BeamNG.drive
- Thread starter Kjell Eilertsen
- Start date
I totally agree!
In Assetto Corsa, for example, physics of ech car on track are being calculated --> that's very CPU demanding. If you add damage modelling like in BeamNG, AC would only run on high-end PCs.
I'd also like to see a visual more appealing damage model in current racing sims but only as long as it doesn't affect performance too much.
Paul Jeffrey
Premium
The often overlooked BeamNG: Drive has today received a sizable new update, bringing the game to build 0.9 and adding lots of new stuff...
Not everyone will be familiar with this title, as it has seemingly fallen under the radar of many race and driving fans since hitting Steam Greenlight back in 2015. Basically the title is a unique driving game where you can using a wide variety of weird and wonderful vehicles across large and varied landscapes and tracks. One of the biggest selling points to the title is the incredible damage model employed within the game engine, very much putting Beam NG Drive at the top of the pile for damage physics simulation. With unique scenarios available to play out to make the most of the soft body damage simulation, this is a game that you could spend literally hours on just crashing in imaginative ways...
Although not yet at a full version one release state, the game is available through Steam for PC gamers and when they update it, boy do they do a good job! Today's update is massive, and you can read all about it, plus re watch the Early Access trailer below:
Highlights
- Added new vehicle – Ibishu Hopper (more mod parts and variants coming in the next update)
- Improved tires and suspension for some cars (more coming)
- Added D-Series Crew Cab
- Added vehicle damage save/load
- Significant physics core optimizations (more than 30% faster) and improvements (see here for more details)
- Friction improvements
- Improved controller mapping system
- Physics core is more than 30% faster
- Improved stability of heavy object collisions (carrying heavy rocks case)
- Improved inter-vehicle collisions, anti-sticking works now for both front and back triangle faces. Adjustments might be needed for vehicle mods with misplaced nodes
- Improved accuracy of friction
- Added slidingFrictionCoef node property that acts like a multiplier only on the sliding friction of a node
- Added “stribeckExponent” and “stribeckVelMult” to node properties. It allows finer control of the sliding friction curve
- Improved accuracy of static collisions
- Static collision subsystem filters out degenerate (zero area) triangles. This fixes static collision clipping problems with collision meshes containing degenerate triangles
- Fixed instability with high lift coefficients in water
- Increased accuracy of wheel/rotator angular velocity calculations, they are accurate now even for “heavy” use cases that require high precision
- Rewrote mud/sand subsystem to use the same information as aerodynamics (in a non-newtonian fluid medium). It is more accurate now, but groundmodels will need to be adjusted
- Added “shearStrength” groundmodel coefficient. It defines the force (per area) that needs to be applied for the ground to start yielding
- Improved aerodynamic lift and drag curves
- Added airfoil lift curve approximation to triangle’ aerodynamics simulation (using lift and stallAngle triangle properties)
- Added “stallAngle” property to triangles. It defines (in radians) the angle where the lift will begin to stall
- Bananabench works again, it tests now up to 20 vehicles
Node friction load sensitivity (WIP-Not all tires yet):
- Load sensitivity node properties are “noLoadCoef”, “fullLoadCoef” and “loadSensitivitySlope”
- Tire’s overall grip is reduced with increased load
- Lightly loaded tires have comparably more traction. This means less inside wheel spin with throttle in corners.
- The cars behavior and balance at the limit is more progressive, cars do not “tank slap” as much when trying to recover from a slide
- Cars can brake/accelerate with some 5-10% more force than they corner, because the wheelbase is longer than track, weight transfer reduces grip less in the longitudinal direction.
- Camber affects maximum grip in a more accurate way, because loading the outside tire nodes excessively, reduces grip due to load sensitivity.
- Vehicles, especially tall ones, are less likely to roll after hitting curbs or off camber situations, because the extreme camber reduces the grip through load sensitivity on the outside tire nodes.
- Rolling resistance reduced another 10-30% by improving the node to ground collision code
- Increased aero drag to compensate for reduced rolling resistance
- Nodes have a new “softnessCoef” property, which changes the rubber’s hysteretic behavior. This allows them to be more sticky in transient situations. When used in wheels, this improves steering response and makes the tire less likely to be shocked loose from the road by sudden input or a bump etc. It can also reduce loss of grip at high speeds (250+km/h) to a basically negligible amount.
