Greetings KitHackers!

Buckle up and prepare for impact—our Crash & Burn Update is here, and it’s bringing the heat! With explosive new features, fiery gameplay mechanics, and overhauled cockpits, this update is guaranteed to light a spark in your creativity.

But be warned: you’ll need to keep your cool as things might just go up in flames—literally! Whether you’re burning rubber, dodging heat blasts, or watching your rivals go out in a blaze of glory, this update has something for everyone who loves to build fast and play hard.

Here’s what’s fueling this firestorm of changes:

Overhauled Cockpits and Fuselage

Your cockpits are now hotter than ever with massive upgrades:

• Fresh textures and materials add sleek style to most cockpit parts.
• Morphing handles let you resize and reshape cockpits for builds that fit just right.
• Outdated parts have been deprecated and replaced with better, more customizable options.
• A new bulkhead profile joins the lineup, adding more flexibility to your designs.
• Material appearances are now standardized for consistent lighting and color—though your vehicles may sport a slightly new look.
• Dive into FPV with moving Steering Wheels, Yokes, and Ship Wheels to enhance your cockpit interiors.

Caution: Jet Blast

Fire up the engines—but be careful where you point them!

Introducing the Jet Turbine, a powerful, fuel-burning engine that delivers high-speed thrills with a side of flammability.

Heat management takes center stage with Heat Blast Zones, where jet engines and rockets now emit damaging heat. Shield parts wisely, as exposed components can burn, ignite, or even explode.
Turbines deliver less static thrust than EDFs but maintain power at higher speeds. Perfect for those who love to push the limits!

Vehicle Thermodynamics

Things are about to heat up—literally!

Parts now simulate heat conductivity and convection, exchanging temperatures with each other and the environment. Fire spreads realistically, with flammable parts self-igniting and combustion generating even more heat. Explosive parts like fuel tanks and batteries can detonate under intense temperatures, making every build a potential powder keg.

Want to douse the flames? Speed up or splash down in water—fluid convection cools parts faster, though flammable materials may still smolder. Overheated parts weaken over time, showing visible damage and smoke before they fail completely. Repairs are a must to keep your builds in one piece.

Autocannons Go Incendiary

The Thud Autocannon now packs an even bigger punch with Incendiary 50 Cal Rounds. These fiery projectiles are designed to ignite enemies while keeping kinetic damage to a minimum—perfect for setting your rivals ablaze without blowing everything to smithereens (yet).

Engine Boost!

Feeling the need for speed? Hold [Spacebar]/(A) to push your engines and motors past 100% power for a quick burst of speed. But beware: this turbocharge comes at a cost—extra heat that could turn your engine into a fireball. Use it wisely!

And a whole lot more!

From New stock vehicles to further UI optimisations, this update brings close to 60 major changes, all of which can be read in detail at the bottom of this news post.

So, gear up, strap in, and get ready to embrace the chaos of the Crash & Burn Update! Whether you’re fine-tuning your cockpit, dodging heat blasts, or enjoying the fiery spectacle of an enemy going up in smoke, this update is all about high-octane thrills and explosive fun.

Happy building (and burning),
The KitHack Model Club Team 🔥💥

Crash & Burn Patch Notes v1.5.0

Overhauled Cockpits and Fuselagi:

• New textures and materials for most of the new parts.
• All cockpit parts now have Morphing handles and can change size/shape.
• Deprecated and Unlisted old cockpit parts that were replaced by the newer ones.
• Added an new bulkhead profile that is similar to M profile.
• Standardized the appearance of several part materials for consistent lighting and colour. (you may notice existing vehicles having slightly different shades)
• Added new (moving) Steering Wheel, Yoke and Ship Wheel parts for FPV cockpit interiors.

  Caution, Jet Blast:

• Added new Jet Turbine part. Not an EDF, but a real, powerful, expensive, fuel-burning and very flammable Jet engine. Turbines have less static thrust, but continue producing thrust up to much higher speeds than EDFs.
• Parts with hot exhausts (Jet Engine and all Rockets) now have Heat Blast areas that can cause heat damage to parts that get in the way. Watch where you point those things. Heat Blast zones use the vehicle volumetrics solution to find which other parts are exposed (and by how much) to the blast.
• Parts directly in the way of the blast will take a lot more heat than parts only partially exposed.
• Parts can be shielded from heat by other parts in front of them. At least for a while.
• Parts exposed to a heat blast will heat up, become burned over time, and can potentially self-ignite and/or explode.

