Water Ride v1.0

Every so often I fire up BeamNG, look at a lake, and think "yeah, I want to drive on that." So I built it.

Water Ride lets you drive on water in any vehicle in the game. Not a special boat car, not a modded part you have to bolt on - your car, the one you already like, just now the lake holds it up. Nothing in the jbeam is touched. It still crashes, folds up, catches fire and generally falls apart the way it always did. You just get to do all that on a river.

There are three modes and you flip between them with one key while you're driving.

• Grip is the one most people will live in. I simulate a contact patch under each tyre, so throttle, brakes and steering all still do what they're supposed to do — water is just a lot more slippery than tarmac. You can drive on it properly. You can brake. You can absolutely drift a lake, and it's as stupid as it sounds.

• Boat throws the wheels out entirely and treats the car like a powerboat. Throttle pushes it along its nose, steering swings the back end round, it leans into corners and keeps sliding after you lift off. Great for big open water and long lazy arcs.

• Hydroplane is my favourite. Speed is the only thing keeping you up. Get on the plane and you're skimming across the top, back off and the car settles down into it; stop completely and you're just swimming. Every crossing turns into a small commitment.

It finds the water on its own, on any map, and measures the actual surface height from under the car. Lakes, rivers, flooded maps, modded water - all fine. On dry land it does nothing at all, and it won't kick in in water too shallow to float in. Traffic and AI cars still sink like normal, unless you'd rather they didn't, in which case there's a toggle.

If you like tuning things, there's a lot to tune. Ride height, surface stiffness, bounce damping, maximum lift, wave height and speed, forward and sideways grip, grip sharpness, water drag, wheel reaction, planing and sinking speeds, boat thrust, reverse, turn rate, lean, hull drag, float height, top speed, spray and sound. If you'd rather not, there are three presets one click away: Arcade sticks you to the water, Drift turns it into an ice rink, and Heavy gives you a soft surface, real swell and almost nothing to hold on to.

There's spray coming off the wheels and a water rush that builds with speed. The mod also keeps your personal bests: top speed on water, longest crossing in one go, and total distance driven on water. That last one gets out of hand fast.

Alt+R turns the mod on and off, Alt+M steps through the modes. Both are rebindable in Options > Controls > Vehicle. Add the "Water Ride" app from Apps > Gameplay to get the gauge and the settings panel.

Go find a lake!

The mod will become free for everyone in ~1 week. T2+ patreons always have direct download option via Discord (#patreon-files chat).