This update delivers a substantial overhaul to how ground vehicles drive, react to terrain, and recover from accidents.
New Suspension Simulation
Ground vehicles now use a four-wheel spring and damper simulation. Suspension responds dynamically to vehicle weight, acceleration, braking, cornering, and impacts.
You’ll now feel and see:
- Suspension compression and rebound over uneven terrain
- Body pitch under acceleration and braking
- Body roll while cornering
- Vehicle-specific suspension travel, stiffness, damping, and tire compliance
- More natural curb impacts instead of abrupt, rigid collisions
- Better absorption of bumps before forces reach the vehicle and its occupants
Large and heavy vehicles have appropriately slower, softer suspension movement, while smaller vehicles respond more quickly.
Improved Surface Friction
Ground contact now distinguishes between tire grip, sliding friction, and rolling resistance.
Roads and rough terrain behave differently, with surface conditions affecting:
- Available traction
- Sideways tire scrub
- Braking and locked-wheel skids
- Rolling resistance
- The effort required to start moving
- Subtle changes in grip across rough ground
Vehicles should now feel less like they are being pushed across a flat plane and more like their tires are interacting with the surface beneath them.
Automatic Transmission Improvements
Automatic transmissions now provide more believable torque-converter slip, clutch transitions, upshifts, downshifts, and kickdown behavior.
Engines can build torque when launching from a stop, gear changes transition more naturally, and transmissions respond more intelligently to speed and throttle demand.
The T120 and T121 Steerheads also received drivetrain tuning, including corrected power calibration and improved tachometer presentation. The T121 now has performance more appropriate for its heavier-duty powertrain.
Safer Rejoining After Death
Death protection no longer expires while you are waiting on the death screen.
You may now wait for a dangerous situation—such as a collision, trapped vehicle, or obstructed spawn—to clear before selecting Rejoin.
Once you rejoin, a fresh 10-second protection period begins, giving you time to move away from whatever caused the original death.
This protection applies consistently across collision deaths, decompression, life-support failure, autodestruct, and other fatal vehicle conditions.
Stability Improvements
We’ve also included several behind-the-scenes stability fixes covering:
- Vehicle and curb-impact diagnostics
- Positional audio and Doppler effects
- Dialog rendering
- Graphics-resource reloading
- General loading-screen stability
This is a foundational update for ground vehicles, and we’ll continue refining individual vehicle handling as we collect more driving data and player feedback.