- Tires have a tread coefficient that represents how well treaded the tire is (Slick = 0, mud tire = 1) we multiply this against a roughness coefficient in each ground type (mud has a high roughness, asphalt has very little) this means that a mud tire now works well in mud but mediocre on pavement, a slick works well on pavement but horribly on mud. Similar for other ground models.
- Choosing the correct tire for the surface is more important now, as off road tires will perform well off road but not so much on asphalt, and slicks will be great on asphalt but practically useless in mud.
- Time refactor: sim/real time
- Improving pitching of orbit camera when looking from the front
- When orbit camera is manually rotated, it tries to remain locked at that position
- Improved tiremarks render simulation, they now take into account wheel angle
- Greatly reduced lag when meshes break in heavy collisions
- Slowmotion physics speed can now be instantly modified while game is paused
- Added new quickraces, raising the total number of quickrace tracks to 46
- Steam trading cards are nearly finished: we need to fix some minor issues, then they should start dropping
- Added fancy graph to Controls menu, displaying the effect of each option in real time
- Added Sony DualShock 4 Slim inputmap
- Added Speedlink Phantom Hawk flight stick inputmap
- Added Thrustmaster TH8A Shifter inputmap
- Updated all inputmaps to use default parking brake rather than permanent brake
- Added sane limits to the linearity
- Increased granularity of deadzone setting
- Simplified configuration of binding deadzone, now only one value is needed
- Input system is now shielded against possibly incorrect deadzone values
- Fixed bug in XInput system, the controller type is now correctly recognized (although it is ignored for now)
- Force Feedback: Added optional force cutoff at low speed. This will help remove vibrations in setups with powerful steering wheels and computers with low framerates
- Force Feedback: Fixed the parsing of header lines in LUT and CSV response curve files
- Force Feedback: Fixed LUT files aggravating the nonlinear response of motors, rather than fixing it (due to all their values typically being inverted)
- Improved node grab
- New speed planning and targeting:
- Handles all plan segments as circular segments.
Calculates speeds on segments through analytic forms.
Places target along planned path at a distance from the vehicle proportional to the vehicle’s speed. - Added anti slip control. Models a drivers reaction to wheel slip under excessive brake or throttle application.
- Simple AI crash detection. AI detects a crash and engages in maneuvers to get out of it.
- Added AI span mode. Produces paths biased towards the part of the map that has not been yet traversed.
- Added a drivability attribute to the edges of the graph representation of a map’s road network. It allows for the user specification of the part of the map to be spanned.
- Added options for the user specification of the route speed (limit/set) in the AI manual mode API.
- Bug fixes to the AI random pathfinder.
- Merge overlapping edges (forming triangles) of AI roads (navigation map) in map.lua.
- Corrected drivability values of various road segments in East Coast USA (mainly dirt roads that had unit drivability).
