Vehicle Setup:

Some options become available at higher upgrade levels.

Tire pressure:
Affects how inflated your tires are. ‘Airing down’ means decreasing tire pressure for better off road performance. Low pressure tires will generally get better grip, but will limit your maximum speed (and the torque you put down) due to higher rolling resistance.

Muffle Backfire:
After Engine Level 3, your engine will sometimes produce backfire (the fire, pops, and bangs out of the exhaust pipe). This option disables that.

Muffle Forced Induction:
After Engine Level 3, we apply a Turbo- or Supercharger to your engine. This option makes it quiet.

Portal Axles:
Portal axles lower your wheel hubs relative to your axles, raising the overall diff clearance.

Fuel Mixture:
Affects how rich or lean your engine’s air/fuel mixture is. A slightly richer ratio will produce a bit more power (to a point, after that richer = more smoke and less power), leaner values will decrease exhaust smoke and power. If your engine is running too lean it may start cutting out. Generally, the default setting is great, and a bit richer than that can give you a bit more power, up to a point.

Axle Track Width:
Defines how wide your axles are, compared to stock. The wider this value, the wider apart the wheels.

Spring stiffness:
Defines how stiff the suspension springs are. Softer values will allow for better suspension articulation (flex), provided the springs are also long enough, but softer values will also cause your springs to compress more overall, making the vehicle sit lower, decreasing clearance. This can be counteracted with longer springs. Stiffer values will cause the vehicle to be more bouncy and rigid feeling, and it will increase handling stability to a point. Too hard and you’re driving a stool. Stiffer values will make it easier to achieve higher lift though, but at a cost of worse articulation. If your vehicle is very tall and has stiff springs then it’s much more likely to roll over.

Shock bump:
Defines how much the shocks slow down suspension movement when being compressed. The shocks’ job is to dampen (slow down) the oscillations of the springs. The stiffer the shocks, the more they try to slow down the suspension’s vertical movement. Bump in particular affects how much the shock slows down suspension movement when it’s being compressed (like when driving over a bump or landing from a drop)

Shock rebound:
Defines how much the shocks slow down suspension movement when returning to ride height after a bump or a landing.

Sway Bar:
The sway bar attempts to keep your vehicle from experiencing too much body roll, but it’s detrimental to suspension articulation (flex). Stiffer values are suitable for racing, as they will keep the vehicle more stable in turns at higher speeds, softer values are good for crawling and general off road performance, as they’ll allow for more flex.

Spring Length:
Defines how long the springs are. This in conjunction with spring stiffness affects how tall your resulting lift is.

Brake Bias:
Affects where the brake balance is shifted, front or rear. If shifted to the rear, the brake will cause the vehicle to destabilize and drift more easily. If in the front, it’ll make braking more stable, but will make turning while braking harder.

Differentials:
Defines the percentage of torque the differential will transfer to the other wheel if the first one is spinning free. Looser values = more 'open' diffs, stronger values = more 'locked' feeling diffs. Looser values will perform better in hard surface racing with lots of corners, stronger values will work better on looser surfaces.

Final Drive Ratio:
This is the ratio between the vehicle’s transmission output shaft and driven wheel revolutions. Higher ratios will produce more wheel torque at the expense of wheel speed, lower ratios will produce higher wheel speeds at the expense of wheel torque.

Low Range Ratio:
Similar to the final drive ratio, this affects the gearing of the low range mode (4L or 6L/8L) of the transfer case.

Detune:
You can reduce the engine performance at will, down to the minimum of stock engine power.

Wheel customization:

Wheel sizes: All size and width sliders affect wheel weight, which in turn may alter your wheel torque and overall center of gravity.


Wheel upgrade level:
Will affect wheel grip, and unlock some setup options. Your tire size sliders are limited by the upgrade level, so if the sliders won’t go past a value then it likely means your upgrade level is too low. Most vehicles have a maximum wheel upgrade level of 10.


Tire size:
Affects the overall size of the tires, increasing your diff clearance and adding to wheel weight the most.


Rim size:
Makes the rim larger while keeping the tire the same size. Higher values will decrease tire compression if tire pressure is low. Increases wheel weight.


Wheel width:
Affects grip. Wider tires will have better grip but will be heavier. There’s a balancing act between optimal grip and high wheel weight.

Driving Assistance:

ABS: Anti-lock braking system, helps you maintain control over the vehicle when braking hard by preventing the wheels from locking up.

TCS: Traction control system, helps the vehicle stay under control by limiting the throttle when there is too much wheel slip.

ESP: Electronic Stability Control, helps the vehicle stay in control and turn by applying brakes to the wheels to reduce slip.

Auto-drift steer: Automatically countersteers to help the vehicle maintain stability while in a drift.

For maximum performance, it’s recommended to keep TCS and ESP disabled.

Consumables:

Field wash: Allows for washing the vehicle while in a game (from the pause menui). Consumed 1x per ingame wash.

Wax: Significantly reduces the rate at which a vehicle gets dirty for a specific mileage depicted by a number, has to be applied to a specific vehicle in the Vehicle Selection menu.

Hydrophobic coating: Makes your vehicle dirt-proof for a specific mileage depicted by a number, needs to be applied to a specific vehicle in the Vehicle Selection menu

Locator: Significantly decreases the size of the circle area surrounding a crate on the map so it’s easier to find the crate. Gets consumed when you collect a crate.

Precise Locator: Makes the crates appear as even smaller circles on the map, also change color depending on the crate rarity (grey = common, gold = uncommon, purple = rare) Gets consumed when you collect a crate.