  Vehicle Thermodynamics:

• Added new heat simulation of conductivity and convection to vehicles. Parts now have Temperatures, exchange heat with one another and the surrounding environment.
• Part Thermodynamics also simulates Combustion. Parts can self-ignite if heated past their flashpoint, and combustion generates more heat, which can in turn ignite other parts.
• Some Parts are more flammable than others. To sustain combustion, a part needs to have high enough thermal energy to gain heat despite losses to other parts and the environment. Most parts are slightly flammable. Large, lightweight parts are generally very much flammable.
• Some Parts are more Explosive than others. If temperatures reach the explosion threshold, they will detonate, releasing a lot of heat instantly, and also causing structural stresses (usually ends in many little pieces). Fuel Tanks, Rockets, Batteries and some Ammo maganizes are now explosive, and will detonate if exposed to high temperatures. The higher the amount of fuel in a tank, charge in a battery, the more potentially explosive it is.
• Heat transfer to the Environment (convection) is simulated and accounts for different fluids. Fire has a harder time spreading to other parts if you are moving quickly, or better yet, splashed down (water can sink heat 30x faster than air). Depending on flammability, fires may not be entirely put out by water, but whatever is left of your vehicle may not burn up as well.
• Parts can take heat damage even if they are not flammable by themselves. Above a maximum safe temperature, parts start becoming burnt and visibly emit smoke.
• Burned parts will lose structural integrity the more burnt they are. Heat damage causes them to weaken progressively, leading to early failures. High temperatures will eventually cool down, but burn damage requires repairs.
• Fire and Explosion effects are synchronized for all clients in multiplayer. Mind that for the time being, flames and explosions from other vehicles will not cause thermal damage to your own.

  Autocannons now Shoot Incendiary Rounds.

• Added new Incendiary 50 Cal Rounds, now used by the 'Thud' Autocannon.
• Incendiary rounds cause less kinetic damage, which is handy when you want the other guy to go up in flames.
• Added new fiery VFX for the new projectiles.
• The Orange 50 Cal Magazine now holds Incendiary Rounds, and is highly explosive when fully loaded.

  VFX and SFX:

• Added new pooled explosions effects with expanding shockwaves.
• Added new fire and smoke effects to all parts. Flame particle emission conforms to the shape of the burning object.
• Added new visual effect for all parts, so they smolder and get charred as they burn. This effect applies to all parts and does not require specific shaders (should be fully mod compatible).
• Added new sounds for fire and explosions.
• Explosion effects scale based on the anount of energy the explosion releases.
• Revised all Propeller Sound FX. They now respond correctly to prop RPM and all have different sounds.
• Added new Sound FX for the new Jet Engine, including spool-up and shutdown sound.
• Fmod speed of sound delay now uses the correct units, and also works for explosions
• Added a clamp to the violence value for vehicle crash and brush sfx, so heavy parts don't always make enormous sounds even at low speeds.

  Engine Boost!

• Hold [Spacebar]/(A) (while controlling the vehicle) to Boost engines and motors to over 100% max power. This can give you a bit of extra speed, and will definitely give you a lot of extra heat.
• Holding boost will cause engines to heat up and potentially catch fire. This is almost certainly not good for the Engine.

  Stock Vehicles:

• Added new Aero-ES J100 stock airplane (with a jet!). Very dangerous. not recommended for... anyone, really.
• Added steering to most stock craft for FPV. Some other minor stock craft changes too.

  General Fixes, Improvements and Optimizations:

• Fixed some motors having negative non-zero performance at zero load/throttle, which caused strange behaviour at very low throttle settings.
• Improved tasking logic so repeated/frequent Vehicle Volumetrics recalculations are avoided more reliably.
• Vehicle Resource flow logic is now more reliable against NaNs from divisions by zero.
• Engines now correctly shut themselves off when the vehicle is moved into the editor.
• Fixed a bug in drive networks that could cause NaNs to infect propeller and engine modules. This fixes some motors not producing power when using the /runsonfumes cheat (when out of fuel)
• Rockets now refuel themselves when the vehicle enters the editor.
• Fixed exterior parts sometimes blocking internal ones when going into Internal View in the editor.
• Minor tuning tweaks to the piston PID params, to make them a bit more stable and sturdy.

  Multiplayer Physics and Combat:

• Vehicle Physics flags are all MP-synced now. Vehicle.Physics doesn't try to update them for remote vehicles anymore.
• Ballistic Projectile hits now sync better over MP, and hit reports are always sent to all clients.
• AA guns are now able to target remote players in PvP or PvE scenarios.
• NPC target acquisition will now find remote vehicles properly. (NPC fighters should attack all enemy players)

  UI:

• Added new Thermodynamics Overlay to the Vehicle Overlays Panel ([F9] Menu)
• Fixed Flex physics stress indicators not going away for some parts after very violent breakages
• Added screen messages for when parts are on fire.
• Fixed decal previews being shown backwards in the Decal Tool handles.
• The Throttle indicator in the main UI now also shows an indication when Boost is enabled.
• Added tooltip notes about heat blast to all rockets.

  New Cheat Commands:

• Added /fwoosh cheat command (guess what it does!)
• Added /microwavesafe cheat command. Disables all heat simulation, for whatever reason... :P
• Added new /clickspring N cheat to allow overriding the time of day. (where N is a number of hours)

  Modding:

• Added basic sanity checking to FX components
• Engine modules now throttle and power responsiveness cfg fields now work correctly.
• Renamed both fields so this won't cause any changes to existing engines.