BeamNG.drive v0.24 update revamps two vehicles, new car announced

It’s been nearly four months since BeamNG.drive’s last update, but now the team behind the open-world driving simulator has just announced a raft of new improvements and additions just in time for the festive season with the release of the v0.24 build.

Pitched as the ‘2021 Winter release’ the most eye-catching upgrades to the sim in v0.24 are the revamps of the Gavril H-Series and 1996 Ibishu Pessima. Both cars are to receive remastered 3d models, parts upgrades, skins and new configurations to drive – and crash.

The BeamNG.drive team also continue their work on upgrading all the sim’s component parts with PBR – Physically Based Rendering – so now the terrain on the Jungle Rock Island, Utah, and Small Island maps is looking better than ever.

As well as changes to the graphics engine, Missions and The Mission Editor have been tweaked, allowing more customisation. Not only this but in the West Coast USA map there’s been adjustments to the police infraction system and traffic behaviour, so cinematic police chases should be even easier to achieve.

New items have been added too – ever wondered what it would be like to drive a little front-wheel drive hatch-back into a couch? Wonder no more!

Lastly, there’s been adjustments to the force feedback, with a new soft lock feature that mimics the real steering range of cars versus the range of your gaming wheel, as well as a general overall smoothing out of the force feedback experience.

As an added bonus, the BeamNG team has announced the arrival of a new car before Christmas – the Bruckell Bastion – a V8 muscle car.

BeamNG.drive v0.24 changelog:

Vehicles

REVAMPED VEHICLE – Ibishu Pessima (1996)

• Reworked the 3D model with ehanced detail, adjusted proportions and improved textures
• Reworked the Jbeam structure with better deformation and increased detail
• Added a large quantity of new parts:
• New engine and drivetrain customization
• New sport and custom body kits
• New spoilers, fender flares and other accessories
• New rollcage, racing dashboard and racing subframes
• New derby parts
• New wheels
• New underglow lighting
• Added many new configurations to fully flesh out the vehicle with a full compliment of factory and custom and racing models:
• New “Unpalatable” Derby racer
• New Taxi, Police and Detective Special models
• Reworked Street Tuned configuration with proper early 2000s style
• Reworked factory sport models, split between DOHC I4 and V6 models with unique styling
• New Rally, Drag and made-to-spec Touring Car racing configurations

REVAMPED VEHICLE – Gavril H-Series

• Reworked the 3D Model, Materials and added loads of new content
• Added Side-Door body styles
• Added Passenger body styles
• Reworked Interior (added new interior color options and passenger parts)
• Added High-End fascia
• Added Facelift parts (With Base and High-End versions)
• Added new Widebody Kit
• Added many new configurations and reworked existing ones
• Added factory two-tone skin
• Added “Vandal” skin
• Added “Curiosity Caravan” skin

Autobello Piccolina

• Interior and engine materials converted to PBR
• Fixed missing brake property cancellations

Bruckell LeGran

• Fixed race config using stock oilpan instead of race oilpan
• Fixed facelift SE V6 wagon using wrong transmission
• Added underglow lighting

Bruckell Moonhawk

• Added “Donk” Config

Burnside Special

• Added spare tire
• Fixed triangulation issues with seats
• Fixed missing dashboard and door panel stitching

Cherrier FCV

• Speed is now mono-spaced for better readability
• Interior materials converted to PBR

Gavril Bluebuck

• Fixed spare tyre being radial instead of bias ply

Gavril D-Series

• Fixed short dually bed UV issue
• Fixed short dually bed wheel well size
• Fixed crew cab long bed frame using wrong mesh
• Fixed unequal length of regular cab rock sliders

Gavril Grand Marshal

• Tweaked deformation of the rear end to be weaker

Gavril T-Series

• Added ‘steel pipes’ and ‘wood planks’ loads for the flatbed upfit
• Added missing surface cross beams on fuel tanks
• Added Collision helper nodes to the dump bed upfit to reduce the possibility of objects getting stuck in the sides of it

Hirochi SBR

• Fixed instability in front electric motor mounts in some crashes
• Tweaked positions of eSBR turn signal flares
• Redesigned Roof

