ApexRivals - Complete Race Engineer & Career Mode for AMS2

Hi everyone!

I've been working on ApexRivals for quite a while now, and with the release of version 2.0 I figured it was finally time to make a proper thread for it here

ApexRivals is a standalone companion app for Automobilista 2, built around two major features:

A complete Race Engineer

and

A persistent Career Mode

The Race Engineer is the big focus of the latest update, so I'll start there

RACE ENGINEER
In a real racing team, the driver isn't working alone. There are engineers and strategists analyzing the car, planning the race and adapting when conditions change

That's the experience I wanted to bring to AMS2



ApexRivals lets you focus on driving while the Race Engineer handles the engineering side: Analyzing telemetry, helping develop the setup and managing race strategy as the session evolves

COMPLETE SETUP ADVICE
During Practice, the engineer analyzes your driving and the car's behavior over multiple runs and gives you specific setup changes to make.

And when I say complete, I mean it.

It can analyze every adjustable setup option available on the car.



There is:

• No driver survey to fill out after every stint
• No generative AI
• No internet connection required
• No need to interpret telemetry graphs

It's just math and physics.

You drive the car. It handles the engineering.

The goal is not to generate mathematically perfect leaderboard setups. It's to give you the experience of being the driver in a proper racing team, where someone else handles the engineering work

That said, multiple beta testers still reported finding several seconds per lap in some cases after following the setup advice

LIVE RACE STRATEGY
The engineer doesn't just build a strategy before the race and leave you with it



It continuously recalculates the strategy based on what is actually happening

• Fuel consumption changes
• Unexpected tyre wear
• Weather changes
• Damage
• You stay out an extra lap

It recalculates.



It calculates how much fuel you need, monitors tyre usage, determines which tyres you should be on, and tells you when it's time to switch between the available dry compounds, intermediates and wets

If something happens that changes the optimal pit window, you'll get updated instructions

ENGINEER AND SPOTTER VOICES
There are downloadable Engineer and Spotter voice packs that provide strategy calls, pit reminders, race information, traffic warnings, time and laps remaining, and more while you drive

Voice packs are moddable as well, so custom packs can be created

YOU DON'T NEED TO USE THE CAREER MODE
The Race Engineer works independently throughout AMS2.

You can use it in:

• Regular single-player sessions
• Online races
• ApexRivals Career Mode
• And, when it arrives, Reiza's upcoming Career Mode

Setup advice is given during Practice, while strategy, monitoring, engineer messages and spotter functionality continue throughout the race weekend

ApexRivals is a standalone application. It uses the telemetry exposed by AMS2 and does not inject anything into the game

CAREER MODE
The other half of ApexRivals is a persistent Career Mode



The basic philosophy is:

You are not the main character.
Hundreds of AI drivers have persistent careers of their own



They race, change teams, receive offers, fight for championships and progress through the same career system you do

The app quite literally does not know which driver in the roster is the player

Promotions use a proper driver/team draft system, championships track full season standings, and Special Events provide independent once-a-year races outside of your normal championship schedule



The built-in career presets support every car and every track in Automobilista 2 without exception.

Custom cars, classes, tracks, rivals and career presets are supported as well



FREE LITE VERSION
ApexRivals LITE is free and contains nearly all of the app's functionality

PRO mainly adds multiclass Career Mode championships and Race Engineer advice for some of the more advanced setup options

The core Race Engineer, live strategy, Special Events, full-length careers, voice packs and the rest of the main functionality are all available in LITE

DOWNLOAD
ApexRivals LITE is available on Overtake

VIDEO
I also made a video showing app in action (early beta build with Windows TTS)

FEEDBACK / BUG REPORTS
There are an incredible number of car, track and weather combinations in AMS2, far too many for me to test every possible scenario myself

If the Race Engineer gives you strange setup advice, makes an obvious strategy mistake, or otherwise does something stupid, please use the Export Logs option in ApexRivals and send me the resulting file

Those logs make it much easier for me to figure out exactly what happened

If you're using a mod car and would like Race Engineer support for it, feel free to get in touch as well

 

I sepose you will come up with a Panoz update?