Since I have to start the frame changes over again, I decided to go ahead and add in the weight and stiffness changes to the next update. I am still tweaking the values, but the standard frame is no longer indestructible and shouldn't bounce endlessly after a crash. I still need to adjust the values to the point that just accelerating doesn't wiggle the rear subframe, but the irl configs have definitely benefitted overall from these changes
I have the front-end changes almost finished again. I had to choose between responsive steering and stable braking and went with a middle option. It no longer requires 15 degrees of caster to turn sharply, and it also no longer bounces nearly as much under braking. There is still a lot I can do with the tires to help mitigate this since almost all of the bounciness is in the tires right now. What's funny is now that the frame isn't stiffer than any real material, you can see waves of bounciness move between the front and rear after you spawn in or reset the kart. The frame softening definitely helped with the bounciness by absorbing the smaller bounces, but the larger ones are still an issue. I think I just need to tighten up the connection to the front subframe and that'll solve the issue of the frame adding to the bounciness. I have also made the front tires much more stable under braking. I can now set the braking force to full and it will more often than not bounce as long as I am going in a straight line. The biggest fix for this is going to be finding a sweet spot where the front tires do not allow so much flex, but do not suddenly snap back into place after a certain point. This is usually mitigated with damping, but these ultra-light tires can only handle damping values between 5-15 on the tread and periphery beams.
Coming back in to say that I managed to get torsion beams stable for use in the front suspension to hold the arms in place! The way I tried to work it out before was way too convoluted and the resulting structure was the reason it was failing. The torsion beams are now even more stable than the previous setup since they are not a web of beams and not a contorted mess. With these changes, It is now significantly easier to begin, control, and exit a slide. I cannot drift to save my life, but it is much more controllable when you begin to slide. I need to fine-tune the tires a bit more and thoroughly test the frame changes before I look to upload the update. Of course, if I notice anything while testing the kart, I will address them. However, since there are a ton of configuration possibilities with just the welded front configuration, I may not get to all of them.
I am still working on getting the kart to handle just right. The tires are a bit too bouncy at the moment, which causes weird handling when sliding at or near max grip. I am also still tweaking the values of the torsion beams and have also applied them to the center frame as well. Having the torsion beams has helped a ton with adding flex to the frame while reducing the complexity of the beam structure. Lastly, I added a couple of mesh helper nodes to the side rails and the rear subframe. There should be much less wiggle in the rear subframe mesh and the side rails now deform better, although not perfectly. The changes I am making here apply to the standard frame alone as the independent rear will take a lot of work to get the weights and beam springs just right to absorb the jumps I want it to while still having the same flex as the standard frame. I kind of started on it, but the changes I made are very minor. The last changes I made were to the way the collision triangles are added and their drag coefficients are applied. Instead of having the triangles defined by the frame, I now have them defined by the bodykits, which is now a core slot and has a new part called "None" that applies the standard drag and collision triangles. While I was at it, I also tweaked the collision triangles so that now the kart is much less prone to getting stuck in other vehicles, especially other karts. However, any vehicle large enough to get inside of the "cockpit" of the kart will still see some weird collisions. Overall, I am getting closer to an update, but I want to fix the bounciness before I release the next update. So barring any packing issues, I hope to have an update in place late this week or early next week.
The bounciness reduction is coming along very slowly. It is manageable with the smaller engines, but anything above the 350cc makes the front end light enough to make it almost un-drivable with a moderate amount of power delivery. It is not something that is impossible to get used to as it is very predictable, but it is annoying enough that I want to reduce it further before uploading an update. In more positive news, I am getting really close to getting the tires where they need to be laterally. It is now even easier to get out of a slide and without aero, they are stable up to 160mph. I have also added the 1.2-liter 3-cylinder engine from the Vivace in a racing configuration. It fit a lot better than I expected and I made a new double-chain drive that is driven from each of the cv axle ports. The chain drive General fit
I decided to throw together a really quick video to showcase the current handling as well as the new map: I am getting fairly close to happy with the handling. It is consistent across the low and mid-tier configs and the differences that are there make sense, such as the 600cc config tending to want to slide the rear end around due to it's greater weight. I just need to test the handling with the v10 and HR race configs before I will post the update.
