Three short suggestions for the car styling and fixtures

General Chat Suggestions
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I think the basic system of fixtures and car design is great, but I have a few suggestions to improve it, in order of how simple I presume they would be to implement (speaking as someone with no experience in game development!)

  1. Depth dimension for fixtures

Pretty much self explanatory. A third ‘Z axis’ control to set how deep or shallow 3D features like scoops and vents are.

For some features that are 2D in nature, the Z control could set how far the piece pops out or sinks in to the body. I would find this most useful with license plates, and incorporating headlights into grills.

  1. Pseudo-online play

It would be great if other players’ designs were included as suggestions when you style your car. I’d only want it visually (since it would ruin the core game if you could use their engine, setup etc) but it would be cool to have a system like that which takes popular designs from the Steam workshop at the body morphing / fixture stage of the design.

Perhaps part of the system could be used to populate your competitors’ models with other players’ cars? I also want to see when my competitors release a new car - what it looks like, the stats etc.

  1. More consequences from body morphing, and higher level morphs

I noticed playing the Kee engine campaign mode that stats such as desirability, luggage space, aerodynamics etc. do not update as you morph the car.

I would also like to be able to morph one kind of car into another kind, and be able to modify higher level stuff like wheelbase, overall width & height - so I can turn a Honda CRX into an MPV, or a van into a supermini. But I don’t know how the engine works underneath, so this might not be possible.

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  1. That’s been tested. It doesn’t work (unless you want to see plenty of tearing or elements sticking out).

  2. There is some multiplayer planned (and it existed a long time ago). Basically pits people against each other on challenges.

  3. Not possible without drastically changing the game code and all the bodies/chassis. There are some bodies that can be changed to look like something else, but overall there are limits in the number of morphs that can be overlapped as well as the stretching limits of the 3D model. The latter is mostly pushed to its extremities, but going too far gets things looking wonky or jagged, so it’s a balancing act. Some bodies do have width morphs, and a couple have/had height morphs, but wheelbases can’t be changed

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  1. Ok, understood. It would still be nice to have a slider for some features like license plates that simply moves them in or out though, so you can place them inside concave grills and stuff like that

  2. I’m thinking of something more like on Forza 7, where after buying a car it loads up the 10 most popular paintjobs on the workshop for that vehicle. Basically just this for cosmetic purposes, when you can’t be bothered to put all that effort into positioning door handles, headlights etc. and just want to go straight into the design spec.

Or a simple mechanic that populates your competitors’ models with other players’ creations?

  1. I understand why changing the wheelbase alone might cause problems with the mesh / models and require revamping all the designs to accommodate, so forget about that.

But what about a 2D scale factor for the side view (so the wheel arches stay round!) and a 1D scale factor for the width?

I guess what I’m asking is, does each vehicle’s initial stats depend on stuff like wheelbase, overall width, etc or is it a more tailored or arbitrary value which is constant for that vehicle?

Because it would be really cool if altering these attributes had big effects on stuff like practicality, weight, cost, handling etc.

Thanks for your reply!

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You’re still asking to change the chassis. That’s not possible without a lot of changes to the game. The chassis is part of the stats, but so is the body, and they’re completely separate things. A body can be morphed, a chassis cannot. I believe the only planned dynamic part of the chassis is the firewall but I don’t recall if that feature has been implemented yet or not.

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Thanks for your reply, that’s exactly what I needed to know, i.e. that the stats for each body shape are not a function of its fundamental characteristics, but are tailored for that chassis :slight_smile: