point.
In closing I'd like to say, this is why I started mapping - This map. Where Canyon of Speed map made me buy this game, this map made me want to make a map myself. This map originally inspired me that a large terrain with expansive roadways would be possible, going on for miles and miles, because some of us just want to cruise around and set our own objectives and timeline for completing them (or sometimes, never complete them at all and not care).
Keep up the good work on this. It shows a lot of effort and devotion to a very grateful community, and we thank you for this. You have a good understanding of the level editor, why folks play Beamng, what they want, and what makes a user-map fun. I look forward to your future endeavors. This is most certainly a map that will keep a person happy for an hour or two, or maybe all day! You'll be coming back to this time and again.

This is an excellent map and the first realistic terrain map I installed. One suggestion, though: would it be possible to replace the shrubs by the mountaintop lake with a forest of taller aspen and conifer trees? In real life, mountains in the American desert have full forests above a certain altitude and not low shrubs, and this would add some nice variation to the map.

this is the best map ever made

ITS BACK!!!

It's nice to see that you didn't forget this map. It's a fun little map (not really little) to drive around on, especially with AI. I'm glad to hear popped tires won't be a problem. Keep up the nice work!

This is really good map, when going at high speed close to AI car you can see how suspension is working with all those perfectly made bumps on road.

At few intersections I have got blown tires, also at starting area I'm getting weird FPS issue which gets lot worse with tire smoke, but when at different area tire smoke does not affect fps, might be related to weird fps issue I'm getting with lights when shadows are enabled. Maybe it is just my weak i3 cpu.

Great map for fish tailing AI cars for example, also when I place few concrete barriers it becomes quite nice high speed crash test. Good job!

Such maps, create new opportunities for the game. The best map for testing car speed limit

it isn't good...... IT'S GREAT
please fix some points of the AI and the union of some roads
only a few things more and this will be a great map
*sorry my bad english

I remember watching whybeare doing a video on this back in 2014 and i did not have Beamng drive then but seeing it now made me thing i will play this map thinking but i dont got a fast pc :/ will it matter...

Good but the ai WILL NOT drive on the actual highway...btw idk if its just my version tho

It looks awesome,but i still haven´t tried it,is it a little FPS friendly? because my pc sucks xD

I played Versions 7 and 9, and I'm downloading V. 12 right now, awesome map

D-series + pessima X 156 MPH = DEATH DESTRUCTION AND CARNAGE!!!!!!

The best custom made map I have ever seen on beamNG. Spend tens of hours just driving across the map. Had best fun destroying accidentaly my car and towing it with Gavril T-Series back to home place :) Flying is awesome too, it make sense with two airports. I'm happy to see this map still upgrading, hopefully it would be systematic, Big thanks to author for pleasure and chill while driving on this map. Best regards from Poland :)

2/10 not enough road. Just kidding, It's a nice map, and it's pretty relaxing as well.

This is an awesome map. Could you just add more exits? I do not like only 3 exits on a highway really long and I am heading at speeds at 100 mph. Also, this is a pun, I found a V12 in this map! ;)