How long have you been playing Screw Drivers?
I installed Screw Drivers on June 25th of 2024 and I've spent over 800 hours in game by now. I added the supporter pack soon after installing the game and recently bought the first DLC.
How did you find out about the game, and what made you decide to play the game?
I saw Scrapman playing SD on YouTube and was attracted to the game right away. During my childhood, I played a lot with LEGOs, especially LEGO Technic. I've been looking for a game which allows me to build stuff in an equal way for quite some time now, but never was able to find what I was looking for. So when I learned about SD, obviously I had to try it right away!
What can you tell us about your vehicle?
Oh, my bus?! Yeah, it's a beauty, isn't it? 😄
I took inspiration from a Saurer 2SC, a beautiful old excursion bus from the '50s. It's not an exact copy, though.
It is quite hard to realize this specific design style in SD. You know, those old cars/buses have a lot of elegantly curved shapes and replicating them is quite a challenge. Somehow, I feel especially attracted to building stuff like this. (I did something similar with my GMC '40s military trucks and the DC-3 Airliner, for example). Getting close enough to the original shapes, so that the model becomes recognizable, gives me a great sense of achievement. 🙂
Concerning the '50s bus, the new DLC parts, specifically the curved cage parts, came in very handy. (Although they are very heavy, unfortunately). First of all, to make the round shapes of the rear roof part, but also to imitate some of the numerous chrome parts and trimmings busses from this era have.
I also added a nice interior, with a lot of seats, a steering wheel and even a stick shifter. I feel like a themed build just isn't complete without interior. Especially, if you can easily look inside, as in the case of my bus. The door can be opened and I really like the little stairs at the entrance.
As a final touch, I added some interior lighting. With the new lamp parts, I just couldn't resist making this little detail.
Technically, it was quite hard to make it work somewhat decently. It's a very heavy build at 5.1 tons. That causes some issues with the game physics, so the wheels tend to burn out all the time. Reducing the wind resistance and building a motor that has enough, but not too much power, brought the wheel spin down to an acceptable level. There's still a lot of wheel spin, but it settles down when reaching a certain speed. This little imperfection makes the bus less realistic, but actually very fun to drive!!! You can easily drift this 5-ton-monster through turns in a very controllable way!
So, what started out being a problem, ended up being a super fun feature and I love doing races with the bus! Even though it's far from being competitve 😄
How did you come up with the name of the vehicle?
The name I chose isn't very creative. It just describes the build: '50s-Style Bus (Loves to drift!!!) And that's exactly what you get.
How long did it take to create it, and do you know how many pieces there are?
The bus consists of exactly 1608 parts and I worked on it for three days. Most of it was done after the first day, though. During the following days, I just added some details, like the door and the interior lighting, and optimized some things, especially the performance. All in all it took me maybe around 10-12 hours.
Did you create it for a specific challenge, or why did you decide to create it?
I didn't do a big project for quite a while, so it was about time to build something epic again. I had the idea of making a bus while building the DC3's interior. Making a bus with complete interior, too, just seemed obvious to me.
If you could choose and new feature to add to the game, what would it be?
Well, first of all there's several bugs I'd love to see being fixed and some other things which should be optimized. The functionality the game currently offers is great. In my opinion, making it all work smoothly would benefit the game more, than introducing new features and most likely new bugs in the process.
Still, since I'm very much into building and flying planes, I'd very much appreciate it, if dedicated plane parts would be introduced to the game. I designed a set of such parts for this specific purpose in Blender and provided the developers with them already. So I have high hopes, that this might become a part of the game at some point.
Do you have any tips for a new player or someone that wants to get better at building vehicles?
My advice would be to just keep building! It's like with everything in life: The more practice you get, the better the outcome will be!
For people who wanna do themed builds, I suggest trying to get the shapes right first, and worry about the technical aspects, like engines and transmissions, later!
Also, whatever you wanna build, check the workshop for something similar, download the build and analyze it in the building editor. You can learn about many building techniques this way.
And, last but not least, join the Discord! It's definitely the best resource for any kind of information or help you might need! And the community is very friendly and welcoming!
Do you have any favorite vehicle from the Workshop that you use or take inspiration from?
There's a lot of interesting things on the workshop. Flame's Ornithopters for example are amazing. Afaik, he was the first to pull it off and I highly respect his innovative talent!
The Thrust SSC made by Vidden (on the workshop his name is Skalhamn) is just crazy. Snarf's Tiger tank is stunning. Whitedwarf's propeller cars are on another level. I love Funky Friz's bulldozer. There's so many...
I wouldn't exactly say that I'm inspired by these builds, though. I take my inspiration mainly from real life models.
I'd like to say thank you to the devs for making this wonderfull, creative game. It's great how close they are to the community and how they always try to listen to what the community wants and needs! Keep up the great work!!!
Thank you for having me and giving me the chance to show off my bus!
xoxo CatBurger23
Steam Workshop: '50s Style Bus
Developer Comments
I soo much love themed builds like this, and especially big ones like this bus. When I started creating Screw Drivers, I always imagined it to be possible to build really big vehicles, where the engine isn't even visible since it's hidden somewhere inside the car, and that the vehicle has mechanics to open/close doors etc. Hence I so much appreciate this bus from CatBurger and I love that it even drives this smoothely. Can't wait for a bus racing event! 😄 - Simon
A Bus??? That's insane! I love all the details like the bus drivers seat with the steering wheel, the ground which instantly gives me a back to school feeling and the stairs to get into the bus.
With the sunshine of the images I wish I could be on Isola Tornanti and just drive around in the bus to all the sightseeing points of the island.
And the bus driver is an grumpy king whos condemned to drive all the Prince and Princess around.
Love it! - Mark