To wrap things up for this year, we do have yet another patch for you, addressing various issues you have been observing. It should also help with game stability and general playability. Here is the full changelog!
General
Fixed forced induction memory leaks
Added the Automation Test Track
Added minimum reliability requirement for test track to run
Added knocking as a reliability penalty
Added engine loudness dependence on mass flow and cam
Engine Simulation
Recalibrated engine performance by ~ +7% coming for NA, a little less for FI
Improved valves, headers, and exhaust flow calculations
Fixed intercooler efficiency not being based on absolute mass flow
Direct Injection now adds fuel at the correct spot, in the cylinder
Added mild scaling with boost limit to manifold sizing
Fixed bug where pressure ratio estimation results was ignored, causing huge mass flow
UI Changes
Moved drive type selection to engine selection tab & drivetrain tab to trim designer
Added auto-reselection of drive type
Fixed demographic target/pin loading & logic
Fixed stress bench coloring for power density to be consistent with stresses
Multiplayer
Fixed multiplayer players joining resulting in the start game button disabling
Fixed various ways multiplayer could become stuck before entering a game when Join-In-Progress was active, or players connected mid-readying
Exporter
Temp fix for cars overheating in BeamNG
Christmas being upon us already, this will be the last patch for this year. We'll be back in full force early-/mid-January and get to polishing up and finishing up the Al Rilma Update.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Cheers
Al Rilma Open Alpha Patch 1
We have worked steadily since the release of the open alpha to address issues that have popped up. The following is the change log for the first patch:
Car Designer
Fix for fixture highlighting Issue
Fixed traction graphs
Engine meshes update on engine project selection
Engine Designer
Lots of supercharger and piping related fixes
Fixed incorrect RPM in engine sounds
Fixed some wrong airbox stuff for centrifugal superchargers
Supercharger RPM sound fix
Fixed compound turbo sizing impacting wrong turbo
Fixed wrong compound headers
Changed ethanol unlock years
Centrifugal supercharger boost limit increased to 5 bar
Multiplayer
Client to server communication improvements
Can now join games in progress
Player will be forced back to lobby screen when the host starts a new game
Various UI and player flow improvements
BeamNG Exporter
Fix for superchargers not having enough torque and too high fuel consumption
Doubled radiator fan speed
Reduced radiator fan activation temperature from 105 to 95
Increased calculated coolant and oil quantities
Fix for RPM getting stuck at max when using manual clutch
Other
Added alpha build number to build
Fixed car engine project creation disabling itself
Graph button now shows as enabled when finished calculating car/engine
These fixes should make the weekend go a bit smoother and we might have another little patch for you on Monday... if not, we wish you all a Merry Christmas!
Cheers!
Al-Rilma Open Alpha Launch
One of the largest and most eagerly-anticipated updates in Automation's history is almost here, and you can experience it early!
Just like the Al-Rilma Open Alpha, the whole world stops and takes notice of this imperious luxury sedan by ThatOneFatAmerican.
We are launching the Al-Rilma Update into a public, open-alpha phase, which you can opt-in if you wish to participate. Do so by performing the following steps:
Right-click on Automation in your Steam library, and go to Properties.
Go to the Betas tab.
From the Beta Participation drop-down, choose openbeta - Al-Rilma Update Open Alpha
Allow Automation to update automatically, then launch the game!
As always, this is an alpha test - there will be bugs, unfinished features and the occasional lack of polish in this version; please comment and leave your feedback on what you find so we can make Automation better for everyone!
Compatibility Notes
All Sandbox cars from the current public build will continue to work just fine, though their engines will need a bit of re-engineering with the new fuel selection tab in the Engine Designer. All publicly-listed mod content on the Steam Workshop that is compatible with the current public build will continue to work seamlessly in the Al-Rilma Update.
Due to the number of new body families/variants in this update, we strongly recommend you subscribe to the Legacy Car Bodies mod, as this is where we put all of the old, retired and otherwise broken bodies we remove from Automation; this will at least preserve your existing builds that are on these bodies!
