Exo Rally Championship News

Welcome to the May 2024 Exo Rally update, here's what's been happening!


Super excited to share we will be releasing a demo soon! Exact date is still TBD, but it'll feature the start of the ‘story campaign' on Dhool (the meteor/dust world). You’ll be able to drive one rover class on one planet, and you’ll be able to race in daily stages and rallies and compete via online leaderboards. The dailies will be generated every day, so you'll have new stages to race and compete on for a long time to come!

[h3]Dust/element accumulation work nearly finished[/h3]
Depending on Dhool's weather, this invasive nano scale dust will either clear off (rain) or build up (dust storm) and effect almost every system on your rover

The main challenge with dust is accounting for degraded steering speed, RCS thruster strength and brake strength. This makes it much harder to react to sudden threats. Frequent use of these parts can temporarily clear them out again ready for use...

Also highly dust related!:

• Repairing/cleaning progress
  
• Build up rates based on weather and surfaces driven over
  
• More dust particle visuals
  
• Rovers now visually build up dust and dirt over a stage
  

[h3]Updated waypoint visuals[/h3]
We've been slightly ho hum on the waypoint visuals for a while so we've given them an overhaul:


This makes it obvious which side to pass on, and includes a cross-filled 'plane' where you pass through it, so even if you are miles from the waypoint emitter, you'll know exactly where you need to be to clear the waypoint.


Solid ‘posts’ have been removed and replaced with orbs that are sunken into the ground. In some instances, these solid posts will be replaced by the natural environment itself - waypoints will get placed on top of rocks or bushes or stumps or monoliths or other structures.

[h3]New planet orbit visuals, for planet arrival/drop cinematics[/h3]


[h3]Obstacle scanner update[/h3]
This scanner will now see properly (illuminates rocks/structures) through any level of dust


[h3]Tutorialised drone controls [/h3]
You'll be led through a tutorial for your first time controlling the survey drone:


[h3]Large bushes[/h3]
Added large (slowing) bushes to Dhool in some areas


[h3]Rover visuals updates[/h3]
Sponsorships and numbers glow in the dark:


Rover dirt levels build up over a stage and entire rally.
Clean:

Dirty:


[h3]Rover setup options[/h3]
We've been asked about exactly what setup options you'll have to play with, so I've included everything at the end of this update.

[h3]New menu screen [/h3]
Added story ‘backdrop’ as the menu screen. The short version of the story is the protagonist was a top contender for the Exo Rally Championship title, but suffered a near fatal accident, sidelining you for years. Now you are beginning your triumphant return.


Rhys wrote some new menu music to go with as well, check this tweet:
Menu Screen Video/Music

[h2]Here's a list of everything else we've done![/h2]

• In-Stage Race Engineer First Pass - "Bennet" appears/talks to you at the start of and eventually throughout stages.
  
• UI updated
  
• Tires: Slick tire art in, tire failure art (shredded tires) and sound
  
• Performance upgrades: Dhool at 4k res was 45-60 fps now more like 70-85 on a 3080.
  
• Damage balancing
  
• Staged headlight destruction. If main headlights are destroyed, “backup” lights activate on the rover’s roof, which can also be damaged.
  
• Rover physics tuning
  
• Backstory/story/campaign work
  
• New audio for gear changes, camera changes, engine damage, tire damage, ambience, etc
  
• Camera change FX
  
• Terrain scanner changes: no longer renders behind terrain + keep scale consistent/normal instead of dynamic scaling = easier to read where challenging terrain is
  

Rover Tuning Image Dump!:

First Exo Rally update for 2024, here it is!


Tensei (named “Start Planet” internally!) is essentially complete. It features mostly flat plains and rolling hills, nothing too harsh that you can smack into (just some fluffy ‘feather trees’), and both low gravity ~7m/s2 vs Earth’s 9.81 m/s2 and higher atmospheric drag (amplifies the low G feel) which generally means softer landings and lower speeds.



Tensei is a salt rich environment, and drivers will want to try and steer clear of the sparkling copper-green salt fields and low hanging brine mist, else you’ll be spending a lot of time in service areas removing extreme salt build-up that can rapidly cause rust and damage half way through a rally.



