Where are we going?

Even if that was the case - go tell that to people spending days to perfect their vehicles in Automation before exporting - where is "human effort" even contemplated in the definition of "mod"?

Not included in the vanilla installation of the game and not official game content = mod. No two ways about it.

Anyway... Repository was littered with "mods" that required zero effort even before the Automation integration. In a way, I see Automation vehicles as an improvement.

 

you are right. i know it can be hard to do, but they shouldn't doing something like bus or light runner. they must add something big and spectacular. i like to see some new cars and perfectly done maps. but i think its easier to do some smaller things then big and seriously actualization.

 

Yes.

It is still possible to make a repo-ready "mod" with just a few clicks in it, which most people do.

There are less than five people who perfect their Automation cars for days, others just take a default body and throw random fixtures on.
Care to show me some non-automation mods that required no more human effort than a few clicks. I don't remember any, maybe except for the infamous Smoke Bomb. That was because out most of them didn't pass moderation, while for Automation exports there seems to be no quality control at all. It functions like a school for mentally handicapped children - every scribble scrabble of yours is precious and can't be judged.

 

That isn't the Automation community's fault. It's simply people letting those 3/4 fixture Automation cars onto the site for no apparent reason.
This could easily be fixed by having only medium quality up Automation cars onto the repository.

 

I agree with you, I have added more info on that to my previous post.

 

Alright.

 

few pages back, but I was mostly kidding about the whole "new forum exclusive for old members" idea...I know it would be ridiculous and bad for the community. Just putting it out there, I dont REALLY feel that way lol (i havent been on the forums in 2 days and like 5 new pages here wow)

 

I'm only slightly invested in this game honestly, and I'm not reading 32 pages to see if an points I'll make were already made.

Your first point on technical debt I can see, if they're not releasing the maps in stages throughout it's dev cycle, then why not push it out until it's really finished? However, a lot of stuff under the hood has also been changing and optimization across the board has gotten better from the tweaks being made. The issue with differing levels of map quality is simply due to how long the game has been in early access. Over 4 years, optimization changes, and new methods of creation things are going to change. Going back to update old maps actually makes this process worse, because that ends up being a whole vicious cycle. So you update the industrial, then move on to East Coast, Jungle Rock, etc, and you get back around to now West Coast and eventually Italy need to be remade, and then East Coast is old all over again.
You make a great point about setting a standard level of quality, and that's the only way you don't keep cycling. I mean... I guess the game doesn't look that great regardless of what they do really, so maybe they should just leave it the way it is.

On your second point, where has BeamNG ever been leading to? I've just never known other than like you said, adding in cars, physics updates, and optimizations. I think the Automation collaboration was a cool idea, being able to design your own car and drive it around. The track builder is pretty impressive, and it gives the opportunity to make some fun race courses, but maybe I'm reminiscing of Halo 3. Seems like people are upset about it coming into the mod repo, but I don't think the features themselves are bad.
I just don't really know what people are expecting of this game. When I first saw the tech demo all those years ago I thought were we are now was pretty much all it would be.
I don't know why it being a bus simulator, collaborating with another physics based car game, and having a track builder surprises you honestly. Seems to me like it fits, since there's never been much direction other than adding content and features, of which all those do.

Third point... I have no idea how long the neon runner took, since it really doesn't look like it took much time, and they never claimed is was anything more than time trial. They just made a tool and it was their way of showcasing it.



I'm really genuinely curious as to what people want from this game, because... I just don't really see it being anything other than a physics sandbox, so adding in physics sandbox things doesn't bother me. You want a campaign mode, what would it be? Races? I foresee problems...

• A lot of PC's already don't run the game well with how CPU intensive it is. Adding more than 1 or 2 cars could just hard lock from it a lot of players.
• The damage is... realistic, which makes it a bit unpredictable. A lot of restarts are going to be required.
• Ai would be quite complicated. It can't be like Assetto Corsa where they just plow into you since it would end the race, and they can't just slow to a crawl because you're sitting track side.
• Would there be a "story" or just a series of races? They did part of a "story" with comic strips and some simple races, is that what you want? How is that really different from scenarios?
• What happens with the open world? Why does it exist when they could just make tracks?

Or, some people like the Omni Bus and European/American truck sims. Do they do that? The areas aren't really big enough. What difference would it be from the scenarios already present in the game?

I just have a really hard time trying to think of anything they could actually do other than continuing on the physics sandbox and making content and scenarios.

