The in-game names need a re-working. We have mega-brands and one-off brands right now. My idea/suggestion is as follows: Blue - have now, Green - currently mod only, Orange - new, Red - ManfredE3's American cars - there should be two, possibly even three main brands, modeled after Ford*, GM*, and possibly Mopar*. - Gavril/Burnside (Ford/Lincoln) - Bruckell/Soliad (GM) - _______ (Mopar) - _______ (other odds and ends) - Wentward (buses) - Randolph? (some heavy truck and possibly heavy equipment manufacturer) - Canada??? Asian Cars - there are very many Asian brands, but I think five is good, as this covers Toyota*, Honda*, Nissan*, and other minor brands can be lumped into two (Subaru, Mitsubishi, Isuzu and Kia, Hyundai) - Taruma¹ (Toyota) - Ibishu (Honda) - Satsuma (Nissan) - Hirochi (other Japanese) - Seoil (other South Korean, name from Urbanmaid's car pack) European Cars - minimum five, this time based geographically, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Eastern European and Russian cars - Fintray (British light sports cars) - Emernes¹ (Jaguar and Land Rover) - Chester (as Mini, Rover, and other basic cars) - Auriga (Bentley, Maserati, and Rolls, name from the old Auriga Heron mod that I cannot find the author of) - Jargl (Swedish cars) - Cherrier (French cars) - Charmand (more French cars, I think it could be merged with Cherrier depending on how things evolve) - Civetta (Italian sports cars) - Autobello (Italian people's cars) - ETK (Mercedes and BMW as well as heavy equipment) - _______ (VW, Audi, Porsche) - _______ (Eastern European, Soviet, and Russian cars) Aftermarket - NOMI (time attack/GT/touring car parts) - Turbo Rabbit (tuner parts) - Suneyes (drag racing/salt flat car parts) *Due to the flexible nature of BeamNG, it would be quite ridiculous to suggest including all of their subdivisions/luxury divisions, as BeamNG does not and should not mirror real life, but these main brands allow both vanilla and modded vehicles to be well organized. It appears to me that BeamNG, despite having their own lore, attempts to be what the movie industry calls "based on a true story." I am not saying the names should be Ford and Honda instead of Gavril and Ibishu, but rather that there be more diversification to the in-game names. This would allow more variety and to also tell the story of competition which over the years has shaped the car industry. The brands don't have to be filled out (or even existent outside of their name) at first, but over time they should get filled out so that we don't have three mega brands (being ETK, Gavril, and Ibishu) with tag-along brands such as Autobello, Bruckell, Burnside, Cherrier, Civetta, Hirochi, and Soliad (who we have yet to see a car from). We have a total of 12 brands in-game right now, and my suggestion includes maximum 26, but enhances the game. Feel free to respond with thoughts, agreements, disagreements, and name suggestions as we are missing a few. ¹ Provided by @Steven cha
Personally I don't see any need for any real restructuring, though some things really meed more attention. On the macroscale: It is understandable that Cherrier/Autobello are light on content since they are new, and Civetta/Wentward since they are niche companies. ETK and Bruckell/Soliad only have 3 cars each if you include the Wendover, even though they've been in game nearly since the begining. So we really should see those two get more attention. I'm not really sure what to say about Hirochi right now since their two cars are so different from eachother... We could really use a British and Sweedish company at least, maybe even a South Korean company (though their lineup would be pretty bland, being that Hyundai and Kia are known for their appliance cars). A Soviet brand would be fun, but not necessary. On the micro scale: Gavril/Burnside is the only company with any real lore going through it, even though Burnside has itself been ignored and the megathrust engine is in a weird situation. The older cars ('53 Special, Bluebuck, and Barstow) all share parts and the Bluebuck stockcar has Pete Burnside JR listed as the driver. The 1990's Gavrils (GM, D/H-Series, Roamer) also all share parts, and the Gavril RS line and Marshall line both have analagous histories to IRL lines running through the entire roster when appropriate. I'd love to see the Gavril super thrust and/or ultra thrust become a Gavril marketing staple, but overall Gavril has a good string of lore. However, Gavril is really the only one with any real lore right now in that sense. ETK has TT Sport for 2 of their 3 cars and Ibishu has a couple of GTz cars, and both brands share one or two engines when appropriate, but that's really it. Bruckell/Soliad has absolutely nothing tying their minuscule lineup together. As for the miscellaneous stuff... Wentward really needs to be retconned to be Canadian IMO. It's the only way the Canadians can get representation, bar straight up adding the Bricklin to the game... Nomi and Turbo Rabbit really need more attention as well, and I'd love to see another company of the sort for other styles (think Mooneyes)
I think I could agree with you on the Canadian buses as you are right, there is no real brand that people think of when they think "Canadian car." Canadian cars have about the same recognition as the Mexican Air Force, so I think that is more than reasonable. I actually agree with you on the Swedes and the South Koreans but didn't put that as we have no vanilla cars currently for them and as far as I know, no mods either. Obviously the Swedish one would be Saab/Volvo and the South Korean Hyundai/Kia but I haven't seen any non-Automation cars of these brands yet. I hadn't even started on custom parts, but those are great ideas as well. My main issue with Gavril is the mash-up of Ford, GM, and Mopar, as apparently people think that one brand will suffice for the all of them. We haven't really seen any real categorization of Bruckell, so we don't know what segment they want that to be.
