Automobilista 2 December 2022 Development Update

A lot of sim racers don't see anything on the Madness engine as anything more than eye candy because of the pCARS series... And because of where AMS2 started that feeling still remains for a lot of people about AMS2... On many forums anytime AMS2 is mentioned there will be someone asking "Does anybody really take AMS2 seriously? It's physics are blah blah blah"...

A good MP experience in AMS2 is the best way to change that word of mouth...

I ran 2 Daytona races that weekend, one with a global league on Just Race for an 80 minute race that was a ****show, not only did we have to restart the race because of disconnects, but we wasted 30 minutes trying to get a local to the server host for the event because people kept getting disconnected when we finally got to a local to the server host... The race itself wasn't a complete warpfest, but was filled with little jittery moments that made it look like there was a warp coming at any moment... And on top of that we had 10 disconnects throughout the event out of 27 drivers... Most happened early and only 2 have since confirmed it was on their end... There was another race with the same league this past weekend, no disconnects but I had 3 major warp incidents where cars went all 4 wheels off track and then came back onto the racing line...

Then there was the 2 hour 25 minute race that went smoothly largely because the field was mostly in the same country... Sure we had disconnects from qualy to race in the practice race for that event the night before, but the actual event went on without a hitch... This race wasn't hosted by Just Race and used p2p connections and surprisingly ran a lot smooth even with the longer race time...

I was absolutely drawn into the simulation that can be achieved in AMS2... But that's only available in an online situation when it decides to work... And when it doesn't it forces people to ask "Well why don't we try this in another sim?"...

 

Well, well, well. How the turntables.

As someone from the staff (new to the team) once told me when I complained a lot about MP (and AI): "you should look inwards, the problem might be you and your group and not the game". Or the other fella who said it was bs that AMS2 is not league friendly...

The truth is only one and it is out there, glad it is starting to sink into this community.

AMS2 is glorious when everything works indeed, but most of the time it is more like a Le Mans Virtual 2023.

But Reiza is Reiza, so they acknowledge there are issues with MP and hopefully 2023 is the year this sim will provide a proper experience. Nobody is expecting AMS2 to be on iRacing's level, but it should be at least on the same level as its predecessor...

This trade off of more complex physics (in AMS2) for the price of a bad MP (compared to AMS1), in my personal view, was not worth it. After all, if you can't race other humans, what is the point of such a realistic physics engine? Bots don't run under the same rules.

 

Oh yeah I've got a lot of faith in Reiza, and im sure they will surprise us all, but if us as users of the software feed back about the issues aswell as praising what we love, hopefully that helps along the way and brings things to light sooner rather than later

 

I'd say my usual dose of "AMS2's MP is broken and needs to be fixed, here's several reasons why." rants fall on deaf ears for the majority of AMS2 forum posters... As there's a larger SP player base on AMS2 than other sims, most likely directly related to the p2p architecture and it's shortcomings...

The trade off for more complex physics was never meant to compromise the MP experience... But here we are...

The trade off for the AI was always going to happen, hence I'm always pointing out that there will be a limit to how far the AI can go and that you will always be able to game the AI... It's not like Reiza doesn't know what the AI needs as they've seen what is possible with the Gmotor2 engine... The Madness engine seems to have too many limitations to it that will really hold back it's SP experience long term...

The MP experience is something that if it was fixed along with the physics could of put AMS2 in a great place to pick up the pieces as the other sims had their failings over these last few months... From the big esports events to the latest BOP of ACC that has people fuming... There was a lot of room for AMS2 with a decent MP experience to make ground on the other titles...

But even someone who as positive about AMS2's physics as I am... I can't tell someone to try it because "it'll blow them away", because there's a very good chance they'll suffer from some bug that ruins their experience with the physics... But even if they don't suffer those bugs and enjoy their time on track, as soon as they add cars (online or offline) they'll be asking what the hell is wrong with me...

 

The "problem" I have with MP: even if Reiza ironed out all flaws, issues and shortcomings we'll probably see GT3 lobbies most of the time. And guess where they race? Spa and Monza. Mark my words. A good MP is nice to have but not mandatory for me.

 

Dont worry about that mate! Here's links to my live server thread and MetzVR's. We race everything! Copa Classics, F3's, Trucks, V8's, GT1's, even The Aussie Camaro on outdoor kart tracks! Infact metz is running most nights of the week, im less so as sometimes out playing guitar in evenings. Plenty of videos in both threads showing the variety of what gets raced.
Tarmac Terrorist LIVE! Live Server Streamed On Youtube!
Metzvr Live Lobbies

 

That's one of the many problems with open lobby racing... You are at the whims of what is popular as much as you are at the whims of the crashers, driving aids, no damage or default set ups...

It's league racing where the good times are had with any sim... Leagues just have too many hoops to jump through with AMS2's current flaws...

 

I may join ya, but I will have my prepared bug report waiting just like I do with any race these days... lol

What music do you play? I'm a part time guitarist myself...

 

Yep, with open lobbies its the same for every sim, jump into AC for example and its loadsa monza servers with a pileup at T1 and Loadsa Nords trackday servers. ACC is much better due to more saftey rating concerns, but can still find the odd wreckfest server even there. This is why SRS & LFM are a great alternative.