 

Ever played Street Legal Racing: Redline? Check that out, that's what this game's single player should be loosely based off of. I can run 5-8 normal sized vehicles on an i7 4770k quite happily.. bought the cpu years ago, probably fairly cheap by now. Can't delay progress for people that cant afford new hardware. Can easily see something like that working with this game though.

 

Having that in BeamNG would be like a fulfilled dream for me

 

Good thing that was how a dev described it back in like 2013

 

That CPU is $200 used. Enough said.

Not only is that game not something to look up to, but it already won't work, because again, most people can't run 5-8 cars at a time. And that still makes for a highly unpopulated open world, unless they just pop in 100 meters away from you at all times.
So, even if you do end up just doing the races, and getting some money, there's still no real open world use unless you just drive through empty world from one point to another. Then it becomes little more than a series of scenarios and races.

And what's the progression like? Do you start out with rusty parts and have to buy paint? Beam doesn't fit into the whole tuner scene. Do you start with the Pigeon and end with the Bolide?

You say I have weak reasons for it not working, then reference a crap game with an entirely different ethos for inspiration.

 

In all honesty.... Its bloody amazing in my eyes that they could do it at all.

Doing simple stuff like generating a N/B structure for a box... no big deal, I have done that... same with a round object like a wheel... little more too it, but still not tooooo bad (till you throw a rim in the middle... then the challenge goes up a bit)

Auto generating a N/B Structure for a free form shape like a car body... even without separate parts... just blows my mind.

To give you an idea about how crazy difficult this is... here is the equation for creating just a mear 9 points on a surface.



Not exactly easy. It took me several months to derive that and figure out that was the equation I needed to get the job done (I use this stuff at work and technically speaking I use this backwards to generate a surface from 9 points... but it works both ways)

I used 9 simultaneous equations and a lot of matrix algebra to solve it. It's not easy, but in the end, it is beautiful.



Anyways... tangent over... point being, that is just for 9 points. Just... 9. Now link of 20 or 30 nodes across an entire car body. Sheer and utter madness honestly. Then you take it to the next level and give priority to curved areas like the creases at the top and bottom of windshields or curves of rooflines... bottom of the body even... for node placements to make sure that the collisions will work out correctly. Then they manage to mathematically interconnect nodes that need to be connected while keeping the system form just making a ball of beams. Each node is only connected to exactly how many it should be... no more, no less. Then they even figured out how to calculate which nodes should be connected for the proper collision surfaces along with making sure they are always pointing outwards.

Not only that, but they managed to do it in such a way that it is robust enough to not only work with the official in game content of Automation, but also to work with Automation MODS AS WELL.... that means that nothing is predefined for each body style and everything is generated on the fly with pure mathematics.

Then there is also the fact that this is just for the body... nevermind the engine, suspension, all the external parts and fixtures like wings and what not... just... wow.

Honestly it is nothing short of a miracle that anyone could figure all of that out. It blows my mind. That and estama even claimed that generating the structures wasn't even the hard part. Generating the parameters for the tires was the most difficult part of the problem!

So whether they are good or bad, who cares... honestly it is amazeballs that it even works at all.
(edit: not related to anything, but I also love how apparently "amazeballs" is in Windows spellchecker... why?)
(edit 2: apparently this was my 1000th post... whoopie)

 

Most of the people on this forum are under 13 (the age you have to be to make an account). This brings lots of crap mods, spam and a bunch of more pointless stuff.

 

Where are we going?

Some argument half finished to be changed into another argument that is going to be half finished.

 

Yeah, basically this. Our tech artist Jaye is... yeah... she's a wizard.

I'm honestly amazed it works at all, and I can tell you it was definitely a long and hard struggle, shared by us and some of the smart people at BeamNG

 

It is honestly amazing, and hats off to all that helped pull it off. Most people probably don't appreciate the true complexities that go into something like this. I find it incredible and fascinating that it could be done at all.

 

So do I, I’m honeslty amazed how it is done... although it’s far beyond my understanding....

I think a large majority of players also appreciate it too, however we are often drowned out by the (very vocal) minority of haters. I think Automation is one of (if not, the most) incredible additions to BeamNG

 

I think that some Automation cars are being accepted and verified even though its obvious no effort was given, and that they obviously benefit no one in the game. Automation cars have the potential of being good however all the horrible ones are poisoning peoples opinions of them. Maybe we could be more strict when accepting Automation exports as "Mods"?