I'll jump in here with a few bits of agreement & respectful disagreement. Let's start with a breakdown of how that list stacks up against what's currently in-game: America: Gavril-Burnside Bruckell-Soliad Wentward That covers the two 'Big Three' -style automakers you were looking for, along with their common practice of branding luxury products under a different name. I should note that, in terms of styling and technology, Gavril tends to skew more Ford, and Bruckell tends to skew more Mopar, with General Motors split between them. I do think that a third american automaker would be a good thing to have, but not a 'Big Three' automaker. I'd hope for something unusual and defunct to collect the also-rans: the AMC, the Studebaker, the Packard, the Vector, the Avanti, etc. Paticularly AMC - an amalgamation of several brands that couldn't make it on their own, never had enough resources to compete directly, so it resorted to being different in terms of engineering and design. Another thing lacking is a dedicated heavy-truck & equipment manufacturer. The T-series is looking increasingly lonely up there in the heavy truck category. Wentward isn't quite a full fit for this - they're more of a coachbuilder. Purely bus chassis/body, with possibilities for fire apparatus. Asia: Ibishu Hirochi We've got two brands here - Ibishu, which is a high-volume manufacturer that covers a wide variety of automotive segments, from cheap compacts to luxury cars to heavy trucks under one brand name, in a manner similar to Toyota and Nissan (Though it should be noted that Nissan now uses the name UD for their heavy truck arm) Manfred didn't know what to make of Hirochi, but I have a bit of an edge on that one. Hirochi is very sports-car focused, with a history in making musical instruments and a line of motorcycles under the same name. You'll note that the piano prop is officially the Hirochi MusicFicta, and there's been some unconfirmed theories floated that the larger Pigeon engine is taken from a Hirochi sportbike-type motorcyle. Their products skew Honda with a bit of Mazda and Subaru mixed in, but I suspect that they're a little like Mitsubishi in that they're part of a large, diversified industrial conglomerate with a hand in everything from consumer electronics to heavy machinery. This is of course pure speculation, but I wouldn't be terribly suprised if a Hirochi forklift showed up at some point. I think that the only further things we need would be a dedicated heavy-truck manufacturer, and possibly a South Korean manufacter. There is a bit of a distinct style to South Korean cars that diverges from Japanese cars. Europe: Civetta Autobello ETK Cherrier That's two Italian, one German, and one French automaker. That almost fills your list - the only thing left is British. I think the most beneficial direction to take for Britain would be to go in one of the two direcitons where it excelled - Small, ultra-lightweight roadsters and sports cars, or four-wheel-drive vehicles. A brand covering each of those would provide completely new archetypes for the game - although the latter would only do so if the vehicle was pre-1980. A word about those two Italians - they're both necessary. Civetta takes the low-volume sportscar half of the Italian motor industry, while Autobello takes the mass-market half. A word about ETK - they were canonically founded after the Second World War (although I seem to have lost the forum quote for that). In light of this, it seems unlikely that they would have a heavy-vehicle arm like Mercedes-Benz does - they seem to skew more Audi/BMW anyway. It'd be nice to see a mass-market German motor company show up at some point to complement them and also take on the heavy vehicle segment. Charmand (French) and Jargl (Swedish) have also been floated as possibilities. Nothing was ever confirmed, but it's been suspected that Charmand was superseded by Cherrier, and Jargl (or another Swedish motor company) might still be coming. Russian cars have intruigued at least one developer to the point where the community was asked what sort of features they would want in an offical Russian car. To really do it up right, I'd want at least one car and one heavy truck from the east side of Europe. Austrailia This has been the big oversight in the thread so far. Austrailia's rather unique geography