Since it's been a little while, it's a big one! The current planet list now includes:
- Dhool (meteor desert world)
- Lunar (Earth's moon)
- Tensei (strip mined, earth quake riddled planet)
- New Earth (terraformed forest planet)
...and we've recently begun work on a deadly volcanic world, "Fusang". Here's a look at both:
New Earth was seeded with trees and grasses from earth over the course of 100's of years, creating a green, earth-like forest-world.
This planet is somewhat easy to drive with plains and rolling hills, but of course with densely wooded areas, destruction is always close at hand! Terraforming structures still dot the landscape, emitting gas that is still helping to fine tune the atmosphere - it creates dense blankets of cloud that completely block visibility. If in doubt, flat out?
Fusang, a tidally locked planet in a system orbiting a nearby black hole, features a raft of deadly challenges, including tire-melting lava, fuel-igniting temperatures, fire tornadoes, lava fountains and more.
Even today's tires can manage a brief skip over lava, due to rubbers low thermal conductivity, but in the near future of Exo Rally, drivers can push the limits by 10s of seconds before their tires pick up molten clinkers, catch fire and finally explode. It's just wise not to spin your wheels and really dig into the molten surface...
In the furnaces of open volcanos and whirling fire tornados, your tires can melt, rover's systems can cook and ignite your RCS fuel tanks if you stay too long, or push your RCS heat levels so high they're unusable.
If your rover takes too many showers in lava fountains, it'll collect more and more molten rock, weighing you down, sticking to tires and jamming up suspension.
And like Tensei, Fusang is also visited by earthquakes as a nearby black hole pulls on the planet.
Finally, you'll have to dodge incoming lava bombs ejected from numerous volcanoes dotted across the landscape. GL, HF!
We've added tornadoes to Dhool's storm weathers, and also Fusang in a fire variant. In the outer radius, your rover is showered with shrapnel that can puncture tires and vital systems. And of course the closer you get, the more your rover is pulled around before being lifted off up into the funnel entirely.
Tornadoes move across the surface as well, so you'll need to adjust your racing line to steer clear.
Players familiar with current day off-road racing or simulations might already be familiar with the new, super customizable dual-rate springs and 6-stage bypass shocks that allow players to adjust spring strengths and dampers by compression distance and speed, both bump and rebound.
We've added a power sweet spot, where >50% heat level will gain you additional thruster strength. Power was slightly reduced below this threshold. We've also got per planet heat baselines and heat up/cool down rates, which for example means that the Moon has a low baseline, but very slow cooldown due to lack of atmosphere. Thrusters will now more realistically shed heat faster at high temps, and glow as they heat up.
We've added detailed overheating mechanics, including the ability to cancel automatic RCS shutdown. Once you reach > 100% heat, your RCS will take more and more damage effects like melting, fuel leaks, jams, thruster explosions and finally catastrophic fuel tank explosion. So while a strategic and brief override into >100% heat levels occasionally is ok, if you really push it you'll regret it!
We'll be launching with the following events:
- Daily A (random class/planet)
- Daily B (random class/planet)
- Weekly (random class/planet)
- Ironman (one attempt only)
- New "Oblivion" type. For those that thought Ironman was too easy, in this mode, you'll have one attempt only with no droning, no stage overview, cockpit view only, limited RCS fuel and no spare tires.
Physics optimizations: frame rate (accuracy) around 4x'd for around the same performance, should help with damage consistency. Playtesters, please let us know if you notice any degraded feeling from handling or frame rate problems.
Some performance improvements on CPU and GPU
New damage detection system to go with above. Damage may currently be a bit too high, but should feel consistent.
New suspension system, dual rate springs, 6 stage bypass dampers
Initial rover setups for above, some might need more tuning than others
New 'testing' sliders for suspension
Added downward force to rover test-drops on service screen, not just height as it was before (needs tweaking!)
Tuning sliders rounded up/dn
Old style 'terrain scanner' partially back in (only shows drop offs, the main 'impossible to see' terrain)
New planet, New Earth, terraformed forest world
New Dailies: Daily A, B, Weekly (all classes). New type (Oblivion)
Oblivion: Ironman-like with no droning, no stage overview, cockpit view only, no spare tires.
Tornados in Dhool's storm weather
RCS heat changes: 'power sweet spot' >50% heat. Per planet heat baselines and heat up/cool down rates.
RCS overheat damage: thrusters melt/rotate/get blocked/explode etc
RCS heat shutdown override: engage before or after overheating to risk damage to RCS but maintain control. D-Pad Up, Up.
RCS repairs added for above
RCS thrusters glow when reaching critical heat levels
Lunar RCS heat: due to lack of atmosphere, cooling is severely reduced, but starting temps are lower.
Checkpoint light wall brightness method change (let us know if any too dim or bright)
Hopefully improved transparency handling with light walls and other transparent particles/fx
Tweaked chassis colliders on mining and rover classes (let us know if any bad looking collisions),
Credits screen added
Dust storm weather particles not completely opaque anymore
While we were aiming for mid this year for release, some unexpected personal issues have come up that have made that a bit too ambitious right now. Q4 is now looking more likely.