Help - Does AMS2 drivers really want to race online?

AMS2 is such a nice title

I was racing with @DazzyD70 yesterday and first thoughts after joining the session was "man, AMS2 look and feels good "

I am just sim racing casual, but I like all those nice touches Reiza adds to the game.

Idk, for me driving in AMS2 feels most natural from all other sim titles. I dont do setups, I barerly understand what differential does, but I can instinctively catch slides in AMS2, in other titles my instincts are not aligned so well with game, idk maybe ffb thing.

Bottom line: I like it

 

for me driving in AMS2 feels natural like the best of other sim titles. I do setups, I understand what differential does, and I can instinctively catch slides in AMS2, in some other titles my instincts are not aligned so well with game.

ByTheWay: Problems with dicotomic assessments (this is good others is bad - mkey?) is that after using a certain sim for a short while then exactly this sims behaviour does become your habit.
And therefore your instinctive measure/criteria of other sims.

 

That's why we should jump in to real race car from time to time, or even a cart and do few laps on a race/cart track

EDIT
No i don't jump in to race car from time to time, only once. But I do carts occasionally and my insticts are aligned with catching carts slides

 

This is actually a big impediment to advancements in realism and simulation quality, in my opinion. Thousands of simracers think anything that feels different than a certain set of cars in Assetto Corsa is unrealistic. AC is a great sim, but I would love to be able to move beyond it. A wide range of handling can be considered realistic, in that it's possible for a real-life car to handle in that way.

But yeah, AMS2 is a wonderful sim and I'm glad that I can race it online with RCO.

 

BTW, we can stalk each other now
www.racecraft.online/stats/24/race-history/520
www.racecraft.online/standings
Just click driver name.

Let me know if it's unintuitive to use or something

(Refresh web page in case of problems)

 

Whoo it's Splendid !!!

 

I had a blast in my first race (P4 only with IA ) !
I'm curious about their level, but battle for P1toP4 was very exciting and also stressing because there is no restart !
Overall, very good experience, you make me discover a car and a track !
I still have 1 or 2s to find to be competitive...
Very impatient to live this with more real people !!
See you there !

 

@roszman is there something wrong with the points in the P4 cup?

 

I think the points are just weighted to the AI level. Since I was in the race with you, the AI strength was reduced, and thus your points for winning the race were reduced.

In this race, mHaD was so much faster than me that the AI were just racing in between us. He spent the last 9 laps in first place, and I spent all 11 laps in last place. Unfortunately I think this will probably be my experience in any race that has another human driver, since I am so much slower than other humans (about 5 seconds off in qualifying).

For reference, the Time Trial record is 1:42.034 and my best lap so far in RCO is 1:46.741.

 

Good point about the AI weighting.

As roszman said before its a shame there is no "field spread" feature like in AC.

 

Yeah the points are affected by average race pace. For example, if average race pace was 75 then you're getting 75% points for a given place. (AI skill value is used as AI Pace for this calculation)

Additionally you can get a little more or less points depends if average race pace was higher or lower than your Pace.

@Coldsalmon I was doing some practice for Coppa Classic B today and I couldn't beat your time. I was 2sec slower than you iirc, dont lose hope

 

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that Copa Classics B is popular among the other racers in RCO. It looks unsexy, but I feel like there is something for everyone in those 6 cars.

There are a lot of inherent problems in multiplayer racing; skill difference is just one of them. I'm optimistic that you will be able to slay this dragon and get a good community going.

 

Even with the potential for huge variance in skill levels in multiplayer I think there’s often fewer inherent problems than racing against AI.

Virtually all of my online racing experience has been hugely positive no matter where on the skill spectrum of any particular race/lobby I’ve found myself. I think the clear and at times obvious skill differences can lead to very good racing if there are enough racers for there to be some level of natural skill spread. The general level of respect and shared desire for a clean race is something no AI can currently replicate (he says with absolutely zero worthwhile knowledge of AI whatsoever.)

