Alby_da_Wolf said:
GPL did both complete physics and damage simulation of suspensions, but it had undeformable chassis too. Most probably it's a necessary compromise when RAM is limited, but also when decisions to allocate funds and dev time and resources must be made.
Just think about this: suspension are dynamic parts of which a real time model must be implemented, so simulating them when they are damaged has roughly the same computational weight and a deformed arm can be simulated changing characteristic angles and sizes in the same way, although with exaggerated values, in which suspension settings are simulated.
But a chassis, despite not really rigid, is tens or hundreds thousand times more rigid than suspensions, so when simulating it undamaged, approximation to a totally rigid one, maybe adding some approximated angles to suspensions ones to simulate its very small deformations, can be done. Simulating faithfully greater deformations would require a more detailed and modifiable chassis model that would differ noticeably from the simpler approximated one only for heavy damages, so additional resources, dev costs, RAM requirements and computational weight would be added just to be used to simulate the chassis and car behaviour when damage is so heavy to totally compromise the race.
Hence, a sensible compromise is to simulate as well as possible suspensions damages, when accidents are serious enough, the damages will stop the car anyway, but here comes the problem: in open-wheels cars suspensions are totally exposed to damage, so in most serious accidents they'll receive enough damages to stop the car and so give the correct effect of the accident to the race.
But in cars with covered wheels, they are a lot more protected, particularly if the chassis is approximated with a totally rigid one, so using suspension damage will be often not enough to realistically kick cars out of the race in accidents that in reality should do it.
Approximating engine damage from over-revving or overheating has less consequences on realism (as long as permanent damage in reality is simulated with permanent damage in the game), and simulating its damages from hits is almost totally unnecessary, as in reality chassis, suspensions and wheels should be heavily damaged before it and also in cars with the engine protruding forward or backward, so more vulnerable, an heavy hit to it would damage chassis, axles (if the traction is on the same part where the engine is) and suspensions.
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