Update Speculation thread

Lets also set the record straight, utube.com is not typo-squatting. It was registered almost a decade before YouTube. If anything, YouTube is the typo-squatter.

 

So what are the betting odds on next major update bringing tire temp and wear?

 

Although tire temp and wear are fundamental, I'm not really sure about their introduction in this upcoming update. They seem to require quite a bit of resource.

 

Titanium is indeed heavier, but it's also much stronger, so you can achieve the same properties of an aluminum part with a lighter titanium one.

 

Fair enough, everyone has their own taste so i can't argue with that
--- Post updated ---

I see, i knew there had to be something i was missing, thanks for pointing that out

 

Even though JRI has been remastered and has PBR materials, I can't help but think that the map is still not quite ready for career mode. It's missing many things that one would expect for said mode, such as garages, car dealers, gas stations, and other places to go that aren't abandoned. Its location is still really unclear as while it has Hawaii plates, the map doesn't resemble Hawaii one bit, it has road signs on the left, Imperial Japanese fortifications/vehicles (which were never present in Hawaii) and basically nothing else that points at Hawaii besides said plates. After more research, I feel like JRI could be turned into one of two locations:

1. Southern Japan - I've talked about this setting at length before, it could make sense given everything on the map that we've currently seen plus the unused concept for a Japanese village on the island.
   
2. Taiwan/Republic of China - Hutch mentioned Taiwan as one of the inspirations for Jungle Rock Island back in 2015. Taiwan could be a reasonable option as well as it also has similar landscapes in places, and was also occupied by the Imperial Japanese who built fortifications and airfields on the island, but it drives on the right. Another benefit of Taiwan as a setting would be that it would save the Japan setting for later, possibly for a more dedicated Japanese map, not to mention Taiwan appears in few if any video games so it would be a very unique setting.

Hopefully one day we'll see more development on JRI, as it's a beautiful map with an amazing layout, sadly hampered by its lack of development and completely abandoned state which we already have enough of in Beam as it is.

 

Having at least one gas station in JRI is important, especially when we think it's a remote island. Car dealers and garages are too much I think, because the nature of this map is to be exactly what we see it here.

 

Well, a couple of abandoned garages wouldn't look out of place, especially in areas like the port or airport

 

Now that I think of it, yes, a large, abandoned, multistorey garage in the Port area would be very useful since, naturally, the Port is where motorcycles, cars and cargo vehicles arrive with the boat and also because the Port area is large enough to fit such a building. Plus there could be many people who want to park their cars there because they're not interested in the multitude of dirt roads and, also, some delicate cargo could be placed in this garage, where the containers don't fit.
I don't feel the Airport needs a garage because it has a very special feeling and because the morphology of the area isn't ideal (the Airport is high off the ground and the overall rise of the hill is tall and narrow).

 

From what i see on JRI it strikes me as one of those islands that missed out on the tourist boom of the 50s and 60s when hawaii was becoming very much connected to the mainland united states through the means of air travel, hence the airport there being relatively small, and the port area being moreso developed, my guess is that the island began to try and make up what it lost in tourism through the construction of the resort, which obviously was never finished, likely either due to bankruptcy or complications with building, as natives to hawaii are infamously opposed to tourist and tourism on their islands, which is why its strongly advised never to leave your resort.

As for the abandonment, it most likely came from the sheer amount of development that never was resolved, with the neverending lines of buildings that just didnt have purposes anymore, like the resort and the airstrip, the traffic at the port would have slowed, leading to further decline in economic growth on the island, forcing most everyone to either leave the island or reside in dilapidated houses.

With all the imperial fortifications it seems like it would end up becoming some random territory in the pacific that the US would keep around simply for local influence, like Guam. so i wouldnt be suprised if the island was remodelled in a way to make it more of a Guam-style island with some sort of active militairy base, and not just a littering of abandoned industrial areas

 

Tbh, I really like how JRI is now because it's a remote paradise for rallying/hillclimbing enthusiasts, off-road explorers, crawling experts, baddies being chased by the police to hide/push the contraband and drivers roaming around just for the fun of it. In that sense, the dealerships we proposed a few minutes ago detract from the overall remote paradise theme. Only the gas station and garage make some sense since cars roaming around on the island need to refuel sometime and they also need a protected place to be parked.
So I don't really feel that JRI may need some dealerships to be included in the career mode (whatever that is or however important it may prove to be). It's great on its own.

 

From what I can tell is the quarry and port are still active.

 

What if... hear me out... the dealership in JRI is actually a hidden warehouse full of illegally imported cars


Ok i think we're getting a bit out of hand with the """speculation"""

 

Wow. Then it makes sense because JRI is in a general state of disrepair and not many people could think of it as the ideal hiding spot. And this dealership doesn't even need to have its own special building but rather use one of the main 3 existing ones (the old Hotel, the warehouses in the Port and the old hangar at the Airport)! Great idea!
I agree, we got out of hand with the "speculation". This is too far away in the future.

Back to 0.25 speculation: assuming the crazy Covet sketch we saw last Tuesday is that of the mid-engined Group B Covet (of which a road-going version must certainly be produced for the car to be homologated), what chances does the existing Rally Covet have to remain as it is? Could it stay as is and represent the succeeding Group A (1987 - 1996, IIRC)?
Also, could the crazy aero package of the mid-engined Covet make the car suitable for hillclimbing as well? I believe it most certainly could, but the car is also gonna need one equally important ingredient: Race AWD with the accompanying Race LSDs.
And since we talked about tires a few posts back, what are the chances of snow and studded tires appearing sometime in the future?

 

Alternately it could be a south Pacific locale, like Tuvalu or the Cook Islands.

My read on JRI is that it has been abandoned for some time, but, much like how Japan's Hashima Island has been rediscovered in the internet era and is famous in the urbex community, JRI is a failed attempt at a military post, shipping hub, research station, and tropical resort that has suddenly struck gold as an offroader's Mecca.

The ramifications of that could be that any useful infrastructure in-game, such as fuel stations or garages, are the result of enthusiasts and entrepreneurs bringing or building it themselves. This could have interesting effects on the map's atmosphere, with established but decaying infrastructure layered over with clean, modern replacements, albeit bodged ones.

 

Yes, I could see the career mode being something like you're sent there by a logistics company to clear the roads of debris, repair bridges, and get the infrastructure back up and running (somewhat like snowrunner's general gameplay), then once that's done, it unlocks things like film stunt driving, and rally events, as well as the usual delivery, bus, etc. missions.

 

I assume fairly low, since there's no use for them. The only places where you see snow/ice are Gridmap and a bit of icy road over Automation Test Track.

But who knows, maybe the devs will make a snowy map in the future

 

I'd say the chances are pretty high, it seems like it is a Group A car already, so it wouldn't make much sense to just scrap it.

Hillclimbing doesn't necessarily mean crazy aero, there are/have been several Group B cars competing in European hillclimbs with no aero upgrades. Their high power-to-weight ratios and AWD transmissions (in most cases) make them good hillclimb cars.
If you're thinking about Pikes Peak kind of stuff, the aero we've seen isn't going to make a big difference. The Audi quattros and Peugeot 205s that ran there had massive appendages.

 

they will just add a group b covet nothing else. they should also start charging money for cars ingame

 

Charging money for in-game cars would be an effective way to drive away most of the playerbase.