So as you probably know the setting for JRI is supposed to be Hawaii. Being from Hawaii I can tell you that it looks nothing like what is depicted in JRI. It looks more like an island in Taiwan. What I am suggesting is a small fix. Since the only indication that JRI is in Hawaii is the license plates I would like for the plates to be changed to a plate from Southeast Asia (most likely Taiwan). The reason why I suggest Taiwan is because of the WWII American airport, the Japanese bunkers, and the Portuguese fort (all of these countries occupied Taiwan at one point). This should be relatively easy unless the devs want to make JRI look more like Hawaii (x to doubt) or bring back an updated DRI which looked much more like Hawaii (also x to doubt).
Exactly this. JRI is, without a doubt the Philippines, for the reasons the OP posted. Hawaii was never occupied by the Spanish or the Japanese, nor has the Jungle environment represented on the map.
I'm pretty sure that I heard that was a "Spanish fort". I could be wrong though. Nonetheless though, JRI is in no way, shape or form Hawaii.
I think it is not attempting to be Hawaii, Taiwan and Portugese fort was mentioned in these two posts: https://www.beamng.com/threads/micro-blog-s-may-2015-to-july-2015.13551/page-9#post-229006 https://www.beamng.com/threads/micro-blog-s-may-2015-to-july-2015.13551/page-8#post-227815
So, it's likely in Taiwan. Still, the plates need to change. @Flippi 284 could you update the OP to include these changes?
It's not supposed to be ultra-realistic to the actual RL place. For example, the WCA (which is based in the LA area) has a smaller city than the actual Los Angeles.
I'm pretty sure San Francisco isn't that sandy and kinda barren compared to Los Angeles. Also, the Oakland part is actually a few miles away from the Belasco city, unlike the real Oakland where it's separate and further away from SF. Also, it might share similar architecture designs to certain areas of LA.
City sizes mean nothing. Beamng cities are like Forza Horizon maps, meant to convey a lot of area in a tiny space due to game limitations. I'm pretty sure Beamverse Geography is about the same as earth's, but with differing place names.
That's why I said "About the same" as in if you look at the general shape of the Beamverse, it's about the same shapes you see on normal globes, but with slightly different variation in coast and island formation.
Since I am clearly a rock-solid source on all things canon [/s], it could be said that JRI is a fictional island located near enough to Hawaii to be placed under its jurisdiction post-war (perhaps due to ethnic overgeneralization of Pacific Islander peoples, bureaucratic laziness, or some combination thereof), rather than geographically part of the Hawaiian Islands. Alternately, it might just be an out-and-out abandoned location with no presiding government or permanent residents, but Hawaii is located near enough that most every vehicle transported there is a Hawaiian one by default.
Took the words out of my mouth. One of the buildings in the map was called "japanese bunkers" so i assumed that it was something about the philipines or Guam or something around the area. But nope, the cars there spawn with a hawai license.