One of the most fun things in BeamNG.Drive, and a big upside of the game's detailed damage model, is being able to drive cars that are damaged. Having to figure out the new handling "kinks" that your numerous crashes have created, and having to find the "new" steering center that keeps your car going straight is really fun. But, I can only really enjoy it when I'm using a sim-racing wheel. When I am on a game-pad, it is annoying to hold the joystick in a specific small spot to go straight. So, you should add an input that offsets the steering center to fix this. You hold the joystick so that you can drive the damaged car straight, and then press a button to offset the steering center to that position, making the car drive straight when the joystick is in its resting position. This would also be great for keyboard players, since they have the same issue. Keyboard players would not be able to hold their steering still to set the offset though. The best solution I can think of is to also have 2 inputs you can use to change the offset incrementally.
the devs were experimenting with an automatic system to self-centre a few years, but nothing came of it. i'd be interested to know what specifically they were having problems with to have shelved it. perhaps they've done some extra work that's allowed them to make the oversteer and understeer reduction assistants, and they could be able to reconsider it.
I'm pretty sure it works realistically when you're using a wheel with force feedback, but on keyboard/gamepad, it'll be a bit wierd.. As kueso said, they were experimenting with it a few years ago, there's a video of it somewhere..
Cool to hear that they were considering it as well. When I was starting the thread I was also thinking of some way to make it automatic, but I think it will just end up over-complicated and flawed then. The approach of just having a "re-center" button would be simpler and probably more effective.
That's the point. Most use a controller or keyboard to drive in Beamng, it cant hurt to add another driving assist to make the game more fun for them. Its easy to compensate for off-center steering with a wheel, it is a pain on anything else.
