Thanks to Chris Haye i had to go back and try pC2, thanks to his DBR1 video and i was surprised how good the track surface looked and felt in the rain. So i came back to AMS2 set the live track preset to wet and used rain weather x20 with 2 slots and ran for a good 15 laps and still very little puddles. In pC2 puddles formed across the whole track and caused massive aquaplaning and looked great. Has Reiza toned down live track or is this a "more accurate" live track compared to pC2? I will say i preferred the track surface, puddles and aquaplaning in pC2 FFB not so much pC2 AMS2
interesting aside, one day i noticed screenshots of a bunch of sims together and the ams2 shots are always "blue", you can see it in your shots above, even bright sunny day shots the AMS2 shots are blue, so i slapped a filter in and tweaked the temperature a bit back to warm, its like a whole new game.
@2ndLastJedi slightly off topic, but I've been wanting to compare nighttime/rain performance between the two sims. I can't remember if PC2 took as big a hit in fps as AMS 2 does currently. You didn't happen to notice anything while you were comparing the two did you? As far as the puddles thing goes I wonder if Reiza dialed things back from a realism find if view, most tracks would have pretty good drainage no?
Yes Reiza dialed the stagnating water down. In pC2 it was definitely exaggerated and used as a “look at me” feature. Light rain shouldn’t really cause big puddles in a matter of 10 minutes (example).
But as I said I set it to the wet present and rain (not light rain) so it was pouring down on top of the wet present and very little puddles. This isn't my only try at getting a really soggy track in AMS2 but the only one I got pics of. It wasn't 10 minutes though, closer to 20 after setting up the car and watching the Ai's pace for a bit.
I could have been more precise but basically they toned the puddles down across all levels and made it take longer to form the maximum size of a puddle. Maybe they did so across too much under a thunderstorm, maybe not. But puddles were globally definitely too big and formed too quickly in pC2.
I suspected this was the case with PC2. I half expect wet driving to become a bit trickier again in AMS2, but that has to do with damp and soaked surfaces. I agree about the puddles. Though I hope they still remain a fun dynamic challenge after tens of minutes of hard rain .
Interesting comments, I get lots of standing water and my wet tracks look more like the PC2 screenshot above than the AMS2 one. And I get puddles like this very quickly, sometimes in a matter of corners with time and weather at X5. One thing I have noticed in PC2 and AMS2 and that is is inconsistent experiences amongst the user base. The madness engine seems to have some quirks in it.
At x5 it is normal to have puddles show up quickly. 10 minutes at x5 are 50minutes on track. Best way to check the speed is real time. Even on x2, 10 minutes are enough to have a wet enough track to need to switch to inters/wets, which corresponds to 20 minutes real time and sounds about right. Afterwards, puddles start forming if there is more rain falling than the track can evacuate (yes, track water evacuation is also something that can be programmed and set differently across the track).
In my experience when livetrack is set to default progressing choosing either light rain or rain I get wet track but no puddles, choosing storm or thunderstorm I always get puddles. That seems right to me, I don't want any little rain to cause puddles to form as that seems unrealistic to me. Besides I race mainly open-wheelers, irl they race in the rain but if there are puddles & aquaplaning the race is red- flagged.
@2ndLastJedi Higher graded tracks will have better water drainage, both through the track surface and earth itself as through the use of drain pipes. If the track has enough drainage, a rain setting won’t make any puddles compared to a lower graded track, lacking the asphalt, earth or drain pipes to avoid them. Basically it depends on the track. @F1Aussie It is a possibility. Livetrack is a dynamic and somewhat random weather engine. If you are lucky, rain will slowly set in and give you time to feel the wetness evolution and pit. If the engine decides to suddenly make a huge and sudden rain shower drop, then you might be under a wet track within a real time minute or two (so 2-3 corners at x5 and 20-30s). It’s really hard to tell without having the full settings and trying out myself. Then the track itself will also determine if and how quickly the puddles set in. However 30s after it rains and having puddles sounds like it would only happen on low drainage tracks.
I haven't raced in the rain for many months now, mainly due to the ai not being affected by the puddles at all, while the player activates slide.dll, whenever they hit one. That got old very fast. I wonder if the suggested reducing of the puddles has 'fixed' this?