- East Coast USA: some minor roadmarking changes, changed zebra crossings from being mesh based to using a decalroad
- Jungle Rock Island: Fixed a collision problem with one of the tunnels, added some clearings and small details
- Rain objects: added to Industrial and Small Island
- Utah: fixed tunnel entrance model issues
- Hirochi Raceway: fixed the sand to behave like a sandtrap rather than beach sand
- Various miscellaneous fixes
- Added spawnpoints to Gridmap
- Dry Rock Island moved to Mod Repository : https://www.beamng.com/resources/dry-rock-island.1863/
- Added SimplePowertrainControl App
- Added SimpleBrakeThermals App
- Added electronic display to ETK 800 gauges
- Added AdvancedWheelDebug App
- Custom endscreen for quickrace, showing the lap times and highscores
- Remade the quickrace previews to have the same style
- Added local best times for the quickrace. Best times can be hovered to view, and clicked to select the used vehicle
- Clone vehicle button in vehicle selector
- Improved support for vehicle html textures: better interfaces createWebView, queueWebViewJS, UI logs will have an identifier now
- New startup: short intro screen
- Improved window position saving: will restore position, snapping, maximized correctly now
- UI streams work smoothly in slow motion
- Powertrain app can switch between Power(previous visualization) and Torque (click on “Torque” to switch). Torque visualization is default now
- Fixed powertrain app bug that overlapped wheels/rotators (large roller case)
- Added subtle animations to Powertrain app
- Pause and bullet time hotkeys now work during replays too (specially useful in conjunction with Alt+U to hide UI)
- New replays can now also be recorded pressing ALT+R
- Slightly improved smoothness in slow motion and in computers where the framerate is not perfectly stable
- Added support to load replay files from a different level than current one
- Replay system will now restore most of the world to the state it was in before loading the current replay file
- Fixed incorrect playback of vehicle materials (such as broken windows, dashboard lights, etc)
- Fixed broken beams not being properly recorded (e.g. wheels that fell off)
- Fixed small memory leak during long play sessions
- Fixed most cases of replay freezing for tens of seconds when big amounts of skidmarks where recorded
- Fixed tiremarks being recorded with very low frequency and not always being played back
- Replays recorded in extremely slow computers will now play back at the correct speed
- Bumped replay version: files recorded with previous versions will no longer be readable (this will continue happening until the replay system is stable enough)
- Added new vehicle: Ibishu Hopper (more mod parts and variants coming in the next update)
- LeGran: Added trunk spoiler/luggage rack for Sport model and landau roof for Luxe model
- 200BX: New suspension geometry and alignment, aero tuning, reduced power of stage 1 turbo, removed wing from “Drift” config to improve predictability, added wing to “Demon” config, made ‘Nomi’ and ‘BlastR’ skin colorable, added ‘TuningStudio’ skin
- Barstow: Added ‘Front Guard’ part
- Bolide: Aero tuning, suspension tuning and alignment, 390GTR uses sport tires, more engine inertia, less exhaust smoke
- Burnside: Added ‘Eye Lids’ part
- ETKI: added ‘Knallhart’ variant, added ‘Rotopad’ skin
- Sunburst: New suspension geometry and alignment adapted from accurate sources, aero tuning
- ETK800/ETK-K: New suspension geometry and alignment adapted from accurate sources, suspension strengthening, aero tuning, added engine efficiency table
- SBR4: New suspension geometry and alignment, suspension strengthening, aero tuning
- D-Series: Added new crew cab variants with longer frame, added rectangular roof lights part, fixed front axle torque reactions, fixed some discrepancies between D and H series frames, added engine efficiency table
- H-Series: Added ‘Roof Parts’, ‘BeamCom’ configuration, ‘BeamCom’ skin, added rectangular roof lights part, fixed front axle torque reactions, fixed some discrepancies between D and H series frames, added engine efficiency table
- T-Series: Deformation and strength tuning of Dump Bed Upfit, fixed some problems with fuel tanks
- Pigeon: Speedometer now ignores stabilizer wheels speed
- Miramar: Fixed door glass breakgroup, reduced weight of race rear axle
- Legran: Improved race suspension, added tuneable rear alignment settings
- Added new Okudai RP02 wheel in many sizes
- Lightbars: Cleanup, Improved ‘ETK800 Lightbar’ model, added flares, improved materials, implemented custom lightbar patterns
- New prop: Ball
- Revamped tire tuning: 200BX, Bolide, ETK800, ETK-K, Hopper, SBR4, Semi and Semi Trailers, Sunburst, all off-road tires
- Increased steering stiffness on all cars for better response
- Vehicle lift and drag scaling tuned to suit aero physics changes
- Added fuel tank leak beam to all tanks, now fuel level will drop when tank is broken
- Removed beam highlights in fuel tanks and roll cages, people mistook them for broken beams
- Tweaked asphalt ground model to better suit new tire model work
- Added roughness and treadCoef to groundmodels and tires (now dirt tires work better in dirt, race tires work better on asphalt etc)
- Tuned mud and sand ground models with shearStrength and roughness, now deep mud and sand are much more difficult to traverse without good ride height and off road tires.
