Driving is a PITA

[AaronAllBlacks]

I grew up rurally and my Chevy Aveo and my friend's Geo Metro could fare better offroad and on dirt road than any cars in this game, like what is actually up with offroad/dirt road speed? It is so unrealistically slow even accounting for mud and whatnot. My old Blazer could do 40mph in 4x4 High and my newer AWD Forester could do similar without the need for X Mode (talking the in-game fields and flat areas).

Also, the dirt roads, like what? How slow do you think Dan Robinson was going during El Reno on that dirt road? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxgU1QcFMJM)

I'm loving the game, but without it either giving periodic, large, blocky-square roads like the central USA to use while also making offroad/dirt road super slow, it really kills manouverability.

[RDFox76]

...given that I routinely do 90-100 mph on the dirt roads in the Vanguard, I fail to see what the complaint there is. Beyond that, there is a desire to discourage heavy off-roading, partly because it's a good way to get yourself killed in real chasing (wet grass and such are great for getting stuck right in front of that tornado you're trying to dodge), and partly because going off-road in a tornado chase is likely to see you sued by the person whose property you just tore up and whose crops you just mowed down, so I doubt there's gonna be much of an increase in off-road speed.

[AaronAllBlacks]

Originally posted by RDFox76:

...given that I routinely do 90-100 mph on the dirt roads in the Vanguard, I fail to see what the complaint there is. Beyond that, there is a desire to discourage heavy off-roading, partly because it's a good way to get yourself killed in real chasing (wet grass and such are great for getting stuck right in front of that tornado you're trying to dodge), and partly because going off-road in a tornado chase is likely to see you sued by the person whose property you just tore up and whose crops you just mowed down, so I doubt there's gonna be much of an increase in off-road speed.

So there seems to be an inconsistency then, the Vanguard can drive dirt roads without penalty but no other cars can, weird. Also you're bringing up realism artifacts I didn't even mention, explain why there's no shoulders or how you can be slowed down from 90mph to 19mph within seconds of hitting flat offroad land with your foot still on the accelerator like c'mon it's so slow. Many paths don't have roads anywhere close if you wanna get a sensor down somewhere nice either.

Also out of bounds is pretty infuriating, have had half my runs so far have the tornado be too far north or too far east to chase; the world map is built to that point so why not let us use it until the boundaries as shown on the map? Or at least show us the out of bounds boundary on the map.

I'm really liking it either way but these design decisions are questionable at best.

[dario90vlc]

It's actually a question that I asked myself, it doesn't make sense that vehicles can't also go on terrain that isn't a road.

[Shmooe]

The Road system is poor in this game RN. Being able to offroad would make the game more fun imo. i say just add more damage multiplier to vehicle stats the faster you go offroad and let us decide what is to much or let the vehicle break down if we do 90 offroad for to long

[AaronAllBlacks]

Originally posted by Shmooe:

The Road system is poor in this game RN. Being able to offroad would make the game more fun imo. i say just add more damage multiplier to vehicle stats the faster you go offroad and let us decide what is to much or let the vehicle break down if we do 90 offroad for to long

Yea and the first knucklehead replier in this thread thought I meant cars should go as fast offroad as on which I never even implied. Should be able to go at least 60 on those dirt roads and 30-40 pure offroad; the game acts like modern cars are completely helpless on those surfaces.

And honestly the way the road network is built and cars handle, it does not feel like the devs are American nor have an accurate headspace of what that part of the country is like. There should be A BUNCH of 1x1mile roads in a square, block-by-block fashion for most of the map. This is an artifact in real life based on how we subdivide land and you could just go on Google Maps and zoom in on KS, NE, OK, etc. to see it yourself.

Not even the interstates have shoulders, and if I'm to imagine those aren't interstates, even those type of 55+mph state highways would have shoulders; ex. R77/I35 in KS. The way that the road network is built is so restrictive and the towns place an odd European perspective on small American towns; no town would not have a straight through thoroughfare with commercial side-by-side. The amount of towns you can't just drive through is super weird if it's supposed to represent the heartland of USA.