The biggest change to Automation gameplay fundamentals ever! Sorry for the long wait for this patch, its core features have been worked on in parallel for many months. Now is the time to finally let you have a play with the all new engine designer and many many other things that have improved tremendously in the last two months since the last big patch. Hang in there, this will be a big juice change log to read.
What’s under the hood? The Engine Designer Revamp!? The Abanti 850 CT (by java) [h2]Big Engine Designer Revamp[/h2]
Following the big overhaul of turbo calculations that relied on completely new calculations simulating airflow and temperature throughout the engine, we have now converted the remaining general naturally aspirated calculations over to being all new too. With that, a lot of dependencies have been added, giving the engine designer much more depth and nuance. Previously, we only calculated full-throttle data for each engine, then fudged the throttle effects for the fuel economy calculations and that was it. Now the engine is calculated for every 100 RPM like before, but also in 1% throttle increments; making engines in Automation go from being one-dimensional to being two-dimensional.
Now you can see all the information needed for proper tuning at once with the 4-way split graph.The result of this rework is a game changer, literally and figuratively. With all that come new complexities, opportunities, nuances, and lots of compromises in how you approach engine design. To aid the process, we have created several new graphs that show all that new data available to you. The gravity of the underlying changes meant that in the past weeks we’ve had to do a fair amount of due diligence for how this all plays out. What followed was a lot of tweaking to how data is presented and interacted with, and here we are at a point where we dare make this big change public.
We hope you are as intrigued and curious to dive into these changes as we are excited to finally deliver them to you!
Note: This update is posted to the opt-in openbeta branch of the game. If you want to try it out, you need to opt-in by right-clicking the game in your library, select Properties, Betas, then select the openbeta branch and letting the game update.
[h3]Engine Designer Revamp[/h3]
- Improved: A complete foundational overhaul of all naturally aspirated engine calculations. Simulating airflows, pressures, and temperatures throughout the engine.
- Added: Carb, Intake, and Header Size sliders for optimizing engine component flows.
- Added: Cam RPM switch-over slider for VVL.
- Added: A Balancing Mass bottom end weight slider (read “flywheel.. and more, kinda”).
- Added: Split up Short Cast headers into Cast Low and Cast Mid header options.
- Added: New simulated spark ignition fuels and blends (ethanol, LPG, LNG, methanol, nitromethane).
- Improved: Reworked throttle response and its importance (see car designer changes).
- Improved: Reworked all effects on octane requirements, including the compression slider.
- Improved: Reworked all valvetrain stats.
- Improved: Increased engine variant stroke range from 15%, to 30% smaller than family stroke.
- Improved: Valve float progression and reliability effects.
- Improved: Manifold and header resonance curves have been revamped and rebalanced.
- Improved: All fuel systems have been revised for more accuracy and rebalanced.
- Improved: Header glow now based on calculated exhaust gas temperatures.
- Improved: Big overhaul of EQ on engine sounds (thanks Zilverblade)
- Removed: Ignition Timing Slider. Due to how it never was realistic to begin with, now it would just be ridiculous to set a single timing value for the whole engine’s operating range. Instead, ignition timing is now a fully dynamically generated 2D map which your engineers set up for you, and hope you make reasonable design choices... ha ha.. ha.
[h3]Engine Designer Graphs & Usability[/h3]
- Added: New 2D maps (throttle vs. RPM) for Ignition Timing, Fuel AFR, and BSFC.
- Added: A 4-graph-split view for the engine designer.
- Added: Explode icon to power and torque graph with failure reason(s).
- Added: Updated graph descriptions and added in-depth ones for most of the new maps.
- Added: AI tuning button to aid in making working engines.
- Added: Tooltips for engine graphs to show flow ratings in kg/s | lb/min.
- Added: New warnings for timing/knock.
- Improved: Different graphs are now directly selectable via buttons.
- Improved: Flow & Stress bench now auto-switches to show engine failures.
- Improved: Flow panel now shows flow relative to design flow rating in %.
- Improved: Renamed Intake to Manifold. Moved manifold flow tile to after fuel system / carb.
- Moved: RPM Limit slider to Top End section.
[h3]Engine Designer Fixes & Miscellaneous[/h3]
- Added: Header material slot for engine aesthetics.
- Fixed: Header to exhaust flange not hiding correctly.
- Fixed: Fuel availability tooltip always showing 1940 data.
- Fixed: Hold engine, then clear engine not restoring the text on the button.
- Fixed: Air filter trim paint slot name formatting.
- Fixed: Engine headers remaining glowing after stopping engine testing.