- Fixed automatic and CVT transmissions sapping power in reverse
- Added electricServo powertrain device, can act directly on wheels and rotators to control angle
- Fixed engine thermals bug where starting a stalled engine would heat it up
- Fixed DCT-Transmission failing to load sometimes
- Added user setting for disabling the shift prevention of automated transmissions
- Post-Crash-Brake now disables itself after being triggered a few times (circumvents issues with excessive skeleton vibrations triggering it)
- Gearbox behavior now persists across reloads
- Fixed some issues with bool values in props
- Fixed issue where TC would not recognize the correct number of propulsed wheels
- Clutches now default to closed if not controlled via electrics
- Fixed issue where dT wasn’t correctly passed to controller physics updates
- Fixed issue where a forced dummy controller wasn’t properly referenced as the main controller of a vehicle
- Included ESC stiffness calibration app in public release
- Reworked brake code, now with new and much better ABS
- Improved turbocharger input value safe guarding
- Fixed a bug where wheels without tires would use a wrong wheel radius for wheel speed measurement
- Engine stall state is now part of the streams being sent to the UI
- Reworked all turbos to have a much more realistic response
- Fixed auto shift point calculations
- ETK800/K now shift faster
- Fixed DCT going into non existing gears
- Automatic transmissions now look at the torque converter output speed for shift decisions
- H-shifter usage now switches to realistic gearbox behavior
- Reworked rotators so they can be individually braked
- ESC is now an actual powertrain controller
- Cleaned up UI app categories
- Gear damage is a bit more forgiving in regards to using to clutch
- Increased clutch smoothing rate for keys
- Implemented ETK800 digital gauge logic
- Implemented “powersteering” prototype, not used by default
- Fixed bug where radiator damage appeared even if no radiator was installed
- Added electrics value/”simplefunction” for 4wd and rangebox status
- Fixed air cooled engines throwing errors about a missing radiator
- Added a prototype “drift mode” to the sunburst ESC
- Improved partial throttle turbo response
- Broken fueltanks now slowly drain (no visuals)
- Reworked large spinner and large roller to use the powertrain and controller features
- Added engine load display to simple engine debug app
- Reworked shaft inertia calculation to support rotating objects (wheels, etc) in any orientation
- Implemented ability to manually turn off the engine in arcade mode
- Added hazard signals to post crash brake
- ESC/TC mode now persists across vehicle reloads
- Added standalone “airplane surface controller” that can be used by mods to easily control airplane surfaces
- Fixed engine load not working properly when idling
- Fuel displays now show an empty state when no tank is installed
- Fixed torque converter lockup looking at engine rpm instead of gearbox input rpm
- Improved turbocharger BOV logic
- Node debug modes now show the actual current mass, not the initial mass from jbeam
- Fuel starved engines can now be restarted if they have been refueled.
- Made it possible to replace an already loaded mainController with a custom controller
- Added ability to have custom turbo, supercharger and thermals code for the combustion engine
- Powertrain now calculates the cumulative gear ratio across the whole tree
- Implemented ETK800 Gauge screen logic
- Added ability to manually turn an engine off from Lua
- Fixed scenario freezer not working with vehicles without an engine
- Added electrics source for radiator fans
- FMOD: Switched from OpenAL to FMOD as sound backend. No new sounds yet, however, the new system will allow us a lot better integration
- Added ‘Hopping Around’ scenario
- Added ‘Dirt Hopper’ scenario
- Added ‘Climbing Utah’ scenario
- Added ‘Canyon Jump’ scenario
- Added ‘Guinea Pig Preparations’ scenario
- Added ‘East Coast Chase 3’ scenario
- Added ‘East Coast Chase 4’ scenario
- Game objects serialization in JSON : json exporter for levels, improved exporter to have order now, minimal format: leaving out default values
- Improved internationalization: fixed UI switching problems, better operating system language detection, improved support for non-ASCII characters throughout the game. Help translating BeamNG.drive here
- Made JSON parser compatible with SJSON (it allows JSON keys without quotes and “=” instead of “:”)
- Ported lots of old TS code to Lua, work in progress
- Added temporalSpring smoother to utils.lua module
- Added an easy to use library for using HTML-Textures from vehicle Lua
- Auto performance testing now runs in fast forward mode
- Fixed auto performance tests not working with vehicles in the mod folder
- Auto performance tests now use low range and 4wd if available
- Fixed infrequent render crashes
- Fixed infrequent invalid render states
- Fixed crash on UI when the game is running in background for some time
- Optimized broken flexmeshes.