Hirochi Sunburst

• Added underglow lighting

Ibishu 200BX

• Added underglow lighting

Ibishu Covet

• Fixed misaligned vertex in dashboard mesh
• Added underglow lighting

Ibishu Hopper

• Cleaned up duplicate meshes from crawler coilovers
• Fixed Carabinieri configuration default colors so the text on the skin is visible on spawn

Ibishu Miramar

• Reworked Interior materials to PBR
• New Interior color options

Ibishu Pessima (1998)

• Added underglow lighting

Ibishu Pigeon

• Fixed corner refNode definitions

Ibishu Wigeon

• Fixed corner refNode definitions
• Reworked canopy latch to prevent collision fighting issues when a rollcage is fitted
• Soliad Wendover
• Fixed race/rally hillclimb configurations using sport exhaust instead of race exhaust

Flatbed

• Reduced torsional rigidity and tweaked deformation
• Remade loads jbeam with reduced rigidity, better collision and deformation

Tanker

• Tweaked body deformation, improved collision and rigidity of various subparts
• Remade loads jbeam with more realistic liquid sloshing/surge behavior and fully adjustable volume
• Added new configurations with 22000L and 34000L load volume
• Added Couch and Armchair loads to Box Utility, Large Box Utility, Small Flatbed trailers as well as to Van and Pickup

Props

• Added Fridge
• Added Lounge Set
• Added Chair
• Added TV
• Added Cardboard boxes

Wheels

• Added Gavril 8-Slot wheels
• Added Wangan 3SP wheels
• Added Ibishu Type-VX wheels
• Added UTR Voltaire wheels

Misc

• Added unified generic gauges to relevant cars
• ETK800
• SBR4
• Vivace
• Wendover
• Roof bar loads
• Added Fridge Load
• Added Sideways Mounted Couch
• Added Wooden Pallet with:
• Front facing couch
• Front facing armchair

Levels

Automation Test Track

• Fixed traffic spawning on the racetrack
• Updated to the new cubemap

Cliff

• Updated to the new cubemap

Derby Arenas

• Enabled gated roads for racetracks and arenas
• Updated to the new cubemap

East Coast USA

• Small fixes
• Updated to the new cubemap
• Fixed wrong collision on a shop

Gridmap

• Updated to the new cubemap

Hirochi Raceway

• Updated to the new cubemap

Industrial

• Fixed depth in pothole road
• Fixed traffic spawning where it shouldn’t
• Fixed missing collision on racetrack tire barriers
• Updated to the new cubemap

Italy

• Fixed collision in Portino
• Fixed underground trees near Fastello
• Updated to the new cubemap
• Fixed AI decalroads

Jungle Rock Island

• Updated terrain, asphalt decalroad, and decal materials to PBR
• Updated to the new cubemap
• Fixed the bus route stops positions and names
• Created new bus route previews
• Improved depth map to prevent tires sinking into the river rocks material
• Fixed duplicate bus stop names
• Improved transition of runway
• Small fixes

Small Island

• Fixed small cork oak collision mesh
• Updated terrain, asphalt decalroad, and decal materials to PBR
• Updated to the new cubemap

Utah

• Updated terrain, asphalt decalroad, and decal materials to PBR
• Fixed a pronounced dip in the road near the camp site
• Fixed some rocks in the east not colliding with cars
• Fixed a gap that appeared between terrain and background when viewed from a distance
• Improved LOD models of bridges to reduce pop-in
• Improved river water visuals
• Updated to the new cubemap
• Updated lights

West Coast USA

• Fixed traffic spawning on racetracks
• Updated to new cubemap

Missions

Added Mission system:

• Play missions while in freeroam mode
• Missions are similar to scenarios, but can be started while in a level in freeroam
• Some missions will use your current vehicle, some will use a provided vehicle
• Some missions can be configured before starting (number of laps, traffic on/off etc)
• Missions can be viewed in Overview map mode

Available Mission Types:

• Time Trials: The original Time Trials routes. Available everywhere
• Bus Mode: The original Bus Mode with some improvements. Available everywhere
• Dragrace Mode: The original Dragrace mode. Available on West Coast USA and Gridmap V2
• Longjump: See how far you can jump with your own vehicle. Available on Utah
• Precision Parking: Park quickly and precisely for points. Available on Italy and East Coast USA
• Drift & Gymkhana: Slide around obstacles and curvy tracks. Available on Italy and West Coast USA
• Arrive: Get to a target point under many different conditions. Available on Italy