While the complete rework of the engine designer was taking place, most of the team did just continue improving the game and adding useful features. This means that beyond the big hitting engine designer changes, there is a LOT more to share with this update.
[h3]General Improvements[/h3]
- Added: New “auto-hold” functionality that compares the current engine to the one present when you started making changes to the specific design choice or slider you’re on. This is activated for the power / torque graph as well as several car designer graphs. It makes tuning so much better with direct feedback!
- Added: Hold-to-click logic for buttons, with time controls in the settings menu.
- Added: New camera controls in car and engine designer which includes profile view buttons.
- Added: Arrow key controls to slide sliders, with a 1-second hold burst mode.
- Added: Better wheel offset and rim size maximum logic to car ai.
- Added: Mouse-scrolling for horizontal selection widgets, like rim size, swaybars etc.
- Added: Multi-car .car exporting from the car manager. Model or multi-trim with CTRL + Click
- Added: First-time start-up settings menus.
- Added: Item lists show unavailable items with tooltips explaining why they are unavailable.
- Improved: UI Buttons have improved style/tweaks to look more crisp.
- Fixed: DLSS starts enabled by default and can't be switched off.
- Fixed: Color pickers not correctly loading colors when switching between RGB and HSV modes.
- Fixed: Lowering car/engine years not causing UI to move & lock if parts are no longer valid.
- Fixed: Automation icon in font not being circular or centered.
- Fixed: Car passenger area is not shown on car stats in list view.
[h2]Car Designer[/h2]
There are tons of little things added here that will make the car designer much more usable and versatile. One big gameplay change I’d like to highlight are the changes to the sportiness stat. Throttle response has been made a new base value for sportiness. This change provides a lot more nuance in how older cars perform, as throttle response is not much of an issue with most carbs, making non-zero sportiness values much more accessible earlier than before. That was a problem before, because if nothing is sporty, then everything is sporty.
The revamp bleeds into the car designer, with a BSFC map allowing informed gearing choices.Throttle response now also ties into wheelspin. Utility vehicles with low gearing getting big wheelspin penalties was rather ridiculous, and throttle response is the answer here too: low response engines multiply down the penalties from wheelspin, while high response engines multiply them.
[h3]Car Designer Improvements[/h3]
- Added: The test track and detailed stats to trim graph buttons to view while designing.
- Added: Tyre shine & tread controls to advanced trim controls.
- Added: The ability to copy fixtures, paints, advance trim settings or morphs to and from the clipboard and between cars from the Advanced Trim Settings widget. Also added the ability to copy fixtures, paints and advance trim settings from cars even when they are unable to import.
- Added: Front & Rear Tyre Tread Depth sliders to advance trim UI.
- Added: Mouse-wheel scrolling on textboxes in 3D transform widget for fixtures and props.
- Added: A Clone-In-Place, and a Flip & Mirror To Opposite Side buttons to fixture controls.
- Added: A new cast iron fixture material.
- Added: Rear Bumper & Pillar trim as selectable material slots in All Fixtures material list.
- Added: “Hide Turbo" button to advance trim settings.
- Improved: Rework of many dependencies in the sportiness stat calculations.
- Improved: Rework of wheelspin, now affected by throttle response stat.
- Improved: Tweaked car fuel economy calculations for more accurate results.
- Improved: Different Graph views are selectable from a selection key, rather than left/right arrow.
- Improved: Reduced lag when making paint adjustments on cars with complex fixtures.
- Improved: Made the "Snap To Angle" checkbox bigger with an accompanying button.
- Improved: Reduced rear brake force minimum down to 20% to avoid over-braked light cars.
- Improved: Reduced the lag when changing the year in the top bar, especially in car body selection.
- Improved: Mouse-wheel scrolling on seat rows now increases or decreases the number of seats.
- Improved: Sorted advanced trim settings controls into tabs.
- Fixed: Not being able to delete missing fixtures.
- Fixed: Some fixtures highlighting red when undoing changes.
- Fixed: Tire material cost previews not reflecting speed rating.
- Fixed: Aerodynamic and interior quality tooltip data being incorrect.
- Fixed: Placing a fixture then clicking its mirror resulting in the fixture flipping.
- Fixed: Switching cars in sandbox leaving the previous car’s target demographic selected in side stats.
[h3]Bodies & Fixtures[/h3]
- Added: New 1985 EU to replace 90sSedan04.
- Added: New 1944 EU body.
- Added: New 1980s LMP body to replace the old one.
- Added: Dashlights (Thanks Endfinity).
- Improved: Many legacy bodies moved to the Legacy Bodies Mod that is now available on the Steam Workshop. Includes some bodies that were previously completely removed.
