Automobilista 2 September 2024 Development Update - The Road to V1.6 Pt2

Ranking system fixes the skill issue by not putting a rookie in the same race as a veteran. For example when you enter 5k irating lobby, you are racing the top 1% of players (according to the distribution graph from December 2023). While there might be some crazy moments between driver A and B on track they happen because egos clash, not because A and B are bad drivers, or lack skill. If they lacked skill they wouldn't make it to the top 1% of the game playerbase.

 

The reason iRacing is popular online is due to the regular races on dedicated servers and those races forming seasons.
If AMS2 was to gain traction online then releasing 1.6 alongside LFM using popular car classes on popular tracks (to start with, then branching out when there's an established player base). The data on what is popular is available on iRacing.
If LFM and Reiza got together and decided what series and tracks to offer and then package all the content into a LFM/1.6 DLC I think you would see people give it a go.

 

And then I ask you, drivers.. Which classes and tracks would make you use LFM?
Even if you're not so interested in online play like me, which type of race would interest you in LFM?

For me would be endurance races;
Races with Karts, F.Ult G2, F.Reiza, F-V10 G1 and G2, P1, P3, P4, LMDh, Group C, GT4, Stock Car '24 and any Stock Cars at Ovals;
For tracks, anything that is not Monaco GP, Nordschleife, Nurburgring, Velo Città and those on airports..

That would make me play a lot of LFM..

 

For me it would be mainly F.Ult G2, but also all "F1 classes" (recent and historic), GT3, Formula Vee, LMDh

 

All the data is there in iRacing as to what is popular and what is not. iRacing looks pretty dated and the cars drive like **** for the most part but yet it's the most popular online racing sim. The thing it does best is the ranked online and this is what draws people in.

 

We don't have the Toleman from 1984, but we have F-Retro GEN 3 which is F1 1983 ... and maybe someday who knows...

 

It's like VHS in the past, it was there first and was able to bundle everyone with the mass later better recording systems could no longer assert themselves.

 

LMDh, F.Ult G2. and GT3. For tracks anything conventional. So Nurburgring, A1 ring, Spa, Monza, Laguna Seca, Bathurst, Brands Hatch, Imola, Silverstone etc.

 

I mean graphics in racing sims go a long way but I think we as a community can agree that dated graphics aren't a dealbreaker, for screen users, VR is a different story. Don't get me wrong, AMS2 is currently my main sim and it's breathtaking the way it looks. I would gladly trade some of the graphics for a more realistic handling model. Now I know I'll get a lot of the "oh you haven't even driven a *insert series name here* car, how can you tell it's not realistic?"
Because driving a racecar shouldn't be this easy. Simple as that. In my head a racecar should be challenging to drive. Heck, most people can't even get an F1 car moving without stalling 15 times, let alone drive it, and drive it fast.
I digress. My main point is AMS2 is on a terrific path. It has a great team of devs behind the game. It has an amazing (if sometimes impatient) community to guide it. But it still has a big road to cover if it wants to challenge iRacing (even with the shi*** driving cars and dated graphics) and I don't think LFM support is enough for people to switch from iR to AMS2.

 

You forgot AC... 3x ACC's user base every day.

I love airports (Cleveland, Galeão)....

To drive online? Anything with lots of people!
I made rF2's 992 championship, 4x full splits in the first race/week, not even a full split at the end...

 

I completely agree, at the very least it's a huge uphill battle for AMS 2 to compete with Iracing and ACC. They both beat AMS 2 in terms of content that people are interested in (both have a better selection of modern tracks and modern series, even with ACC's limited scope), have a more reliable online services, and are made by companies that already have the largest fanbases in simracing.

The only area I see AMS 2 being able to strike is online historic racing as ACC is well.. ACC and Iracing has an insanely small amount of historic content, most historic car classes only really have one to choose from with basically no tracks for them to properly race on

 

I don't think Reiza wants to challenge iRacing (at least with AMS2).

I agree, cars should be difficult to drive. A race driver will make the car as unstable as possible, while still being able to drive it fast.
A road car is made as stable as possible so that no one can easily crash it.

But I rediscovered AMS2 a few times already, just by changing the FFB.
We'll see what v1.6 will bring, I'm here to share what I think I still lack, from an ever-shrinking list of things.

