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

Ever since 1.4 and the subsequent hotfixes were released, I have been spending time with many different vehicles to see how/if they have changed with the latest refinements to the tires and default setups. Considering the already huge amount of content in AMS2 this is... a time-consuming task, to say the least. And to this day, there are still track variants I probably have never driven before! Shocking, I know.

Anyway, today I finally spent some time with the karts again. The last time I drove any kart in AMS2 was probably more than a year ago. And since I don't remember really driving it before, I chose the various Kartland variants for my test runs. Such a fun location!

After taking a few minutes to get into the groove again - after all, karts are quite different form anything else - I was pleasantly surprised. When they break traction - either under heavy braking or mid-corner - it feels much more progressive and natural, and not as snappy and unpredictable as I remember. Additionally, the margin of error before this occurs seems to have grown as well. Even though we don't have the benefit (or not?) of G-forces acting upon our body, you really start to feel like you are one with the kart after a couple of laps. Most impressive, I have to say. The only downside for me is not having an ultra-wide or triple-screen setup, as I think the karts would greatly benefit from having that extra peripheral awareness due to everything being so frantic on a kart track (even when you're just hotlapping by yourself).

However, I also wanted to ask about two things I noticed - one of which I am fairly certain deserves getting looked at by the devs:

It appears as if the Shifter Kart has noticeably less braking power than all other karts. If anything, I would have assumed these would have equally strong or even slightly stronger brakes. But even when increasing the brake pressure to 100 percent, the brakes are hardly able to slow down the kart - and locking the wheels is all but impossible when braking (and it's not my pedals - every other car works just fine on my end!). Not sure if it might be related or not, but I also noticed that their brakes barely heat up at all. Even when driving around for two or three minutes while standing on the brake pedal, the fronts barely reach 110-120°C, whereas the rear brakes stay well below 100 degrees (this is with 100% brake pressure and default balance). Once I continued driving around the track as usual, temperatures quickly dropped back to less than a hundred degrees Celsius for the front brakes (this was during a sunny day on Kartland 4, I think - the shorter one that's mostly outside).

Has anyone else tried the Shifter Kart recently? If so, I'd like to hear what you think. The brakes do seem oddly weak to me - if I had to guess I'd say they are lacking around 50 percent or more of maximum brake pressure (possibly temperature related?).


The other thing I noticed was the behavior of the Superkart. Now I know these are quite mental by design - not your average race car or anything like that. That being said, when I took one of these to Snetterton, the Superkart's steering was snapping left and right with every little bump on the track. I checked the setup for any extreme or unusual values that would explain the large amounts of instability and oversteer I was getting (well, aside from high-speed understeer due to lack of downforce - but that's to be expected!); didn't find anything out of the ordinary, though.

Once again I'd love to hear what others think of these - maybe it's my expectations, but I just didn't expect them to be this unstable and twitchy, and I don't remember them being quite like that, either.


Either way, looks like just test driving all the cars is going to keep me busy for a while... The amount and variety of content AMS2 has to offer is already mind-boggling. Not that I'd mind getting even more content in the future...

 

Speaking of the Superkart, it still has the engine damage bug where once the engine takes damage, it never stops increasing even if you shut the engine off.

 

Is that also what's causing the smoke from the engine? I just took the Superkart to Fontana (don't ask...) and noticed white smoke coming from the engine in the replay. Yet there was no engine damage according to the HUD. Weird.

 

Considering the slope upward and a car with little front aero in normal conditions you probably have more of an understeer problem there than an oversteer one in normal conditions with all wings intact. So maybe removing the wing aero may almost make it very "precise".

 

Most chairs don't jiggle jiggle
They fold
This sim rig wiggle wiggles
For sure

*Something something FIAT*

 

Yes, those are known issues with the Shifter Kart. The tires have received most of the attention for the 1.4 update, but the braking will hopefully be next!

 

Thanks a lot for letting me know! That is definitely reassuring to hear. And aside from this one detail the karts are a blast to drive! Which is definitely a good foundation for when a career mode will be added, whenever that will be.


