Realistic Gearbox

Those of you that like to play in hardcore mode should have noticed that the Gearbox has an enormous lack of realistic behavior. It is a mix of automatic-manual mode that for me is not enough.

The gearbox should be fully manual in order to give the realistic transmision sensation. Automatic mode, should be an option, activated via GUI or by default in normal mode.

In a real truck, the shift sequence should go like this:
alt text
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5uq_Yn7A_zCay1EWU1tLU4xcjQ/view?usp=sharing

Is true that it is different for every truck in real life and I do not expect to make it different for every truck in the game, but at least one realistic model shared by all trucks is needed.

Is anybody else with me on this?

last edited by DeathCore

In a principal, yes. I've tried several times to use that manual shifting, but in the end, I end-up with conclusion that is useless. Not so much because of that weird shifting pattern, but because of inability to "find the stick and move it correctly into new position". Not sure, if proper pattern can solve this, I'm afraid it just make it worse.
So I put Logitech wheel on my table - that solved all my problems with this.

Да да!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For a real truck you would typically have more than 5 gears, and not necessarily that shifting pattern, but I get your point - the non-hardware shifter way of shifting gears is not exactly optimal. I always use the logitech wheel with Spintires.

@Sodoma said in Realistic Gearbox:

In a principal, yes. I've tried several times to use that manual shifting, but in the end, I end-up with conclusion that is useless. Not so much because of that weird shifting pattern, but because of inability to "find the stick and move it correctly into new position". Not sure, if proper pattern can solve this, I'm afraid it just make it worse.
So I put Logitech wheel on my table - that solved all my problems with this.

Well man, I definitly can't afford a wheel (I'm from Cuba) so I'm stuck with the built in shifter. The good news are that once you use it for enough time, it gets relatively easy to find the stick and change through gears. Actually it is fun, because it is different from any other manual system in any other videogame. It feels more "real". With a 5 gears in the built in shifter, I'd be good to go!
Sorry for my english. I hope you get my point.

i used the stock shifter for a long time, but it would be nice if they was to take a look at tattoo's shifter mod for something like this. he made a simple H shifter pattern that many people have came to like using.

@8up-local Yes, I use it a lot too. But it only has the R/1/1+/Auto system too and it would be nice to have a fully manual system with at least 5 gears.

I like to play on controller but I also own g29 steering wheel but I dont use it for Spintires because If I would then game should have cockpit view. But anyway for gamepad users it is annoying to use manual gear change because user must follow specific patern while moving analogue stick and often it is strugle to change gear fast because of not proper gear patch attempt. H shifter layout may not help eaither if user will be required to follow that pattern. Maybe instead of that for controller users enabling manual gear box and moving in specific direction would suffice to geat change fast enough so truck will not stop. But maybe following straight lines of H shifter layout will be easy enough to make gear change fast enough.

@DeathCore yeah that is why i was thinking if they looked at it maybe they could figure something out for both types of gear box. the regular stock type and maybe a 5 speed.

I can't imagine owning a G29 and NOT using it to play Spintires. That wheel, set to 900° rotation, just MAKES this game. The only time you see me on controller is when I'm feeling too lazy to set the wheel up.

@kourtjestr said in Realistic Gearbox:

I can't imagine owning a G29 and NOT using it to play Spintires. That wheel, set to 900° rotation, just MAKES this game. The only time you see me on controller is when I'm feeling too lazy to set the wheel up.

That's for sure... love my g27 and seldom play without it and not interested in a controller.

Also, increasing the senitivity of the analog stick, may help with the controller. Don´t you guys think?

Yup one of things is that it is little to big hassle to set up xD also no cockpit camera seals it. But using H shifter is tempting 🙂 I have to get achievement so I will set up it soon and see how it plays on wheel 🙂 Also I must see for myself how gear change works in Spintires using proper H shifter.

@DeathCore most modders set their trucks up to steer faster than the stock ones, so if you turn it up for a stock vehicle then you would have to turn it down for a lot of modded vehicles that have their steering already set up for quick steering. personally i like how the steering set up in the game, but to each their own.

@8up-local said in Realistic Gearbox:

@DeathCore most modders set their trucks up to steer faster than the stock ones, so if you turn it up for a stock vehicle then you would have to turn it down for a lot of modded vehicles that have their steering already set up for quick steering. personally i like how the steering set up in the game, but to each their own.

No, this is not what I mean. I prefer Stock steering sensitivity but I was talking about the right analog stick that controls the Gearbox Stick. When you press the stick button it allows you to move the gearbox stick and it mover veeeery slow. it causes that Most of the times the truck will stop before you engage 1+ gear. Whit the mouse it works flawlessly.
I hope you understand my poor English.

last edited by DeathCore

@DeathCore yeah i got you now, i play on keyboard so never noticed the shift speed with the controller. i have a controller, but still prefer key board. for me the only real drawback to using KB over controller is no anolog steering. Force Acceleration gives me the anolog throttle with better shift control than a controller does.

@8up-local said in Realistic Gearbox:

i used the stock shifter for a long time, but it would be nice if they was to take a look at tattoo's shifter mod for something like this. he made a simple H shifter pattern that many people have came to like using.

In one of their videos it seems like they changed the old layout and used a H layout just like the shifter mod by tattoo.
Thats a nice advance, the H layout is much better than the old one.
For me, I would like to have a semi-automatic transmission, so I could use two keys for shiftig up and down.
And I would really like to have a parameter (in the code) to control how fast the transmission can change the gears, that would be very handy to build modern trucks with full-automatic transmissions with many gears.

@DerEggen said in Realistic Gearbox:

For me, I would like to have a semi-automatic transmission, so I could use two keys for shiftig up and down.

They should just use options similar to ETS2/ATS:

alt text

@DerEggen said in Realistic Gearbox:

And I would really like to have a parameter (in the code) to control how fast the transmission can change the gears, that would be very handy to build modern trucks with full-automatic transmissions with many gears.

Actually works better than you'd think:

alt text

The narrow ratio spread (and a modern high-torque turbodiesel) really helps in Spintires with the auto-calculated shift points, as the calculation doesn't cope with wide ratio jumps very well. It took me ages to get the GAZ-66 and ZiL-130 working right, because the top (top two in the ZiL) gear ratio takes quite a jump in terms of how much faster it is than the previous gear which causes it to shift up too early and land you barely above the stall speed of 4th (and 5th) on the ZiL)

@DerEggen I see they have made an H layout shifter, but still have the same scheme of R, 1, 1+, Auto. What I'm asking is to HAVE full control of at least 5 gears through the exact same system they already have for mudrunner to use it with the mouse or the controller. The Up and Down pattern used in ETS2 or ATS is quite to simple. I like the way it is in spintires but it would be way better with this impruvements. Specially for the Hardcore Mode.

@DeathCore Well I think that could be difficult because they have no control over the mods, what if a modded truck has ten or more gears? The manual gearbox sheme would have to "grow" by itself to cover all these gears.
But I'm not into the hardcore simulation stuff, so the new sheme is fine to me, semi-automatic would be nice and a full manual gearbox is something I would probably not use very often.