If you edit a truck file you will understand. They are not realistic at all. Functional, yes, fun, absolutely; sensible? Not really.
I know they don't use real units. They have some game-specific units, for example for engine torque. But I'm not concerned with that. What matters to me is whether the trucks move realistically, and they do from what I can see. Mud Runner even simulates soft tires, something that BeamNG doesn't really do.
That is true as garden on dark side of the moon. BeamNG has tire flex, calculated 2000 times per second and based on real world physics instead of fairy tales and imagination, just try it, set low pressure to big tires and drive around, you can see how tires will act like:
I'm aware that BeamNG has tire pressure physics. What I meant is that they are not well represented visually. The tires just sink below the ground, instead of being deformed by the weight of the vehicle. Why are you being so negative about Mud Runner? Is it not possible in your head that they both have great physics? I used to be skeptical of Mud Runner too, but after playing it I was sold, and I was coming from BeamNG and I love realism. BeamNG obviously has better crash physics and better simulation of fast driving, but MudRunner has great mud & water physics, including visually, that BeamNG doesn't. I like them both for what they excel at.
Might be something to do with our desire to stick to real world. Tires in BeamNG don't get sunk into ground, they form to shape of surface under them: All that is missing is bending flexbody to make sidewall look visually bulging, but physics wise soft tires are simulated far better than anything else, these don't fake deforming of tire, these actually react to world, they get shaped by form under them, so you if you have small rock under the tire, that tire is going to shape by that rock. Where BeamNG really excel because of how it's tires are working is rock crawling and that is slow speed. If it looks to be something, it does not mean it is, looks can be so deceiving.
The lack of the bulge on the sidewall is what made me think this way. Well MudRunner has that too. You should check it out if you like realistic crawling, especially through mud. Even the logs and sticks on the ground react to the weight of the vehicle driving over them. That's another thing that BeamNG is missing: deformable vegetation.
Ground deformation, trees that you can push down, destroyable buildings etc. would indeed be dream to have, sadly those will never happen However you can't have everything, where you would put it all?
Just wait till BeamNNG... then maybe we can have it all On a more serious note though... that's what I have always loved about BeamNG and RoR... Contact Patchless soft tire simulation... Mudrunner's is good... looking anyways... but Beam has the physics to back it up. (by the way, no hate on Mudrunner, I love that game... but when you have done as much offroading as I have... you can definitely feel the arcady physics in Mudrunner)
I have people praising ETS2 and FS17 physics, even those just have mesh (vehicle) positioned over another (ground) without any simulation of such complex aspects like inertia for example. Impressions tend to rule and so it is really hard for me to believe much of any praise of any sim these days. That is why BeamNG demo sold me completely. Also BeamNG mud is simulated to fairly large extend, even it does not show visually much, https://www.beamng.com/threads/my-idea-of-more-realistic-snow-for-a-map.38731/#post-582654 so for anyone interested in mud bogging BeamNG can be quite good.
What makes you say that? I don't think anyone knows for sure where BeamNG will end up. I'd say that BeamNG's physics are excellent. What it lacks in many cases are the visuals.
They say, never say never, but experience of many threads is telling me that it might be too distant dream, however I would be extremely happy for such things to happen some time: https://www.beamng.com/threads/ground-deformation-in-beamng.35763/#post-533390 https://www.beamng.com/threads/less-static-world.35369/#post-525034
I haven't played ETS2 or FS17, but I have watched youtube videos of them and I'd agree the physics don't look impressive which is why I decided to not buy them. MudRunner has way better physics, maybe not quite as good as BeamNG, but fairly good I'd say. They're definitely not fake physics like some games use, not 100% accurate, but the vehicles & logs behave mostly as you'd expect them to in real life.
There is always enough good to be fun, like SLRR is or log physics of FS17 which are not perfect, but enough to be fun and there are no other games that I know of where you can do this: