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

I don't know how close it is, and even while I think iRacing is really good, in part it has to do with where the bar is (really low). But generally I agree with your comment. AMS2 is in a good spot, but still there is a lot to improve. It is not a coincidence that AI is a weakness in any sim, it is apparently really hard to get something decent.

About AC AI... It is BAD. I swear I'm not a hater, I collect every sim, and use all of them (AMS2 and iRacing are my current habitual choices) . I have more hours in AC than in AMS2 actually (I started before), and I love it. But it is a shame that AI is has never been quite there.

 

This seems like the long and short of it… programming realistic racing AI that can keep constant track of the situation around it, while being mindful of competitors behind it and also coming up with strategies to overtake, keeping in mind tire degradation and fuel consumption… now multiply that by a dozen plus other entities on track doing the same thing… and that’s not even getting into “aggression” or simulating same.

For goodness’ sake, they’re having a hard enough time making competent self-driving cars in the real world.

 

I'm waiting in hopes for a USA Pack III with modern Indy like we were shown. Hopefully we can have that Oval Indy 500
I dig AMS2!

 

We get the why, But It would be great if it was simply switchable to leave it up to the user to choose to have it off or on. I'm speaking for the biased minority of organized league racers ..

 

I agree. For leagues I also liked the option to have private qualification (like in rF2) To my mind, options like this should (ultimatly) be available to turn on or off (can't please everyone)
That being said - there may be other focus areas first, so I continue to be happy with the direction.

 

I hope Reiza make the necessary changes to make multiplayer better and bring in a challenger to other games with the possible help from LFM

 

Well, personally i would like them to work with justrace.net, as those already have a lot implemented in terms of ranking/rating system, automated results upload to their portal, and for the currently in beta V2 of their UI automated championship scoring.

Basically JustRace has everything needed for Reiza to setup hourly ranked races, iracing style, if they can provide a couple servers for it.

 

AI is the reason I don’t play much of AMS2 anymore. It all seems like they’re scripted to continuously battle each other while never really overtaking. All this whilst clipping grass, cutting kerbs and driving suboptimal lines all without losing any speed. They also accelerate and brake harder than the player can in some corners and the worst part of all of this is they’re inconsistent. At one track I need 110, at another I need 120 and at another I need 98.

The perfect AI would be somewhere between ACC and AMS2. It’s vital to have their performance limited by physics. This alone increases the consistency of the AI performance track by track, weather by weather.

 

Their performance is already limited by physics, just not the same physics as the player. AI running the player physics is not happening unless we want performance to plummet already in a grid of one AI opponent. It is not a realistic ask in a game with a physical tyre model.

 

Ai also comes on grid with tires at race temp, can we get those tire warmers too

 

AMS2 handling is so random, I tried to do a race with StockCar 2019 at Santa Cruz, during practice everything was going fine, my laptimes were around 1:22, but during the race the car was sliding all over the place, touch the brakes = slide, touch the throttle on corner exit = slide, I could barely manage to maintain laptimes in the 1:23-24.
Obviously part of the problem is the input lag on controller that Reiza refuses to fix, but there's also some randomness with the physics of the game imo (same happens in PCars2). I know some people in this forum think that having zero grip and feeling like driving on ice is realistic but I find that type of handling behavior on modern cars extremely frustrating.

Also I don't see what people find so amazing about AI in AMS2. In my experience they have basically the same issues that every other game has: in practice/quali they often leave the pits the exact moment I'm starting my lap and block me and fight for position during their outlap, they drive too close to my car and other cars during their outlap, they're usually too slow on corner entry and too fast on corner exit and straights, they abuse track limits like crazy, and they often don't give me enough space even if I'm ahead.

 

I had experiences like this, but only three or four times in all of my considerable hours playing AMS2, not really frequently. Are you sure it wasn't a one off occurence?

Apart from that, there is no input lag on controller, there are filters applied that result in movements being slowed down in-game, that's a slightly different thing. The immediate first movement gets translated correctly.

I'm also really not sure whether this is the most prevalent issue about controller support. Not a lot of people can cope with 1-to-1 controller movement, especially not if (like in this sim) the controller also gets far lower range of wheel rotation while retaining very high/sensitive turn-in.
If they want to cater to most controller players, adjustments to the currently very dissatisfying speed sensitivity would be in order.

Agreed on the AI having a ****ton of issues though; I really hope that this area gets a lot of focus until 1.5. And you are right that cars are probably a little too prone to (catchable) slides on the limit. I feel like Reiza nailed it with the historic cars, but the modern ones feel overly nervous and the "edge of grip" becomes a little too much of a mushy thing (whereas in other sims it's probably not gradual enough).

 

The time has come for more extreme damage to simulate 99% of sim racing races in a more realistic way:

 

****, luckly the AMG drives on the left side, right?

 

Was this a multiplayer session? That is the only time I've ever seen it happen. Some lobbies do have what feels like "broken" physics compared to single-player sessions.

 

I've had something like this happen more than once. During qualifying I could somehow "abuse" setup settings (ie: use zero wing angles) apparently without any penalty, just the positives of it. But then proceeding to race it was like the setup started to affect the car as it should (both positive and negatives).

Always MP.

 

Always MP.

No, unfortunately not. Yesterday I fired up a sp race with 911 gt3 @ Hochekeim and the car was almost undrivable. 2 days ago @ Kyalami I had a fine quick race in the same car, with the same setup.

 

"If they want to cater to most controller players, adjustments to the currently very dissatisfying speed sensitivity would be in order." @Dicra
I totally agree with that. Sometimes, steering is too sensitive. It would be fine if Reiza improves this point.

 

The handling issues are very random, I tried again the same race and after a few restarts the handling felt more predictable and wasn't sliding as much. I've had the same issue with PCars2.

That slowdown of steering is the thing I have a problem with, the in-game wheel moves too slowly and returns to center too slowly regardless of controller setting used (even with steering sensitivity at 100 and speed sensitivity & controller damping at 0). It's not a problem if I move the analog stick very slowly but whenever I make quick movements with the analog stick to make quick small corrections those filters delay the steering inputs and make catching slides incredibly difficult, and they also make reacting to AI unexpected moves and avoiding collisions with them very difficult.
I use the same custom controller settings across all my games, in AMS1 controls feel very responsive with zero delay, in AMS2 with the same controller settings controls feel laggy and unresponsive. Then there's also the issue with the lack of controller vibration (AMS1 is really good in this aspect).

Personally I think default controller settings should cater to casuals that use tap steer and assists but there should be the option for precision steering players to completely disable all filters/dampers/helpers, enable raw input and fine tune from there just like I can do in other games such as AMS1/ACC/rF1/GTR2/R3E/etc. If I set controller damping to 0 that should mean raw input 1-to-1 response and then I can fine tune from there in the sensitivity settings.
Controller support in AMS1 is really good so that's clear proof Reiza knows how to do it, it's disappointing that their promise from 2+ years ago still hasn't been fulfilled.

Single player, 27 AI opponents, seems like a random thing. I always load my custom setup at the beginning of every session and also load it again whenever I restart a race.

 

Isn't the problem with using real physics with the AI is that it's a huge performance hit.