As for music I run and attend lots of jam sessions/open mics (hard to get gigs round here), and we play whatever we can think of, make stuff up, or mess with tunes. Like this

I love the fact that so many simracers are also muso's, even the devs!

 

All I'm going to say is that this is still under heavy development cycle with plenty of improvements to come. Bugs and issues are apparent and I'm sure Reiza is aware and will work on getting things done. They rightly focused on physics first which will then be followed by other tweaks for AI calibration or mentioned problematic MP part. It's not a huge studio so they can't focus on everything. They have their internal roadmap they'll try to stick to but as with roadmaps, thing don't come all at once...

Patience young padawans, even Rome wasn't built in one day

 

I don't know if it is really that much better than an open lobby, as people will find their own ways of having fun...

Living the good life, music one night, racing the next!

 

Well, some days ago I saw a Youtuber simracer (he plays everything) and did a fan race with his subscribers.

His final words before end the video: So sad this game have such bad physics (refering about the sliding fest), because it looks so nice.

My father and I experience the same, non-downforce cars with the behaviour of sliding on corners, with no evident mechanical/longitudinal regain grip, always having an invisible/short fading sensation between the slip and the grip.

My father and my uncle had lot of high sport cars (ferrari, bmw, lambo, renault [5 turbo, for rally]) and he says me always when I'm driving some car in AMS2 that that car is so hard to drive. I always told him that you need to be so careful on throttle and input, but I agree that is too slippery compared to other sims about the manner of driving.

 

You are right in what you are saying. . but it has been three years now and I can totally understand why people are starting to lose faith.
I just hope once they complete the delayed season pass stuff that they concrete purely on nailing down the major bugs . Forget anymore dlc and fix the core features please .

 

Whenever someone says something along these lines I feel like they are on a completely different sim...

The physics and FFB in AMS2 are as good as the best rF2 mods for me and the feel is better than what I could manage out of ACC after I got passed the clipping... ACC felt floaty and had no edge of grip feel to it until I worked out the FFB for my wheel for it... The cars would just slide into the corners and give me very little feedback... At first I blamed the driving aids, but they are only a small part of the floaty feel I got... Too much gain and other effects drowned out the fidelity...

I realise that the Madness engine has so many physics bugs that plague AMS2 that it could force many to do a complete reinstall with a deletion of all folders that don't get auto uninstalled just to get it to work... But it could also be a factor of the FFB clipping as it did for me in ACC...

The fact remains that this description does not fit AMS2 for me in the slightest... I have recently had to reformat so I've got a completely clean install of AMS2... And I still have issues with set up bugs that cause weird physics... But I know the tricks of how to fix them now... Reset to defaults and save a new set up usually fixes anything that doesn't feel right...

 

I do wanna add to the convo as another guitarist and also I just love taking any excuse I can get to talk about music!

I tend to make a pretty wide range of stuff, for lack of a better word experimental. I like making things that are more out there some to the point where many wouldn't consider it music! But those experiments, how you can use effects to turn the guitar into something else just always hooked me in. I take a lot of inspiration from guitarists like Glenn Branca, Syd Barrett and Robert Fripp. Sorry for all the rambling I really don't want to sound like a pretentious snob xD

Also for those who may want a recommendation, check out Sugar/Tzu by Black Midi! I always felt like it'd work really well as the song played motorsports hype video. If you like jazzy high tempo rock check it out! These guys rock!

 

Which cars they drove? The only truly weird feeling cars for me are the FRetroG2(those are ground effect cars, so maybe its just me) and the Opala Old Stock(nuff said). The others vary from good, very good and great(havent use the Indy cars a lot, so no opinion on those). The only cars I find really hard to drive are those nasty Caterhams, but I have the same issue in RF2, so it's just me.

Apart from that, I have zero issues with the other cars once you get the hang of them, and more importantly I can feel the loss of grip in a very natural way and in no way it's a slide fest.

This sim does not have bad physics IMHO, bad physics would be something like F2022 and to a lesser extent Dirt Rally 2 on tarmac.

 

You sound a lot like me when I'm messing around with my Kemper or Theramin...

I might as well answer my own question to keep the music chat going...

I'm very similar... I range from Bill Bailey messing around to Victor Wooten and The Berzerker... But no where near as good as any... I'm heavily influenced by Neue Deutsche Härte at the moment especially Eisbrecher and Oomph!... So I play a lot of covers of them and some punk rock as well when I'm trying to play something...

 

Of course people are starting to lose faith if they base it on their own wants and needs. The development by small studio doesn't work like that. Especially when they inherited a platform that's massive, comes with it's own bugs and issues so it's unrealistic to expect they'll be done with core essentials even after 3 years and I'm not expecting it fully polished this year either. Especially since it was quite recent when they've reached the "happy with physics" state which was their main focus from unpacking Madness Engine.

In other words - have realistic expectations and you won't be disappointed

To be fair Reiza may have shot themselves in the foot here slightly by coming off Early Access too early as in my opinion we're not there yet even now. But hey, finances

 

Fair enough. But then, what is a realistic expectation? 5 years? 7 years? 10 years?

AMS1 was released in 2016, wasn't it? 4 years later AMS2 was released.

 

I've no idea, to perfection - never

As it stands now I'm not expecting a reasonably polished experience on all fronts until 2025.

To be clear, I've paid for season pass on release day and I'm just happy to be part of the journey, no matter how long it'll take. That doesn't mean everyone should think the same.