Hi, i would like to share my idea, in campaign i would like to have to deal with Fuel Tank and ranges of the car. I think it would add a bit of realism and people would have to think about that. It will basically force people to do a bit of an interior. Also would be nice if fixtures changed Weight Distribution.
We have some community made calculators using footprint of the car and fuel economy that can estimate the range of a car, although these are mainly racing ones. You could try to make your own calculator based of that.
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yeah i got your point but i was thinking about Fuel Tank fixtures that would actually work in game and could improve your marketing / new marketing option and would change the Weight Distribution.
My honest opinion on everything from original post
Fuel Tank/Range
Big yes, as im not very happy about constantly needing to export to Beam to see how big fuel tank is. So, yes, i guess that fuel tank size and/or range might be in this game, just need to be pulled into spotlight.
That we have fuel tanks in Beam could be exporter feature in which case it might need some more effort.
Would have probably prefered that to be presented as engineering choice and not as fixture, reason why follows in this post
>It will basically force people to make interior
Happily bunch of us that dont make interiors can just darken windows completely and shit thats placed inside of car is not visible from outside.
They would require fair bit of attention either way and some of us might be annoyed at skill issue and resulting fixture overlaps etc.
Fixtures having mass and changing Weight Distribution
This is so easy to expand to cover them also affecting aerodynamic properties of vehicle. There are few problems tho here
a) Outcry of machines
Playerbase has varied machinery used for Automation.
Not all of this machinery has particularly high performance.
High performance is likely going to be required to accomplish this.
And no, “just upgrade your machine” isnt good answer as people can be cash limited or, in case of jobless children, better performance while playing the game isnt something parent is willing to spend money on
"b) Outcry of developers
I had learned some coding over my high-school and uni career. Its not much, but exists.
Im also member of community to know (and feel response) of devs upon this request
THIS SUUUUCKS DUDE, WE AINT WILLING TO GO THROUGH THAT PAIN AT THIS POINT
High performance would be needed to accurately calculate volume of fixture and its position compared to axles of car, not to mention issue of other kinds
-Is it solid or hollow?
And im gonna do self-promotion bcos i couldnt be arsed to ask someone if i can use their builds as representation
Vehicle below is my Shitbox Rally 2022 entry, basically pickup truck with some camper add-on on top and some more stuff scattered around the vehicle
Kontir
Picture of front
Picture from below (body hidden)
Again from below, but chassis is also hidden now
Picture from above. The roof of add-on was painted transparent so this is possible
Rear of the vehicle
After some admiration of my shoddy 3D work, you gotta answer some questions to yourself, questions that would be needed to be answered in order to make the vehicle
-That bicycle in back is one fixture. Yes, ONE. Its of default size tbf but still: what is its mass and weight distribution?
How is that going to change when its resized (one member of board has lore character that is avid cyclist…and extremely tall.
Other has some other characters of even greater size, and i have no doubt someone might decide to resize it to fit literal children.
-Roof of add-on is likely steel. Thanks to my shoddy 3D work, its also thick. How would it affect handling of the otherwise 2000kg vehicle?
-Fixtures colored red, grey and yellow that are otherwise same are some additional tanks for different liquids
Grey was drinking water iirc
Yellow is beer (team had avid drinker)
Red is additional fuel
Coding needs to give choice of using fixtures that arent intended for function and account for fact same type of fixtures is used for different things
-Roof thingy could have been made out of Aluminium, Plastic or wood, so issue isnt limited to fixtures that have clear purpose.
Thats some primitive 3D fixture, to best of my knowledge.
Devs would need to make sure appropriate calculations for everything work as intended, otherwise they risk outcry from mechanical engineers playing the game, calling them out on it not working as intended
Fixture makers might also have some trouble themself, as these settings might influence their work too
c) Outcry of players
I recall seeing several trains being made, couple of big robots, semi trucks and other likes where weighted fixtures could compensate for game limitations.
But for everyone of those, there are people knocking themself out both on exterior and interior fixture-wise on cars that are ALREADY as heavy as potential RL equivalent and for those, fixtures would NEED to have weightless option.
To make matters worse, some people would attempt to make small and tiny cars where mass of fixture could greatly affect entire vehicle.
Community has couple of people noted for various three-wheeled joys they make in game.
Cars with only three wheels do exist IRL. Understandably, they are tiny.
Hopefully this lengthy post would answer your question in great detail.
Riley has proposed that calculator solution that might be best you have atm (or can cross-check with RL vehicle that would be reasonable competitir to your build.
You are free to explore forums in order to find some other, better realised 3D examples compared to my Kontir. Conclusions, however, likely stay the same.
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Yeah, with the OutCry parts i totally agree with, i have low end PC so i know what you talking about. And also as you mentioned the engineering choice of the fuel tanks is absolutely great idea.
There just isn’t a good way to implement fuel tanks in such a way that it’s balanced properly across our ~2500 body variants. Additionally, this is one of those features that are commonly suggested that are nice to have from a technical perspective, but from a gameplay perspective don’t really add anything, at the end of the day.
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