Automobilista 2 April 2021 Development Update

I've been sim-racing for about twenty years. Until last year, 99% of my time was spent in single-player modes. I didn't even race against AI; I only really enjoyed hot-lapping and trying to tweak qualifying setups. I absolutely acknowledge the importance of providing a good single-player experience, and I think we're close to reaching that goal. For those who are primarily interested in hot-lapping, the game is already fantastic and will be even more satisfying now that the physics updates are settling down and I won't need to keep throwing away setups. For those who focus on single-player racing, I assume the custom championship feature and continued improvements to the AI will take the game to a very satisfying state. (Content releases---particularly new tracks---are always welcome, but these affect single-player and multi-player equally.)

AMS2 was one of the first times when I thought the physics were a close enough approximation to real life that racing online would be an enjoyable experience. (I did a bit of online racing in Live for Speed around 15 years ago for the same reason---the physics were good enough that people could drive consistently and there no obvious benefits to driving in unrealistic ways. I've also dabbled in iRacing, but I find the tire model unrealistically knife-edge and therefore frustrating for close multiplayer racing.) In the past year, I've participated in a league for the first time and have had a blast doing weekend races against a group of clean, dedicated friends. AMS2 offers an excellent driving experience online when the servers are sufficiently populated.

That said, there is also a lot of room for simple quality-of-life improvements on the multiplayer side. (All of these are small issues, but are still worth emphasizing with the goal of gradually improving the game.)

• Hosts cannot change session attributes in between races, forcing everyone to leave and create a new session if they want to change the length of qualifying or the number of laps in the race (likewise, we cannot save lobby settings to make hosting a quicker process).
• People still risk being dropped from online sessions when they open the pit-stop strategy menu.
• There is a common bug that can prevent cockpit mirrors from working when drivers select a different car than the host.
• We cannot easily kick drivers who are trolling or offensive (there is a voting process, but this rarely work). Likewise, there is no means of tracking a driver's reputation online (how many times have they been kicked).
• Hosts who exit a session cannot pick another driver to receive hosting authority (this means online lobbies sometimes hang for several minutes at the end of qualifying or practice, because the new host does not realize they must click "next session", nor does it seem the game will advance the session automatically).
• There is no easy way to add other drivers to a voice chat or even friend request them via Steam.
• It would also be very helpful if the "DLC works for everyone online" feature would work as advertised, because at this stage I think hosts have difficulty remembering which tracks/cars were DLC and which were included in the base game (I don't believe they are marked as "DLC" in the selection list, so it's easy to forget).

Finally, I also think that providing a good multiplayer experience is increasingly important in the YouTube era. Reiza ultimately relies on sales to keep the game afloat and development active. The easiest way to increase sales is to increase positive exposure, and streamers facilitate that when they're having fun. The biggest Twitch streamers and YouTubers want to point to an easy-to-understand ranking system to show off their skills. Even having a publicly-viewable tracker or information in your driver profile that lists how many races you've completed or how many races you've won online would be a huge improvement, that way streamers could list something like "AMS2: 128 races (26 victories/53 podiums/15 DNF)" alongside their iRating. User-created liveries that are visible to others online would also be a great addition that might encourage streamers to participate in AMS2 (they want to differentiate their vehicles and sometimes sell livery space to sponsors; without the ability to do this, they're less likely to focus on AMS2 in their content).

TL;DR: with the physics mostly ironed out and custom championships imminent, multiplayer quality of life fixes and a very basic stats/ranking system seem like a good way to move forward.

 

ok, beautiful road map post! I just didn't like the mention of OVAL.That sounds like Nascar to me.
I like Nascar but I never wanted it in ams2.
this is not a criticism

 

The only part of Nascar that ever excited me was the rare Road Course events. Although, I have to admit that oval racing is better from a spectator perspective (vs. Road course) because it's much easier to follow the race and the action on a per-lap basis. As a driver of virtual cars (And auto enthusiast), I much prefer road-course racing.

Sports car racing just seems like a more pure form of drivers racing "Cars" and includes more variables. I suppose that means I'm prone to complexity.

 

jk jk

 

That would actually be the ideal time to finally release the web leaderboard

 

Was just mentioned it is coming on the roadmap...

 

So... don’t suppose anyone can recommend a safe method of inducing a coma? Preferably to last about a month. Asking for a friend.

