Just a quick bit of news before getting into the details of this update: Speed Demons 2 is an arcade highway racing game coming to PC and consoles later in 2025. The trailer below debuted exclusively on IGN, and the Steam page is now live, so you can head over there to read more (or wishlist the game).

[previewyoutube=X_3IuTtpUcU;full][/previewyoutube]

VERSION 1.11 IS HERE!

Despite the short update cycle, there's a lot to cover for this version. Just a warning though: Pretty much every change has to do with vehicle building. We'll start with the changelist, then go into a bit more detail on the new parts and significant part options.

Changelist:
- Added Stasis option to Vortex and Turbine parts, along with anti-gravity modifier
- Added Shockwave part (projectile weapon, triggers shockwave explosion)
- Added Laser Gun part (projectile weapon, similar to X8 Rifle/Gauss)
- Added option to modify explosion strength of projectile weapons (use with caution)
- Added option to disable muzzle flash mini-explosion (all projectile weapons)
- Added Aero part for custom aerodynamics
- Added Ball wheel part (omnidirectional roller)
- Added option to scale all non-steering wheels that weren't yet resizable (including Ball)
- Added Flex Isosceles part
- Added option to hide base of flex parts (panel, triangle, etc)
- Added option to Gyro part to use direct rotation instead of physics
- Made Fireball explosion available in Effects part (3 sizes)
- Added logic to make big vehicle impacts more consistent (such as mission 2-1)
- Changed Settler SB level a bit
- Made sliders also change speed relative to the input strength (up to 1)
- Fixed slider activate mode ignoring the slider during negative inputs
- Fixed outline around bomb parts sticking around after they explode
- Fixed a bug with dropship pick-up (at the end of a mission) being too fast
- Fixed a potential GPU thread overflow when lots of particles are active

NEW PART OPTION: STASIS (Vortex/Turbine)

This is listed before the new parts for a reason. I was going to add a new part or two for this feature, but piggy-backing on the Vortex/Turbine was a faster way to get it done. The Stasis option turns the Vortex/Turbine in a sort of physics-pause tool, with tunable settings and control over how frozen the objects are, and how much anti-gravity to apply.

NEW PARTS: SHOCKWAVE and LASER GUN

These two new projectile weapons give you new ways to annihilate things. The Shockwave in particular can destroy basically everything in one blast if you turn up the explosion damage option high enough, but I'm not going to stop you. [That option is also now found on the Gauss and X8 Rifle.] The Laser Gun has nothing to do with the previous lasers, aside from sharing some FX and shaders. It's more of a traditional sci-fi projectile weapon. It doesn't really do anything new, but is a nice change of pace aesthetically.

NEW PART: AERO

The Aero part is relatively simple and small. It only has 3 significant settings, and a 4th that will mostly go unused. Based on the forward velocity of the part (and the relative forward speed vs. overall speed), it creates drag, lift, and a bit of rotation. It only cares about speed in one direction, but that's enough to simulate a wing fairly well, possibly better than the actual wing parts. Use multiple Aero parts at various points on an aircraft, or just a few with different orientations, and you can simulate whatever kind of aerodynamics you can imagine.

NEW PART: FLEX ISOSCELES

Flex parts are a bit of a pain to create, but this one mostly works like a normal flex panel. I make no promises about using it in a mirrored creation, but it does have 10 slight variants for visual purposes. Of more importance to some is the new inclusion of the HIDE BASE option on all panel-like flex parts. This prevents the base from rendering, allowing for adjusting parts without having to worry about the base. Note: This doesn't disable the base collision, just the rendering.

NEW PART: BALL WHEEL

The omnidirectional ball wheel was another quick part to make, and I figured out a simpler way to make wheels scale-able as well. They don't use E/Shift+E to change the size, but I think that's an acceptable compromise. The scaling option is now available on all non-steering wheels that didn't already scale.

NEW OPTION: DIRECT ROTATION (Gyro)

The last significant new part option is for the Gyro. There's now an option to use an alternative method of rotating towards the target orientation. It bypasses physics almost completely, and it's only 2 lines of code (after lots of trial and error), but ends up being more stable and effective than I expected. It's not the default setting, but perhaps it should have been.

The rest of the fixes/updates are fairly minor. Overall this update went more smoothly than expected, but it's possible I broke something with it, so I won't be surprised if there's a 1.11a version soon. Up next: We'll be working on wrapping up and submitting the console versions (reminder: March 27th on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S).