it would be cool to be able to edit parts of a vehicle instead of going to the parts selector in the menu, it could be a shortcut of Alt+Left Mouse, similar to how we can grab nodes, when you combo click a hood for example, it would highlight / isolate that part and a drop down list would appear to remove the hood or replace with other listed parts. It would be cool and save much time. To compensate for parts that are not present a sort of bubble would need to be created, anytime you click within that area of the car the drop down list will list an option to add back an item that should be in that area, for example if you remove a hood and want to add it back, click and hover near that area of the car and it will become available to add. This can even be expanded to other options such as clicking the semi fifth wheel upfit and being able add a dryvan from the drop down list. Also the same can go for hitches you can add a Utility Trailer. Also it can be expanded to the world, click a race road to add a race AI opponent, i'll name it the "Click Edit Feature" the click edit feature could be in many ways! Going even further you can add stuff to the map simply by random clicking an open area/road, add a ramp, add cars, add props all click added via drop down menus similar how to windows you can right click the desktop and have options to edit your desktop, although a list of that size may be too big, a category hierarchy system may compensate. I think the move to a click edit feature in game would be so intuitive and natural especially for windows and mac users
what if your car is damaged? replacing the part might cause bugs and clipping of parts. plus the game has to load up the file
Yes it would still be essentially as it is now, the car resets when parts are removed/added for example to prevent a new hood on a front smashed car. Clipping when adding a dryvan for example would just have to be compensated for by the player not to add one when there are backed against a car or wall
To get this to work, I think they would need to add part selector node type, alt would be like ctrl, except with filtering of part selector type nodes only and it would not grab of course, then it would be easiest to get list. Maybe nodetype partselector would have slot to connect it to or something like that, so it could filter again available parts. It would be much better parts manager type actually and could allow some room for screenshots or pics like how wheels look and even filtering options without running out of space. Like simple text box, you type ETK and it lists parts with ETK in their name, like with wheels only ETK wheels would be displayed. Currently parts selector is so big with all the options that filtering is not really handy to put there. Not sure how to add backwards compatibility though, but I see this as good idea.
Yup and with that style you could add preview pictures to items in the list, like wheels, tires, engines etc.
