If you're trying to build a car that actually moves well, adjusting your roblox studio vehicle seat torque is probably the first thing you need to look at. It's one of those settings that seems simple on the surface, but if you get it wrong, your vehicle is either going to crawl like a snail or go flying into the stratosphere the second you touch the throttle. I've spent way too many hours staring at a chassis that refused to climb a basic 10-degree incline, only to realize my torque settings were completely mismatched for the weight of my parts.
In Roblox, the VehicleSeat is a bit of a classic. Even though a lot of high-end builders have moved toward complex custom chassis scripts or A-Chassis, the built-in VehicleSeat is still the fastest way to get something mobile. But to make it feel "right," you have to understand how torque interacts with the rest of your build.
What Does Torque Actually Do?
In the simplest terms possible, torque is the "grunt" or the rotational force of your wheels. While MaxSpeed determines how fast the car can eventually go, torque determines how much power is being used to get there. If you have a massive, heavy truck made of high-density parts, a low torque setting means the engine won't have enough strength to actually turn the wheels against the ground's friction.
It's a lot like a real bike. If you're in a high gear (low torque) and try to start from a standstill on a hill, your legs are going to struggle to move the pedals. If you're in a low gear (high torque), you can move easily, but you'll be pedaling like crazy without going very fast. In Roblox Studio, the Torque property on the VehicleSeat is basically you telling the engine how hard it should try to spin those wheels.
Finding the Torque Property
If you're new to the interface, you'll find this by clicking on your VehicleSeat object in the Explorer window. Then, look over at the Properties tab. You'll see a section specifically for the seat's behavior.
The value there is a number—usually default is something like 10,000. That might sound like a big number, but in the world of Roblox physics, it's often surprisingly low. Depending on the size of your wheels and the mass of your car, you might find yourself bumping that number up into the hundreds of thousands or even millions.
The Balance Between Weight and Power
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is building a car out of "heavy" materials like Metal or Concrete and then wondering why it won't move. Every part in Roblox has a Mass property, and the total mass of your vehicle is the enemy of your roblox studio vehicle seat torque.
If your car feels sluggish, you have two choices: 1. Increase the torque in the seat. 2. Decrease the weight of the car.
I usually suggest doing a bit of both. You can select the parts of your car body and turn on the Massless property. This makes the physics engine ignore their weight while still letting them look solid. If you keep the weight concentrated in a low "base" part (like a chassis floor), and keep the rest massless, your torque will go a lot further, and your car won't flip over every time you take a turn.
Why Your Car is Flipping or Spinning Out
We've all been there. You crank the torque up to 1,000,000 because you want "infinite power," you press 'W', and the car immediately does a backflip or spins in circles. This happens because the force being applied to the wheels is greater than the friction holding them to the ground.
When the roblox studio vehicle seat torque is too high, the wheels basically kick the ground away. Since Roblox uses a physics engine that calculates real-world forces, that energy has to go somewhere. If the wheels can't move the car forward easily, they'll just rotate the whole body of the car instead.
To fix this, try lowering the torque in small increments. You want just enough power to reach your MaxSpeed quickly, but not so much that the front tires leave the ground. You can also play around with the CustomPhysicalProperties of your wheels. Increasing the Friction value on the wheel parts can help them "grab" the baseplate better, allowing you to use higher torque without sliding all over the place.
Scripting for Better Control
The default VehicleSeat is pretty "all or nothing." When you press 'W', it applies the full torque immediately. This isn't how real cars work, and it's why your vehicles might feel jerky. If you want to get fancy, you can write a small script that handles the torque dynamically.
For example, you could write a loop that checks the Throttle input. Instead of just letting the seat do its thing, your script could gradually increase the torque as the car gets faster. This "acceleration curve" makes the driving experience feel way more polished. It prevents that annoying "jerk" at the start and lets you have high torque at low speeds (for climbing) and lower torque at high speeds (for stability).
Dealing with Hills and Terrain
If your game has a lot of hills or rough terrain, your roblox studio vehicle seat torque needs to be higher than it would be for a flat racing track. Gravity is constantly trying to pull your car back down the slope. If your torque is too low, you'll hit a point on the hill where the force of gravity equals the force of your wheels, and you'll just sit there humming.
A good trick for off-road vehicles is to use a "multiplier" approach. You can set the torque high but keep the MaxSpeed relatively low. This creates a "low-range" gear feel, where the truck can climb almost anything but won't become a rocket ship on the straights.
Common Troubleshooting Tips
If you've adjusted your torque and things still feel broken, check these things:
- Are your wheels stuck? Sometimes the wheels are physically hitting the body of the car. If there's no room for them to spin, no amount of torque will help. Use the "Show Decomposition Geometry" setting to see if your hitboxes are overlapping.
- Is the seat facing the right way? The front of the
VehicleSeat(the side with the little black stripe/indent) needs to face the front of the car. If it's sideways, the torque is going to be applied weirdly. - Are the wheels actually connected? Ensure your HingeConstraints or WeldConstraints are set up properly. If the wheels aren't "Active," the torque from the seat won't reach them.
- Check your MaxTorque on the hinges. If you are using
HingeConstraintsfor your wheels instead of the old-school surface hinges, the hinges themselves have aMotorMaxTorqueproperty. TheVehicleSeattorque might be high, but if the hinge is capped at a low number, your car is going nowhere.
Wrapping It Up
At the end of the day, finding the perfect roblox studio vehicle seat torque is all about trial and error. There isn't a "magic number" because every car has a different weight, different wheel sizes, and a different purpose.
Start with the default, see how it handles a hill, and then start doubling the number until it feels snappy. Once it gets too twitchy, dial it back by 20% and you've usually found the sweet spot. It takes a bit of patience, but once you get that smooth acceleration and solid hill-climbing power, your game is going to feel a thousand times more professional. Happy building, and don't forget to keep that center of gravity low!