Major update - Multiplayer, Gears, Chains, New Maps

Goood morning beloved Screw Drivers,

This one is a long one, so here is a TL;DR. Only one thing to note, before you dive into all the new stuff: Since Marc and me are currently busy working another project we had to accept to pay the bills, we won't be able to work much on Screw Drivers a few months. This is why we decided to make this huge update releasing everything we've worked on so far, for you to play around with and enjoy. This means, things might still be even more bugged than usual, and some things are not finished or balanced. But we wanted you to experience all of those things, instead of having to wait a couple of months for them to be properly finished.

That being said, here is the TL;DR, and below the detailed patchnotes. Enjoy!

TL;DR

- Every new feature of this update is still in beta, so if you find bugs, let us know and I'll fix them asap!

- Multiplayer is back, including the server files to host your own servers

- New parts: gears, gear shifter and chains

- Two new maps (Offroad and Pulo Pangripta)

- Character editor, drivers license, experience points, player level

- Six new suspensions, four new wheels

- Suspensions can be configured (Spring, damper etc.)

And now all of the above, but in great detail

Multiplayer

Multiplayer is finally back! I will try to host a server as often as I can myself, but you can now also host your own servers through the main menu. Keep in mind this is still very early and beta, so things might still be bugged causing connection issues, lags etc.

New maps

We have been working on two new maps! The first one is the Offroad island. A big island with lots of gravel roads, and also steep hills, bumpy terrain etc. There are also a bunch of races and challenges for the island, although the ghosts are still missing, they will come later ;)

The second map is Pulo Pangripta. This map is an older map from two years ago, which we first left out of the game. But I took it, placed new roads onto it and made it drivable. This map is highly focussed on asphalt roads with smooth transitions, nicely thoughtout corners for fun and high speed racing. There are already a handfull of races there, but we will add even more later!

New building parts

There are also a bunch of new building parts to play around with. No new engines yet, but those will come soon as well ;)

First there are two new gears, and two new gear holder parts to go along with them. The new gears have round holes in the middle, so if you build them onto axles, they won't spin. But how do you make them spin then? That's where the so called "gear holder" comes into play. This part can be attached right beside the gear to drive it through the axle.

These new gears allow for a brand new gear shifter, the "gear holder dynamic". With this parts, you can slide pins in and out of adjacent gears. This then either drives the left gear, or the right gear.

And to top that off, we also added a chain! This chain can be wrapped around as many gears as you want to drive them easily, especially if gears are difficult to connect due to their placement, or because they are far apart from each other.

Then there are three new offroad suspensions, and three new racing suspensions. These are also in a very early and unfinished state, because you will immediately notice, they are preeeetty big :D

They have different attachement points from the previous suspensions, and also different travel length. Other than that, they work similarly to the other suspensions.

Talking about suspensions, you can now configure all suspensions. Now you can adjust the spring strenght, the damper strength and also the progessiveness of the spring. This should give even more ways to perfectionize each vehicle.

And theeeen we also have four new wheels. These are:

- Oldie Wheel

- Racer Wheel

- Buggy Wheel

- Dirt Wheel 4

The first three of those wheels have similar grip and weights to the other street wheels in the game, while the dirt wheel is kinda similar to the other offroad wheels.

The exact weight, grip and radius values I haven't had time to enter yet, so they are wrong if you look at the information in the parts menu ;)

Character editor

We finally added the character editor! From the garage you can click on "Profile" and then edit your beautiful monarch character! On top of that you can also choose between three different building platform skins now.

Drivers license

Along with the character editor, we also added an experience points system. You can gain XP through building and driving in both singleplayer and multiplayer. There are around ~50 levels you can gain through the XP. And on your new drivers license you can inspect a handfull of stats, as well as a beautiful picture of your georgous monarch character.

I think this might actually be it. Make sure to keep in mind, that all of this update is pretty beta. But we wanted to release all of that and give it into your hands, since there won't be as many updates coming in the next few months, and I really really wanted you to show you all the new things we've worked on already.

I really hope you enjoy the update, let us know about what you think, throw all your feedback at us as usual, and thank you so much for being part of our journey and for player Screw Drivers!

Simon & Marc