By the way, did any of you guys send a friend request on Steam? I got a request from a fellow simracer yesterday, but as I'm a very private person I don't respond to random requests from strangers (it even says so on my Steam profile ). Just thought I'd ask - if that was one you wonderful people here just let me know!

 

Hi Renato,

I race Nurburgring Nordschleiffe with AI almost daily and since the last 1.4.1.3 update it's getting better as they behave similar speed in wet and dry now. However, if an AI changes tyres when the track is still wet, (I can see they are on dry tyres now), wet patches and wet surface don't seem to affect the AI as much as it should (I am sliding all over the place on dry tyres on wet surface, as I expect to, but the AI does not - they are unnaturally fast on dry tyres on wet).

Also in VR, the performance completely tanks when there are more than 4-5 cars behind you in a storm or when dark. Seems to have something to do with the lighting? Funny enough with the whole pack in front of me in the same weather (storm, dark), there is no such issue.

It could be related to that the back side of the car is not taken into account when light hits it. Dashboard gets lit up like there is nobody in the car, and there isn't a rear chassis at all.

Also in Nurburgring Nordschleiffe at sunset when shadows are cast on the barriers at the side, I can see the car shadow, but it's not driving on a road, like the shadow doesn't take the road or environment into account at all. (however in other areas like the BMW billboards at the entrance of the Nordschleiffe from the racing track, I do see the shadows of the grated fences at the other side projected on the Billboards.

Also sunset when the sun is in front, and the sun is below the horizon, on parts of the track (Nurburgring Nordschleiffe again), the sun will shine THROUGH the track from the bottom.

The cars are also still very bunched up throughout the whole race. Perhaps a bit more "slides and accidents" can be factored in between the AI for more realism?

 

Unfortunately the AI wet perfomance is all over the place now. They know it though and seem to be working on it. In the meantime I just turn on traction control when it rains to level the odds.

 

With the new Ford Mustang released and them joining both GT3 and GT4 got me thinking. If AMS2 gets more GT3 cars and maybe some older GTE cars we could see ACC fanboys want to play AMS2 due to it having more circuits. I would also like it if AMS2 got Le Mans and Sebring as the circuits with different versions (track pack I believe).

 

Nope, AMS2 can not win this "competizione"

 

They can compete

 

If you think one extra car will cause ACC players to massively start playing AMS2, I have a bridge to sell you.

ACC players play mainly for the competitive multiplayer. AMS2 is unfortunately only seeing its player numbers drop to pre-1.4 levels with the players, due to the great diversity in racing classes, also being much more spread out across the various classes. In short: it is way more difficult to find a full GT3 grid in AMS2 than it is in ACC.

https://steamdb.info/graph/?compare=211500,244210,365960,431600,805550,1066890

 

So when LFM comes to acc we will see the player count rise?

 

Maybe that car is this…

 

Or if they add a few LMDH/LMH cars. Would love the Peugeot

 

That's expected to debut in IMSA in 2024 unfortunately, but generally some more endurance machines to keep company with the Cadillac DPi would be really welcome, and I really hope we get Le Mans, we must get Le Mans. Sebring would be the cherry on top!

 

I cant see why we couldn't get the BMW, porsche and Cadillac lmdhs next year licensing permitting…

 

I honestly don't know how open manufacturers are to grant access and submit data of cars that are still in development. Porsche has been seen testing a lot and they're ready to debut next year at Daytona. There should also be enough footage and photos available in the wild if Reiza want to go the other path and call it Porker or 693 or something.

BMW has done some testing as well and Cadillac revealed their car not long ago.

Imagine a full IMSA/WEC expansion, fully licensed with all tracks. One can dream. ^^

 

Did an offline racing at Interlagos with a mixed grid, heavy rain and 100% AI... my McLaren F1 was slower than the fking TSI chariots and the other MLF1 was amazingly fast. Is it me or the AI is not calibrated?

It feel like I was racing slick at rain, not all-weather tires. Barely playable even with throttle sensitivity set to 15%.