Automobilista 2 V1.4.1.0 Released - Now Updated to V1.4.1.3

I would like to report the top 50 times on tt of the week for hacks!

XD

 

Many times, simple thinks do wonders - the rear view mirrors adjustment is responsible for more immersion - kudos!
Just add tilt adjustment to that menu screen.

 

Yes to all of the above. I fully agree. Yet I want to add a little bit of counter points to the 'other side' of these reviews on updates with streamers/influencers. Reiza has made a big deal out of the upcoming 1.4 update, an early announcement, even a fancy video to go along. Streamers take notice, as they have a content agenda to fill. It is important for them to be on top of updates as their potential views deminish each day they delay their content on something that is happening right now.

I watched a bit of Gamer Muscle's live stream on the day 1.4 released. He was eager, positive and looking forward to trying the update, he counted down the hours live beforehand and played a whopping 9hrs or so hours straight after the release. Now as he is live, with an audience watching and part of the audience actively engaged in a multiplayer server, he can't be rebooting and checking steam for hotfixes every 5 mins. Even though chat urged him to install the first hotfix as soon as it was dropped. And he did download that as soon as the ongoing race was over.

So he played for hours on, what I believe, an unpatched or half patched game. He experienced the same issue as I was vocal about earlier in this thread, that overall track grip was way off, in combination with cars suffering more from this issue than others he didn't try on stream. He had a bad first impression. He did a low effort review the day after, mostly summarizing his findings from his stream the day before. Now I can't deny that most of the cars he drove were very sloppy and slippery without the hotfix during that time of testing live. As in problematic, unrealistic levels of low grip. It is fixed by now, but his first impression was already made.

Should a more thorough review include these hotfixes? Yes, obviously, but Reiza does make things harder with a sort of 4 (or who knows how many) part trickle release of what should be the 1.4 update. While there is a changelog with most hotfixes, there isn't always a comprehensive list of known bugs etc. Just some pointers or areas of attention whats next really.

I know, Gamer Muscle knows, that development is hard and crunchtime with a deadline means bugs can slip through. But you can't blame GM for being honest about his thoughts when the game was presented to him in that way. I believe he gave it an honest, albeit too short, chance. The review then allows for a bit of a controversial and possibly comedic angle for his videos, which hurts the reputation of AMS2 but gets him possible more views/income. I'm sure he'll come back to it someday, and so will other sim fans eventually. The truth can't stay hidden for too long

 

Oh, man! When you have a chance, go do some laps at Interlagos GP with the Formula Classics.

If that doesn't put a grin on your face, nothing will!

 

These YouTubers drool about any sims new release, upgrades etc… The industry as a whole has very little or No QC people checking for issues, let the users tell us. That seems to be the “Norm” and everyone is ok with that, until a review dissects the problems and everyone gets butthurt because they should wait after the 5th hot fix to give their input lol

 

Just jumped back at Fontana and the setup I made was/is like on ice. So I used the default , TT 125f so a little warm. Car just doesn’t feel right, need to fine tune the setup but mine was good prior

Is there another hot fix today. Also the Ai are super fast, running like taped apes lol

 

Out of curiosity, does anyone else think that tire heat buildup - or rather lack thereof - in (lightweight) FWD cars needs to be looked at?

I did a quick race in the Copa Classic B Uno @Jacarepagua 2012 Short earlier, and at least with the default setup and tire pressure there is no way to get enough heat into the rear tires to get them to work properly. This is despite the car's rear stepping out and sliding around at every imaginable occasion.

The issue is particularly bad in practice and qualifying, as the tires aren't pre-heated, so it is pretty much impossible to get the rears to, let's say, 50 degrees Celsius. Having 60 at race start does help, but even so the temps quickly drop below 50 in the rear.

Aside from this the race was rather enjoyable, and I managed to fight my way from the mid of the pack (P16) to P7 over the course of 7 Laps (AI @85/Low Aggression). That was some really fun and close racing (whenever the car stopped attempting to kill me at every second turn, haha)!

After the race I tried the Copa Classic B Mini as well, which seems to have improved with the latest round of post-1.4 fixes. That being said, it also suffers from the same issue, so the rears just refuse to warm up beyond ~40 degrees Celsius. After lowering tire pressure in the rear I was able to get them to around and slightly above 40 degrees after a couple of laps, all the while the fronts are easily up to the mid-to high 50s and beyond.


Just to clarify things - I understand that there is way less weight in the front in these cars and they are very light in general (700kg for the Mini, I think?!), and there is also a lot less heat in the rear brakes due to their brake balance; yet even all of these things considered, surely the tires should heat up beyond 40 degrees even on a somewhat cold track (~16 degrees) when sliding around as much for a couple of laps...? While keeping a close eye on telemetry I noticed that there was indeed a remarkably slow buildup of heat, especially considering the amounts of lateral friction the sliding rear tires should be experiencing.


Now I don't mean to complain; after all, I just had the most amazing race in the Formula Trucks on the same track (Jacarepagua 2012 Short), which was only slightly ruined by the fact I forgot to tone down time acceleration to accommodate for the duration of the race... So I ended up driving the last two laps in complete darkness, going from my hard-earned first place to P4. Still, even making it to the finish line was a win in my book, haha.

I'd also like to take back what I said about the F-Trucks; in a previous post I mentioned they could be *a little* more slidey - but at the time I had only driven the new notVolvo, pardon, Vulkan Truck. Today I gave the Iveco a try and was pleasantly surprised just how much of its former pre 1.4-self the truck had retained - pretty much exactly the right amount, it seems! These trucks have never been better, not in Formula Truck 2013 nor in AMS1!