Campaign Mode has been disabled temporarily in the Al-Rilma open alpha; when it is restored, all Ellisbury Update campaign saves will no longer be compatible with the new version.
Wishing for sunny climes and fast cars, with this gorgeous modern supercar by Ivan.
Al-Rilma Update Open Alpha Changelog
Car Designer
Complete re-work of body family and variant selection; no more clicking through years one or ten at a time!
All-new car reliability calculations, and a chart to break down exactly where you are losing reliability.
Re-worked the design flow of a car to be more logical.
Added heavy-duty frame options, which benefit large pick-up trucks, off-roaders and delivery vehicles especially.
Re-worked wheel choice options for more consequential choices by the player.
Increased the effect of the weight distribution slider and moved it to a location that makes more sense.
Added over 300 new bodies in several new or expanded families.
Incorporated several new fixture families.
First playable draft of the completely new Test Track simulation, which should be much faster and more accurate than before.
Many bugfixes and stability improvements based on player feedback.
A pretty stunning, 60s/70s concept car interior by Portalkat42.
Engine Designer
Added superchargers, twincharging, sequential and compound turbochargers.
All new throttle and gas flow simulation more accurately simulates engine behaviour at part throttle settings.
Completely new reliability calculations, to go along with new car reliability calculations.
Re-worked the fuel systems tab, to include a more accurate and realistic depiction of fuel mapping for emissions.
Increased maximum family bore/stroke sizes.
Re-worked engine reliability system - all engines have stress now to some degree, zero stress is (probably) impossible!
Many bugfixes and stability improvements based on player feedback.
Yes, superchargers are really here, you're not imagining things!
Muitiplayer
Multiplayer scenario play is back after nearly a decade-long hiatus. Try it out today!
Games are always better with your friends, as Gravity points out!
Other Changes & Improvements
General performance and lighting improvements in crafted 3D photoscenes, which should help with the poor performance and crashing issues many have reported to us.
New design environment - Fruinian Garage.
Added audible button clicks, making manipulating menus and sliders more tactile.
A delightful little family hatchback from the 80s, courtesy of Leonardo.
What's Next?
Our immediate task after the launch of the open alpha is to collect all of your bug reports, feedback and suggestions over the few weeks and work through them to fix any issues and streamline the experience for players. There is also quite a bit left to do in this update that we've promised, but haven't got working in a satisfactory manner just yet, such as:
The standalone Track Editor,
Campaign Mode, and
certain quality-of-life features in Multiplayer mode.
As these features churn their way through internal and closed alpha testing, we will include them in the many regular patches that will be coming your way in the weeks following, and we will discuss them more as the time comes. Once that's all taken care of and the Al-Rilma Update reaches full release, our focus will then turn to the final part of the Supercharger Update suite - the Terso Update...more news on that in the near future!
Cheers!
Long, low and like a sci-fi spaceship; the winner of our Jet-Age Design Competition earlier this year, courtesy of Prium.
Little Dev Update - Al Rilma Update Track Sim & Track Editor!
Hello again everyone,
We're back with yet another Little Dev Update! This one is a fun one, because we are talking about the new track simulation, which we will get a taste of in the Al-Rilma Update (and finish in the Terso Update to follow), as well as the all-new track editor.
Check it out on our YouTube channel:
As always, we love to hear your comments and feedback, and answer any questions you may have about this or anything else Automation-related!
Little Dev Update - Al-Rilma Superchargers and Turbos!
Hello again everyone!
Another Little Dev Update in only three weeks, it's a miracle! As promised, here's the second look into the new features of the upcoming Al-Rilma Update; this time, we are talking about superchargers and turbochargers...just what you've all been waiting for!
Check it our on our YouTube channel:
As always, we'd love to hear your comments and feedback, and answer any questions you might have!
Little Dev Update - Al Rilma Engine Update & Multiplayer!
Hello everyone!
It's been a while since we've done a Little Dev Update, and after many months of hard work, we've got a lot to show you about the upcoming Al-Rilma Update.
