Automobilista 2 V1.4.5.2 & New DLC Packs RELEASED!

Finally. Needed to convert it to jpeg.

So. Big differences between cars and AI. 120 diff. Kansai Classic. Look at first sector times between me and AI.

 

This quote of Jimmy (at 6:40) is exactly how I feel about AMS2 multiplayer.

 

The "Hurtual LeMons" debacle has really put a highlight on how broken the multiplayer element of many sims are. RF2 is the current punching-bag of the community, which is understandable given how much emphasis MSG has put on "E-sports events" licensing, but this could have just as easily been AMS2 getting beat down if we held official events. The driving experience with some cars is amazing, but multiplayer needs polish.

For all our complaining about iRenting's financial and tire models, they have the multiplayer side nearly perfected. It still has issues, disconnects, lag, and other issues are inherent problems to any online experience, but it works fairly consistently. I know Reiza don't have anywhere near the budget or resources of iRacing, Codies, GT7, etc., but I really wish to see AMS2 become a place for good, consistent, online racing.

Edit: Afterthoughts

It's fairly easy to cheer at MSG falling flat on their face given their recent licensing debacles, but it's a bad look for sim-racing to have a double world champion uninstalling the game on stream in protest. Love him or hate him, Max has been one of the biggest supporters of our niche sport during the past few years. With MSG having almost every big event in their web for years to come, it looks rough for the near future.

 

I don't think they use different boost settings, I think the Mclaren is too OP in that class, the turbos should be faster than the Mclaren. The gap to the non turbos is not too bad actually, they just need to make the AI of the generic turbos more competitive to the Brabham.
Making a custom AI for that class is a pain due to the differences in performances between the cars, if you want it somewhat similar to real life you need to slow down the Mclarens a LOT, the Brabhams a little and increase the skills of the generic turbos.

 

I see Max going off as a good thing... As one of the biggest supporters of sim racing and the current F1 world champion his words carry a tonne of weight... Sure many around the world see him as a hot head who easily loses his cool, but his reaction wasn't what we hear over the radio in a race... It was calm and calculated in comparison...

This isn't Daniel Abt getting a sim racer to race for him because the physics were a joke to him... In comparison to that this is google homepage news whilst the Abt incident is an advert on tinder...

With Max stating he wants to have a better sim racing experience somewhere else it really opens the door to what possibilities that could bring... Will he become the face of Rennsport or another new title or will he look around at the other options currently available and decide he likes a title enough to help push the development of that title...

After doing some light digging it seems that the current problem is down to a new throttling up/down stream code that S397 had been notified that it had been causing problems for leagues and instead of reverting to the more stable code they pushed forward with this new throttling code and the fallout is what it is... Yet another 1 step forwards 2 step backwards move from S397...

I'm hopeful that the pressure Max has put on the sim racing development community produces a real choice to iRacing's online experience...

 

The problem is MSG has the licenses tied up, and looks to be aggressive at enforcing those licenses. It's like an Indy 500 vs. US 500 situation back during "The Split." You can have the best drivers, but people are going to tune into the "official" event instead.

Max did the right thing in this case, and somebody needed to call them out on it. The problem is, MSG butchering the biggest events makes sim-racing look like a joke as an e-sport.

 

Oh I do not disagree that these exclusivity licence deals have screwed the esports landscape for sim racing... But something like this happening is more of a good thing than a bad thing... If Max had just quietly decided to focus on real life racing and not publicly shamed rF2 in this manner the rot would of continued until the day MSGS has to sell their licences to stay afloat or as part of insolvency...

As "the split" wasn't a bad thing as we got 2 series with one more focussed on ovals and one more focussed on road courses and in sim racing a split already happened many times over within the different titles... Sure financially it wasn't smart for US based open wheelers to split like that, but the product was great and gave us more than we had before...

That said I saw far more US 500s than Indy 500s during the split and was sad when the unification happened... Champcar was awesome and was going to some great tracks..

This time the split will again start from suits making shady deals... However instead of the official event being the track and some of the drivers it will be the big name drivers and Porkas and Auriels on Le Grand Circuit... And that's the extreme end of it, as many official versions of the Le Mans cars exist and there are other licensed versions of the track itself... The esports event name would just have to be different enough to pass the legalese...

When the tracks and cars look the same, the official event in most people's eyes will be the one the F1 world champion is driving, especially if Max does end up as the face of another title... Unless MSGS can convince the entire grid of the WEC to join it's just not going to have the same level of attention...

 

So the takeaway of the Virtual LeMans debacle is to focus on single player and no two times F1 world champion will ever uninstall your game live on stream. Easy

 

Well, from a variety-based standpoint, it was good, but the early IRL product really was anything but, and the effects of the split can be felt to this day. IndyCar was a serious competitor to F1 in the early to mid 90s and then basically buried itself.
Everything outside of the Indy 500 - and sometimes even that, because "duuuh racing on ovals is just running in circles, sooooo easy" - is regarded as being on par with F2 at best by the casual fan. Only those that really take a deeper look realize about the quality of the racing and competition there, but to most, it's a spec series with F1 has-beens, as sad (and, IMO, untrue) as that is. All of this is a direct effect of a stupid argument from almost 30 years ago.

