Bucky Driving

How the stick moves

• OpensThe stick only moves once the clutch is far enough down to shift: past 60% of pedal travel. Until then the camera is frozen and the gate waits.
• LayoutGears go in pairs, 1 above 2, 3 above 4. With an even gear count reverse gets its own column at the far left. With an odd count it takes the empty slot under the top gear.
• Neutral zoneWithin 30% of the rail, a mostly sideways push slides the stick along it. You do not need to hit neutral exactly.
• Sticky columnsNear a column the stick slows to 40% speed, so it settles on the middle gears instead of sliding past them.
• Guided inAn up or down push near a column pulls the stick into that column. It only has to be within 45% of the column spacing.
• SnapPast 45% of the way into an open slot, the stick drops fully into gear. Pull it back under 70% and it springs out to neutral.
• DetentGoing straight from 1st to 2nd stops once at neutral. Keep pushing and it carries on.
• Letting goRelease the clutch part-way into a slot and the stick settles: fully in if the gear had engaged, back to neutral if not.

When a shift is refused

The gearbox can turn a gear down. The knob stops at 60% of the way into the slot, the numeral flashes red, the knob shakes, and a short grind plays. Nothing engages until you back off.

Neutral is always allowed, at any speed.

The numbers

• Press120 ms from up to fully down. The stick can move once the pedal passes 60%, which takes about 72 ms.
• Release900 ms from fully down to up. This is what makes the pick-up smooth instead of a lurch.
• Bite zoneNo drive until the pedal has come up 25%. Full drive at 75%. Drive builds over 0.45 s of a normal release.
• ShiftingGears change while drive is at or under 0.3, which is pedal travel of 60% or more.
• Free rollingUnder 0.2 drive, at pedal travel of 65% or more, the car counts as free to roll on a slope.
• Stall riskAbove 0.5 drive, at pedal travel under 50%, an overloaded engine can be dragged to a stall.

The engine

• Curve50% of peak torque at zero revs, rising to a peak at 65% RPM and easing to 88% at redline.
• IdleIdle sits at 20% RPM. With no throttle the idle governor gives 28% of peak torque. That is what keeps a car creeping in 1st.
• LimiterAt 100% RPM drive is cut. That gives every gear a top speed, and it is why 1st cannot carry you to 200 km/h.
• PowerThe whole curve is scaled by 1.25, so a car feels a little stronger than stock. The scaling is capped at 3 times the game's drive.
• InertiaRevs rise at 9 a second and fall at 4, so the needle follows the pedal with a small delay instead of jumping.

What a stall looks and sounds like

When the engine cannot carry the load it does not die at once. For 600 ms it bogs, and you get a warning you can act on.

When it rolls

• FreeNeutral, or the clutch far enough down that drive is under 0.2. That is pedal travel of 65% or more.
• HeldThe brake or the handbrake stops it. In gear with the clutch out the engine holds the car, and on a hill without throttle it will stall.
• Pull9.81 × the sine of the slope, minus 0.35 m/s² of rolling resistance. From rest the car only starts if the pull beats the resistance.
• Speed capBelow 10 m/s the script drives the roll. Above it the game's own physics takes over, so the handover is smooth.

Straight from Config.Rollback. The script sets the car's speed every frame because the game holds a stopped car in place by itself.

What the pedals show

• ClutchAmber. Tips as Left Shift is held, and eases back over 900 ms.
• BrakeRed. Follows S.
• AcceleratorGreen. Follows W. A controller trigger moves it smoothly.
• FeedbackEach pedal darkens as it goes down, and its letter and meter light up. Values are rounded to 5% steps and only sent to the page when they change.
• SoundA soft thud when a pedal goes down and a small tick when it comes up. The clutch is the heaviest, the accelerator the lightest.

Turn the pedals off with /pedals, or for everyone with Config.Pedals.enabled = false.

Position is the centre of each panel in % of the screen, and size is 1 = 100% at 1080p. Both grow with screen height. The layout is saved on the player's own PC, and everything is checked and clamped in Lua before it is stored.

When each one plays

• Gear inWhen the stick drops into a gear: a synchro click, the gear seating, then a small detent click.
• Out to neutralOne lighter click as the stick springs out.
• RefusedA short dry grind and a knock when the gearbox turns a gear down.
• JudderSix low thumps across the 600 ms bog before a stall.
• StallA heavy clunk and a falling groan when the engine dies.
• PedalsDown and up for the clutch, brake and accelerator. Each pedal sounds at most once every 120 ms, so a shaky controller trigger stays quiet.

Volume and switches

Config.Sounds = {
    enabled = true,
    volume  = 0.5, -- master, 0..1
    shift   = 1, -- gear in / out / refused, relative to master
    pedals  = 0.7, -- pedal press / release, relative to master
}

Players turn the sounds off for themselves with /drivesounds.

Reading the gear from your own script

One client export gives any script the gearbox state. It returns nil when the player is not driving manual.

local ok, st = pcall(function()
    return exports['bucky-driving']:GetGearState()
end)

if ok and type(st) == 'table' then
    -- st.gear    'N', 'R', or the gear number
    -- st.gears   how many forward gears the car has
    -- st.clutch  pedal travel, 0 up .. 1 down
    -- st.rpm     engine revs, 0 .. 1 (1 = redline)
    -- st.stalled true while the engine is stalled
end

Other scripts on the server

Commands

Keys can be rebound in Settings → Key Bindings → FiveM. Everything a player chooses is saved on their own PC.

Your first drive

1. Get in as the driver. The gate appears on the right, in neutral. Cars with one gear, EVs, boats, aircraft, cycles and trains are left alone.

2. Hold Left Shift and move the mouse. Up and left is 1st. The knob snaps in.

3. Add a little throttle and let Shift go slowly. Over about a second, the car picks up. On the flat, 1st will even creep by itself.

4. Shift up as the revs climb. Hold Shift, pull the stick down to 2nd, and let go. The gate will refuse a gear that would over-rev the engine.

5. To stop, brake, hold Shift and select neutral. If you forget, the car stalls in gear.

6. If it stalls, hold Shift and press J.

Performance, data and safety

• Client onlyThere is no server script, no event and no database. Nothing is paid out and nothing is stored on the server.
• Idle costWhen the player is not driving manual, the resource wakes twice a second to check the car they are in.
• Driving costOne loop runs per frame, and only while a player is driving a manual car. It does arithmetic on a few numbers and makes a handful of game calls.
• Page messagesValues reach the page only when they change. Pedals and clutch move in 5% steps.
• StorageThe manual switch, pedals switch, mouse speed, sounds switch and layout are saved on the player's own PC, not on the server. The layout the page sends back is checked and clamped in Lua.

Measure it on your own server with the resource monitor (resmon 1), with and without the resource running.

Built for CEF

The gate and pedals are built to stay light inside FiveM's built-in browser.

• AnimationOnly transform, opacity and clip-path change over time. No animated filters and no backdrop filters.
• DepthThe 3D look is a real CSS perspective tilt plus layered gradients and static shadows.
• AssetsThe page's font is bundled. There are no audio files, and no images beyond CSS.
• TestsThe gate, gearbox and rollback rules are plain Lua with offline tests, and the demos on this page are checked against that Lua before the page is built.