Please fix the transmission already!

@Iyagovos and anybody else with connections to the dev team

This is by far my most favorite game but it would be so much more enjoyable if the transmission didn't automatically downshift to 1st gear every time it needs to downshift. It kills all your momentum and leads to instability with the smaller vehicles! Not all driving in Mud Runner is in deep mud, and that's where this issue really annoys, i.e. on dry roads.

This should be an easy fix. The transmission needs to pick the right gear, instead of always going straight to 1st. It should depend on speed & load. Sometimes it should go straight to 1st, but only at low speeds & high load.

Alternately, please add key/button bindings for manual shift up and shift down and one for neutral. The manual transmission mode doesn't work without a dedicated gear shifter. Besides, some trucks have up to 9 gears and few shifters if any have those.

last edited by Unster

unster said in Please fix the transmission already!:

please add key/button bindings for manual shift up and shift down

I gotta say @Unster has a pretty good point here... the tranny is a bit of a pain sometimes. If there's no fix in the works i'd love to hear the reason.

@grubdumpling
A bit of a pain is quite an understatement in my view. What's more aggravating is that the transmission actually used to work much better before the Ridge DLC update that introduced this downshift-to-1 nonsense. I get that in low-speed, high-load situations, you want to switch to 1st gear ASAP as I mentioned, but this implementation where it's done in all situations is horrible. It's really partly killing my enjoyment of this game, and that's a shame.

I only use automatic when driving on pavement to achieve top speed. Why dont you use the manual gears? It’s much easier to control momentum and wheel spin, it even allows for throttle control with the right trigger

@stirmygnat
Do you mean the 1 and 1+ gears? I do use them and they're better than nothing, but then you just have 2 gears. The 1+ seems to be the equivalent of 3rd or some middle gear, so it's spaced quite far from 1st and at the same time it won't let you reach top speed. We shouldn't be limited to a 2-speed manual.

I find it curious that this change to the way the transmission works came with the Ridge DLC, the map that comes with a long stretch of paved road and two 9-speed trucks on the map. As soon as you climb one of the steeper sections the truck drops from a high gear all the way to 1st, almost forcing you to stop. It's an issue on any road where you can travel faster.

@Unster you know maybe i am misunderstanding your issue, now that you use the example of the semis on the ridge i'm gonna load one up tonight and pay more attention.

I'd noticed the auto transmission wasn't good at kicking down shortly after launch. I remember it always dropped all the way to first gear offroad. The ridge came with the b6a though... i've got tunnel vision now.

Gear 1 has 3 notches in it. Essentially first through third but also has half notches. +1 is basically fourth and auto is everything over that. The ridge update said they addressed the auto transmission to make it smoother and it did get better in my opinion. I’m not really understanding your issue when you have options to control the gears depending on the situation. Try to get more savvy with changing gears. If your in auto and coming up to a hill then throw it into +1 before it loses momentum and the auto downshifts

@grubdumpling
I hadn't been playing the game yet at launch time. I only discovered it this year sometime in the spring, a few weeks before the Ridge DLC. I don't remember exactly how the auto transmission used to work, but I remember it worked well and I pay attention to these things (I like realistic driving games). Then the DLC came out, and I noticed the downshift problem right away. And sure enough, there was something about the automatic mentioned in the change list. But there's a possibility the issue was there before and I first noticed it on the hilly paved roads of the Ridge.

last edited by Unster

In the may community update they said it was improved. I know that doesn’t really help you now. I think the gears are part of the challenge of this game. You may be mistaking the challenge as an issue. Hopefully they don’t make auto op and let everyone just smash through the game. It wouldn’t effect how I play but I’m hoping to see the game become more difficult in time and not easier if you catch my drift

@stirmygnat said in Please fix the transmission already!:

You may be mistaking the challenge as an issue.

I'm certainly not. I love challenge (if it's realistic). This isn't a challenge. It's a nuisance and either a bug or a poor design decision.

Ok. I’ve explained to you how to work around it but I guess your not interested in that. Maybe they will make automatic easier for people who either don’t use manual or don’t understand it.

Cheers

@stirmygnat
I didn't see your other post until now. You were posting around the same time as I was. Not sure what you mean by notches. You mean like sub-gears? There's no such thing in real life. Anyway, switching to 1+ from auto on uphills is good advice until they fix this. I just wish they had a button mapping for that, so I don't have to take my hand off the wheel and use the mouse.

last edited by Unster

It could be realistic in the sense of 2 transfer cases. I don’t know, I’m pretty sure automatic handles the way they meant it to considering they have updated it once already. I think the point is to get people to utilize manual gears. Both have benefits but by far manual gives you better control

Oh and your using a wheel. Keep in mind the game wasnt initially designed for wheel use. They didn’t support wheels until a few months after the game came out so it’s no where near perfect. Maybe in mudrunner 2 they will optimize wheel support but for now it’s kinda wonky

Sure, but then I wish they just went with full manual instead of this unclear 1, 1+ and auto. I didn't think of them as gears and they're not. They're really just transmission modes. Auto should behave like a real auto. No real automatic downshifts straight to 1st gear, especially at high speeds. But I appreciate your advice. I'll try to think of them as "gears", though in that case, auto should not downshift to 1. It should stall at low speeds like 1+ does.

Hope I helped some. Happy logging!!!!

@stirmygnat said in Please fix the transmission already!:

Ok. I’ve explained to you how to work around it but I guess your not interested in that. Maybe they will make automatic easier for people who either don’t use manual or don’t understand it.

Cheers

I'm pretty good at writing dick posts, but this one gets a prize.

@unster said in Please fix the transmission already!:

Sure, but then I wish they just went with full manual instead of this unclear 1, 1+ and auto. I didn't think of them as gears and they're not. They're really just transmission modes. Auto should behave like a real auto. No real automatic downshifts straight to 1st gear, especially at high speeds. But I appreciate your advice. I'll try to think of them as "gears", though in that case, auto should not downshift to 1. It should stall at low speeds like 1+ does.

To be more accurate, auto should kick down when it bogs or when you dramatically increase throttle. I'm with you on this issue, i just didn't notice much of a change with the dlc. Certainly didn't notice an improvement.

@grubdumpling
Right. Kick-down is something other than jumping to 1st gear (while skipping other gears) and that would be desired.

@stirmygnat
I'm sorry to say that your suggestion isn't gonna work for me. I just tried it on the Proving Grounds, and it's still a pain for several reasons. Even if I downshift to 1+ seemingly in time, the auto mode will often get ahead of me and downshift to 1 before I have a chance to shift myself. And shifting exclusively with the mouse is a pain, literally. I'm on the computer all day for my job and I get arthritis pain if I keep my hand too long on the mouse. The controls are designed incredibly poorly in this game. If they at least let you turn on the gear stick move with something other than the keyboard or clicking directly on the gear stick graphic, it would be so much easier to shift. I may just have to buy a physical gear shifter like a fool, even though it won't have enough gears to handle all the trucks. The game's menu allows you to only assign 6 gears anyway, even though some trucks have 9 gears.

last edited by Unster