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TL;DR

Cars (but not tanks) hitting walls at low angles shouldn't be slowed down and shouldn't do damage to walls and possibly to themselves.

What?

Cars hitting walls at low angles shouldn't be slowed down by that collision and shouldn't damage the walls, maybe also shouldn't take damage themselves, just deflect from walls like from barriers on the road; possibly a bit further than they currently do now to make it more visually obvious you were too close to the wall (1 tile, instead of something that seems like 1 px?). And only then straighten their path (similarly like they currently do) to prevent another collision on the straight road.

In the spirit of this change, possibly the gates shouldn't open in certain scenarios for example when angle of attack is very small and car obviously wouldn't pass through it, but hit the wall at the end of the gate. In this case gates should also work like barriers to allow for more forgiving driving inside the base.

I'm not sure about single trees, especially fallen ones, but if it's not too hard to implement/balance with tanks, maybe that should be a bit more forgiving too (even with some damage to both the tree and a car).

Why?

I wish to have better experience with driving a car. I find it annoying to drive a car inside the base in tighter corridors, especially when zoomed out or when taking corners and hitting the wall in what seems to be trivial collision. Similarly when zoomed out and hitting single tree, especially the one that is lying down and what looks like a obstacle to be passed over, even with some slow down rather to stop vehicle fully.

When i saw the picture i couldn't help thinking of this mod : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/VehicleSnap

Doesn't help for that single tree lying down though

skyman wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2026 12:47 am Cars (but not tanks) hitting walls at low angles shouldn't be slowed down and shouldn't do damage to walls and possibly to themselves.

In principle I agree with the idea that cars are not great to use. I only really use them occasionally at the beginning of the game to scout, and a major reason for this is they just don't get around factories very well. I'm not against your proposed change, but I don't think it would change anything for me. But perhaps with some other additions the car might become more viable.

For example, maybe if the car could jump it'd be more useful. Or if you could turn the car on the spot (like a zero turn mower). Of if you could handbrake turn (slide). Or if you could lock the car onto rails temporarily. All of these things would make it easier to navigate a factory, or at least make it more fun.

quineotio wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2026 5:34 am

skyman wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2026 12:47 am Cars (but not tanks) hitting walls at low angles shouldn't be slowed down and shouldn't do damage to walls and possibly to themselves.

For example, maybe if the car could jump it'd be more useful. Or if you could turn the car on the spot (like a zero turn mower). Of if you could handbrake turn (slide). Or if you could lock the car onto rails temporarily. All of these things would make it easier to navigate a factory, or at least make it more fun.

I love it. Jumping and turning in place would be the biggest win IMO, even if jumping had some cooldown. It wouldn't have to be long jump, 2-3 tiles should suffice and even come with downside for example destroying vehicle completely if landed on the bigger entity/no space to land.

Locking car to the rails to have the car act as a player-controlled train would be nice too. You wouldn't have to be worried about other trains hitting you since they would understand the rail segment is occupied.

Sliding would be like a 'meh', but I don't see a reason to not have it?

mmmPI wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2026 1:05 am When i saw the picture i couldn't help thinking of this mod : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/VehicleSnap

Doesn't help for that single tree lying down though

It's nice, although not exactly what I would want in the end.

skyman wrote: Sat Sep 19, 2026 9:14 am It's nice, although not exactly what I would want in the end.

Jumping AND turning around in place at the same time is difficult, i think it's called a round-shake : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3WEchBjaQ

There's always the hovercraft mod for drifting : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Hovercrafts , but it takes collision damage on trees and other things, it's not going to help "driving in narrow corridor inside the base", this is the purpose of the spidertron imo (or just something to avoid altogether ).

It would be nice if collisions worked a bit more like rubber band on more than walls to be fair, often times it looks like you're driving just around the cliffs, but no, suddenly your car come to a brutal full stop and biters surround and you die. It doesn't need to turn into a pinball but a little bit more of trajectory bounce or something would make driving the car much smoother, i agree.

skyman wrote: Sat Sep 19, 2026 9:14 am It wouldn't have to be long jump, 2-3 tiles should suffice and even come with downside for example destroying vehicle completely if landed on the bigger entity/no space to land.

Instead of 2-3 tiles you could think bigger. How about a rocket car?