Automobilista 2 V1.5 Physics Development Update

Nils is absolutely spot on.

I am a VR driver so have been desperate for AMS 2 to become the one stop shop SIM for all of my needs. My history with it goes back to buying then refunding one of the earlier versions of the game. Whilst I agree with Nils on the flaws of 1.5, it is without doubt in a better state than ever before, and for the first time I can race without the constant nagging feeling that I need a fix of rfactor 2 of AC to remind myself of what a more "natural" driving experience feels like.

We may now have reached the limits of what the madness engine is capable of (within the limited resources of Reiza). What I really hope for is that all attention is put to implementing a scheduled, ranked competitive mode. It is fairly obvious that this is what brings the masses to a sim, more so than more content!

 

I think that is part of the conversation.

I think there are 2 main reasons to not overdrive the cars (especially ones that should be snappy like formula cars).

1 - you go over the limit once, the car snaps and you can't recover.
2 - you go over the limit consistently but manage it, over time you overheat/damage the tyres and then spin and can't recover.

I think AMS2 does the second one well at the moment in those longer races. It doesn't quite have the first one though.

 

What brings me to a sim is first the quality of the AI racing, then the quality of the content, then the amount of it, and at the very tail end anything that has to do with online.

That being said AMS2 is currently the only racing game i play online, so i am hoping that the focus on improving it further keeps going and going. The auto-advance feature for lobbies is a cool addition, chat added post-practice / qualifying is also greatly appreciated. Now the option to join a session AT ANY POINT needs to be added.

On the AMS Reddit some pointed out "But people should not be allowed to join mid-race". YES THEY SHOULD. Let them just be an invisible ghost so they do not have to wait and spectate the race doing nothing, let them finish how many laps down they want to, and if by any chance they get back on a lead lap, unghost them and let them race. People leave a lobby if they cannot drive, nobody wants to spectate even for just 5 minutes.

 

Again I believe this is absolutely not true, just go back to AMS1 and compare it to the original rFactor, AMS1 is running on a 2005 engine and still feels miles ahead of what modern sims are capable of doing, alot of professional simulators run on the original gMotor engine and those are used by professional teams, I think people often understimate what a physics engine is capable of with tweaking and time being put into it. AMS2 has to simulate many things that the original AMS1 didn't, so while there's more improvement to be had in the long run, there's also more to go wrong. At least that's the impresion that I got.

 

Every sim will have ways to exploit the physics (start by setting your wheel rotation to 180 degrees and you too can catch way more slides than you can with a 900 degree rotation) and eSports is all about people who have learned to exploit those physics. You won't ever be able to eliminate those exploits completely. Devs trying to chase the eSports physics exploits just makes the sim worse to drive for everyone else. ACC physics have basically been ruined by the eSports bros and they STILL have the camber/toe-nonsense setup hacks going on.

 

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Input is useful here esp from a content creator, etc

 

Why especially from a content creator ? I made 6 various videos that are AMS2 related, is my input more useful than anyone else's because of it ? Everyne's feedback who bought the game is useful, whether they make any content about the game or not.

 

Exactly
pls (dont misread into my comment)
All feedback is welcome . good or bad but constructive. Too few other creators/influencers critic for views, but dont further explain here. yet their influence has an obvious effect.

 

Yeah, i agree, not especially a content creator, however i do get that having content creators playing your game, and hopefully judge it properly can help in the overall popularity of a title.

Since 1.5 ams2 has got quite a few new and/or returning players, which is a good thing, heck, i'm only a smalltime streamer, i stream ams2 3 to 5 nights a week, and i also see viewercounts increase, lets hope and try in every way we can to keep those player numbers up, as in the long end we will all benefit from it in terms of ams2 development

 

It's just code, so there is no real limit, but of course there might be limits where the work amount to change something is too big to be realistic option. It would be hard to believe that tuning physics would be those thing though.

Unfortunately I fear that MP side might be more challenging in that sense, but I really hope to be proven wrong in this. I just hope they are able to put enough dedicated resources for this part finally.

 

Yeah, absolutely, hopefully we will see some major MP improvements before the end of the year, the start is there, but being able to actually run a dedicated server with more then 28 people would be nice, since currently going above 28 gets half the field or even more disconnected just before the start of the race

 

Go for it. Personally, I don't let influencers influence me. I think a large part of what people like that say comes from what their main sim is. His feedback is useful to Reiza ( I thought it was a good video actually ), but it has no influence on my enjoyment of the game. I tested the GT3s across ACC/RF2/iRacing/AMS2 myself once 1.5 was released. My personal preference, in order, was AMS2/RF2/ACC/iRacing. I let Reiza worry about wether it is realistic, for me it comes down to wether the game makes me feel like I'm driving a real car, and in VR, AMS2 wins out for sure. I raced online with the Ginetta GT3 yesterday and it was fantastic, enjoyed every minute. My view is that 1.5 is the new baseline, and further tweaks will follow. I'd expect some of the behaviour people are complaining about to be addressed in the next iterative patch or two. In the meantime I'm going to continue to enjoy AMS2, even if every youtuber on the planet says I shouldn't be.

 

Not even that many. I'm sure the physics will get polished, but hope to see more focus on MP for sure, although I appreciate its a very, very challenging thing to fix.

 

People still can get a bit defensive when somebody has contrary opinion or experience to theirs with their favorite sim. I think your assesment was very well put together and not feeling somehow biased because of background in some other sim or because of some other "agenda".

I do think also that Reiza does read and asses the negative feedback, when it's well put together and especially if it's backed up with data.

 

i especially agree with nils assessment when talking about the pendulum effect on the ffb, it's like the ffb is reacting to the rear wheels rather than what the front wheels are doing which is what a real steering wheel is connected to and should feel, i think games are trying to overdo ffb effects rather than keep it simple, just replicate what a real steering wheel feels like, i think raceroom does this the best personally

 

I don't know why always GT3 car are used for comparsions. GT3 cars are made to be easy to drive. All this talk about "limits of grip" are fun, because if you drive in Gen2 Ultimate Formula cars, try to "abuse" in hard tires in first laps an see the world spinning like hell.

AMS 2 have LOTS of content. Even this sometimes was used as negative. Lewis Hamilton don't like even Mercedes simulator, and Max Verstappen likes to compete in sims easy GT cars to have fun, but casual sim drivers demand the ultimate realism about everything, times in hot laps like real counterparts in ms, and don't simply enjoy racing dynamics in a GAME.

It's funny as hell!

Bonus: Senna "fighting" against the wheel... Bad FFB, physics and so easy to drive in the limit:

 

I personally found it was related to how high I have LFB most of all. The secondary contributors were some settings in Fanalab I fiddled with back some time ago (don't even remember what I touched honestly). I found that generally the amount of cars and the amount of wobbling has been drastically reduced by the last FFB pass by Coanda, not sure what has been done there but it helped at my end as now I can leave the wheel without control and it will not look like it's possessed
My best advice is to look for LFB reduction and any similar settings in wheelbase software to help out with that.

 

Yeah,but with no roadfeel in the FFB this difference that I don't like so much.

 

It's simple..does anyone here have, or know someone who does (preferably a great friend), a GT3 or another high performance race car parked in the garage to test these dynamics for us?