and regulatory environment has produced some paticularly interesting vehicles - though they tend to be modified American or Japanese models. A proper aussie ute would be a fresh bodystyle to have in-game, and there could be some interesting work done with RHD Hopper and T-series variants. South/Central America & Africa This is the truly unexplored realm. The regulatory environment in certain countries, mandating a certain percentage of domestically-produced automobiles, has led to unique vehicles from automakers the world over. From the Ford F-1000 and its assorted variants to Volkswagen's Brazil-exclusive machinery , to the bonkers Chevrolet Firenza Can-Am a visit to CKD factories in other parts of the world could provide unique machinery without necessitating the need to add specific brands. Parts can even be shared with 'domestic' versions - after all, most of these unique machines were built at least partially from the parts bin. I'm with you on this one. What's in the game now should probably stay as-is. Solid stuff, I'll back you up all the way on this. I think the big gulf between the Moonhawk and Legran is acceptable, given the sheer amount of restructuring the brand would have had to go through at that time - not dissimilar to Mopar re-inventing itself around the K-car. There will be pretty tight ties between the Legran and the Wendover as a result, but I think the thing we really need is an in-between model to at least make the styling transition between vehicles a little smoother - more focus on vertical grill bars and the rearrangement of the rectangular headlights. Something from either the Bruckell or Soliad catalog that exists somewhere between 1975 and 1984. Maybe the Albatross or Beaufort from the infamous concept list, or the long-rumored minivan? A Legran de-facelift might be the quickest route. This is where I diverge - and the main reason I didn't jump for the 'Agree' rating. As a Canadian, I'd prefer to see Wentward remain American. If the Canadian motor industry is going to be represented, let it be via something like the Bricklin - a weird, low-volume sports car made out of a novel material with gull-wing doors. Of course, there's another route I'd prefer even more - the heavy-truck route. Hayes and Pacific sprung up on the west coast and achieved legendary status . There's a reason the Pacific trucks showed up in Snowrunner, while Hayes was unusual - specializing in both large off-highway machinery and a sort of 'luxury heavy truck' that was aimed at owner-operators. Some of those on-highway trucks even went so far as to feature aluminum frame rails - in the early seventies. A made-for-BeamNG brand that does the same can provide us with heavyweight off-road vehicles - something we've only ever had in mods so far. As for aftermarket, Kentarch is a good step in the right direction, provided it keeps up momentum. Nomi needs to be sorted out a bit - I'm not sure what it is that they do and do not do - it seems like their logo is slapped willy-nilly on everything. A few more Turbo Rabbit parts would be nice to have, and a couple of fresh companies along the lines of Mooneyes and Edelbrock would be very handy to have - if for no other reason that allowing new things to be put on skins. So, to summarize, here's my 'dream list' of official vehicle manufactuers (new ones shown in orange): North America: Gavril-Burnside Bruckell-Soliad Wentward AMC-esque 'also-ran' automaker (possibly defunct) Canadian standalone sports car (defunct - only ever produced one model) West Canadian Heavy Truck Manufacturer (defunct, possible agricultural/heavy equipment arm) Asia: Ibishu Hirochi Japanese Heavy-Truck Manufacturer South Korean Automaker Europe: Autobello Civetta Cherrier ETK British Lightweight Sports Car Manufacturer British 4x4 / Utility Vehicle Manufacturer German Mass-Market / Utility Vehicle / Economy Automaker Swedish Automaker / Heavy Truck / Heavy Equipment Manufacturer Russian Vehicle Manufacturer Rest of World: Austrailian Automaker Localized South American or African Versions of another automaker So that adds up to ... at least twelve new vehicles to represent all these new manufacturers. That's a bit of a big ask, but we'd come away with a wide variety of new bodystyles, engineering solutions, vehicle characteristics and archetypes from around the globe.
