The purpose and design of FFB: Some things the devs should consider.

The following video is a discussion comparing the new AC Evo FFB to original AC FFB. Although this might seem to have little to do with BeamNG, at the end he brings up a fine point that applies to all driving sims: The purpose of good FFB design is NOT necessarily to feel exactly like the steering rack of the real vehicle, indeed many steering racks convey almost no useful information to the driver. Instead, artfully designed FFB in a sim can be used to convey the sense of car behavior you normally get through seat of pants through the wheel in an intuitive manner. This is the primary thing for which original Assetto Corsa is so renowned and lauded for in the sim community.

As the game development progresses through the years, I would humbly ask the devs to consider adding options to FFB which if turned on would enhance the feel for weight transfer, tire slippage etc, while leaving the player the ability to feel nothing but the actual steering rack forces if they so desire. Examples of this would be enhanced countersteer feeling, enhanced understeer feeling, some sort of vibration when a wheel is locked, etc, all things I believe the Beamng player base wouldn't mind experimenting with.

 

@BravoNovemberZulu You should try my FFB mod i recently released, its trying to communicate the feeling of what the car is doing more, alongside more detail.

https://beamng.com/threads/more-immersive-ffb.102617/

 

I have done some test driving in various sims and realized the number one thing that needs to be more detectable in FFB in BeamNG is forward/back weight transfer. This is quite possibly the most important piece of information that you get mostly through seat of pants that in sims the wheel needs to tell you. In original AC if you gas it, suddenly lift off, or trail brake, the change in weight to the front wheels and thus grip/steering potential is VERY obvious via changes in felt wheel torque, whereas in BeamNG is almost undetectable to nonexistent, depending on car. As this is one of those things that is in reality felt primarily via seat of pants, some artificial beefing up of the effect would in fact make the driving in Beam *functionally* more realistic. This one handling improvement could go a long way towards making BeamNG the king of driving/racing/rally simulation.