The idea for now is you’ll start your career on this planet (your team is kinda budget locked here), hoping for an invite into the wider Exo Rally Championship. So you’ll be able to get to grips with the controls on a slightly friendlier/easier planet first, and as soon as you start making meaningful placements (in the top 10 or so), you’ll be able to enter the rest of the planets in the series.



If you're wondering what happened to the Industrial planet, featured in the November update, it's on the back burner for now. Unlike the usual terrain-based planets, this one had more challenges than anticipated, and it was dragging a bit on Rally’s schedule. My current plan is to return to it after doing a “monolith planet”, which will feature more basic shapes/geometry akin to Exo One’s.

I’m super excited to start building the next planet, it should be a wild one! Really hoping I can finish one planet every month or two from here.


You can now race in a series starting from Tensei and ending on Dhool, so the driver with the most points over the span of two rallies wins. We plan to have at least 5 when we launch into Early Access, hopefully later this year.

Rhys has been working on the interface and you can see the tabs showing the current progress up top:




One of the best parts of most racing games is the progression from slower vehicles all the way up to the fastest, and so we’ve begun implementing new classes, so you can rise through the ranks till you reach the “Rally” class you’ve seen on the Exo Rally videos to date.

We aim to mirror Dakar's format, with highly varied classes, each which drive markedly different. Some won’t feature RCS thrusters at all, and I’m hoping to work in some lore where it’s a debate among Rally fans which is the true ‘top tier’ class, RCS equipped or not, ie “real drivers don't use cheat-thrusters!" vs "RCS thrusters are faster/more exciting/built for Exo Rally planets!".

Given we only have a tiny budget, and I recently discovered making a rover is big $$$, we’ll be using a mix of our own hand designed rovers (the 6-wheeled RCS rover you’ve seen so far) and quality 3rd party assets, which we plan to update with our own models after we leave Early Access.

Pics for these coming next update once we've done a pass over them for team livery and texturing/material work.

• Planet Tensei
  
• Multi planet series
  
• First pass multiple classes
  
• Smaller 4-Wheeled UTV (no RCS, fixed setup)
  
• - Lower top speed, easier to drive, nimble
  
• Bigger, 10 ton, 6-Wheeled “Mining Truck” (no RCS, fixed setup)
  
• - Top heavy, be careful whipping the steering too much or you’ll roll easily
  
• New ending skybeams that look like search-lights, animated, criss/crossing for extra ‘flair’.
  
• First pass on NPC driver names, team names, team principals
  
• Updated leaderboards/standings displays
  
• Camera changes so driver head stays upright (gives better impression of how the rover is tilting)
  
• New fancy intro camera shots showing the dropship coming in
  
• Camera craft (like current-day camera/TV helicopters) that follow the player
  
• Watch replay footage from the camera craft’s PoV
  
• High speed wind (WIP)
  
• - Realistic directional wind for upcoming stormy planets
  
• - Fight against or use wind to your advantage, and probably wise to stay on the ground a bit more
  
• Bush/foliage impacts/drag
  
• Dense gas and water drag improvements
  

We’ve got another Exo Rally update for you! Let’s get into it.


Exo Rally Championship has procedurally generated stages - which make drone surveys and reactionary driving very important skills - but sometimes you want to compete against other players on the same stage. We’ve added some (in-world) sponsored events where players can compete for the fastest times:

Daily Sprint Stage - for those looking for a fast race (estimated 1 - 2 minute stage)

Daily Endurance Stage - try and keep it together over a guaranteed long stage for the fastest time (estimated 8 - 12 minute stage)

Daily Ironman Stage - players only get a single chance at this stage, so make sure to use all 3 minutes of survey drone time to plan your route!



A full rally event forces players to approach it differently to a single stage. The key is balancing your tires and rover’s damage over 7 stages. To that end, we’ve also added:

Weekly Rally - race the same 7 stages as other players and see who can finish with the fastest time when all is said and done.