Nitrous: Significantly increases engine power output for a limited time, is consumed 1x per second.

Winch Anchor: allows for connecting the winch to any point on the terrain, gets consumed when winch is connected to terrain (won’t be consumed when connecting it to trees, rocks, etc)

Special offers:

Special offers are heavily discounted packs of currencies and consumables, and are refreshed daily (except for starter packs).

Winch:

- Enter winching mode by pressing the winch button while stopped or very slow
- In the winch camera, tap an object to attach the winch to (a rock, a tree, a building, etc), you can also switch cameras for a more advantageous viewpoint.
- You'll go back to the normal camera and winch controls will be active (the buttons with arrows to wind/unwind the winch)
- After you're done, tap the cancel winch button with the cross on it

Currencies:

Points (gears): Main game currency, points are earned by completing missions, trails, races, and derbies, by selling vehicles and finding them in crates. Points are used to purchase and upgrade vehicles. You can boost your points earnings by getting a multiplier.

Gold: Earned by winning and destroying opponent vehicles in races and derbies, completing trails faster than par time, and by finding it in crate. Can be used to purchase consumables, purchasing and upgrading vehicles, and some other bonuses.

Rare Parts: Can be earned by completing trails extremely quickly (Faster than par time by the same factor as par time is faster than time limit), winning a derby while destroying all opponent vehicles while having the same or lower vehicle level as them, winning a race while destroying an opponent vehicle, and finding them in crates. Can be used to unlock special missions, and purchase some specific vehicles and specific upgrades.

Incompatible parts

With the amount of parts available for some vehicles, some of them won't be compatible with others you have installed. Usually it's stuff like a roof depending on a specific bed being installed. Sometimes when you uninstall a part other parts depend on, those will also be uninstalled and will be skipped when going through parts, as long as their dependency isn't installed.

Account Management

You can link your in-game account to a Facebook or Apple (on iOS) one for account recovery after reinstalling the game or getting a new device.
If you want to link an account to the one you're logged into at the moment, use the corresponding 'Link' buttons, to log in to a different account, use the 'Login to existing account' button.
If launching the game for the first time after an install, you can be prompted with a 'Have account?' button where you can also log in to an existing account.
If you're encountering any trouble with this process, let us know using the 'Contact Support' button.

Using a Game Controller

4x4 Mania supports Xbox and PS4 controllers that connect via Bluetooth. You can connect those in the Bluetooth menu of your device, after putting the controller into pairing mode (For Xbox, turn off the controller, hold the central Xbox button until it starts flashing rapidly, now you can pair it to your device. For PS4, turn off the controller, then hold the Share button and the PlayStation buttons together until the light bar starts flashing, then you can pair it with your device).

Then you have to enable the controller in the game's Controls settings by enabling the checkbox with the controller icon. Afterwards, the controller should work in gameplay. Here is the button mapping:

RT/R2 - Throttle

LT/L2 - Brake/Reverse

LB/L1 - Nitrous

RB/R1 - Handbrake

LS button/L3 - Toggle Rear Steer mode

Left stick - Steering

Right stick - Camera control

RS button/R3 - Look backwards

A/X - Upshift

X/Square - Downshift

Y/Triangle - Toggle Drive Mode 4H/4L/2H

B/Circle - Toggle diff lockers

Back/Share - Change camera

Up on the d-pad - Toggle Headlights"

Crates

You can find crates on all maps except Arena. Crates spawn randomly and contain varying amounts of currency and items. Crates can spawn online (if 2 or more people are in a room, maximum of 2 crates at a time), and offline. To collect a crate, drive into it. Crates won't activate if they're touching water or mud, if they are submerged, winch them out.

Drag Strip

There are 6 drag strips on Arena free roam through an open gate and a tunnel, namely 1/4mi and 1mi on asphalt as well as 1/8mi ones on grass, mud, sand and water. The strips have amateur christmas trees with 3 amber lights working sequentially with a 500ms delay. To race, roll slowly towards the start line, until you see the topmost lights come on (the pre-stage lights). You can now wait for an opponent to pre-stage (then your lanes will sync their starting lights), or proceed on your own. After you're ready, roll forwards a bit more until the second row of lights comes on (the stage lights). Once those are on, the countdown will begin with a random delay. Rev your engine and prepare to launch, and go on green. It might be a good idea to launch a bit earlier than the green light coming on, to compensate for your reaction time and your vehicle's transmission engage time. Beware that you don't launch with a false start, resulting in a red light and invalidating your time. Reaction time is not counted in the final displayed time. If a lane's lights get stuck and stop working, you can attempt to reset them by pre-staging on the lane with nobody on the strip.

Muting Abusive Players Online

If someone’s just being annoying, please use the mute feature (the little speaker icons next to the player list in the pause menu), when muted a player won’t be able to chat with you, collide with you, or winch/be winched by you. Simple ramming isn’t bannable, but persistent harassment, stalking, circumventing mutes and ghost, and extreme language such as death threats or slurs is. Report it to admins using the Contact Support button in the Info menu of the game, or to our page on Facebook

Tire Types

The game comes with different tire types, they are in this order in the list:
-Asphalt
-Rock
-Grass (and other generic 'offroad' surfaces, such as dirt roads and dry dirt)
-Mud/Bog
-Sand
-Snow
-Ice

Tires that don't fit the surface you're driving on will bog you down and get you stuck, or cause you to spin your wheels and go nowhere, so make sure to pick either a good specialized tire, or a good jack-of-all-trades all-rounder tire.