Create your own missions with the WIP Mission Editor

• Make more missions easily using existing Mission Types
• Make completely custom missions using the Flowgraph Editor and project templates
• Make your own Mission Types and Editors
• Mission System can be disabled in the settings (Settings > Gameplay > Use Mission System)

Powertrain

• Combustion engine now supports multiple output clutches
• Added throttle smoothing to electric motors
• Exposed electric motor regeneration curve to jbeam
• Added audio support for radiator cooling fans
• Tweaked audio support of BOVs and flutter
• Fixed an inaccuracy with audio load calculation when a combustion engine lost parts of its torque
• Fixed vehicle reset to cause combustion engine inertia change
• Tuned brake pad glazing behaviour, happens less now, doesn’t impact braking ability as much anymore

Controllers

• Improved transmission control when trying to reverse up a sloped surface
• Implemented a generic controller for in-car HTML displays
• Unified codebase for all displays
• Available data is configured in jbeam
• Can be extended via custom lua
• Previous gauge controller will be deprecated in the future, please upgrade mods to the new, generic version
• Fixed DSE for vehicles with > 4 wheels
• Jato controller moved from bus specific codebase to common controllers
• Tuned various reset parameters and heuristics of DSE virtual speed calculation
• Implemented ability to extend vehicle drivemodes via additional parts
• Improved support for shifting sequential transmissions with an H-Pattern shifter

Scenarios

• Improved AI for East Coast Chase #4
• Improved AI for all race scenarios in A Rocky Start
• Various fixes for ‘King Size’ scenario

Input and Force Feedback

• Xbox controller default layout changes. As you know, we provide extensive customizability of bindings. If you were using the defaults we provide for XBox controllers, you will notice these changes:
• The new menu system is now opened with the Select button
• Camera view can be changed with B
• Zoom controls are no longer bound by default
• Slow-motion has been made available in dpad-UP, replacing Enter/Exit Vehicle
• FFB improvements. For best results adjust smoothness and strength under FFB settings
• The default keyboard binding for the Quick Access Menu has been changed to ‘E’
• Added “Soft lock” option. This will attempt to keep your physical steering wheel within the valid angles of the currently selected vehicle. It can be disabled in Options > Controls > Force Feedback > edit binding > Soft Lock.
• Added bindings to easily test different strength and smoothing (will not save settings to disk)
• Added ‘Max Steering’ field to the ‘FFB Graph’ UI app, showing the short-term maximum steering value
• Reduced clipping of forces in default configuration for Logitech G923 for PlayStation and XBox
• Improved default FFB configuration for Sim-plicity SW20 direct drive steering wheel
• Added extra logging to detect cases when the user has selected a too great FFB update rate that is probably impacting framerate
• Fixed several steering wheels (including Sim-plicity SW20) vibrating briefly when switching focus to a different vehicle
• Fixed FFB Graph UI app not receiving data when it’s the only app on the screen
• Removed unused field ‘Rate’ from the ‘FFB Graph’ UI app
• Potentially fixed certain axes not being detected by the game, including Pro Racing Pedals, certain Fanatec handbrake configurations, and others)
• Increased the amount of supported buttons to 128 buttons per connected device (used to be 100)
• Increased the amount of supported pov-hats to 4 per connected device (used to only properly support 1, and a 2nd pov-hat would work incorrectly)
• Increased the amount of supported axes to 14 (used to be 7)
• Fixed inability to reassign certain controls (such as ESC key, which would normally close the Controls menu itself)

Physics

• Fixed a bug which caused the physics core to overlook collisions between vehicles when lots of vehicles had been spawned
• Added obj:actuateBeam(beamId, force, speedLimit, slipForce, slipSpeedLimit, minExtend, maxExtend) function. It controls beam/hydros in a physically correct way
• Added obj:apply2nodeTorque(torqueAxis, torque, nodeId1, nodeId2) function. It applies a torque on 2 nodes
• Physics core is tracking wheel downforce inside water too
• Small physics core speed optimizations (~3%)
• Removed float3 types that were returned by the physics core to vehicle Lua. Now the physics core will directly return vec3
• Removed node_count, beam_count, wheel_count attributes of obj
• Added softCollision flag (defaulting to false) to castRayStatic call. The flag controls if a ray will register collisions with soft/sandy/muddy surfaces
• Fixed vehicle width calculation that was affecting the AI
• Improved collisions to reduce clipping
• Improved tracking of playing status of sound sources
• Added obj:isPlayingSFX(soundId) function. It returns if the sound is playing or not