All of our new events have competitive leaderboards:



We’re always trying to balance rover damage so it feels more predictable, and we’ve taken another step in this direction. A single impact can mean death for your driver (if it’s hard enough of course), but avoid that and damage is sure to accumulate over time. During a Rally, you will be forced to make some hard choices on which parts to repair and which you think you can deal with.

We’ve also added breakable headlights - good luck driving through a thick fog in the dead of night without them!




We’ve added tire punctures and tire pressure. Hit a sharp rock too hard and you might get a tire puncture, the pressure draining slowly over time. Eventually your tire may detach completely, leaving you driving on a wheel rim only!




In Exo Rally you’ll flip your car a lot. Seriously. It’s a very important thing to know when you’re upside down, as is just how steep the hill you’re trying to climb might be, so we’ve added a pitch ladder to the HUD:




We talked a bit about our procedural stages above, but another thing to mention is we’ve refined how one of the seed characters work and given players complete control over the length of the stage. If you like a certain stage but think it’s too short, all you need to do is change one character in the seed and you’ll get a much longer version (and vice versa)



We’re also now storing your most recent and your most played seeds so you’ll never forget your favourite stages.

Welcome to the November Exo Rally Championship update!

This month we’ve been working on a new planet and a more feature rich, more punishing damage system. There’s lots more damage types, like bent RCS thrusters/locked or destroyed brakes/snapped off suspension arms (you're really in trouble...) and even destroying your exterior camera link:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LnyfGx1YNF4

[previewyoutube][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Industrial Planet[/h2]
While the majority of planets in Exo Rally will likely be natural, uninhabited worlds, the handful of monoliths scattered on Dhool made us feel that there was some serious fun to be had riding man-made walls and structures.

Given how much verticality there is on this planet, objects to avoid, walls to ride, etc, we’re also using it as a test-case for quite low (almost .5 earth) gravity and high (3x?) atmospheric drag. So you’ll float a bit more and not reach such deadly falling velocities.

The industrial planet will be the most built up surface we will race on, featuring almost purely man made buildings, walls, streets, tunnels, bridges and so on. It should help inform us of what the polar opposite of a natural world is like, and what challenges lie here for development going forward. Basically it's serving as a prototype for all levels that feature any artificial driving surfaces, and challenging our existing terrain-only physics at the same time!

Right now we’re prototyping various surface and structure types and seeing what stages are like, and once we’ve locked down the geometry we will proceed with detailing it, adding visuals etc.

Here’s a peek:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]RCS Thruster Heat[/h2]
RCS thrusters now generate heat when you use them - if you push them too hard and they overheat, you can't use them until they've cooled back down. Driving at high speed or in the rain will help with cooling! We’re also highly considering an override for overheating, in the same vein as Mechwarrior. So if you override and keep overheating, you’ll suffer things like thrusters melting, fuel exploding and so on.



[h2]Tire Degradation and Selection[/h2]
Expect to start losing grip as your tire tread wears down (especially during a rally where you have a limited tire allocation). Before the start of a rally, you’ll now choose 2 sets (with spares) based on the lengths of upcoming stages, their surface types and weather conditions. Depending on how many tires or wheels you shred or rip off during the rally, you’ll find yourself swapping tires in and out based on their wear, their position on the rover, whether it’s a spare, etc.

Tire Set Selection


Changing Tires Mid Rally


When you reach a certain level of tire slip (wheel spin), the HUD will also alert you by flashing the wheel icons.

On that note, both offroad and slick tires now have a choice between soft/hard compounds, and traction in general has been slightly increased.

[h2]Power Stages[/h2]
The final stage in a rally is now a power stage, which is a repeat of the shortest of the previous stages and awards extra points for the top 5 finishers. Dropped the ball and are coming in way down the order? Save your tires for the power stage and get yourself some much needed points. Fighting for first place but have already pushed your tires to the limit? Take it easy on the power stage - securing first place is more important.

[h2]Meteor Showers[/h2]
Meteor showers are much deadlier now, as they throw out shrapnel upon landing. The high speed shrapnel pierces your rover like bullets that can damage important components. Avoidance is key!

