I made a video where I crashed every car in beam (pre covet remaster however) to see which ones are safest. I also ranked them . I also did further testing on the most dangerous and the safest car. Check it out if you want
I'm extremely happy to see someone finally bringing up the deformation issues with certain vehicles, since it seems to be looked over by a lot of people. I'm going to continue this discussion, starting with: Grand Marshal: As the OP mentioned, the Grand Marshal's strength is exaggerated to a frankly... ludicrous degree. It's literally one of the safest cars in the game, mostly due to the passenger cell somehow being stronger than even the Cherrier's or Bastion's. The car's body is so rigid that it hardly takes damage in rollovers, causing it to slide and bounce around, when it in reality, the body should be severely collapsing/body panels shredded off due to the extreme forces being exerted. Remember that the real-life Crown Vics were only decently strong in frontal collisions; everywhere else they were god-awful. The LeGran also has this unrealistic rigidity as well. Going by real crash-test footage, it should get *completely demolished* in... basically every high-speed crash test imaginable. Specifically rear-end impacts, where a real crash test video proves that a Chevy Cavalier can absolutely decimate a car like this, to the point that the rear doors pop outward and the seat caves in. Try recreating it with a Sunburst, and the LeGran absolutely tanks the collision. Also, the Bluebuck is far, far too strong for something with a flimsy X-frame chassis design. So strong in fact that it somehow holds its own, or even defeats, the Burnside & Moonhawk in offset collisions. That's despite those 2 cars being fully framed, and common knowledge being that full frame = much stronger than crappy X-frame. In fact, now that I think about it, when did the Moonhawk become such a tin can? It's so weak that it loses in frontal collisions against cars like the 80's Pessima, and even the Covet before it was remastered. The full steel frame underneath seems to be no more rigid than the body, along with the massive steel bumpers which do *literally nothing* in collisions, instead collapsing inwards even in slow collisions against much smaller cars. Also, the front-end deformation of the Roamer, and to a lesser extent D-Series, is extremely wonky and not very accurate. The radiator support behaves like a piece of paper attached with bubble-gum, instead of a heavy piece of steel that's bolted onto the frame solidly. In fact, it falls off just as easily as the front grille, sometimes even a ~30 MPH collision can do the trick. This leaves the engine completely exposed and hood/fenders flapping around aimlessly, which is unbearable silly, and above all else completely unrealistic; I've yet to see this behavior from any real truck/SUV, and scoured the internet for real crash test footage.
the thing is that for improvement it would need a big overhaul and it would break almost everything, vanilla and modded
--- Post updated --- 99% of the community wanted a modern super car, so the devs defently care about the wishes of the communtity but cant add every typ of car in 1 update... im sure a minivan is already planed and is going come in the future. In my opinion the work spent on the scintilla was absolutly worth it. Ultimately, I think the BeamNG team is one if not the best DEV team ever in terms of community communication
i wouldnt go as far as 99% of the community - all i really see in suggestions for cars are modern muscle cars, more old cars and of course my aformentioned minivan
Do you only check the forums and not Discord, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and stuff? Everyone there wanted a modern supercar
The Bastion is definitely the worst in this aspect. It has a really weak structure and doesn't hold up like a modern car in any crash. It's downright flimsy. Another thing about the Bastion is the interior- it's one of my favorite interiors in the game design-wise, but it's awful quality. The dashboard deforms way too much and starts spiking in most crashes. It's so dark that the gauges are illigible.
I disagree completely. The Bastion actually has some of the most accurate and detailed crash deformation of any BeamNG vehicle, since the bodywork actually crumples properly in collisions. This is most notable in rollover crashes, where the Bastion's bodywork properly collapses and individual parts & pieces get torn off due to the force of the vehicle's 2-ton body coming down on them. Compare that with a lot of other BeamNG vehicles, which tend to bounce 15 feet in the air and flutter around, taking minimal damage because they're too rigid. So really it isn't that the Bastion is too strong, it's more that other BeamNG vehicles are comparatively too rigid.
But this doesn't change the fact that it has bad interior deformation, which is most likely due to the model being too high poly in the interior
Recently i have been noticing weird deformation and damage across every single vehicle i spawn with ai, which is a bit weird. it isn't bad but i often see big black spots, weird textures, and damage that spikes a bit too much, even on cars like the fcv where the trunk area deforms weirdly in rear end collisions. The vehicles themselves are incredible and the damage is still amazing, but it is a bit weird now since almost every car either feels more delicate or it doesnt have the right sensitivity or textures. Someone tell me if im going insane, if this is normal, or if this is really happening.
On the Bastions interior seats and dashboard i fully agre but the rest of the Jbeam is fine its a modern car that isnt over the top rigid like the vivace where the passenger cell barely bends even in an 100kmh offset crash
I actually think that the Scintilla has a great model and good damage overall, in fact its less buggy than a few other cars yet still being more high poly. I'm likely going insane, but thats how i feel.
Not necessarily. The older models definitely deform better than newer ones if you ask me. The physics engine can already handle this and has been able to since the beginning. What I meant by "ground up" is the more modern specifically outsourced stuff needs remodeled (or at least poly removal where possible) in order to better fit the rest of the lineup. Will that break some stuff? Absolutely! But it's better to fix it now than to wait. Other cars need jbeam enhancement to make them less structurally sound. That's way easier of a fix.
the thing is that theyve already broken a lot of stuff recently, this update they changed something in the body jbeams and now every body jbeam pre 0.26 is broken, it has broken thousands of mods, and the change was minimal, if they were to make something more drastic, i feel the whole modding community would be well not happy
For me it would be a good trade off with them reworking the car's 3D model to deform better in exchange for some mods for that car breaking (not many mods would break from simple model changes if nothing in the model was renamed)
i mean mayor changes that would make it possible to make jbeams more detailed, more nodes and more node related stuff so it would crash better, imo the models are good, bit highpoly but eh. the devs wanna have more detailed models and the jbeam needs an upgrade, doing that would break a lot of things.
It’s because the simplified traffic has less nodes/beams, therefore making the stronger, and sometimes, buggier.