Check it out on our YouTube channel:
As always, we'd love to hear your comments and feedback, and answer any questions you might have!
Steam Planes, Trains and Automobiles Fest Community Events!
We're offering the biggest discount we've ever offered on Automation - 25% off our regular price! To celebrate this sale, we've got a couple of community events going on!
Jet Age Concept Car Design Challenge - Automation Discord
A wild and asymmetric concept from the 1970s, courtesy of SuperCrabe.
Since this sale is themed towards not just cars, but airplanes and trains too, that got us thinking - a concept car design challenge might be fun! The challenge is simple - design a concept car from the 50s, 60s and 70s, take photographs or video of your car from Automation's Photo Mode, then post your best shots/video in the Jet Age Concept Design Challenge channel on our Discord server! Pretty much anything goes; if you want to do a wild, rocket/jet inspired car like was common in America in the 1950s, that's perfect! Do you fancy the Italian wedgecar concepts of the 60s and 70s? Yep, that's acceptable too! Anything that looks the part will be accepted!
Additionally, post pictures of your entries on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, tag us in your post, and we'll share our favourites with our followers!
The only rules we have are, please refrain from using any real-world branding in your cars, or anywhere in your photos please, and ONE ENTRY PER PERSON ONLY. Entries for the Jet Age Concept Car Design Challenge will be open until October 13th at 11:59 PM Pacific Time; we will be judging them throughout the rest of October, and will host the final judging session toward the end of the month. Winners will receive an Automation prize pack!
Automation Social Media Giveaway - Instagram and TikTok
Winning is a great feeling; the drivers of FrederikLenius' Trans-Am car can confirm!
Help us get the word out about our sale this week! Follow us and share our sale reels... found here:
... on your Instagram and TikTok accounts, and you will be entered to win a daily draw for an Automation prize pack! Every day until September 23rd, one winner from Instagram and one winner from Tiktok will be chosen, no purchase necessary!
RULES
One entry each per Instagram and TikTok account only.
Due to local laws or current postal restrictions, unfortunately residents of Brazil, Russia and Belarus are ineligible for prizes.
Automation is 25% off in the Steam Planes, Trains and Automobiles Fest!
The Steam Planes, Trains and Automobiles Fest is upon us, and we're celebrating this with the biggest discount we've ever offered on Automation; from now until September 23rd at 10 AM Pacific Time, Automation is 25% off our regular price!
If you've ever doodled your dream car in your school notebooks, or wondered if you have what it takes to build an automotive manufacturing empire, Automation can help you live out those dreams. With our one-of-a-kind car design tools and challenging Lite Campaign Mode, your design and engineering choices can make the difference between being an industry legend, or merely a footnote in automotive history!
We also have an incredibly active, vibrant and welcoming community, where players can share their creations and participate in community-run challenges, ranging from the simple to the wildly elaborate. You can come join us on our Discord and experience our community for yourself, and follow us on YouTube, Instagram, X / Twitter, TikTok and now on Threads for the latest Automation news, information and community happenings.
Stop by our Steam store page today, because this deal will only be on until the 23rd of September at 10 AM Pacific Time!
We hope see you all soon!
Banner cars courtesy of (L-R) ellie, Mythrin, Mat, Gravity, blokko and Oreology. Many thanks!
Automation Mid Cycle Patch #2 - At Least We Didn't Crash A Billion Computers!
Hello again!
First of all, on behalf of the entire Automation dev team, we'd like to offer you all an apology for the previous patch - we had some BeamNG exporter updates that got into the patch, that should never have been there in the first place. They were inadequately tested, and they caused quite a number of issues. We thank you all for being diligent in reporting these issue to us, and also for all of your patience while you awaited the fix!
Patch Notes
Fixed lights in BeamNG being fixed to a cardinal direction.
Fixed fixtures and body panels flexing and wobbling when exported; note that this is a very complex issue to solve and there may still be edge cases where it still occurs - please report them to us if you find any!
