Short Description:

This mod uses the vehicle XML files from QMJS's Extended Functions mod and modifies those to dramatically improve handling, reverse steering and increase maximum speed of almost every car in SoD; all while ensuring you can maintain control of the car and that the handling feels more natural and less arcadey. If you're looking for a mod to improve the cars in SoD, this is the mod for you.

v1.1 uploaded. A ton of changes included in this update including overhauls of the rally hatchback, muscle car and exotic, as well as including the wagon and modern sedan to the roster of modified cars. See changelog at the bottom of the description for more info.

Long Description:

State of Decay is a great game, but the vehicle handling is a pretty consistent weak point. This mod sets out to improve the handling of most of the vehicles while still retaining a bit of variety. With v1.1 I've made a ton of general changes to almost all of the cars in SoD. The suspension settings on all of the cars has been pretty heavily modified to make them more stable and more responsive. The rally hatchback, modern hatchback, muscle car, exotic, and all of their variants have received the most work here. I've also adjusted the max speed of all of the modified cars, most of which got a small increase. The exception are the muscle car and the exotic which received almost a 50% increase in speed. Even with the higher speeds though, the cars are all very manageable, both in terms of handling and acceleration. There were also a lot of changes made to the reverse steering settings to make the cars much more controllable in reverse. Overall this mod does a lot to improve the handling and performance of the cars I've modified.

E-brake functionality:
I adjusted the e-brake to bring it a bit more in line with what I expect an e-break to do. Primarily, the changes allow the rear end to slide a lot more while using the break. Straight-line stopping power is dramatically reduced (trying to stop by locking up the rear tires doesn't generally work very well in real life, so it's more or less expected), but you can still stop quickly by hitting the e-brake and turning. The following cars had the e-brake changes applied:
-Muscle car and all its variants.
-Exotic car and all its variants.
-Black and red modern pickups.
-"Norma" pickup.
-Rally hatchback.
-Police car (both variants).
-Modern sedan and all its variants.
-Station wagon and all its variants.

Reverse Steering:
There were a select few cars which are extremely hard to steer while reversing with the stock XMLs. A big contributor here was that steering magnitude was set to double at max speed, which ultimately results in the front end of the car whipping around if you so much as attempt to steer while in reverse. This made trying to use reverse in these cars extremely dangerous. My changes significantly reduce steering magnitude and adjust maximum steering angles to be a lot more moderate. The result is a control scheme that is a lot easier to control, even when reversing at high speeds, yet still allows you to perform a J turn if you find the need. The following vehicles had this modification applied:
-Muscle car and all its variants.
-Exotic and all its variants.
-Police car (both variants).

Suspension stiffness:
The suspensions are one of the biggest problems with the stock cars. Most of them, especially the higher performance vehicles, had suspensions that were too soft to be able to handle the speeds they were capable of. The muscle car was an absolute disaster, its suspension was so soft that you could very nearly roll the car just by attempting to turn. It floated around very much like a boat. Most of the changes here were directed at the muscle car, but ultimately went on to improve the remainder of the cars listed below as well. The end result is that all of the cars have firmer suspensions. Some still have a reasonable amount of softness (you wouldn't expect the station wagon to have a stiff suspension after all), but all of them have been firmed up a bit. The muscle car especially handles nothing like the original. The following cars had their suspensions adjusted:
-Muscle car and all its variants.
-Exotic car and all its variants.
-Black and red modern pickups.
-"Norma" pickup.
-Rally hatchback.
-Police car (both variants).
-Modern sedan and all its variants.
-Station wagon and all its variants.

This mod was originally designed to work with QMJS's Extended Functionality v1.1, however it should be compatible with the base game as well.

Install instructions:

NMM Install:
Mod should now be compatible with NMM. Simply download through NMM and activate the mod.

Manual Install:
Extract the zip in your State of Decay install directory (where StateofDecay.exe is located).

If properly installed, you should see the XMLs in the "State of Decay\Game\scripts\entities\vehicles\implementations\xml" folder.

Uninstallation:
To uninstall, delete the XML files from the "State of Decay\Game\scripts\entities\vehicles\implementations\xml" folder.  If you've got one more than one mod which tweaks vehicles, then there may be XMLs in the folder which aren't part of HPH.  In that case, open up the HPH zip you downloaded and take a look at the files listed there.  Delete those same files from the folder mentioned above and it should uninstall the mod.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to pop on over to the discussion tab.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it.
-Azrus


Changelog:
v1.1: 06/19/2014
-Converted all suspension damping settings from the <WheeledLegacy> node to <SubPartWheel> for each wheel which should allow for simulation of independent suspension. Dramatically improves handling, especially over bumpy terrain.
-E-brake and braking adjusted. Standard braking strength reduced, e-brake strength reduced when the player presses the e-brake while still accelerating.
-Speed adjustments for all cars, three tiers: "junker" @ 25m/s, "standard" @ 30m/s, and "high performance" @ 40m/s.
-Various suspension adjustments to ensure cars are still controllable at the new speeds.
-Suspension overhaul for Rally Hatchback and Modern Hatchback variants. Now able to drive over curbs relatively smoothly.
-Suspension overhaul for muscle car and exotic to help with high speed handling and prevent high downward force (such as driving down hill and then smoothing out) from causing the wheels to clip through the body of the car.
-Wagon and Modern Sedan (+ their variants) added to the roster of modified cars.
-Muscle car and exotic had their suspension lowered to give a more aggressive appearance. Handling is still excellent.
v1.0: Initial release.

Credits:

QMJS for the original XMLs which came from their Extended Functions mod.
Undead Labs for State of Decay.

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