If it’s not too ‘off’ to use myself as example. When we (myself and Coldsalmon) both raced the P4 with Racezilla earlier this week, he was far quicker than both us and the AI. He spun out of 1st after clipping a kerb and went down to around P8 and stormed back through the pack. When he got up behind me he hung back on a few corners when I thought he may (and could reasonably) have gone for the pass, judging the risk of an unknown human opponent and a tight overtake too dangerous. When the time came and he lined up to make his move I knew trying to hold him off was just going to lead to either one or both of us going off due to the skill difference, so I gave him space and through he went. Online racing against humans of varying skills leads to a hyper-awareness in more cases than not in my opinion - there’s always the outlier of course
On the other hand, I spent some time today practicing against the AI in a solo mode race with the F309 at Bathurst 2020, simulating an upcoming RCO race with the AI at 100%, medium aggression, 20 minutes etc etc. Frankly, it was an absolute s**t show. T1 can be as bad at Bathurst as it is at Spa, so from eighth on the grid I’d got up to 5th and went to go ‘the long way round’ only to see in my HUD mirror the smoking tyres of an idiot AI car as they punted me off the track. Down to last place. Back on my way and I get into 10th the following lap, lots of smoke around the Cutting as I approach Quarry Bend so I had some hope of an incident and sure enough an AI car was recovering from a spin and through I went into 9th place but not before he banged me into the wall, thankfully it didn’t effect me too much. The very next lap I came across another back marker struggling. It’d clipped the wall in the Dipper and was facing the wrong way and essentially making the track ‘single lane,’ as I went through the car following me went to over take, ‘saw’ the obstacle and just drove into me - bang, followed by another bang as the last place car hit me. Neither of them appeared to miss a beat (or perhaps bounced off the wall without issue) and off they went. Most human drivers I’ve raced at Bathurst just try to keep it tight through there and get the best drive out of Forests Elbow onto the straight….unless someone messes up and offers an opportunity.

Apologies for the wall of text on this but, especially after today, I’m always keen to point out how positive my online experiences have been compared to the sometimes crazy AI. At this point I’d like to make clear, I’m talking about the games AI and the issues you can read all about in the AI Bug thread and not RCOs adaptive AI.

That seems to have turned into a rant - it really wasn’t/isn’t meant to be. Just extolling the virtues found in online racing and what we can hopefully have with RCO.

 

Yep, but only the experienced humans will be aware when to hold back and when to push.
You will encounter unexperienced racers online too. Currently imo we have mostly experienced drivers on RCO, people who try hard to race cleanly, but idk what will happen if/when RCO will appeal to more audience.

Concerning AI and Bathurst, I did dozen of RCO races on this track in F3 during last three weeks, AI never caused me a problem, they sticked out their elbows here and there, but nothing too serious.
Maybe try to adjust AI aggression level?

 

I would like to add more race series in few days, are we good with what we have here RCO classes ?

 

Yes but, in my experience at least, genuine rookie racers may make bad mistakes but if they’re able to basically control the car they tend to try not to spoil it for others and would rather concede to a faster driver than battle them - perhaps others have had a different experience? I think RCO would be okay with more new drivers, joining a community tends to regulate behaviour.

I think the aggression level is the issue. I’m not convinced that each level works perfectly for certain tracks, cars or combinations. Of course, it could just be me…but there’s been plenty written about it in various threads here.

Regarding new series - fantastic, I’m happy to go with whatever others want.

 

Please make sure to introduce the F-Inter.

 

I know it's a lot to ask for. But can you guys help me to choose decent tracks for each license?

I've made a copy of google sheet from this great resource Automobilista 2 - Extended Track Info Spreadsheet

A lot of columns are hidden, you can unhide them if you want and I've added columns for RCO license wher you can put "x" or something.

AMS2 Extended Track Info have track temps for the whole year :O , so we can just filter by driveable temp for a given month and bam we have our tracks.

Here is the spreadsheet copy, we can safely edit it:
AMS2 Extended Track Info vs RCO

 

ah, didn't realize that it's not full track list

Hmm, anyway can you guys help to choose best tracks for RCO licenses?

 

It seems to me that tracks would be best organized by racing series rather than license level. Formula Vee is hard to drive but slow, so they would do well in a silver license at Virginia Patriot. Ginetta G40 is easy to drive and slow, so they would also do well at Virginia Patriot but in a rookie license.

Similarly, Silverstone or Spielberg would work for Formula Ultimate and GT4, which should be in different licenses.

BTW I really like Virginia Patriot.