I'm interested in beamng lore mainly for car design... I just love to see brand identities and styling evolve over time... The beamng brands rarely have enough cars to have a full design evolution, so what I like to do is draw the "missing links" myself, I have dedicated quite a lot of time creating design languages for some of the beamng brands. So far I spent most of that time on Bruckell and ETK. Bruckell, imho, is the main competitor to gavril (gavril=ford, bruckell=GM(Chevrolet), Chrysler). ETK while looking most like BMW design wise, is imo the Mercedes Benz of beamng, it definitely needs a truck division (I'd love a official Unimog)... I also did some design work on gavril but found it to be hard to differentiate it from ford. For theothe brands I have yet to make any substantial progress, but I haven't lost my motivation yet, so I'm sure I will work on them in the future as well... If you want to check my designs out if uploaded some of them on my thread on the forums: https://www.beamng.com/threads/esesels-car-concepts.66156/page-4#post-1193832
I know every time I mention this I get some flak for it, but I'm really not convinced Australian cars are a good idea in game. Don't get me wrong, I think some really awesome stuff has come out of Australia. However, Australia's car culture is so isolated that I feel it wouldn't make sense to have them unless we have a lot of them and at least one massive Australian map, which isn't realistically going to happen. Of course we do have a modern French car even though it wouldn't be allowed in maybe half of our maps due to American import laws, so I guess it's possible we could just overlook that part and toss them in anyway. I personally have mixed feelings about going that route. As for the south/central American stuff... There's no doubt about their quirky car culture and interesting design derivatives, but... Refer to my problem with the Australian stuff. It just wouldn't fit well on the maps we have, and even if we get one in the future that it would fit in, that would only be one map. I really think the game should stick to USDM/EUDM/JDM stuff and not get into those two regions; it's a huge rabbit hole for a small team and a game that already has a massive scope. Yeah, I can't even imagining any real links between the LeGran and Moonhawk lore wise, but they are kinda in a corner right now since they have only two cars, which is half as many as Gavril has in the 90's alone. We really just have to sit around and wait to see what the Wendover and any Moonhawk/LeGran updates will bring. IRL both the A-body and K-Car platforms had versatile offerings/derivatives, so maybe there's a resource efficient way to give us some platform sisters to quickly bolster their lineup. Personally I don't see Canada getting represented any other way. We all have different ideas of what's acceptable for official content, but since Canada's motor industry is so limited there really isn't much to base anything on other than Bricklin, which fills a very close niche to the Civetta. Meanwhile, Canada does seem to make a lot of buses. Prévost, Nova, and New Flyer. There's always the Felino I guess... As much as I want to see an extreme duty truck in game, it's another one of those "I can't see it happening" deals. I'd love to be wrong here. Personally I'd like to see each brand split into different flavors of aftermarket support. Give NOMI all of the time attack/GT/touring car stuff (Their name is on the aero parts we have), give Turbo Rabbit all of the tuner style kits (Rocket Bunny/Liberty Walk/RWB), give us one company for drag racing/salt flat car style stuff (Mooneyes), etc... Note: I mean "at least one" company for each style, not "only one".
First, of all, you all are commendably through - that's not mocking, that's my surprise and thanks that you did more than "well I think we do need more brands but not the way he said, so I'm just gonna bash his idea" Secondly, I think many of your ideas are great, I just worry that they cannot be implemented immediately as we don't have cars for a few of those still. We don't have any vanilla or mod cars for the AMC or Canadians yet, despite how nice that would be, and we don't have either of your suggested Asian brands either. We have Fintray for the British sports cars, and Jargl for the Swedes if we ever see one of those projects get finished, but both unofficially, so those could be implemented immediately. I think for the Germans we could keep ETK as the Merc/BMW but then add another as a VW/Audi, given that these brands are affiliated in real life and then we could have an entry-level German market which I think we need. I was hesitant to add too many more brands at first, as I was kind of afraid of having people look, go "that's waaay too ambitious" and move on, but I think I will update my first post to more accurately involve some of the ideas I've heard of that I agree with. For the Australian and South American markets, I think that we could just have those under their main brands, Gavril and whatever VW is in-game. I don't think we will see official support for those, as they are niche markets, but modders could then more confidently create their utes and pickup/van thingies as they know where to put them. I'll be honest, I have no clue what to do Canadian-wise, perhaps this is because as an American, I have never seen one Canadian car/truck, which kind of makes it hard for me to say, so I will let the Canadians argue on this. I have seen a Canadian plane I think though, a Zenair, so possibly we could add a Canadian aircraft brand? Like I said, I have no clue. To address YellowRusty, I still think Gavril and Ibishu are too big. We may just have to settle on disagreeing about this, but I appreciate your thoughts as it is always better to know people disagree with me than be oblivious. To address esesesel (I think I spelled that right?), in my edit of the idea so far I will more thoroughly include what brands (at least I think) are covered now, so that we can talk better on what is needed. ManfredE3's idea on the specialization of aftermarket is great, so I am going to include that under my top post. Edit on my top post is finished
In my opinion, any lore around the cars is useless. Maybe if the game was story-driven, and that story was about the car companies, then maybe... but it's not. This now sounds awfully close to role-playing. Just get the car you fancy, and drive.