- Fixed bug in color palette shader causing black artifacts
- Fixed missing crash reports in support tickets
- Added support for per level Lua extensions
- Added Lua module dependencies which inform the game of which modules a module depends on and enforces processing order. A module is processed after all it’s dependencies.
- Only modules needed per game mode are loaded now.
- Greatly improved browsing speed of meshes in the game editor, it should be several times faster now
- Optimized file system search algorithm. Computers with slow disks will benefit the most from this
- Optimized iteration of directories with large amounts of files inside, and fixed crashes due to a memory leak in extreme cases
- Exposed new Lua function “castRay”, which can be used in the game engine thread to detect obstacles (will impact performance, use with caution)
- Fixed rare crash of camera code when no vehicle is present
- Fixed rare crashes when spawning or removing vehicles
- Logging fixes: fixed missing log lines, crashes
- Filesystem fixes: some API’s were not working correctly, using findfiles now instead of walking directories
- fixed lots of potential problems using static analysis
- Improved backward compatibility for windows 7
- Fixed memory corruption in forest file
- Start unifying the file names: filename.contenttype.formattype. I.e. main.level.json
- Improved nodegrab legend
- Fixed UI crashes, corrupt log files, etc
- Greatly reduced memory allocations in human readable file size string representation API
- 33 people from all over the world worked on this update
- 3742 changes since last update, averaging around 47 changes per working day
Bug reporting/Help Thread here.
Beam NG: Drive is available exclusively for PC now.
Check out the Sim Racing Games sub forums here at RaceDepartment for all the news and discussion around a wide selection of racing and driving games for PC and console. Join in the conversation today!
Have you tried the latest Beam NG: Drive update yet? Would you recommend the game to a friend? What modes do you most play in the game? Let us know in the comments section below!
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That's a massive update! Almost a Gb... This game only needs VR support
And as a reply for above, it's a fun game (even with out any mods), not a Hardcore Racing Simulator but a very nice Car Destruction Simulator (even better than AC's public lobbies!!
).
If you had the chance, give it a try, there's even a free demo out there.
And as a reply for above, it's a fun game (even with out any mods), not a Hardcore Racing Simulator but a very nice Car Destruction Simulator (even better than AC's public lobbies!!
).If you had the chance, give it a try, there's even a free demo out there.
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Damn, that's one hell of an update list
Joseph Wright
Premium
Right then, I think its time I crack out Beam again, and do some crashing. Lets go!
shimon.ifraimov
De-activated on request
thank god finally
D
Deleted member 217114
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Deleted member 217114
I am wondering too. Might use it for Rally then.
I have *not* tried the latest update, but I have had BeamNG in my library since early days. My assessment:
- Mesmerising crash physics
- Capable of overloading even very fast CPU/GPU combos
- Driving physics are poorly suited to consider this as a bona fide option as a "racing game/sim"
That said, my son (who is about to turn 8), has played it for hours upon hours and absolutely loves it. He watches gameplay videos of wacky crash scenarios on YouTube and then tries (and, impressively, often succeeds) in replicating them in the game himself.
- Mesmerising crash physics
- Capable of overloading even very fast CPU/GPU combos
- Driving physics are poorly suited to consider this as a bona fide option as a "racing game/sim"
That said, my son (who is about to turn 8), has played it for hours upon hours and absolutely loves it. He watches gameplay videos of wacky crash scenarios on YouTube and then tries (and, impressively, often succeeds) in replicating them in the game himself.
Little stone can do lots of damage...yea, while physics wise its worse than current top stuff, thrill when eg. rallying comes from fact that u absolutely cannot crash into anything- even lil stone could mean total annihilation
It feels alright. The physics is the best out there, bar none. But it lacks a proper game to follow.