On another positive note I would also like to add that the AI for the Trucks is really good for some close, (mostly fair) door-to-door racing. I have yet to try touring cars or GTs in 1.4, but I suspect even those are way better than open wheelers right now. Which is just a shame considering how many absolutely amazing open wheelers this game has at this time... But I still remain hopeful for the future. Reiza have proven time and again that they are nothing if not dedicated to achieving perfection with AMS2. It's just waiting to get there that's killing me.

 

To be honest GM isn't the streamer who is making half assed efforts. JB is. GM has just a very skewed approach to simracing with certain ideas that are at least bizarre to say the least. He has consistently kept trying to stream AMS2 and credit must be given to him for that.
The problem with GM is just his bizarre way of intending simracing (from the "aeroboying" to the setup = cheating, to the LOOS, declaring rain in simracing a gimmick, stomping on the brakes because that is what he feels like a proper way of driving a race car and I can keep going with wheel setup and all the rest) and his toxic and almost completely AC biased community (at least in the most noisy and visible elements) that he nurtures make his streams and reviews comedies quite on the grotesque side rather than the serious side and therefore lacking any sense from the sim developing standpoint IMHO.
Frankly I would rather do without any of those streamers that can't be arsed to do things a bit seriously and be fair with a sim, since it is just a mean for a streamer's purpose (getting viewers and clicks) rather than a service to the community and the developers.
Other streamers do that far better, but they just don't have the same amount of followers to scratch their bellies to.
I would love to see our community reward those that make the effort to go into details and report in depth and fairness to the community positives and negatives instead of clicking on "too busy" streamers or comedians.

 

I said it earlier, I'll say it again; once you get the hang of how to prepare for a corner, and you find the flow with them, they're hard to beat in terms of sheer pleasure of driving and manouvering through the pack.
A class worthy of it's own title... Fantastic FFB(default+), in VR on a dreary November afternoon @ Donington National or something.
And that's what gets so criminally overlooked, but I get that not everyone can find the time to get into these niche classes, and sit down for an afternoon to come to grips with the handling, I get that.

On the rears-temp. issue with the fwd cars, I'd noticed it before and have been paying attention of course since 1.4
Seems worth looking into, I feel they should reach a higher temp, can barely get 'm to be lukewarm on a scoulding summer's day.
But I don't think about that when I'm elbowing that new Mini through traffic @ Brands Indy.

 

Love the smoke from the big trucks, too.

 

I like the weird voodoo music that the Indy cars make if you push too hard on the pit limiter.

 

There's a bug in F-Classic Gen 3 Model 1 low downforce setup. Number 3 and 4 (Mclean G.P.) liveries doesn't work correctly and won't show up. Cars are just red. And Model 3 number 43 Gen 3 F-Classic still uses my username (Steam and this forum) in game when not driving that car. Missing AI file on that car, bug or intentional? AI is too slow on some tracks. Slow corners seems to be a problem I think. Chicanes specifically (88 Hockenheim second chicane and Spa 93 bus stop chicane). I have noticed that AIs are driving in packs, and crashing a lot. Aggression low. Using 120 difficulty. Fine game all the way otherwise. Few bugs here and there but very enjoyable racing simulation.

 

Well you can disagree with his approach and opinions, that's perfectly fine. You don't owe eachother anything. He is working in the entertainment industry, not QC for the developers. He is just a guy talking a lot to his camera for a living.

He did in fact literally say it was a low effort video, a single taker, no edits, loosely prepared, on his next stream after the review dropped. Also, a lot of the things you mention as bizarre in his ways are really just jokes (for him anyway, you can think of it what you will, as can his audience). Mostly inside jokes heavily leaning in sarcasm and tough love. Deep down he is a sim fan, as are we. I feel you judge him pretty harshly and being a bit toxic yourself with this comment to be honest. Let's lead by example and stay away from personal attacks and deviding the sim community.

 

Oh yeah! It’s absolutely amazing. For me, trucks have gone from largely untouched, to a regular grid.

 

You’re not exactly selling him here

 

Maybe I should start selling him, I might be able to finally afford further rig upgrades lol

 

Or, it can occur exactly when the sim car actually loses its sim grip by using the Default or Default+ profiles

Happy if people enjoy using custom FFB files, but not sure why anyone would want to adjust that in a sim?

 

No! Don’t! There is a considerable amount of…let’s call it over-compensating, going on in GM’s streams. Back in 2020, Jacques Villeneuve was kicking arse with an Xbox controller in rFactor 2.
What’s GM’s ‘rig’ worth anyway? 7k? 10?

 

Just to confirm, the AI isn't impaced by aero push on the ovals right now? I know a lot of people are talking about the loss of traction at high speed, is that occuring when racing or alone?

 

Game still feels weird to me. For example; Formula Vee on AMS2 vs. iRacing is a whole different car. AMS2 one just wants to slide everywhere. I've tried Caterham's, the Mini's, Ginetta GT4, 2022 Stock Cars, and a number of different F1 era's. It just doesn't feel right. I feel a real disconnect to the tyres and road. I would try the newer cars but I only have the base game.

I've reset everything and tried custom FFB. I really want to love AMS2. The graphics, the weather, the content. So good. But every time I drive it I find myself itching to change sim to something that just feels better. In AMS2 I always feel I'm battling to maintain control - like I'm inches from losing grip at all times.

My main sim is iRacing and that feels great imo. My offline sim is GTR2 (with mods) and that game, even 20yrs on, feels superb. Both these games lack graphical fidelity but the driving feels so good that it doesn't matter.

Maybe AMS2 is just better on DD wheels or something (I'm on T300)? My understanding is that this is the last major physics update for a while, so I'm not expecting much to change now.

Anyway, just wanted to give my perspective.