However, in sim racing, this should be different, as competition usually increases quality - see the EA Sports titles that have none and continue to stagnate year after year. In that regard, it really is a bummer that rF2 is not making the most of his undoubtedly high potential as that would push other developers to do even better with their product.

Not that we can complain about what Reiza is and has been doing, to me AMS2 is outstanding and only continues to get better with every update.

 

Just imagine Max spending years with that jerky rF2 AI... He wouldn't on done months of practice... Probably a couple of hours top lol...

Spec series with F1 has beens...

That's very much how it felt in the 90s as well with only 2-5 chassis manufacturers and 2-5 engine suppliers... Sure Mansell was the one to have stood out but so many other names came to CART after their F1 careers flamed out, and even Mansell was only around for a handful of years... Or like JV used it as a junior formula to step up into F1 like O'Ward is trying to do through McLaren...

I loved the CART series throughout the 80s and 90s, but the ovals kept it from ever being close to F1 for me... Coupled with it being a national sport always kept it on the same level as BTCC for me... Great racing but wasn't anything near the pinnacle that was F1... But then again until DRS came along nothing could really touch F1...

IRL really struggled initially and only continued on because of the might of the "Indy 500" name...

In the sim racing world the split has already happened, people have their chosen sims for vairous reasons and it will take something huge from a different developer to have them jump ships... The addition of Rennsport complicates things but there's not going to be an earth shattering change in the landscape like the major national series being unable to race at the biggest race in that nation...

This will be the major event in the sim racing epsports world not being called the Automobile Club de l'Ouest 24 hour Le Mans esports event... And whatever the organisers choose to call it instead...

 

Made some tests on few tracks. Noticed that AI slowdown some spots.

1. Silverstone 91. Last turn before coming pit/finish line they are slow a little, can accelerate past them pretty easy. Maybe do something in that fast righthander before pit/finish line?

2. Jacarepagua 88. After that long backstraight in that pretty fast lefthander end of second sector. They are slow in there. Usually 0.5 seconds faster than others in there. 120 diff.

3. Spielberg 74 and 77. They are slow in that pretty fast righthander before going that backstraight. Or slow in accelerating. I was 0.5-2 seconds faster than many of other cars with diff at 120.

Noticed that on some tracks AI can brake pretty late. This was an issue at Jacarepagua 88 on last sector. But I think that't because high diff (120) was used. Medium speed corners are AIs best corners in game. In slow corners they brake pretty early and fast corners they brake much later than player and ram player rear. Might depending on track.

And I do think 100 diff should give you a decent challenge or then increasing difficulty to 150 or even 200. But first of all I want to things be balanced. Maybe some sliders to affect their accelerating, braking, cornering and top speed? More customisation would be a nice addition. Maybe focus AI weaknesses to boost them so you could lower difficulty then to 100 or even lower?

 

Maybe McLaren and generic DFY model should pretty even. Then little cap to turbos.

 

In some cases, when I am in practice mode (alone on the track) and I escape and let myself transfer back to the box, I see the pitcrew in front of my box and i have to drive through them in order to go back on track. Happened several times. Last time on the old Spielberg layout without chicane in the vintage (60s) formula car (the smaller ones).

 

As the advanced damage model progresses, we should get to the point where you could have a turbo flame out at any point. Those early turbo cars of the 83 era were horrendously unreliable, especially those equipped with the BMW engine in the Branham. Rocket fast, but made of glass, and sometimes the turbos just go nope, and fail outright for no reason.

 

My solution to the disconnects issue for any and all sims... The server has an AI driving every car that is competing in multiplayer but the AI doesn't actually have control of the car. As soon as it detects the client is disconnected (which should be very easy to do), the AI takes control of that client's car. This will allow the client to reconnect and take back control without losing any time. They can control it by setting the AI to do 1 or 2 full laps before returning to the pits which should allow a fair amount of time to reconnect without abusing the system, and they can make the AI reproduce the previous lap times to make it fair. A benefit of this approach is it might actually reduce the network load (especially if they combine it with a rollback solution similar to what fighting games use) which could prevent disconnects. The downside will be more CPU load on the server, but that should be very easy to manage with bigger servers.

@Reiza feel free to implement this idea and have a killer feature to steal Le Mans Virtual away from RF2

 

Agreed. Also, maybe to increase the realism, would it be possible to make the exhaust flames on BT52 more aggressive and higher? These BMW Turbo beasts have this characteristic, it would be really cool for you guys to be able to replicate.

 

For F-Retro gen3 class I would want FW08C and drive like Keke Rosberg.

 

I don't mean to be pessimistic, but with AMS2 being p2p an event like Le Mans will never happen on this platform.

We get lobbies with 5 people getting stuck... imagine handling 200 connections.

And there is more: once you got disconnected, that is game over. You can't reconnect to the race session.

And many more features are missing. It is just unrealistic to expect AMS2 to be taken seriously considered for this sort of event.

 

It couldn't be used for that type of event, and you notice the owners of it are not proposing it.

The corporate overlords of rF2, or what is left of them, are from the school of any publicity is good publicity. Instead of addressing any of the problems from last year's rF2 online fiasco, they allowed this one to go ahead, with predictable, even worse, results.

Should MSG actually manage to produce any games/sims in the future, expect the same level of quality and attention to detail.