 

I tried Nascar in iRacing in VR at pre-repaved Daytona and it was amazing against their AI. If we can somehow get that then I'll be amazed and grateful, because it'll be easily accessible without a monthly sub in my favorite sim. I feel like it might be too much to expect given how iRacing can afford to spend months if not years of dev time just on a single series like that. I'm not an oval guy at all, but it's an extremely immersive experience in iRacing. There is so much going on within a few seconds. My heart was pumping.

I have no doubt AMS2 can provide that experience if Reiza nails the AI, temperature management, drafting and collision system. As it is the AI is like an immovable brick outhouse sometimes. It only makes sense they can solve a lot of that since we'd effectively be paying for oval racing. Lets see what happens .

 

I can recommend the classic 744 hours of Copa Uno.

 

I've met some amazing people through the MP. Even from my own home town...but hey, to each their own, right? I really think it can be a 'and, and' story I just feel the MP has been neglected is all.

 

The answer is always more AMS2

 

Let me suggest counting sand or learning how to speak while driving like Jimmy Broadbent.

 

Guys, you are you talking Nascar. But come on, we will get US single seaters - that means single seater oval racing. Maybe Indy 500? That's what I'm looking forward to in ovals. And the US single seater scene was fantastic in the 1990s:

Indy 500


Cleveland going 6-wide into turn one:


Road America aka Elkhart Lake:


Random beatiful pics:

 

I've spent hours trying to BoP the 919, TS040 and R18 and the RSR, C7R and 488 and I usually just end up being disappointed in AC's FFB compared to ACC, AMS2 and rF2. Nowadays I just divide them like this:

ACC: GT3 & GT4
rF2: GTE, LMP2 & LMP3
AMS2: Formula Single seaters
AC: Indycar and road driving

Unfortunately as good as rF2 feels, its interiors are severely lacking (I drive in VR) and rF2 mods generally feel unfinished. AMS2 can in my case fill an AC and rF2 sized void if they bring out some Le Mans content with an LMP2 and the 488 GTE. Hell, even bringing out Le Mans and a Hypercar before rF2 does will draw in lots of crowds if you ask me. Would be an instant DLC purchase for me.

 

Great post my good man
Both this and the rest of your very thourghtfull post make me want to answer: Are you me?
Because even your interest in fiddling with setups for what you call "hotlapping" I can follow 100%.
Hehe eventhough I call it TT racing

Close to all your very good merged points about AMS2 and its current state I can fully agree with - too.

ByTheWay: Its a pity (seen from my point of view) that it looks like people get tired of fighting on the TT LBs to up their position. Because just like my last 2 years on iRacings slightly more advanced TT LBs I have a great time in AMS2 to try to climb the ladder - and even try threaten the aliens.
Way-e: If you havent tried to load the TT ghost just 1 position above youself and then fight this guy so you get all sweaty - then you have a great experience for good

 

Same here. When I feel like racing smth I just take my car and track combo that's my favourite and race it against the AI. I don't have the time or will to tinker with setups to be competitive with the guys online.

I like racing online as well to a certain extent, but honestly, its too much of a hassle and there are always guys who ram you off the road in turn one after you've waited a long time to have a race and then there's guys who go on endless tirades because you were in their way and "ruined" their race. There's just too much negativity online and I'm in it for the enjoyment, not tinkering and arguing who was at fault.

 

GO GO GO - Renato
I would fu´#ø¤ng love it

 

Actually the answer is always Miata, but we haven’t seen the man whistle about that yet.

 

In AMS 1 we could edit the driver names and abilities. The way I read the OP, with the paragraph that followed, is that Reiza will be able to customise the drivers but we won't.

 

Fantastic development update!
It’s great to hear that they still polish existing content in terms of graphics, sound and performance. Every performance optimisation is greatly welcomed especially in VR which is very resource-hungry.
Still hope that they will bring a VR patch (like rFactor devs did) some day to support canted displays like Pimax so we could turn off „parallel projection“ which is an additional resource hog at the moment.
Can’t wait for the new content as well, especially the new DLC tracks!
The more tracks the better!! Please bring Zandvoort one day!
The only hype I don’t understand though is this „real weather“-thing. I‘m already happy that we can have specific or random weather slots and don’t care how the real weather was on a specific day, but maybe I just don’t see the advantage of this feature...
Thank you all for your hard work to make my only go-to-sim even better!