 

AC on LFM is quite popular with the mazdas, cupra tcr, formula 3.. Automobilista can do the exact same thing given the huge amount of tracks and categories, even better, you wouldn't need any mods which sometimes is not ideal in term of being user friendly and in terms of quality.

Actually I'm quite excited about LFM and AMS2. Hypothetically my 9 LFM chosen series would be:

Stock Car 24
Copa Uno/Fusca/Hot Cars/Copa Classic
Brazilian endurance P1/P2 etc multiclass, must have P4 because of the mcr2000
LMDH + GT3/GTE multiclass
GT1/Group C + Group A multiclass
Formula Ultimate
One classic formula each season a different one
Formula Vee/Formula 3
Mini challenge/Sprint Cars/Caterhams

And there still would me many fun categories left out: GT4, GT5, DPI, All the vintage touring, karts, rallycross.. We just have to hope for the player base to be there

 

But it's down to the driver and engineers to make some adjustments to make car faster at the expense of handling convenience. Base setups are on the safer side, sure, but it's down to us, simracers, to make the drive more challenging in pursuit of laptime, also knowing that some (if not most) of them have little experience in driving a machinery that's on a knife's edge. So it sounds to me that you're not pushing far enough to find more pace

Also, let's not forget that a computer game have to be made ready for plethora of controllers, not a wheel/pedals that are specifically engineered to work best with that specific car, that's why stalling a F1 car may be possible to implement properly, but realistically it'll guarantee a frustrating experience for those who doesn't have a double clutch hardware for example.

 

Is this because the championships are treated the same way as typical lobbies--the majority quits as soon as they have no chance of winning or finishing well?

 

No race car driver in the world will purposely make his car unstable, I am sorry but that makes no sense. All racing drivers want a car that is as Thanos would say "perfectly balanced", the complete opposite of unstable.

Racing cars are definitely not easy to drive, but it doesn't mean they are impossibly difficult either. The difference lays in how consistent, precise and on the limit pro drivers manage to go compared to us plebs, specially so on cold tires which I am sure is the most difficult phase of driving a race car.

 

Race cars are typically very easy to drive. If you aren't going as fast as the fastest drivers...

I drove a Radical SR3 at a medium-sized track I had never been to and within two laps was within 1.5 seconds of the track pro's best lap time. Yes, I stalled it once at initial launch until I got used to the clutch take-up. Do you know how long it would take me to shave off that last second or so? Somewhere between several hours of continuous lapping and never.

I am happy to report that AMS 2 1.6 comes closer to this reality than ever before. Unbelievable capable track machines (a F-Trainer can usually out handle a Ferrari road car, so imagine the "real" race cars) can easily be driven at decent speeds. Like every other sport, getting to the pinnacle of highest performance is not easy. If you are pushing to the limit, you will have to be careful, methodical and watch your tires and temps, just like in real racing.

Don't ever say a car in the sim is easy until you have demonstrated you can do consistent laps at highly competitive lap times. I'm still waiting to find one...

 

Hey @Marius H, heusinkveld is gonna be at the expo so remember to bring your party shoes.

 

sadly that is true Marc and I've had far too many such championships ruined by such childish behaviour. The recent Caterham championship run on AC is a perfect example, more than 40 racers started and showed interest and the last race of the season was down to 14 and this is one of the better one's that follows the real Caterham championship events and a good few of the drivers do both IRL and Sim.

 

It’s exactly this, why people will think that a car with grippy tires, race brakes , race tuned suspension, light weight and aero would be hard to drive baffles me, normally they are much more responsive and connected than road cars. As Marc expertly point out it’s the 1sec difference that is so hard to achieve, and the harder is to achieve it consistently, and in changing conditions. Add to this car management skills on historic period cars, etc… it’s easy to see that the true difference of a pro from the rest of us lie in nailing these small details that can make a huge difference in the end. I cannot recall who was the journalist, but I read his account of when he had the opportunity to drive a UOP Shadow from the seventies at Silverstone. These cars were beasts to drive, but his recollection was that they were really responsive and easy to drive, this until he reached more than 7000rpm on 4th gear. Then it became frighteningly quick to him. He was much slower than prós on copse corner and was amazed with their skills and how they accelerated that early compared to him. It was a great read. As Marc said, race cars are easy to drive, but hard to drive consistently fast. For me AMS2 is the best sim that captures this characteristic on race cars vs other sims.