- Fixed: The grouping of some of the cutout fixtures.
- Fixed: Custom hood camera fixtures ignoring offset from the middle of the car.
- Fixed: Custom driver camera fixtures always being on the opposite side of the car.
- Fixed: Wingadinga bodies having the wrong morphs hooked up to moving the roof.
[h3]Photo Mode[/h3]
- Added: Twin cameras to photo mode for photo camera vs arrangement camera.
- Added: Spawned Car list to car settings in photoscene.
- Added: "Reset To Default" button to photo scene preset UI.
- Added: Buttons copy and paste photo scene presets from the clipboard.
- Added: A flashlight to the photo scene camera with controls in camera settings.
- Added: Several new default photo scene presets.
- Improved: Photoscene now tries to remember the last photo resolution setting.
- Improved: Sorted photo scene levels by name, so they always load in the same order.
- Improved: Photo scenes now remember the last scene setup when exiting.
- Fixed: Stopped mouse scrolling on photo scene slider titles causing sliders to change.
- Fixed: Photo scene camera filter not loading and saving to presets correctly.
- Fixed: Photo scene presets loading inconsistently and sometimes requiring multiple clicks.
[h3]Campaign[/h3]
- Added: Profit / Loss field to factory production pie chart.
- Added: "Uncheck All Projects" button to mass sign off screen.
- Fixed: When building a factory from the empty starting plots, add-ons are free.
- Fixed: Renaming a Factory in a Project causes a forecast refresh.
- Fixed: Fuel availability being too low for 91 in early 90’s.
- Fixed: Not all Trims showing in Trim Designer Markets Screen when designing a trim.
[h3]Mods & Mod Handling[/h3]
- Improved: Mod handling around failures or missing mods.
- Improved: Missing mods dialogue now has a "Subscribe All" button.
- Fixed: The mods list UI pagination index display is out by one.
- Fixed: Subscribing to a missing mod does not update the mods list in the setting menu.
[h3]BeamNG Exporter[/h3]
- Added: Center lug wheel hubs
- Added: Wheel hub stiffness modifier
- Added: Customizable sway bars
- Added: Customizable coilovers
- Added: Nitrous injection parts
- Added: Various global car modifiers.
- Added: Rim and tire stiffness modifiers
- Added: Ability to export cars unpacked
- Added: Standard and locking wheel hub bearing parts
- Added: Brake line lock
- Added: Configuration files now generate
- Added: Variable and non-variable power steering logic
- Added: Suspension sound will now change depending on suspension type and spring choices
- Added: Adaptive dampers now export, semi-active dampers export with partial functionality
- Added: Semi-active and offroad sway bars now export
- Added: Active sway bars export with partial functionality
- Added: Support for functional dash lights
- Added: Off-road drivemode
- Added: Interior sounds
- Added: A way to export cars with a CVT
- Added: steering trim slider
- Added: steering ratio modifier slider
- Improved: Adjusted wheel hub stiffness
- Improved: Car description and various other data is now displayed in the menu
- Improved: Changed first-person camera type
- Improved: Reorganized tuning menu groups to be more comfortable to use
- Improved: File name consistency
- Improved: Made wheels easier to break off on solid axle suspension
- Improved: Chassis meshes have been moved into a separate removable part
- Improved: Drivetrain quality and tech pool now affect shift delays
- Improved: Engine throttle response now defines engine inertia
- Improved: Engine smoothness now affects idle RPM roughness
- Improved: Tweaked brake torque application points
- Improved: Experimental aerodynamics changes
- Improved: Moved downforce application points
- Added: downforce tuning
- Added: support for constant downforce/lift forces
- Fixed: Air intakes showing on export even when hidden in advanced trim settings
- Fixed: V12s being super loud
- Fixed: Wheel powertrain definition not being set up correctly on FWD and RWD cars
- Fixed: driver and hood cameras being twitchy
- Fixed: RPM limit being too high
[h2]Outlook[/h2]
There are many more things on our list for what we’d like to add, but with this update all the really big things are out of the way and we are approaching a merge with the public default branch. That will have to wait a few more patches though. First we’ll address anything that needs urgent attention with this update, then we implement things that got left behind but should be in 4.2. One thing is certain, we need to get the public default branch updated sooner rather than later… think of all the players missing out on what has come out just in this patch, then think of all the other big updates since a year ago.
We hope you’re finding your way into this update and climb the learning curve quickly to discover all the beautiful newfound nuance the game has to offer.
Cheers!
Click the little techpool button in the lower right, then adjust your car's tech pool.