hiiiiiiii! thought I'd post on here to say this project is very much still alive :)

Lately I've had a lot more time to work on it and have been able to put some work in on both the world streaming (more on that later) and the new vehicle physics.

I'd like to do a more in-depth discussion of how the physics work at some point since it's something i've been tinkering with for years now. For now i'll just say that it uses a separate system for suspension and tires. The tires are invisible but hopefully will allow the vehicle to have some satisfying bite and slide when handling, especially on different offroad surfaces. The suspension uses a totally different set of sample points (a grid of 16 right now) to provide a smooth, hover-car-like springy cushion. The suspension tracks the ground normal and traction, which the tires can sample. Finally, there is another system that applies drag forces to the vehicle. It separates horizontal and vertical drag, as well as horizontal and vertical angular drag, and applies different values when the vehicle is in the air.

It's still very much a work in progress, there is no acceleration curve or steering assistance, and there are definitely a million other tweaks to get it feeling good once other elements of the game are in place, but its got good bones and i'm happy enough with it to move on for now :)

If you want to check out the prototype, here are some notes:

• controls with WASD or arrow keys
• press "c" to toggle throttle lock
• click and drag the mouse to move the camera, click once to reset
• if you get stuck press "r" to flip
• you can toggle debug view with backspace
• press 1 to switch light modes for fun :)

There's nothing to do but you can drive forever and look for randomly spawning ruins, or try climbing some peaks! And enjoy the world's worst day/night cycle lol