Meteors now have the following characteristics - direct hits are usually fatal, near misses throw the rover about and unsettle you, especially if you’re airborne, and shrapnel can rip through your systems if you’re too close to impacts.



[h2]Skid Plate Scraping & Sparks[/h2]
Rover skid plate/floor collisions and scraping is much improved, allowing you to setup a much lower rover (we're including some presets if you want to test them out). The thick floor plate features some damage impact reduction, but eventually if you scrape along too much you’ll wear through it and start taking more serious damage.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Wet Rain[/h2]
Watch it reflect in satisfying wayz in the rain plz!:


[h2]And More[/h2]
There are lots more improvements/fixes too, like to the UI and Dhool’s terrain features. Overall we're hoping rallies give a real sense of impending doom as you manage rover repairs and tires to hopefully get you to the end.

October 2023

Hi all, it’s been a few months since we announced the game, which we’re calling “The final frontier of racing - remote, unexplored, extreme exoplanetary rally!” If you didn’t catch that first post, here’s an overview of the game: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2262020/view/3671043467005543838?snr=1_5_9_

So here’s an update on where we’re at, approximately 1.5 years into development:

Vertical slice is in/working well - you can now run a single 6 stage rally on one planet, complete with service stages, drone recce/prerunning, surface types, damage, repairing, rover tuning, first pass AI opponents and so on. You can enter the rally, look at the upcoming stage, how long it is, what surfaces and terrain to expect, and send out a drone to survey what you’ll be driving through.



You can then choose how much fuel to take, what tires (off-road or slick for rock), and setup/tune your rover.



After driving 2 stages you’re back into your dropship where you can make repairs or alter your tuning based on the next 2 stages. You can watch all the action from each stage via Instant Replay from a variety of angles, and if you complete the next 4 stages from there, your time will be tallied against the AI to determine your final placing.



From here, the biggest thing we need to add will be multiple, quite varied planet types, so you can race a full championship across 5-6+ planets! The first planet we have is Dhool, which is special due to its unceasing meteor falls, which create an ever changing series of deadly obstacles to dodge around, and which also cause the atmosphere to be filled with an incredibly fine dust that gets everywhere, and clogs everything if you aren’t careful. It’s also home to some highly radioactive lakes you’ll need to be very careful around.



Most recently we’ve been focused on tuning and damage, and I’ve begun prototyping the next (very very different) planet, which will represent the opposite end of the spectrum for what kinds of planets you’ll encounter in Exo Rally Championship.

Tuning is available prior to starting a rally, and during service stages, and allows players to adjust everything from tire choice to suspension stiffness to toe-in and bump/rebound damper settings. If you’re used to setting up cars in existing racing sims you’ll feel right at home here. We’ve also got a streamlined, ‘easy mode’ setup system, where you can either load complete setups (for example, stiffer/low riding/responsive or softer/tall suspension setups) or provide top-level setup choices like ride height and suspension stiffness.



Damage is a huge part of Exo Rally, and we’re pouring in lots of time to make sure you feel the impact these toxic, treacherous planets have on every part of your rover. We’re modelling everything from standard engine damage all the way up to how radioactive nano dust gets in and impacts your brake strength and radiator efficiency. So make sure you wash your rover between stages! Just a small number of parts that can be damaged/break:

• Engine
  
• Tires and Wheels
  
• Suspension
  
• Suspension arms
  
• RCS Thrusters
  
• RCS Fuel Tank
  
• Brakes
  
• Steering
  
• O2 leaks and Cabin Integrity
  
• Headlights
  
• And much more!
  

We’ll be polishing up this current build and sharing it soon with our small group of private testers. If you’d like to be considered for the next group of testers please come join us in the Discord and we’ll let you know!

Discord: https://discord.gg/75wYhXzHP3


Would love to hear any feedback or ideas you have, or what you’d like to see in Exo Rally, so feel free to join us on Discord or leave a comment here.

You can also follow us on Twitter here:
https://twitter.com/JayWeston

https://twitter.com/biscuitsmitten

https://twitter.com/RhysLindsay