It took a while to get this out of the oven, but here it is, the brand new and much improved Light Campaign has been added to the ongoing open alpha with the 4.2.15 patch. So what do we see as the main changes since LCV4.1?
Note: To opt into the open alpha, right-click the game in your Steam Library, select Properties, Betas, select the openbeta branch and let the game update.
[h2]Light Campaign V4.2[/h2]
The largest improvement we see in the much improved feedback on your car designs in terms of potential sales. Being able to not predict in any way what volume of cars you would be able to get to the market was like flying blind. This has been addressed by the markets tab in the car designer, which now allows you to set a price and see potential sales numbers for your car before any production setup has happened. This adds lots of predictability and gives that essential clue as to how to size your factories before setting them up! Of course it still requires the skill of knowing how to design a car to make it producible at a reasonable cost... so that you have that much needed margin to get out of the debt hole you likely dug for yourself.
Being able to see sales potential right when you design your car model and its trims.In the same vein, the forecaster has been improved and fixed. It can now give pretty decent predictions of what will happen in the context of your future line-up, instead of providing often poor guesses.
More relevant information illustrated right in the factory setup where it is needed.In the factories themselves, a lot of UI improvements have been made to give you more relevant information right there. A new staffing mechanic allows players to balance worker quality and wages, versus the available pool of potential workers. While you'll be able to fill a 1990s Gasmean medium factory with good staff within a handful of months, in 1940s Archana you would be waiting years to do the same.
Much better direct feedback on what is going on with your marketing efforts.The very first iteration of the new, detailed world map makes an appearance too! Still a work in progress, the new map is the foundation upon which a detailed lore will be built.
A tiny render of a big world!Hundreds of smaller changes and fixes have made their way into campaign as well over the past three months of focused development, too numerous to list here, but they certainly will be felt.
Here is a brief getting started video for the new campaign!
https://youtu.be/VubXCn3mzqQ
[h2]What else has been going on?[/h2]
In the background we've continued work on the massive engine designer revamp which from scratch revises and replaces the engine designer calculations with those you've seen as part of the turbo revamp of this 4.2 milestone. The plan is to switch out the remaining naturally aspirated base calculations with fully updated ones as well, turning this part of the game more into an actual simulator while keeping its usability.
The prototype of the new engine calculations now considers all throttle settings and maps them.The latest two Little Dev Update videos go deep into these changes and you should definitely check them out to see what is coming!
https://youtu.be/x4gWjOfUf-0
https://youtu.be/GBzEAiLPsu4
We're continuing to work out these fundamentals and implement them into Automation at the moment in a separate development branch until they are ready to be switched out. Once the naturally aspirated engine calculations have been fully revamped, we'll focus back on getting the 4.2 milestone goal of sequential turbos ready as well.
[h2]Patch 4.2.15 Changelog[/h2]
Since most of the recent work has focused on both the engine calculations and campaign, the changelog is mostly about "all the other things" instead. Here is what's new in LCV4.2.15 beyond the addition of the campaign!
[h3]Gameplay Fixes & Improvements[/h3]
- Added Steam Rich Presence hooks to Automation!
- Fixed rim weight calculation using tire diameter instead of rim diameter
- Fixed harmonic dampers being far too expensive in material costs
- Tweaked seating row availability for various bodies
- Changed warning thresholds for brake fade
[h3]Art Fixes[/h3]
- Reworked exhaust glow progression and coloring
- Made it possible to apply glass to rims by default
- RTX settings are now stored in photoscene presets
- Fixed ray-traced shadowing settings not working at all
- Fixed performance problems in Modern Studio and 90s Studio photoscenes
- Fixed poor photoscene performance when car loaded, mostly blur related
- Fixed boxer engine short cast turbo manifold having an enlarged texture
- Fixed headlight "bases" having no texture defined
- Fixed visual issues with chunky offroad tire tread
- Fixed fixtures being lit drastically different to bodies when using the same material
- Fixed rendering artifacts in desert gas station when ray tracing was enabled
- Fixed editable text fixtures not hiding when hiding fixtures in the photoscene
- Fixed Fixture3d_SpareHousWheel_02_FPD and another being in the wrong fixture family
[h3]UI Fixes & Improvements[/h3]
- Import function for .car files will now move them to /Imported folder instead of deleting them
- Added prompt to fixture UI to allow unlocking to delete missing fixtures
- Added a back button in car paint slot paint selection panel to return to slot selection panel
- Added tag/list views to engine selection buttons in car designer
- Added notification to tell users when the text they input into an editable text fixture is too long
- Fixed car pricing UI not allowing manual pricing input
- Fixed drag of rotation or translation axis on props not calling place-on-ground on completed drag
- Fixed issue where fixtures selection sometimes created a new fixture instead
- Fixed placing engines in cars resulting in engine year being changed
- Fixed colour picker mode switching
- Fixed colour picker slider colour bars not fading out correctly in the photoscene
- Fixed photoscene colour grading gain slider functionality
- Fixed animatics not stopping when escape is pressed
- Fixed car selection button on side stats bar getting too large with large car names
- Fixed held engines not retaining turbo count
- Fixed engine engine not recalculating when changing from turbo to naturally aspirated
- Fixed placement of photoscene transform widget
- Fixed categorization of some interior fixtures
- Fixed fixture gizmo UI not fully entering the screen sometimes
- Fixed engine bay clearance warnings being out of sync with engine bay widget
- Fixed body preview tooltips not updating after keybind change
- Fixed adding another car in photoscene having UI problems when using grid mode
- Fixed "ignored suggestions" UI not updating correctly
- Fixed car and engine manager showing stats when no item is selected
- Fixed blown-up turbo motors that keep revving on the engine testing UI
- Added "copy error to clipboard" button to lua error popup
[h3]BeamNG Exporter[/h3]
- Fixed interior fixtures to all be marked unbreakable with cardinal lock on
- Fixed cloth paints and fabric paints tend to export glossy to BeamNG
We definitely expect there to be a significant section of campaign bugfixes in the following patches, but we do hope you'll be able to dip your toes in even in this early version.
Let us know what you find and share your feedback in the appropriate threads.
Thank you again for your patience and enjoy!
Cheers!
Great custom build by Audi ( ... the discord user on our server, not the brand) :P