The main campaign recently received a full balance pass, both to test out the new unlocking systems, as well as ensure that each island + mode combo (10 islands x 3 modes) had a fun and unique vehicle to go with it. That's 30 custom vehicles to use and unlock, though you only have to use 10 of them (once, in Challenge mode). There are 24 other vehicles included with the game at launch, for a total of 54 pre-built Showcase Vehicles. Here's an older version of a Showcase Vehicle from about half-way through the game (based on real-life mine-clearing tanks, but since changed to be more fantastical):
In a game with a fun-to-use vehicle build system, why include so many pre-designed vehicles?
The first reason is that it allows people who have no desire to design vehicles to enjoy the game. You can beat the whole campaign without doing any vehicle building at all. I've been trying to embrace more freedom than I originally planned for the game, and letting you play (or design) the way you want is part of that shift.
The second main reason is that it's not always obvious what certain parts are meant to do, or how to setup certain types of mechanisms. So the vehicles provide a way to show off the various parts and how they can be used. The Challenge vehicles in particular follow this philosophy, as each one must be used at least once, so each one shows off a new part for the first time.
The vehicles also make for a good unlockable item, and having so many included vehicles at launch helps compensate for easy vehicle sharing not being available yet. You can send a vehicle to others if you know where to look for the file, but making it easy to browse custom vehicles online is the first big feature planned after launch.
(Not) Playing It Safe
The game is shipping next week, and this is normally a time when new features and content slow down, but I'm not exactly following that philosophy. It's relatively easy to create and upload new builds of the game, so I'm not going to stress about potentially breaking it for a short while. I'd rather continue adding improvements and new parts and polishing everything I can before launch. The day before launch, I'll slow things down in order to do more testing than usual, but otherwise it's full-steam ahead.
So in the last couple days since finishing the main campaign and doing a full playthrough, I've made some major improvements to how some parts work (such as ropes, swivels, and pistons), then added a bunch of new parts as well. These are mostly variations on previous parts, but each new part adds more potential vehicle designs as well. In fact, I may have to revisit some of the Showcase Vehicles so they can use the new parts/features more effectively.
There will be some at least one completely new part coming by launch as well. That part is the Overdrive, an expensive part which lets you double the speed/strength of attached parts that have variable strength. Much of the raw functionality is in, but it also needs effects work (and some UI work) to make it more noticeable/obvious that it's doing something and how it works. Adding effects and making it more obvious what something is doing is actually one of the more time-consuming aspects of many all-new parts. I hope to also add one more weapon-like part before launch, but the main thing is figuring out which kind of weapon won't require too much particle/sound work. It'll likely be an automatic-firing weapon of some sort (like a helicoper-style missile pod), but I won't know for sure until I try to put it in.
Launch is only a week away and the game is pretty much ready to ship, but it feels like there's still much to potentially do.