Automobilista 2 V1.5.3.2, F-HiTech & Historical Track Pack Pt2 RELEASED - Now Updated to V1.5.3.5

The main issue that stops me from using the karts is the driver animations aren't yet properly implemented. Drivers are still making car-like rotations on the wheel which, while hilarious, makes them unraceable.

 

Yeah that issue is most noticeably on high downforce cars for sure, probably why I think the open wheelers drives the worst, well some of them.

But yeah I'm pleasantly surprised after months of "massive changes" that its actually now really a massive change for real this time. Im having so much fun and its very much believable in most sense!

 

Championship mode gives me systematic Bugsplat. What is surprising is that I only have “New championship” as an option. Anyone else have this bug?

 

Given that the national Barcelona track has arrived, can we ask for the Indianapolis Road variant from the F1 years (2000-2007) please.

 

I just tried the Ultima GTR. I admit, I had not tried this car for ages (maybe well over a year) as last time I tried it the car was utterly bonkers. Despite someone on the forums arguing it was realistic at the time (you know the type), the car used to just take an instant left turn if you dared to even think of squeezing that accelerator.

I am happy to say the car is completely different now (obviously no longer realistic I take it ). Its massive fun to drive now. The McLaren F1 LFM has also been utterly transformed over time to be brilliant fun too.

Sure, actual drivers of the Ultima may miss the instant left turn whenever they touch the throttle, but for the rest of us, it now seems like a believable and fun car to race. If you haven't given it a go for a while, take it for a spin.

 

I'm not sure if it's fightclub rules about mods but I got to say Thunderflash LMP2 mod is bloody amazing, got to be one of the best LMP2 cars i've tried, for sure on on par if not better than some i've driven a lot in AC.

You have to get that!

 

*included for backers. And yes.

 

My go-to class for a year now. LOVE the class-paired Ginetta too. Gloriously good cars in the sim.

 

I have extensive driving experience with that car don't you know, the instant left turn is because of the [radio static].

(/joke obviously).

 

@Renato Simioni
In the patchnotes you mention a dedicated thread for multiplayer reports will be coming soon, is that already created and is that for both ingame created lobby's and dedicated servers?

I know i can b*tch and moan about stuff , but really want to help as well, as i know several people do regarding multiplayer..

 

Ummm..

 

I've been testing this new update since it came out, comparing it to some other sims. IMO AMS2 is now the most complete package for offline racing out of the box.

[caution, long rant incoming. Skip to end for TL;DR]

The AI behaviour seems really good to me, they make for good opponents and are not wrecking at the same time. They (mostly) back out of impossible situations instead going off track. They even do a mistake here and there - I've seen them spin 180 degrees & oversteer, tankslapping, or slide in fast corners. They are great to race against - IF their skill is dialed in to mine.

I also find the driving feel massively improved since 1.5. Older builds of AMS2 always felt somewhat unintuitive and required me to adapt my driving. 1.4 was a move in the right direction and 1.5 even more so, but some oddness remained nonetheless. With 1.5.3 this is finally gone. It now immediatelly feels right with no need to think about my driving. Maybe this was one of the reasons many players couldn't gel with the sim in the past?

And the FFB seems just right to me. I'm using the default profile only and on my TS-PC it is strong, detailed and active. I always liked AMS2's FFB but this is now probably the best FFB out there. At least to me, that is.

All of the above shows the commitment of the developers to improve their game even 3 years after initial release. The improvements were substantial enough to whet my apetite for a DLC I didn't buy at the time it came out with 1.5 update.

Not all is good in Fantasy Raceland however. There are still quite some issues that leave a bad taste:
- Despite the latest AI calibration AI pace is not well calibrated for dry & wet. This could be down to my skill level with different cars in the wet, since before this update I seldom willingly ventured into wet racing, causing me nothing but frustraion. Unfortunately this continues somewhat, as with some cars I just can't follow the AI in the wet. It's mostly cars without TC (examples ARC Camaro: dry-102-104, wet 99-100, Cateham Academy: dry 104, wet 100) the AI has much better traction out of corners while I struggle to keep my ride straight. AI just takes off while I lag behind or start meandering out of control and lag behind. Luckily it's possible to tweak AI pace even in custom championship for every event/race, so all is not lost, but it's an ongoing annoyance that I silently wished would go away with this latest patch and it, sadly, hasn't. Here's hoping for some more polish in this regard. Wet racing, when the AI is believably fast, is so good!

