Welcome to the September Exo Rally update!
We've been hard at work finishing one of the last (?) planets, Fusang, a volcano world. The current planet list now includes:
- Dhool (meteor desert world)
- Lunar (Earth's moon)
- Tensei (strip mined, earth quake riddled planet)
- New Earth (terraformed forest planet)
- Fusang (volcano world)
Hopefully we will still have time to add one last planet, but 5 is a decent start point at least for release.
Fusang - Volcano World
Fusang is a tidally locked planet close to a binary star system, which causes a large heat gradient from the hot to the cold side, as well as extreme volcanism. It is on the more difficult end of the spectrum in Exo Rally, and features a much bumpier surface, lava river canyons, unexpected drop offs and an array of hazards. Careful speed management is more important here than anywhere else on the rally circuit.
Lava Bombs
Most of the volcanos in Fusang eject lava bombs that fall and roll down across the stage area - they create moving obstacles and once they stop rolling, stationary ones as well. They can be tricky as they bounce off terrain and other boulders, and sometimes are hard to see coming. Luckily your rover is fairly tough, and direct impacts typically don't cause much more than a tire or wheel failure.
The rule for Fusang, we feel, will be - always take 3 spare wheels!
We will be looking at your feedback if you're a tester to see what you think of this planetary feature!
Lava Rivers
Highly viscous lava rivers cover large areas, and are a threat to both your tires and RCS fuel. Driving directly over and on top of lava causes your tires to rapidly heat up to the point they'll catch fire and begin melting, however brief crossings are quite safe as your rover's high tech rubber tires don't conduct heat. Care must be taken to limit wheel spin on lava as this will rapidly increase heat, and sink the tire into the lava.
At around 1200C, lava will also quickly cook your RCS fuel and cause it to cook off on individual thrusters and even eventually ignite your fuel tanks, so keep an eye on your temperatures.
Lava Fountains
Volcanic vents eject lava out in fountains that can drop onto your rover and cause damage to any and all of your rovers systems. The close you get to the center of a fountain, the more damage and the quicker you'll receive damage to your systems as lava melts through your systems, damages suspension and punctures tires.
Fire Tornados
As hot air travels from the hot to the dark side, high speed air currents form tornados that pickup hot gasses and lava that ignite to form fire tornados. In addition to high speed shrapnel damage, fire tornados will also quickly overheat your rover's RCS systems.
Heavier Rovers, Lighter Fuel
From both playing Exo Rally now for years, and also watching both new and old players, I became increasingly annoyed with the tendency for rovers, especially the 6-wheeled Exo6, to 'kick' the rear up over bumps. While you'd possibly expect racing vehicles to be better the lighter their weight, current-day off-road racing trucks like Trophy Trucks actually have a sweet spot which is quite heavy, that keeps them more level over bumpy terrain due to inertia and weight resisting rotation. Given our rovers have to tackle terrain even bumpier than stuff in Baja or Dakar, we've pushed the rovers weight up quite a bit, and also reduced fuel weight at the same time for a couple of reasons:
Lighter fuel means one setup feels more similar between min and max fuel loads, and we can stay more stable in both situations
After introducing RCS overheating, choosing different fuel loads became less important, as you usually couldn't use it all up in one stage
A more stable weight gives each rover class a more defined feel and character (a heavy rover wont feel like a lighter one on lower fuel loads)
So the TLDR is that rovers now fly much straighter and flatter over most (not all!) terrain. You'll still hit bumps and jumps with just the wrong shape at just the wrong speed and get some big kicks, but it shouldn't be a near constant RCS correction required as it once was for many bumps.
Screenshot mode
For those who love dialing in some nicely framed photos, you can now pause at any time, or during replay to save a screenshot to Steam.
Controls include:
Tilt/dutch
Fstop
Focal Length
Focus offset
FOV
Orbit/look direction/pan/dolly
Here's a few!
Sept 2025 Update
Playtesters, please read the FULL release notes below before posting bugs/thoughts/feedback, thank you!
Fusang, volcanic planet complete
Fusang: Lava that melts tires, fire tornados, lava fountains, rolling lava bombs, steam obstacles
Fusang: Ash fall weather that coats the surface in ash (reduced traction/increased drag)
Rovers made heavier to increase stability and fly flatter over most jumps and bumps
Fuel weight greatly reduced, so a setup will work better between min and max fuel
Tire model tweaks
Pace note update + linked close notes together along with a ! to draw attention
Mining rover is now more of a 'fixed suspension distance' vehicle (minimal travel)
Photo mode, drone or orbit with aperture/fov/dutch(tilt)/focal length/focus offset
Volumetric headlight dust
Headlight shadows added
Update to sand-like ground material physics (more consistent)
Improved blending between checkpoint light walls and other fx/distant light walls
Monoliths now interfere with the HUD/comms
Tensei lighting minor improvement
New Earth, more details and different ground materials, slightly less grass
Map wide stages on Fusang only (for now) with extremely long distances between checkpoints
Rain updates to all planets
Rover setup screen, some sliders faster to move
Fixed drone's spotlight being rotated incorrectly
Added dust build up to all rovers
Improved reflections (may be too much reflection on some ground materials in non-wet weather still)
Tread loss now controlled per ground material (less loss on stuff like sand, more on rock)
Damage to suspension now only occurs vertically if fully compressed
New stage overview music
Fixed collider on Tensei 'snow-trees'
Crosses visible on the checkpoint lightwalls earlier now
Headlight improvements/should look better against particle effects
Fixed: Ambient intensity increasing each time a planet is restarted
Updated service UI repair tabs
Removed eye-level bar from Exo4
Tornados no longer 'get you' after crossing the finish line, and dissipate near some terrain types/objects
Fix: rear wheels always account for toe correctly now
Reduced excessive wheel skew on impacts
Fix: replay camera skipping static cameras
Smoothed out camera-look which should help over smaller bumps and whoops
Minor strength boost to rcs-steer
Reduced size of checkpoint spheres to prevent wheels being ripped off occasionally
Donuts now require 340 deg to complete compared to 300 previously (may vary for custom checkpoint sequences)
Rover setup saving: now auto focuses
Fix: rcs fuel not being consumed at slight inputs
Fix: saving spare tires in tunings
New Earth should be less blinding
RCS override timer increased
Reduced FPP camera shake values
WIP (might be broken):
New tutorials
Team comms appear when starting your first event/series
Known:
Photo mode doesn't highlight some controls
Exo4 might be particularly hard to flip with RCS with certain setup configs
NPCs still think you're still on Dhool when on other planets
Trainings are in progress, so may not work as expected