Thrash Racer - Banger racing / life sim

[Artoo]

Hello, this is an early prototype of the racing game I´m working on, and the start of my feature video series. I moved this topic to the proper section 

I´m working on a site for the game with more details on the features, but I´ll just copypaste some from the video description here;

Test Drive Eve Of Destruction/Driven To Destruction meets My Summer Car in this banger racing/destruction derby/life simulator/car building and thrashing game set up in 80´s UK.

THRASH RACER

This is my racing game project that I´m working on. You can buy used cars from a scrapyard and repair them to work enough for banger racing.
Then travel to the race track and hope it makes it through the race weekend, and either scrap what´s left or use it as parts donor for your next race car.
You can also do side jobs to earn extra money, like work a car crusher at the scrapyard.
Compete in championships for different types of vehicles, and extra side events during the race weekends.
Everything on the cars is destructible, frames bend, every part can fall off down to just a driver seat (which can also fall off), liquids leak and soak the road, mechanical parts wear and give up.
You are always in control of your character, can walk around, work on your car and under it, and climb aboard behind the steering wheel, operate buttons and seatbelts in 1st person (+ some extra outside camera modes when driving). If you happen to break or roll your car during a race, you need to crawl out and run behind the safety fence.
Also, try to avoid getting hit doing that because you are also destructible, and can end up hospitalized or dead.

Driving model is aimed at realism, with support for FFB racing wheels and H-shifters, but it´s also fully playable with a keyboard with some driving helpers.
This is an early prototype, I´ve been mostly working on the AI system and the racing itself so far, it´s missing things like any graphics at all and proper sounds.

The AI is driving amongst themselves here, this took some time to get working but I think it´s getting there. Also, their aggression has been turned down on this video, so they are not yet crashing on purpose
Here´s a picture of the AI "brain"
Jeez!

You can follow the progress of this game on Twitter too now;
https://twitter.com/ThrashRacerGame

[Artoo]

Made the AI more aggressive (and the fsm more complex  )
I use rayscans to detect the other cars, maybe there is a better system.
The AI now attemps to ram anyone it "sees" attemping to overtake 

[Artoo]

Many new updates!
I´ll list some here;
-Improved perfomance
-Physics overhaul to fix bugs with wheels and tire pressures
-Damper, spring and tire damage
-Accumulating metal fatigue to frame from smaller impacts
-Fixed steering, no more wobbling front wheels
-Solid axle and crude progressive leaf spring simulation
-Many updates for the AI
-Slightly new name

Most of these cannot be really seen here, but also a new video! Pls ignore the current "movie" tires that screech on dirt!

Oh and if you have one of these thingies, you can follow me on Twitter too now;
https://twitter.com/ThrashRacerGame

[Artoo]

I thought my AI wasn´t racing very well, so I took a look into it.
Fixed some bugs and made new improvements, now it doensn´t panic as much anymore when being close to another car, that caused them to spread around the track before, now there can be some nice close racing in packs.

The AI also attemps to follow the optimal racing line in a corner, when it´s not blocked.

AI is driving in this video, about halfway through you can also see them trying to cope with more and more suspension damage from the hits.

The ground is a bit glitchy at times, need to fix those colliders.

I recorded this on a laptop, sorry for the rather poor fps and lag.

[600]

Looks great!
And nice AI driving FSM graph

[Artoo]

Looks great!
And nice AI driving FSM graph

Yea it´s a nightmare
Probably could be done better, but at least it works   

[Artoo]

I did some more fixing to the AI driving logics, now they do proper close contact bumper-to-bumper racing.
I had some bug in my system that caused them to freak out and change lane when another car was nearby :p

[Artoo]

Building a 1st person character movement system, now my person is about the size of a cat when proning, maybe need to make it a bit bigger.
Can fit under a car without even jacking it up tho.
Need to make a new video when the character controller is done 

[Artoo]

Been reworking my script system to load on command, instead of everything loading in the game start as it was for my test version.

New 1st person character system is also being implemented.

Here´s also some driving around with a really weak frame.

[Artoo]

I´ve been doing some experimentation on body on frame designs,
I´m attempting to make them behave differently from the unibody structures.
Lots of chassis flex and twisting for a softer ride, also behaves bit differently in crashes.

There are no springs or shocks installed on this car here, only flexing is from the frame 

[Artoo]

Experimenting some more on the body on frame chassis types, I attempted to simulate body mount bushings and what happens when they wear out to the point they break.
The body has some not-supposed-to-be-there movement and rotation on the frame for the play in the bushings, and starts slamming onto it on jumps.
The limits are set pretty extreme here so I could see what was happening.
Also, forgot that I set the tire pressures to 4 bars, made for a quite bouncy ride

Also, this

[Artoo]

I built a ramp to test frame rigidity.
The chassis might be a bit loose. 

[Artoo]

Some driving around with updated body on frame test chassis and new experimental collider system, now with some suspension too

https://twitter.com/ThrashRacerGame

[Artoo]

I did some experimenting how stretch limos with extra physical parts in the middle cope with the physics system, so far everything seems to be going smoothly! :>

[Artoo]

Been doing some modelling again after a while, so the character can drive properly