Can we get a gearbox?

[Kalin]

Something to be able to shift into different gear ratio settings for wheels so that vehicles can handle different terrain conditions? Are we limited to only one preset gear ratio or is there a way to change it in-situ? Being able to shift gears would make the driving simulation much better.

[thaflya]

+1, I agree

[Taehl]

That would be great. No idea how a gearbox component would work though - maybe it would be simplest if the gear ratio was a setting in wheels themselves?

[Kalin]

Originally posted by Taehl:

That would be great. No idea how a gearbox component would work though - maybe it would be simplest if the gear ratio was a setting in wheels themselves?

It might be a weird ask for what this game is, but I was a little surprised by how many driving missions there are and I found myself making all kinds of cars, even using wings as spoilers to see if it would improve handling - it does.

Clearly the wheels in this game are driven by electric rotors with a fixed gear ratio, and that causes them to perform differently depending on the situation. Electric motors deliver power across a much wider range of variable RPM than traditional motors and has almost no need for a gearbox. Although I would still like one in the game to play with, there is another way to make your vehicle handle different driving situations better.

Set the front wheels to a different gear ratio than the rear wheels and switch which wheels are delivering power. For example, if you have a steep climb, switch to rear wheels with a smaller gear ratio, and if you're leveling off and want to achieve higher speed having already accelerated then switch to the front wheels with a larger gear ratio.

That aside, driving a manual is more fun in my opinion, and that's not really what this game was meant to be, but the amount of driving in it made me wonder what it could be.

[toinkertoy]

I think ya hit nail on the head there! This game wasn’t originally intended to be about cars or boats or even planes that much!

But that has clearly evolved into the game and is a big part of the career games now! So it doesn’t seem like a weird ask at all now!