CMS Engine Swap Tutorial [PIN REQUEST]

[pjlx911]

Okay, rather than go back and fourth with people acting pretientious about helping out people by creating a tutorial on this. I feel that this needs to be done to answer this issue for anyone coming back, or new players.

In this quick tutorial, I am going to go through the basic process of how the Engine Swap new feature works. I am also going to explain where to look at if you're having trouble reading which engines are allowed to swap (Please add a scrolling feature for this devs!).

Now, without much ado, here's how you swap an engine!

[NOTE: If you need any visual help, click on the links. They're screen captures to assist people, since Steam is stupid in how you can't embed images.]


The car I will be using is this, the beast, Bolt Reptilia D/R:

https://imgur.com/P81auu0

#1) Walk up to the car, and Right Click on the car to open up the Options Wheel:

https://imgur.com/tueyFUB

#2) Once the wheel is open, click on the Car Status option. You will see the Car's Information screen, this shows the car's status, it's condidtion, the engine, mileage, color...

https://imgur.com/K3zdujq

#3) What you may notice is this odd little addition (if you had played this game and are coming back to this game), right next to the engine Power/Torque mapping, this is the list of Engines that could be swapped for your car:

https://imgur.com/firUsgV

#4) All you need to do now, is to uninstall, pop out that engine. If you want to swap it for another engine in that list, sell it, build it's replacement, and plop it on into the car!

ADDENDUM

Now that should help out everyone. But the problem with the current way it's there, it tends to scroll a little too quickly (and needs a scroll bar ASAP, devs!).

But let's say you either want to look at the list of engines that could be swapped, or even want to input any other engines (if you know the id name for the engine, I'll explain later), here's how you you do that!

#A1) The first thing I would reccomend is to go to the PDF Guides for CMS 2018. This folder has so much valuable information, reccomended if you want to mod, but it also you need links to folders and files.

As you can see in the image, it's in the ".../Common/Car Mechanic Simulator 2018/ModdingTools/PDFGuides" folder. The main PDF I am pointing to is the "CMS18 Car Modding Guide.pdf", in it, you scroll down and you will see the link to where all the car files are at.

https://imgur.com/yFVu6Yt

#A2) But to make things short, the car files are located in ".../StreammingAssets/Cars/" folder. Here I had went into the folder for the Bolt Reptilia R2 (but you could go into any car you want, this is just for an example).

#A3) The main file you're looking for is the "config.txt" file. This is the configuration text file your car.

https://imgur.com/WCAkUSo

#A4) After you had opened it up. Search/Find inside the document for the word "Engine".

#A5) After you did this, initally you might get things that aren't relevant, but what, exactly, you're looking for is "type=engine_v8swapoptions=" (I would assume it would be different for V6, etc., engines, but again, I am just doing this for this car). You will see various id names for engines, these are not only the engines you could choose, but I also believe that if you know the id name of other engines, you might be able to input it here to add to the list in the game (correct me if I'm wrong, I am just pointing this out).

https://imgur.com/H6Wmqkr


Welp, there ya go! That should help out others, like I was, who didn't know where, or how, to swap engines in the game.

Again, devs, please pin this post and also add a quick scrollbar in the game? Thanks.

[iEuropa // Sargon]

why did you use IMGUR instead of Steam to host pictures?

[pjlx911]

Originally posted by Svensyn:

If people are having trouble figuring out how to find out if a car has engine swap options, what engines are avaible IF it has engine swap options, how to select a new engine build, and then buy the right enigne block... do you think it's a good idea to tell people about navigating the files?
Even the tiniest mistake in the config files will cause the game to crash, or not even start.

I doubt this will get pinned because if people start digging through the files, the forums are going to be flooded with questions like:

How do you open a file?
What is double-clicking?
FPS?
Am I PC or Laptop?
Where's the power button?
Am I connected to the Internet?
Hello?

You'd be surprised by how many people don't know how to locate the C:Drive. You're opening Pandora's Box... THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

Well since the chillenz know how to PC, I take it that they also know that they need to delete the Win32 folder before doing any of this! :D :D

[pjlx911]

Originally posted by iEuropa:

why did you use IMGUR instead of Steam to host pictures?

You can use Steam to host pictures?

[m3c0]

Next personal task for pjlx911:
Make tutorial about using Steam for hosting pictures ;)

Yes, you can. Use F12 for ingame screenshots, then decide which ones to upload (to Steam Cloud), note their URLs and copy/paste those URLs where you want them to appear in your text.

[david]

You can change the config file to install any engine in any car but... the idea of the list of supplied engine swaps is that they will require no more modifications to fit properly. (EG: Installing a straight 6 into a car that came originally with V8 will require the exhaust and drive shaft to be changed, and possibly resizing the engine to fit inside the engine bay - where a single to double carb V8 requires no changes to anything else.) There's actually very few engine changes which won't require modifying the size or other parts.

I've been modifying these settings since day 1 because I took the time to learn and use the in-game editor and config fiels. But most people seem to avoid the in-game editor for various reasons. Anyone who doesn't want to learn and use the editor should stick to the engines provided by the modders/developers for each car.

Another case in point is people wanting suspension lifts as mods. It can all be changed in the editor/config files by everyone, but very few people learn how to do it themselves and prefer modders to do it for them. :)

[david]

And it should be noted that cars and mods folders should be backed up manually whenever you make changes to them because almost all game updates and integrity checks (for when the game doesn't work properly) overwrite those files back to the originals. You can (and I have) lose countless hours of editing without a manual backup. :)