That doesn't seem to match up with the tow truck plans and models we've seen. Remember that @stenyak was talking with another forum user about rope physics within the Node Grabber, not rope physics in general. From what I understood, there are no plans to add slack ("rope physics") to the node grabber. This wouldn't exclude the possibility of ropes being implemented as JBeamed objects, which would probably be necessary for winches. As for tie-downs, the current springs & coupling set-up would work just fine for those. No new physics needed.
I have little knowledge of programming, but wouldn't the best way of tie downs and winches be a form of the node grabber? That would allow us to attach to any part of the vehicle without the lag from having more physical objects (I know a couple won't be a problem for performance, but it's BeamNG, how many of us will stop at just a couple of them at once?). Not having collisions wouldn't be a problem for tie downs and although it would be nice to have collisions for a winch line, it's not really necessary.
I was thinking tie downs could just be a node on the flatbed/trailer that has a hook up point (like the ones already in game for trailers) attached to any node on a vehicle/prop with a textured line via the node grabber (a slack node grabber, not the current one that pulls stuff) and winches would just be like how they are in spintires (attachment points at certain places on vehicles/maps and the user controls how hard it pulls). Like YellowRusty said, we have proof that somethings will be in the game that seem to require some form of a winch/tie down feature (attachment points in front bumpers and a tow truck model) so I have no idea what the devs are planning... Maybe the tow truck will behave like the trailers and not use tie downs. Again out of my field of knowledge, but I think that would require things behaving unrealistically and therefore strange to be official content.
They have been quite active on Twitter. Could this mean a update could be coming in the next 2 months or so?
Hold up... No plans for rope? What about that cloth physics? Just make long "flat" rope from cloth and voila.
The hotfix came out on the 17th, the update itself came out on the 9th. A new material system would need to be implemented before adding scratches and paint damage, or dirt, road salt, mud, and sand coatings, as those would require at least 2-4 extra layers than we have at present. The devs would probably want to also add support for fresnel before adding cumulative dirt/scratches, so hopefully a better and more extensive shader system isn't too far down on the to-do list.
if they do go that route, it would be nice to just have it be a system already in place as to not break every mod ever created for the game.
According to semantic versioning, V1.0 should break every mod, as it's changing the API in a non reversible way. Scratches in 1.0? I doubt it, these devs have backwards compatibility as their #1 priority.
with AIs or other people? would be fairly easy to implement i think for the AI but it falls on your computer limitations. my computer can handle about 5 cars (3 highly detailed cars such as the Oldsfullsize addon) before it starts to throw a fit. (12 monster trucks and it wants to die)
Yeah, I have always wanted to be able to race against some AI cars, too. Because trying to do that on Hirochi Raceway with the AI App usually ends up with at least one car going in the wrong direction, and the others going off in different directions and side roads. I'd just change the Quickrace menu, so you can select if you want to drive alone or with a selectable number of AIs. That way everyone could adjust it to their computer specs.
There's this amazing thread called Vehicle suggestions. Also, if there's no speculation, you could just let this thread be.