MoreRealistic is a deep modification of the game focused on making it more enjoyable, especially the driving experience, with the goal of creating a “driving farming simulator”.
It changes vehicle physics, transmissions, engine behavior, harvesting and working speeds, tire forces, mass, gravity and other systems to provide a more realistic experience.
MoreRealistic history
IRL, I drove my first tractor at the age of 7, only the steering wheel, Ford 7000 and IH745.
I am also a software engineer, but not only.
I discovered and played LS2009 just before Farming Simulator 2011 was released.
I started modding with FS2011 – the game physics was too bad, with unrealistic flying tractors. The more weight on the wheels, the more power you get, no rolling resistance, etc etc.
So, I created MR11 to get the best driving experience from the vanilla game and fix many bugs like the farm bales elevator. Once FS2011 with MR was feeling great to me, I released MR11.
But it was a bit late: Farming Simulator 2013 was released too, and it took me “ages” to make MR11, thousands hours.
Then, I worked on MR13 because vanilla FS2013 was feeling so bad compared to MR11. Another time, it took me a bunch of time to get the “MR engine” ready, and then I had to convert every piece of equipment to be “MR”, as well as expansion vehicles.
And so, I spent another couple of thousand hours on this one.
When FS15 was released, I gave it a try: still not good, I could not feel I was driving a tractor. I checked what could be done with modding, but didn’t achieve to do anything good, and didn’t even achieve to apply proper gravity, so no MR15.
When FS17 was released, it felt the same. As usual, it was like playing with “playmobil” tractors. I achieved to make MR17 and spent a lot of time converting vehicles. Of course, there were even more vehicles than before, so I guess I spent the most time on this one, more than 3000 hours ?
At the end, I spent all my free time on this mod, but did not have time to enjoy the game with it.
Then, FS19 was released. I had a new job, and no time for playing, more than full-time job, 3000 hours per year. So, no MR.
The same for FS22, same job and still no time for FS or MR.
Why MR25?
I bought the game just before release, and I achieved to play almost one hour before trying to mod the game. The driving experience was too bad:
- Just set manual direction change to “ON”, and try to cultivate a field with base MT635, unplayable. Each time you shift in reverse, the R1 speed is selected, crawling, and you have to shift all the gears up to get a decent reverse speed. It quickly becomes unbearable.
- IRL, John Deere 3650 is one of “my” tractors, and I spent a couple hundred hours driving it. The gearbox is “badly” set in game. The hi-lo lever is not in the right direction, and it feels like driving a powershift tractor. Gear ratio differences also have nothing to do with IRL, and I couldn’t feel like I was driving a 3650.
- MF 8570 harvesting at 10kph whatever the yield, the crop or the incline.
- I bought a Fendt, with vario transmission. The driving experience was “disgusting”, in 2 words: flat and dull.
- This was already more than I could handle: the “simulator” word was lost.
Features
- Rolling resistance, something not present in the base game engine, but really, really, really important IRL for farming vehicles. Air resistance is also included, but is not so important.
- Better tire forces, for example, it is no longer possible to pull more than your weight.
- Earth gravity, which was not the case in base game FS2011 and 2013.
- IRL mass, including realistic fillType density, no mass limit and a better center of mass.
- More realistic harvest and working speed. It is still a bit “easy” compared to IRL, but you will want that high horse power shiny tractor or bigger combine now.
- Engines with a proper torque curve. Try to compare John Deere 3650 and Landini REX4 120 with or without MR, at work in a hilly field.
- New transmission management. The MR game engine makes use of its own function, including for automatic shifting, for a far more realistic experience. Try making 0-40kph with the MT635 with or without MR, automatic shifting ON. It can handle hydrostatic transmission. Drive the Massey Ferguson 8570 on the road for 30 seconds without MR and with MR. If you love driving by yourself, it is difficult to get back to the base game feeling.
- No automatic brake when going downhill and going faster than max vehicle speed. Let’s hope AI is able to brake now.
- MR Combines take into account “liters per second” and crops. Less yield means faster combine speed, and harvesting less than 100% of the header width means more speed.
- MR Combines are limited by header max cut speed, combine threshing capacity and engine power. Chopping straw consumes more power, which may mean less speed if the combine is underpowered in the current crop.
- Variable center of mass depending on the fill level.
- Tires have a great impact in game now. For example, try to cross a wet field with a full trailer fitted with narrow road tires.
What should you not expect from MoreRealistic?
- Overriding every piece of equipment in the game, the expansion and the official mods. It would require me more than 24 hours a day to achieve that in an acceptable time.
Fun facts
- I bought the game on Steam first. Then, I had to buy it directly from Giants because modding is not welcome on the Steam version of the game, with no lua game source.
- Each MoreRealistic project is started from scratch. I do not copy code from previous game.
- It can take me dozens of hours, hundred ?, to remove some unwanted vanilla features that would take Giants minutes to remove, such as the FS2011 “damping” value.
- It seems every piece of equipment I look at is “wrong”, maybe I look too much ?
- APE50 is not CVT driven IRL. It has a manual gearbox like a motorbike, but the shifting lever means rotating the whole left handle. Then, you have a reverser lever.
- Aprilia 125 is not 100Hp at all IRL, especially the current 4 strokes engine.
- Landini REX4 is not a GT version. This is an F version in game.
- Amazone Spreader is not a 3200 model. This is the 2600 version, and it does not have the same width at all.
- GreatPlains 1500 has the wrong optional attachment. This is not a fertilizer unit, but the small seeds attachment unit.
- Challenger MT635/645 and MT655/665 do not have the same engine: sisu 7.4L and 8.4L. They also do not have the same transmission: funk 18/6 and 18/9, and therefore do not have the same weight either.
- In the base game, more than 90% of vehicles share the same engine, with the same torque curve and just a factor applied to derate the power. You can’t feel the difference between a 8.4L valmet engine and a 3.6L deutz engine. This is not a wanted experience for a driving simulator, especially with manual gears.
- A few times, MR25 has been stopped, nearly aborted, because I didn’t achieve to “bend” the base game engine like I wanted.
- With the base game engine, when playing with Giants studio attached to debug and “vehicleDebug” active, the game engine is eating your memory, RAM. This is fixed with MR engine.
- MR is best suited for “hardcore” players who play vanilla game and don’t spend time searching for mods, the ones that would never know MR exists.
Changelog
20260329
- New woodcrusher code: we want to limit or avoid the sliding at work. Now we only rely on “joint” between the wood logs and the crusher, with no more forces and frictionVelocity.
- Add converted Lemken Solitair 12 seeder.
- Fix speed text display problem when there are 2 “dashboards” for the same node, example: John Deere 8R pillar speed display.
- Add converted Geringhoff sunlite 40 header.
- v1.17 of the game.
- Fix broken detection of already loosened soil.
