My suggestion is to implement synchro simulation and I will go into detail how I would believe it to work with each control scheme. First off, this will definitely work best for people with a wheel and shifter. Now the best way I think this would work for me to describe it is to go step by step, and with 2 different scenarios(those being with clutch dis-engaged, and clutch engaged) With wheel and clutch pressed in: First thing to happen is obviously the clutch being pressed. Once the clutch is pressed in, it is really easy to move the stick out of gear and will move out in time with the actual shifter(I realize I got ahead of myself and I explain why this is in the next segment). The gear now being neutral, the player puts it into the desired gear. This is where the synchro simulation comes in. The game won't immediately throw the car into gear, it will first signal that it's syncing(I imagine an S will pop up next to the gear they are trying to go into, IE 3S. Or there can be a light indicator, as well as audio cues). Clearly this won't last super long as it doesn't normally take too long for it to sync gear speed with the flywheel speed, although the condition of the synchro can help determine how long the syncing speed is. If the player decides to dump the clutch BEFORE the gears are done syncing, you will hear the gears grind and it will pop out of gear(alternatively it will continue to grind until the player moves their shifter out of gear or engages the clutch again). Of course once the car is in gear, the player can happily dump the clutch and be in the next gear. With wheel and clutch engaged: Now in this scenario what I imagine will happen, and this might be out of scope but I will suggest it nonetheless. The player will move their shifter out of gear. Instead of moving out of gear immediately, the game will check how much transmission pressure is being applied, IE. they are full throttle and trying to move it out of gear OR they are breaking and down revving the engine. If the pressure is high enough, they won't move it out of gear due to high gear friction, at least not until they reach low enough transmission pressure to pull it out of gear. Alternatively they can pull it out of gear, but will damage the gear they pulled out of, the way I think of it is they chip the ends/tips of the gears. This will make it take longer to sync in future shifting. Of course if they pull it out of gear while the transmission pressure is low enough, they will slide out of gear without damaging the gear they were just in. Next they will try and put the car into their desired gear but without engaging the clutch. First the game will check for the engine RPM and speed, and then compare that to the gear's ratio to find if it is within a certain degree of error. If the RPM and speed match up enough, it will drop it into gear IMMEDIATELY without the normal syncing time due to the fact the ratio is matching already. If it doesn't match up enough, it will grind the gears as well as give wear to the synchros. Spoiler: Me being an idiot I'm leaving this in here because while it's stupid of me because I now realize why this is, I still said it and won't take it back because it still has value. This is just speculation, and I haven't been able to find any evidence of this on the internet either due to my lack of vocabulary in the subject, or because it's not real and it's something I don't understand yet, or because this is the natural operation of syncros. But I believe that some cars actually have a guard to protect against gear grinding in this scenario. I mainly believe this because my car does not even allow me into the synchros if my RPM's don't match up enough for the gear I'm trying to enter and I don't have my clutch dis-engaged. This doesn't mean I can't still grind my gears in this way, if the ratio is close enough it will let me in, but far enough it won't go into gear and I'll grind my gears. Another part to this is attempting to put the car into gear while stationary and the clutch engaged. I have personal experience in this matter for I was once a dumb 16 year old who got his new manual car and destroyed his 2nd gear syncro by doing this.. Basically, if the player throws the car into gear while it's stationary and doesn't have the clutch dis-engaged, then the car will go into the syncing stage(Will show the 1S, 2S, etc, or show the syncing indicator light). While it's in this stage, it will slowly try to sync the gears. This will cause the car to move slowly but it will damage the syncros A LOT. I'm talking a dead syncro in about 30 seconds. It will get the vehicle to begin moving but after long enough it will kill the syncro and cause the car to stop moving. I will now talk about what a dead syncro means. A dead syncro: If you've killed your syncro, you have royally fucked up. At this point, if your syncro is dead, that means you will permanently be in the syncing stage of a gear while trying to enter it, even if your clutch is pressed in. In order to get your vehicle into the gear you want, you have to manually adjust the RPMs to match the ratio in order to get it into gear. Only once you've achieve the correct syncing speed will you be able to put it into the gear. The 2 ways I imagine that you can achieve this manually are these.. First you can keep your clutch engaged and press your throttle until you are at the right RPM:SPEED ratio for that gear. OR you can keep your clutch dis-engaged and continue to try and put it in gear until the flywheel slows down enough to match the ratio. This can either happen by grinding the gears and causing the flywheel to slow down faster, or it will just slow down normally with basically no friction due to the dead syncro. I realize at this point that I haven't explained flywheel simulation either.. I will do this now and if I get the inspiration to re-write this and have everything well explained in a good order, I will, but for now I'm too lazy and will just leave it here in this spoiler. Spoiler: Flywheels explained The way I imagine the flywheel working is it will be an independant RPM from the engine RPM, except for when the clutch is engaged of course. When it is dis-engaged, the flywheel will speed at the same speed the engine's RPM was at the time of release and will very slowly begin to wind down. The flywheel's RPM should be the RPM used for comparing RPM:Speed ratios and not the engine's RPM. At this point in the thread I figure it's fairly easy to figure out how this will translate to controller/keyboard due to the fact it won't change much for them. Their clutch is handled automatically as well as gear changes(generally) so explanation isn't that necessary for controller/keyboard. Although if you're so interested on my input on how it should work for controllers, and I'm asked by enough people or an admin/dev then I'll gladly oblige. Other than that I thank you for reading my suggestion. Love, Untraced
I dont find it a priority but i love the way you posted and explained it in detail. Maybe this way we can start double clutching and no more granny shifting.
Powertrains have already been added. But i do agree that its not 100% 1:1 perfection. The only thing that can break inside a tranny its the individual gears that will make those broken gears behave just like neutral gear. I would like to see something like broken synchros tho, or no-synchros car, like something the Special would use.