- AI still wander off track sometimes, even after the latest 1.5.3.4 patch that was supposed to further tighten things up. Examples: Brands Indy at Graham Hill bend; Snetterton 100 Doggles & Palmer, IIRC. I'm sure this will be ironed out eventally.

Not for the big one - the user interface, with it's myriad of sub-menues, ilogical item placement inside menues, missing information in car setup etc:
- tyre degradation & fuel consumption rates are hidden in settings/gameplay menu, when they would be way more usefull in the race setup menu. I want to set up a 30min race with higher tyre/fuel rates to have some pit strategy come into play during the race, but I constantly forget to set it one way or the other because it's tucked away.
- setting up a race is a tedious exercise, potentially making me quit a started race to tweak some setting I forgot to chance because it is hidden somewhere in 3 or 4 sub-levels of the race menu. It doesn't help that any race type (except custom champinship, which is a case of its own) must be configured through the same menu. Want just a quick race with no pit stops? go through 3 or 4 different menu windows or sub-menues to set up everything. Hey, how about a race weekend? Rinse and repeat. Change practice, quali, race length? 3 sub-menues with additional sub-menues. It gets tedious...
-setting up the custom championship is similarly complicated, to the point I regularly end up with race x out of y with some odd-ball setting not ment to be there.
- the car setup menu doesn't present any tyre temps and pressures. I'm forced to use a 3rd party app to get around this issue. Currently tyre pressures are displayed in garage menu, but not in car setup menu. I know this data is visible in one of the driving overlays, but that is a no go for me as it's too distcating. And breaks immer schon
- the car setup menu is clunky, values can only be changed by clicking left/right.
- the in car menu (ICM) is just not working as it should when setting up a pit stop. I've set up tyre change or refuelling countless times to be waved out after only getting one or the other, none of the requested, or even something not requested (like damege repair when none was selected). Being designed in several pages doesn't hepl navigating it while driving.

I hope you see where this is going. So, to stop whining and contribute something, here's some suggestions to the devs, if they care for any of it:
- For the love of God (or whatever other thing you cherish), make the UI with as little sub-menues as possible, especially for the race setup screen. Anything that is hidden somewhere tends to get forgotten and the user gets frustrated because of it.
- Present the race menu with several facets, catering for different styles of offline gameplay: practice, quick race, race weekend, championship (to be fair, practice is allready separate in the current UI, outside the race menu); I find ACC menu the most intuitive in this regard
- car setup menu should present some tyre data (IMO temps, pressures) to the player so he can make an informed decision regarding setup change.
- car setup tweaks are easier when utilising sliders besides buttons to change the setup values, as the slider also conveys information about whre in the setup range the current setting lies (is range 1-3, 1-7 or 1-25?). Something like Raceroom or, again, ACC setup menu.
- the whole ICM should be presented on single page without scrolling.

Reading Renato's mention of UI redesign in this dev update I am intrigued as to how the UI is going to change in the future. Call me optimistic...

Phew... this came out a lot longer wall than what I had in mind at he beginning so I'll end here. Let me just say that I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't like AMS2 in general. Currently I find it one of the best out-of-the-box experiences and I'm really looking forward to the announced new sporlight on endurance racing. I'll be waiting patiently.


TL;DR:
Latest update is great for offline racing, AI behaviour, driving feel and FFB are great. There are still some AI calibration issues, and the game would certainly benefit from a UI redesign as hinted by Renato in the dev update.

Regards, Tinman

 

You can plainly see the car in front (the guy with the red hat and moustache), threw a banana skin.

 

ok, cheers for the reply!

 

Another small update?

 

“Mercedes CLK LM GT1: Reverted driver animations to use stick shifter; Revised collisions; Adjusted driver animations to use paddle shift”

What does this mean? I see both the paddle shifters AND the sequential shifter in the car. Can I use the paddle shifter animation instead? Reason I’m asking is I have both a paddle shifter and sequential shifter but I’d like to just use paddles for this car and have the animation match.

 

He had too much vodka

 

On the beta there was a small update with paddle shift animations, this was later reversed as the car ended up not using them in most races

And the collision revision fixed the bonnet of the car not detaching on strong collisions

 

The animations in all vehicles reflect the real car, not what we have as controllers. (Also, apparently, a few of the animations are still not working in all situations and there a couple of anomalies in the shifters themselves.)