An unexpected update - New building controls, new menu layout

Dear bug lovers and Screw Drivers,

I unexpectedly cooked a little bit in the last couple of weeks. This time I tried to add some quality of life to the game, fix some bugs and only improve the game. I hope I did well, if not, let me know, and here is what I prepared for you:

New Build Controls

I implemented a completely new building mode. Instead of the WASD movement and flying around with the camera, you can now orbit the car by holding the right mouse button, and zooming with the scroll wheel.

The placement of parts is also completely reworked. You can now freely place and rotate parts. After placing them or selecting parts you can move and rotate them as well.

Since many might still be used to the old building controls, you can always switch back to the old one any time in the settings menu.

Please let me know your feedback on these new controls. It's brand new so let me know what we can still improve!

New Menus

The whole menu has been reworked. If you remember, we split all menus into different scenes two years ago. Well now it's all back in one scene, and hopefully performance is still spot on. Now we have the car selection, building, racing and tec tree all in one screen. I hope this makes things waay easier to navigate and eases the menu flow a lot.

The settings menu, pause menu, workshop browser, multiplayer screen, rules and chat all got a fresh new look as well. Same here, let me know what you think and throw all your feedback at me!

Car building tips and hints

In the building menu, I added a small window that shows you warnings or issues with your car. This should help to find out, why a car is not driving, steering or falling apart at spawning. Same goes for when you're driving. There will be some tips shown if the car is spinning or has few power. If you're a vetaran, you can turn those tips of in the settings menu ;)

Monarch Chassis

I re-added the monarch chassis. We had this feature a long time ago, and now I brought it back, at least for the first island. So after beating a monarch in the career, you get his chassis to build upon.

Materials

It's time, after years of waiting, you can now separately set the material and the color. Oh yes, it's happening.

Multiplayer Events

We already had two (I think) multiplayer events in the last couple of months. I want to continue this tradition, so I added a dedicated multiplayer event button to the main menu. It should always show the next multiplayer event, when it's happening and the rules. You can also click the button to get into creative mode with the building rules active. This way you can build your car for the event in advance already.

Car of the Week

Car of the week is back, after 9 long months, we have a new one, and I will try (as always) to pick one car per week (yes, really). Fingers crossed, no promises as always. And congrats to fallstoneschultz for winning this weeks car of the week!

Achievements

Steam achievements might finally work. And not only that, I actually updated them from the project vroom vroom state to our current state. As with everything, some might still be bugged (Since I'm really really busy and didn't manage to test all), so let me know if something is not working ;)

Safer Savegames

I added a small backup savegame system to the game. This keeps a separate instance of your cars, maps and your progress. If your savegame is broken for any reason, you can try to restore it now in the general settings menu.

Improvements

• Supersonic, the go-kart island, no longer unlocks parts. Its medal ghosts are really tough, and new players ended up hunting unlocks there. Every one of those parts can still be unlocked on the other islands, and parts you already unlocked stay unlocked.

• The frame rate limit and VSync now apply right from the start. Before, the game ran without a limit until you opened the graphics settings.

• New frame rate options: match monitor (the default), 30 to 240, or unlimited.

• Esc now pauses singleplayer drives.

• You can choose which controller the game uses in the controls settings, and the Keyboard/Mouse mode now really ignores controllers.

• Devices whose sticks rest off-centre (pedals, virtual joysticks, some RGB lighting controllers) no longer send phantom input.

• Rebinding a key no longer grabs a resting pedal or stick, and Reset in the controls settings works now.

• On a gamepad, the gear ratio view in building mode moved to View (Create on PlayStation), so it no longer clashes with undo. On PlayStation controllers, moving the right stick no longer toggles mirror mode.

• The connector double is now unlocked from the beginning.

• New part infos for the axles and the clutch, and better texts for gears, suspensions and wheels.

• Better performance in building mode.

• Accented letters (Polish, Turkish, Czech, Hungarian and more) now use the game's own font.

• Bulgarian, Greek, Croatian, Hungarian, Lithuanian and Brazilian Portuguese now show English (or Portuguese) where a translation is missing, instead of "No translation found".

Fixes

• A car that fails to spawn no longer ends up stuck under the map. You get a message and go back to the garage.

• In multiplayer races, your own car could get stuck on the brake: hardly any revs, no shifting, and jumping around.

• Older cars are now recalculated automatically before driving, so they get the latest fixes, for example the spawn height of tank tracks.

• Repairing now finds the ground on roads and on map editor objects.

• Skipping a tutorial now leaves you with a car that works, steering and plane controls included.

• Fixed tutorials that got stuck (gear shifting, chains), the career's start button staying locked on the tutorial race, and the first driving tutorial loading the garage twice.

• You can no longer connect the same two parts with a second hose, which doubled the nitro boost. Existing double hoses are removed when you open the car in building mode.

• Chains and tank tracks that lost their gears no longer break the whole car.

• 10 hint messages that never showed up now do, for example when an island or creative mode gets unlocked, or when your map is uploaded.

• Lots of buttons and labels that showed "No translation found" (like Continue after a race) are fixed.

• The Esc menu sounds were swapped, and they played again on every press.

• The car stats no longer show the values of the previously selected car.

• The page buttons of these patch notes said "Undo". You can't undo patch notes, sorry.

• On a gamepad, you can now page back in the Workshop browser (both page buttons used to be on X), and the part properties' Copy and Paste buttons no longer read "Close".

• Esc now closes the multiplayer car rules.

• In German, the personal best label no longer overlaps the race timer.

• The map editor no longer overwrites a map file it can't read, and new maps no longer cause errors.

• Classic build controls: undo is reliable now, and undoing a blueprint also refunds it. Mirroring no longer buys parts twice, clicking next to the car no longer places a part, and Esc opens a menu instead of leaving building mode right away.

• Fixed many errors that were thrown every single frame. One log I looked at had 2.5 million of them, all from a single button.

Normally, I add bugs to the game, as you know. This time, I actually tried to eliminate them, and beautifulize the game with some quality of life improvements. I really hope you enjoy this update, and let me quickly say a big thanks for your continued support and being with me on this journey, you're the best community a dev could wish for!

Oh and whoever read until this point, after years of waiting, we now have a 6- and 8- lengthened beam. Oh yes! ;D

Simon