Alpha Barbent's Homerange 0.1a

Fantastic work! I'm having tons of fun exploring this map. I look forward to future updates. Keep up the good work!

Best map ever create

this is my new favorite map!

I apologize in advance for the lengthy review, but it's your fault for building such an expansive playground. =)

I was genuinely overwhelmed by the size. I started out on Birth Island in the trusty D-Series and went for a drive on several roads. But then I thought to myself, "There's no way I can reasonably explore the map on my own four wheels - I need to take to the air!" So I took a flight up the coast from Birth Island towards the desert (which I was unaware of at the time), and as I approached the hill with the tower, I thought I had reached the end of the map. "Yeah, this is pretty big", I thought. "I'm going to have some fun with this." But then more land came into view on the horizon, and I realized.......IT JUST KEEPS GOING!

I can see from the work you've done so far that there's a ton more coming. What I mean is it's clear you're putting effort into every little detail - every bump, every tuft of grass, every prop - so eventually the entire map will be stuffed full and polished brilliantly. It's so heartening to have a map creator who's willing to share WIP projects while also maintaining dedication to completing them. That's been the whole spirit of BeamNG from the start, and having that attitude in the community keeps us all fired up.

You've done an excellent job laying out the map. The roads feel like they were built around the landscape, but also there was some work done to reshape the land to accommodate the roadways. The roadways are varied and challenging, so I just enjoy driving, even without a destination in mind. (I live in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, and this is exactly how our roads are here.) The various bits of civilization are far apart enough that it feels like I have to actually drive from one to the other, but they're close enough that it's not tedious.

I'm grateful to hear there are more asphalt roads planned. As much as Beam is an excellent off-road simulator, I also enjoy trucking, racing, and just leisurely driving in a road car. Knowing that your top-notch road work will accommodate these elements more is exciting!

In contrast to some other opinions, I enjoy the thumbnails. They're quirky and vintage in an endearing manner, and for a map of this magnitude I can understand the utility of using something other than screenshots for thumbnails, especially given it's WIP. Even if the thumbnails stay this way, though, I would continue to appreciate it. As realistic as Beam is, there's always been a fun, goofy side to it, and these thumbnails embrace that.

The only issue I have -- and it's definitely on my end, not the map's fault -- is my frame rate drops to about 30fps when large portions of the map are in view. I usually play on Normal graphics, which gets me 70fps+ on Beam's original maps in daylight, and 40-50fps at sunrise / sunset, but I have to turn the graphics down to Low to get a steady 60+ fps on Homerange in daylight. Given the size of the map, I'm not surprised. In fact, I'm delighted that I can manage a good frame rate to begin with, even if it means giving up a few graphical goodies. I know you've kept optimization a priority from the beginning, and I'm so grateful for that. I've posted my PC specs below just for informational purposes.

Thank you so SO much for your work and for sharing it with us! You earned my respect with your Gambling Zone, and you've definitely earned a donation with this one. I'm a creative artist myself (I enjoy writing fiction, but nothing published yet), so I know how much of ourselves we put into our work. I'm super grateful you're deciding to release the map for free, and I'm more than happy to support you financially.

Good luck as you continue the work!

PC (laptop) specs:
Acer Nitro 5
Intel I5-12500H
RTX 3050 Ti Laptop (4gb VRAM)
Crucial 32GB Kit (16GBx2) DDR4-3200 SODIMM
Crucial P5 Plus 500GB PCIe M.2 2280SS Gaming SSD

The map is wonderful, though the AI-generated images have tons of problems. Most notably being "SOP" on one of the images when you pick a map

This is excellent, super FPS friendly with many places to explore in a big way, and what I liked most is that the roads are very well distributed throughout the map..!
Greetings

My god, it's beautiful.

This is the best mod map I have ever seen, even in the unfinished state it is currently in! The map size is huge and the finished areas have a lot of love put into them. I have a lot of respect for the time that went into this, and am looking forward to future updates! I myself would have probably made more of the main roads be asphalt instead of dirt, but it does also fit the enviroment.
Also this is the first time that I saw climatic zones across a single map work this well!

this is an amazing map, and it's alpha. can't wait for more updates! great job Barbent.
I also agree with fishbazookas on the AI art, it's not ideal but it certainly does not warrant a 1-star review considering the huge work that went into this map.

Worth the long wait honestly

Fantastic map. I found some of the "raw" areas, but this is just small stuff. The amount of work that went into this map is immense. I'm looking forward to updates.

this map absolutely blows me away for it being in the alpha stages. great work dude

(just some advise I will be giving)(NOT IN A BAD WAY)
I would look into maybe changing some of the textures(examples, maybe the color map, some of the vegetation and adding some more decals to dirt trails

overall a great map man, keep the hard work up

Incredible map with immersive ambient sound, beautiful scenery, realistic details, impressive new features and diverse gameplay, even if it is still in Alpha state.

Absolutely fantastic. I can't even begin to imagine how much work and time went into this wonderful map. Still a very early version, and I know it will only get better. Absolutely fantastic. Thank you.

An good map, very fun.
Only problem is the AI art, which I don't really like and doesn't show how the place you're going to spawn at looks like. But just because of that doesn't mean they have to put 1-star reviews here because of AI. AI is bad, specially for imagery but atleast the whole map wasn't made with AI

This isn't the map we asked for, but it's the map we needed. Good work Barbent

One of the best maps ever made for BeamNG.

An excellent map that is fairly well optimized, at least on Intel dedicated graphics in DX11 mode. There are rough edges, but I'm sure with a little more work this map could be *chef's kiss*

this map is pretty good, although lacks quite a bit of optimization
unfortunately the ai generation imagery ruined it for me