Change of plan

Hey everyone, hope you had a good start into 2025! Here's the latest from me: I got stuck while finishing work on the new camping grounds above the surface mine, so I switched to other tasks:

1) Implemented a new soft-body-esque damage system

2) Further work on sound

3) Tweaking the driving AI code & vehicle setup

4) Improving shadow performance

5) Preparing additional 3d models

That's why I'm first releasing v013S, with the above additions and some more experimental features.

*The new car damage system is a compromise between simulation and predictable results. In the pause menu, you can set "damage Mult" which affects the softness/damage resistance of the car. I've set mine to 2.0 currently and it feels pretty believable, although some impacts will deal less damage than they should (road signs, caravans). Feel free to see how it feels for yourselves and please do share your thoughts. Repairing takes place at each gas station - and for testing purposes you can repair incrementally by pressing "r".

*Sound-wise, there's a new engine sound on which I've worked excessively. I'm still not happy with it above 4500rpm but I've made good progress in the last days. Overall the sounds are a little rough around the edges, for example the wheel rolling and skidding sounds - it's a WIP :)

Also added transmission whine that sounds more like the real deal. It can be heard better at lower rpms.

*After additional work on the AI, the second car should be more capable and aggressive and you can now enjoy the view of it loosing control by enabling a bigger rear-view mirror in the pause menu "XL Mirror". Should the pursuers be too challenging, you can decrease "AI approach limit" and increase "AI distance limit" to 20 or more.

*Some of you have asked for v011 or a way to disable the enemy cars: You can "deactivate 2nd Car" in the pause menu. The first car will now only chase you if you pass-by with your headlights on. This way you can chill and drive around at your own pace. You can also toggle quiet mode by pressing "u" - this will shift gears at lower rpms.

*Finally, shadows are much less performance hungry. It can be even better but for that I'll have to convert all point lights to spot lights in the future.

*There are more new features, among others: work on clouds, particles, fog color... Probably forgot some things, I'll just let you drive now :)

Enjoy your Sunday, best wishes

Ondrej

Oh yeah, "Death" is back. If you use "resolution divider" and respawn, there's a bug where the aspect ratio is wrong: just disable "resolution divider" and it will look right again.

Yes, and "half res textures" is functional but I haven't been able to fix the blocky volumetric fog from the headlights. Yet.

[Edit: 2 minutes later] v014, with all the already finished new stuff from the surface mine region, will be released in the coming weeks followed shortly by v014VR - this will be the first time we get a VR version with the dump trucks :O

[Edit 04.04.2025] updated to v013St, which adds

1) 2 new villages and surrounding dirt roads

 2) Updated new grass ground material to be slippery with increased roll resistance

3) More environmental work on the first third of the map. Puddles, vegetation, etc...
4) Additional fine-tuning of driving A.I.
5) Increased distance between NPC cars when they're overtaking each other (in older versions they would be too close reducing their speed).
6) More work on wheel sounds
7) Both chase music pieces will now play together - based on distance from player. This needs more work as they will eventually not be synchronized, although sometimes this adds a kind of weirdness.