Traffic

• Set up traffic signals system for West Coast USA! Traffic now respects all traffic signals on current official maps
• Added police infraction for running through a red light
• Reduced police strictness for several player infractions
• Added ability for traffic to drive on the left side of the road; they will do this in Automation Test Track
• Added speed limit zones! The speed limit in areas such as downtown in West Coast USA is much more sensible now
• Improved the traffic vehicle pooling feature
• Added option to disable switching to traffic vehicles
• Created traffic debug tool to overview all the values for traffic behaviours (Window → experimental → Traffic debug)
• Created traffic behaviors using the personalities traits
• Flee → some cars will flee if they get scared (Bumped into too many times, or witnessing the player crashing in other cars)
• Follow → some cars will follow the player after being bumped into in order to make the player stop and exchange insurance information (some of those cars will even chase you if you don’t stop)
• Reworked despawn logic of the traffic

AI

• Fixed traffic bumping into each other when pulling over for emergency vehicles
• Applied “rubberband” aggression mode as a default for Flee, Chase, and Follow modes; if it is turned off, manual aggression will be used
• Added parameters function and table for detailed values and actions
• Added stop point as a property of the AI plan
• AI vehicles may honk their horn if they are blocked at a green light
• Implemented a Darboux frame-based road coordinate system with tangent, normal and bi-normal directions. This allows for improved movement of the plan nodes on the road surface.
• Implemented lane change logic to detect and execute a lane change as required
• Improved multi lane one way road lane localization
• Optimized plan geometry calculations
• Chase mode bug fix when target vehicle is moving towards ai vehicle
• Traffic mode bug fix when extending the travel path

Audio

• Added plastic impacts
• Added audio support for cooling fans
• Added stereo headphone mode
• Added UI sounds and ambiences for overview map mode and main menu
• Added bespoke backfire samples for 6-cylinder engines
• Improved supercharger 1+3 loops
• Suspension response improvements – car balancing ongoing
• Straight cut transmission tweaks to pitch. added distortion to race version
• Loose surfaces separated into roll/skid events with new ‘depth’ parameter controller added
• Distance based DSP effect on surfaces emulating frequency shifting of a moving vehicle’s tires on a hard surface
• Fixed surface roll distances which were accidentally set too low
• Added independent jbeam control of turbo bov pressure (with a turbo size coef) and volume/gain

UI

• Improved design and UX
• Added new Map Overview mode (M key by default)
• A new mode to get an overview of the map, which shows you missions and spawn points
• Click anywhere on the map to set a navigation point and have a route generated to it
• Select a mission to navigate to or select a spawn point to teleport to it
• Added “…” checkbox to the vehicle search filters: this allows to ignore/include unrecognized vehicles from the search
• Added a new field to vehicles info.json, ‘Code’. This field is for now only used by the Vehicle Selector menu, where it helps clean up the labels. See the ETK 800 Series as an example, where “800 Series 854t” has now become “854t”. Also see the two Pessima generations, now named “Pessima VM301” and “Pessima VM501” (thanks to their different chassis codes)
• Fixed UI app checkbox “View in cockpit” not being saved properly
• Minor improvement to the Vehicle Selector menu filters appearance
• Added a button that opens the User Folder, located in the Help > Storage section menu
• Added ability to display modded bindings assigned to categories that don’t exist. New categories will be appended at the bottom of the list
• Improved wording on the tip shown after the engine has stalled
• Navigation app now displays missions and can open the map
• Fixed an outdated help link in the Unresponsive UI warning dialog
• Added German and Polish translations
• Updated design & spawning method of the Traffic UI app
• Integrated the ‘Advanced functions’ into the normal user interface by default (the option checkbox has been removed as it’s no longer necessary)
• Pause indicator is now integrated into the new UI
• Optimized Photomode, should now take screenshots a few tenths of a second faster than usual
• Fixed physics benchmark details now working correctly in Options > Perforamnce menu
• Fixed missing icon for Options > Licenses
• The game can now be exited without having to go through the initial introductory main menu
• Improved gamepad d-pad icons
• Improved behavior of the navigation bar
• Cleaned up menu items and moved them out of the way