I have begun working on a map for the 450cc to 600cc race configurations as well as the autobello and vivace configurations and decided that I will push back the release of this update to coincide with the beta release of the new map. If you wish to follow the development, it can be found here. The reason for this decision is that since I now have courses that suit the faster configurations, I have noticed some inconsistencies with performance at higher speeds. This will also give me more time to get tunes in place that better fit each tier rather than using the exact same setup across all tiers. Right now, I set a tuning for the center and offset variants using the 250 and 350cc configs, then copied the alignment to the faster karts. However, it has become apparent that this does not work for these higher-speed courses and for configs that are balanced differently due to engine weights. This new map will also have at least one offroad course, so it will act as a testing ground for the 750cc off road config as well since it is underpowered for use on almost every short course I came across or made aside from the one at Johnson valley.
hey i recently have problem with tires not showing up not all of them but soft tires and more do you know whats the problem here?
You will most likely need to clear the cache, or if you do not want to fully clear it, you can delete the file "0.28/temp/vehicles/bigkart" This happens when there are changes to a mesh and the cache is not cleared during an update. Those tires were added to the tires .dae file I have, so they will not show up if the old cached file is not deleted.
It is possible, but since it is a completely different frame, it wouldn't fit this mod. There is the Autobello Kart, which is really good despite its age.
I have the alpha version of big kartland ready to go, so I will be spending the day cleaning up the backyard kart configs and adding the hidden configs to the main vehicle selection menu. The hidden ones were the 600cc, 900cc, autobello, and vivace configs. I have also removed the non-bypass SC configs as they do not perform as well as the bypass versions do. This brings the new total to 32 (30 if you don't count the configs that just add the dummy). This update heavily focuses on the welded front configurations, so the changes to the other configs are limited. However, I did correct the mismatched diffs and applied the proper ratios to those that were broken by an earlier change.
A few things to point out about this update: The handling is significantly different from the previous version The handling is much more consistent between configs Changes to one alignment factor has a smaller effect on the others The 350cc and 250cc welded race configs are the most stable welded front configs Full list of changes(at least those I remember): Frames Standard Welded Front Suspension Significantly reduced the weight Completely redid the beam structure Double Wishbone Suspension Redid weights to match welded front Independent Rear Minor changes to beam structure Engines Changed sounds of the 600cc engine It sounds like a cat if an ai is driving it Exhaust Reduced number of exhaust parts by consolidating the raised rear and standard exhausts Wheels Retuned beam values for the kart wheels Tires Retuned beam values for the kart soft tires Configs Added missing configs 600cc welded front race 900cc short course Vivace welded front race Autobello welded front race Fixed mismatched and wrongly ratioed diffs
I got an itch to get skins working and realized I messed up the UV maps on the bodykits quite severely. I will be posting an update to address this as soon as I can fix the other bodykits. Once they are corrected, it will be possible to port over skins from vanilla vehicles as well as make your own. The difference is that you will need to copy the existing .new or .old skins and name them after the skin you chose, otherwise, the frame and engine textures will be terrible. I will be adding in examples for each bodykit with the update. The texture names are the same as vanilla vehicles, but with "bigkart_" at the beginning. For example "sbr" is now "bigkart_sbr". Here is the SBR bodykit with the fixed UVs and the vanilla apex skin applied:
I had forgotten how much scaling and general changes I put into the bodykits. Due to this, it is taking longer than expected to fix them. The reason I need to completely redo them is that I combined the parts into one mesh, which broke the skin uv maps. Instead of leaving the instructions in the mod, I am including two text files named New Paint Skins Materials and Weathered Paint Skins Materials that contain the relevant skin materials for the weathered and new skins for the kart. In other news, I have the hopper finished and you'll probably notice there is a bit of stretching and squishing of the texture as the scaling isn't the same on all axes. Also, I did not plan for the wing to fit perfectly through the rear windows, but I'll take it lol
Sorry for the long radio silence on this as I got kind of burnt out on beamng altogether. I am still working on the kart, albeit a bit more slowly than before, and have finished one more bodykit (the truck) and have made improvements to the handling and the sound of the 600cc welded front config. I can't say for sure when I will get the other bodykits finished, but I will be actively working on them again.
