Overview
The difference between the 3 different damage modes (normal, realistic, intense) you can choose for custom/multiplayer events. Based on a post I made in the r/wreckfest subreddit some time ago.
Normal damage mode
“Normal” mode is similiar to most other non-simulator games with vehicle damage, like e.g. GTA or Flatout.
Your car can still take damage and will get totaled after taking too much damage, but it’s much more resilient to damage as it would be in real life, you’ll rarely wreck from a single crash and can hit a wall head-on like 5-10 times before your car’s wrecked (depending on the car, armor and speed of course).
Wheels can still break off, but it requires a lot of force so it is very rare for it to happen, and also damage to car components (engine, transmission, brakes, suspension) won’t affect the car’s handling/performance as much.
This damage mode also has “attacker’s advantage” enabled, meaning that when one car rams another, the “victim” will take damage more damage, and the “attacker” will only take less damage (of course armor and car weight matters as well).
Realistic damage mode
“Realistic” mode is, as the name implies, more realistic (although still not 100% true-to-real life).
Your car could easily get wrecked in a single crash or hitting a wall head-on once, wheels can break off quite easily and components getting damaged has a stronger effect on performance/handling.
This mode does not have “attacker’s advantage” enabled, so both the “victim” and the “attacker” take the same amount of damage when one car rams another (still depends on car weight/armor of course).
Intense damage mode
“Intense” mode is similar to “Realistic” in almost every way, but it has “attacker’s advantage” enabled like “Normal” mode does, and damage recieved from crashing into non-car objects (like walls) appears to be slightly reduced too. in all other ways it is the same as “Realistic” mode.
Extreme damage mode
This is basically the same damage mode as the tech demo for Wreckfest (then still called “Next Car Game”) had back in 2013.
In this damage mode there are no health bars; you can only get wrecked by losing 2 wheels on the same axle (so either both front wheels or both rear wheels), everything else is survivable.
Visually the damage is even more extreme than in “Realistic” mode; cars deform and break apart much easier, and even parts that aren’t deformable in other damage modes (such as the engine block) can be deformed in Extreme damage mode.
This mode also does not have “attacker’s advantage” enabled.
A Rocket with stock armor hitting a wall at about 120 KM/H in “Extreme” damage mode.
Note: because of the significantly increased deformation and lack of health bars, your car can be completely crushed/flattened to the size of a sheet of paper without being wrecked, like happened to my Trophy Runner here[cdn.discordapp.com].