Cameras

• Improved ‘External’ camera obstacle detection, it will now try to avoid angles where vegetation is obstructing the view to the vehicle
• Improved ‘External’ camera tracking, it had stopped correctly predicting where the vehicle would go in the future
• Improved ‘External’ camera positioning when activating the camera for a second time after a while in other camera, if the vehicle was moving at speed
• Improved seat adjustment bindings so they can be easier to find in Options > Controls > Bindings
• Tweaked frequencies of ‘External’ camera behaviors, which was favoring handheld-like movements too often
• Various optimizations of camera code, contributing to a more stable framerate
• Added nodeOffset and nodeMove attribute support to onboard camera
• Removed external camera from the default camera switching rotation (can still be switched to with the number buttons)

Replay

• Added F2 and Shift-F2 as default bindings to record and cancel recording of replays. If you are using any external software that hijacks the Alt+R binding (such as Nvidia GeForce Experience), you need to either use the new F2 keys, or configure the external software to stop using BeamNG.drive’s key combination)
• Fixed some vehicles not being spawned for replay, leading to missing or invisible vehicles
• Fixed skids and other effects sounding different or missing in replays compared to the original gameplay

Game Engine

• Fixed zip metadata changing for each update, smaller download and faster patching for next updates
• Fixed performance graph UI update counter stuck at 0
• Fixed crash when game idle reduced for extended time
• Added prism shape to DebugRender, better fps when displaying AI road debug
• Improved performance of vehicle recovery

World Editor

• Reworked the design and features of the Multi-Vehicle Spawner window
• Added Import / Export feature to the Multi-Vehicle Spawner window to load and save individual vehicle group files (format: name.vehGroup.json)
• Fixed errors and improved usability of the Traffic Signals window
• Improved class search window in the Create Object Tool
• Fixed an issue when undoing a field change of multiple objects at once
• Improvements and bugfixes for dragging and dropping objects in the scenetree
• Fixed an issue where duplicated objects were not added to the scenetree properly
• Decal Road Editor
• Show selected roads’ length in the inspector
• Terrain Editor
• Fixed an issue where the square terrain brush sometimes had the wrong size
• Forest Editor
• Fixed an issue where the positions of forest items were wrong after undoing a transform operation
• Allow selecting which roads should show on the navigation app with the hiddenInNavi option

Flowgraph Editor

• Added Context-Translation nodes
• Added Vehicle Selector UI Node (WIP)
• Updated Variable Window
• Various minor bugfixes and improvements
• Transient Flowgraphs are now more apparent
• Updated traffic and traffic signal nodes
• Created new nodes for vehicle pooling system
• Created node for AI to follow a table of waypoints
• Enabled reset pin for AI Flee node

glTF exporter

• Fixed Tangent format
• Added export of materials (stay tuned for a separate announcement)
• Added export of props
• Implemented binary glTF, resulting in smaller file size

Lua

• Implemented work-in-progress version of a gameplay interface to simplify gameplay related communication between vehicle lua and and gamenengine lua
• AI mode
• Lightbar modes
• Light modes
• Powertrain device info request
• Electrics value request
• Electrics value subscription service
• Controller gameplay event
• Freezing
• Cleaned up various no longer required casts to vec3
• Dump() now allows for inspection of C++ objects
• Cleaned up some unintentional writes to v.data
• Fixed loss of static wheel sound data upon vehicle reset
• Small optimizations of mathlib.lua
• Fixed certain couplers not lighting up when pressing L
• Fixed beamShortBound, breakGroupType properties of beams being set to wrong default value
• Added support for impact sounds of plastic materials
• Transmit particle collision data as function parameters
• Optimized Lua function calls coming from C++
• Improved runtime memory allocations of game engine Lua. This improves frame time consistency
• Added hubSide1TriangleCollision and hubSide2TriangleCollision to pressureWheels. These attributes control the creation of collision triangles for the two sides of a wheel’s hub

ConsoleNG

• Fixed newline characters being printed differently on screen than in the actual log file

Are you looking forward to more BeamNG.drive content? Do you enjoy playing as much as we do? Let us know in the comments below.