Initial Announcement
Welcome to Devblog #1! I will try to write a monthly devblog with all the progress made in that month.
I made the initial announcement on the 23rd of December. All I can say is that it has been really heartwarming to receive so much feedback from everyone! By the time of writing, we have roughly 100+ parties involved in this project. The majority of them are pulling teams. It’s very exciting to see the list of teams and tractors growing, there will be plenty of filled pulling classes in the game.
In case you are interested in contributing to the game, it’s not too late to join the party! Still, any kind of pulling team, organization, or brand are more than welcome to join. However, we are especially looking for multi-engine modifies and TWD’s at the moment since these classes still lack tractors in both Europe and USA regions.
First drive
About a week after the announcement, I was able to bring our basic tractor to a driveable state. Controls are still very basic but it’s great seeing it come to life in the game editor.
For now, we will keep working with this basic tractor until physics and tractor behavior are implemented. Then, we will look into adding more tractors and optimizing them for their pulling classes.
Basic sled model
With the tractor being driveable, the next objective was modeling a basic sled. As you can see, as basic as it gets! But it’s enough for testing and further development.
At this point it’s just a static sled, no physics or animations are applied to it. I have tried multiple setups with it, some failed and some succeeded.
Like the tractors, once sled behavior and physics are working correctly we will start worrying about a detailed sled model.
First pulls
Last week I was able to make the very first pulls as seen in the video!
After much debugging, I got it all to work together. Especially hooking the sled to the tractor proved to be a challenge. It was often sent to space when trying to hook the tractor to the sled, but now it’s a stable connection.
Bear in mind that no physics and animations are applied yet, so don’t expect any spectacular pulls. Nonetheless, this was a very exciting milestone because it shows the concept works in its most basic form.
Upcoming month(s)
My focus will be on improving the basics we have at this moment. Making a start with applying physics and variables to the tractor, sled, and track are also on the program. In meantime, I will keep announcing new contributors on a daily basis and making connections with potential partners.
The website will be receiving updates in the upcoming week(s) as well. Especially the contributor page will be revamped to put all contributors in a better spotlight. We have also added a Donation page, for those who’d like to help us out with the financial side of the game.
At last, I want to thank all involved parties again! Without you, this project wouldn’t be possible!