Since I have been working on it more regularly, I have also been working on a few things that have bothered me. These include the tires twisting, the engine sounds, the i4 mesh, and the handling in general. A lot of the emphasis on handling is going to be tuning-based rather than jbeam structure-based, but there is still some refinement to the jbeam structure, particularly with the independent rear. The next update should be coming soon as I finish tuning the configs. Here are the Piccolina and Dunekicker bodykits with skins: I can't remember everything I have been working on, but here is a list of what I can remember that will be included in the next update: Frames Slight tweaks to beam strength and structure Engines Redid 4 cylinder sounds using the vanilla sounds Continued to refine the i4 mesh and eliminated the mesh error This was due to having internal faces on the outside of the mesh somehow. Suspension IRS Tweaked the steering limiters Tweaked the suspension limiters Adjusted the front and rear tierod spring values Standard Adjusted suspension limiters Welded front Stiffened the front arms Bodykits Redid all of the bodykits to allow for skins. Added example skins Wheels Tweaked beam values to help prevent collapse and twisting of the wheel under high torque Tires Tweaked the kart tires to better align with what I expect from handling What happens now is that more powerful engines will cause the rear end to kick out much more easily, but only causes a spin if you overdo it quite a bit The weaker engines will experience this as well, but only at higher speeds.
Sorry for the huge delay in this update. I pretty much lost all desire to work Beamng mods over the past month and while I do not want to promise anything coming out soon, I have started working on the next update again. The tires have been the biggest issue for me and I am experimenting with ways to make the frame more rigid along its x plane. Currently and pretty much for all of the history of the kart, the center portion of the frame (the bars in the middle) was very floppy and added almost no rigidity to the frame. I have found a workaround for that, but it does mean that the front end can no longer break off. The benefit gained from this is that skipping under acceleration, braking, and turning has been significantly reduced. So much so that I have been able to better pinpoint aspects of the tires that are causing folding and handling issues. What this means for handling is that the rear end is much better planted around corners and the kart can experience much higher lateral G's before the wheels start folding in on themselves. I still need to figure out the twisting due to longitudinal forces, but that is coming along as well. Another thing I decided to do was to add in the turbos for the Scintilla engine. With just the stock turbo, I managed a 0.94 0-60, so that's been a bit of fun to mess around with as well as stress test the tires. This time is pretty much only achievable since the frame acts like a wheelie bar due to how low it is. I guess to summarize, I am back for real this time and the performance of the kart has significantly improved with the little time I have spent on it. Who would have guessed that not bashing my head against the problem constantly would help me think about it better? Changes before the next update: finish tire changes finish bodykits finish experimental changes
I am making some very promising progress on the tires. I am able to get up to 340 mph without them exploding, expanding too much, or becoming unstable. The picture below shows the forces of the tire nodes at 290 mph. In general, you want to see the force lines not reach past the edges of the wheel, as that is when it starts getting unstable. I am still seeing some twisting and collapsing, but it is much better than it was. The experimental changes to the frame and the v10 engine are both complete, so I just need to iron out a few things with the tires and bodykits before I upload the next update.
With everything else starting to work out, I figured I'd tackle the reweighted frame again. Basically what I did was since each node in the frame represents a joint between two or more pipes, I took half the length of all of the pipes connected to that joint and multiplied it by the weight per meter of the type of steel I believe it was made from. Doing this actually reduced the weight by another 40 lbs and the weight distribution now reflects the shape of the frame. There is a slight bias towards the right now since the pipe that is on that side is significantly longer than the one on the left side. In the next update, I hope to have the reweighted frame finished up properly, but if it is not by the time I am happy with the tires, I will include the reweighted frame and welded front suspension as separate parts labeled as "Reweighted Frame" and "Reweighted Welded Front Suspension". This is the combination I am testing right now for stability before I apply the changes to the other frames and suspensions. Otherwise, I am still tweaking the tires, but am getting even closer now. It slips way too easily in the rear for my liking, so it'll still be a bit before I get the next update out.