Fixed light fixtures having too many nodes and causing instability pauses/crashes in BeamNG
As always, please let us know if you find any other issues with this patch!
Ellisbury Update: Mid-Cycle Patch
Work continues at a solid pace on the upcoming Al-Rilma Update, you will be happy to know! That said, we have not been ignoring the bug reports coming in for the current Ellisbury Update public build, which is why we are here today! This quick news post is going to be a bit different to what we usually talk about; it's not every day that we go into detail about some of the bugs we've faced, and how we've fixed them!
A fancy, futuristic SUV by ChilPollins.
No Sound in Automation/"Sourcing Lua data" in exporter bug
These two bugs were, despite appearances, directly related to one another. The sound plugin we use for Automation - FMOD - would, with certain hardware/software configurations, not be able to access the hardware audio controller in affected computers. This would result in either Automation playing no sound or music at all, or hanging up in the export process at the "Sourcing Lua data" stage; this was when the exporter would try to generate the engine sounds for exported cars, and if Automation was shut out from the audio controller? It would crash/hardlock the exporter.
We've solved this by updating our FMOD version, and it should solve virtually all of those issues we've encountered of this nature, and we thank all of those who were waiting for a fix for their patience in this matter!
"No Engine" bug
This one was a tricky one - players would create a new car or a cloned trim of a car, then attempt to add a new engine or variant, only to find that the Engine Designer had skipped ahead a step, and would enter an endless loop of Lua errors popping up. Exiting the Car or Engine Designer and re-loading the affected car would fix the problem, taking you back to the proper step, but it has been a constant annoyance since this update dropped! It was made doubly tricky to solve because there was no single reliable trigger for this bug; any time someone had it, the next time you loaded their save database, it was gone.
To solve this bug, we've basically added a check in the loading process of a car and engine, so that it properly loads the engines, and doesn't try to load data that just isn't there (or isn't supposed to be there) in the save database. We're quite confident that this bug has now been solved, and we are eagerly awaiting your feedback on this!
This modern supercar/trackday car by Ivan & kookie has a very reptilian feel!
New Bodies
Since it's still going to be a while before the Al-Rilma Update is ready for the public, we also figured we'd add some new bodies to this patch, just to give everyone something to tide them over until then!
Cloud Saves
As you already may have noticed, we have activated Steam Cloud saves for Automation. That means you always have the latest version of your data with you when you switch to play from your account on another computer and then also when you get back to your main system. Just make sure to carefully choose which version to synchronize with the cloud as you don't want your main data to be overwritten with an older or one-off database. You can change your Steam Cloud settings for Automation in the game properties accessed via a right-click on the game in your Steam Library.
That about wraps up this quick patch, we will be keeping an eye on any issues that come up with this patch; please let us know in the discussion forums or on our Discord so we can address them. Be sure to follow us on YouTube, Instagram, X / Twitter, TikTok and now on Threads for up-to-date news and community happenings - the Al-Rilma Update gets closer every week, and we will have more news of it in the near future!
Cheers!
Banner image by Oreology
Patch Notes
New Bodies
Added 09_eu "Offender" off-roader body family
Added replacement 70_us "Predator" body family
Added usa_00 "Evade" body family
General Fixes
Updated FMOD plugin to fix various sound issues in Automation
Adjusted the ray-tracing presets to reduce the overall radius of ambient occlusion.
Rebaked thumbnails for all grm_mercy body families and variants
BeamNG.drive Exporter Fixes
Many body jbeam generation fixes and bugfixes
Improved towbar behaviour
Set "Export to ZIP" as the default behaviour
Fixed On-Demand AWD having a torque split slider
Added minimum lock slider for On-Demand AWD
Added missing 2WD mode for On-Demand AWD
Disabled 2WD mode for Advanced AWD by default (can be re-enabled in the parts menu)
Changed naming of various drivetrain parts
Adjusted tuning for clutch limited-slip differentials
Returned steering wheel lock to a fixed value of 450 degrees