I'd say there's a huge difference between roleplaying and story telling. I'm no artist, but I notice a lot of artsists try to tell a story with their work, our vehicle artists included. In our case, it's the difference between having a polished game and an early access toy. Just look at Bob Ross making a story as he paints, I wouldn't say he's roleplaying. It just feels like a more complete work when there's analouges to real world history and a bit of thought to how everything is named. I much prefer having the "Ultrathrust", "Kentarch Conversion", and "Pete Burnside's stock car" over "Medium sized engine", "SUV/Pickup hybrid" and "race car". It's like a polished game versus a WIP physics demo. Look at the way Gavril looks compared to Ibishu as they currently are in game. One of them has historical analouges and feels like a set of cars with their own flavor, and one is just a collection of things to drive. I'd take the polished feeling Gavril feel over the lump of "things to drive" Ibishu without hesitation, or worse yet, 24 cars named "Vehicle n, vehicle n+1, etc..."
You are correct, art is personal. That was my opinion only, and it is based only on my own experiences*. I personally would be happy even if the cars were named after their internal names, or as you suggested: "vehicle n". However, I do not believe it is realistic to hope that the naming will be changed (in any direction). *This kind of design makes me feel good
I think I will have someone build skins that are like the no texture skins except yellow for you (I am kidding, I have nothing against you liking those designs. They are clean and simple, and honestly a lot better than some other food package designs I've seen.)
As the game stands - not finished - the names/brands are perfectly fine and shouldn't be changed just to fill the "real-world-has-it-so-Beam-should" hole. BeamNG has no 'American Big Three', no Motorbike-And-Piano company, and no Lebanese Supercar Start-up, because the brands in BeamNG are supposed to be able to exist along side IRL manufactures - not actually be them. Sure there are some similarities, but there are similarities between manufacturers IRL too. I'm sure the Devs know what direction they want to take the brands, whether they want to change them or develop on them - ultimately the names are just made up to give the cars some character and make them believable. BeamNG has no "lore" so to speak, so as of yet the names and brands mean absolutely nothing.
BeamNG cannot have brands that exist alongside current car manufacturers as that would require current car manufacturers. We cannot do this due to copyright issues. As for the "no lore" part, what then is this? (red boxes) I thought that was the story of the brand in-game?
Well, we do have a performance car-and-piano company... And by definition, Gabesters into to Autobello is a lore, at the least. "Autobello was founded by Vincenzo Bello in 1948 to build affordable family cars after the second world war."
Being able to exist along side IRL manufacturers does not mean that those real manufacturers actually need to be in game. I don't see what you're getting at. And what you've provided looks, to me at least, like just a description of the brand as seen in-game. That is the kind of lore we are sorely short on - none of that bollocks made up by users, something straight from the source. Kinda wish the devs would actually write up some backstory for the various manufacturers, but then you'd get some users complaining that it's 'wrong'.
BeamNG purposely bases their content off IRL vehicles. The fact that the Gavril lineup matches nearly perfectly with Ford is no coincidence, and I have no problem with this. I just want them to include other brands based off of other brands as I feel their official content list right now is not as well organized as it could be. You have read the brand sub-pages of "Official Content" in the wiki, right?
Agreed on most points, but hasn't Britain also historically excelled in the luxury market? I'd picture something like a Silver Cloud or Continental would be distinctly British and be very unlike anything we have in game now. Granted, luxury isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with the two vehicle types you mentioned.
Yes, I added that to my edited summary of ideas despite it not appearing in any of the responses as no one can catch everything...
