Automobilista 2 April 2023 Development Update

When GamerMuscle Discord sends us their people, they're not sending us their best.

 

I give **** about GM, but he was/is one of more pragmatic criticists of Ams2. At least he was pointing to some specific things which pend out to be truth at the end (e.g. differential issue)...

 

Honestly, the cars solide much less, which has been my biggest criticism before, especially the powerslides. Just try it, has been transformative to me.

 

Why not trying things yourself rather than look for everyone else to tell you (YTers or normal users)?
If you asked me I think the v1.5 physics solves a couple of very annoying issues:

1. The occasional occurrence of the rear of the car feeling digital where it would come into a corner with an extremely high rate of yaw that seemed to cause a loss of the rear but the slightest touch of the gas would bring it back in line: this had become for the vast majority of the cars a very rare event but was still there at times
2. The sketchiness at low speed where in very slow corners the slightest touch of the gas going out of the corners would cause total loss of lateral containment.

It did also bring forward a much more progressive behavior on-off the throttle whereby you can gently increase or decrease the front authority by playing with it, without reaching stupidity levels like in AC.
I've extensively tried the F USA (road) and very little the F Ultimate. Both felt a giant step ahead and far less prone to drifting.
Another positive point is that tires conservation is back on the menu: it's relatively easy to overheat tires (in the F USA, F Ultimate I have not tested this) so you can't dumbly push 110% the whole time or the car will start sliding too much and your laptimes will get worse (it also depends on the day/weather of the event, bear in mind GM is known to select always British tracks in winter, not sure if he obviously does this on purpose to stir the pot or he is just careless).
Is AMS2 perfect and now Reiza can shut the shop and go fishing? Absolutely not. There is still room for improvement. Is AMS2 the trash GM and his mob of fanatical fanboys want to convince everyone about? Not at all.
If you asked me: what other sims you could race the same F1/Indy spec cars in a more convincing way? Honestly I haven't found one.
I tried the Indycars on RF2 and they are far more horrible to drive in terms of FFB. All you feel is kerbs there. AC? I drove extensively the Ferrari F1 2002 (or was it 2004) a couple of years ago and it was bonkers unrealistic. iRacing I tried the Merc and is typical iracing stuff, wouldn't call it good in physics terms in any way. They have a bunch of adjustability more in terms of hybrid which I wish AMS2 would have one day but that is all I can say it's better than AMS2.
RRE I have not tried, but honestly by now it's a very limiting experience in terms of live track, day/night, weather so not following a lot.
ACC has no F1. RS has nothing so far. AMS1 I gifted my key to a guy in discord who really wanted it so I never had the chance to try it.
So if you asked me, among simulators I don't see this clearly better option and F USA 23 and F Ultimate are pretty damn good at this stage, but probably you are better off trying them for yourself instead of listening to people like GM who are totally incompetent and spent the past three years sh....ting on AMS2 just for the fun of it (and the views) which is why I don't click anymore on a single video from him.

 

I hope I will find some time this weekend...Thanks for feedback!

 

Thanks for the feedback! Will try it this weekend!

 

Indeed as Ettore wrote, my main beef with the game was the way some cars would suddenly "snap" back into place after begining to slide, the F-RetroG1 being one of the worse offenders in my case. Now they feel as you see them in videos, you can slide them with much more control and precision, they feel pretty awesome to drive.

 

The updated cars handle a lot more naturally, there really isn't much that stands out to me as odd or unnatural, its still crazy to play AMS2 and experience this level of precision with the driving physics. My only beef is some of the default setups seem kinda off to start, but this is also where I noticed how much more effective setups were as a result of the physics updates. At least to me that is.

 

Please remember that the default set ups in AMS2 are the same no matter which track you are on so obviously a circuit like Monaco will need a very different set up than say Road America. I would love for every car and track to have a setup specific for each but that would be a herculean task for the number of combinations and that doesn't even factor in the dynamic weather as well. It takes some effort on the users part to get a set up that works for them in the conditions they are driving in. However, I always do lower the BB a few clicks as I lock up way too much if I don't.

 

I want to add to this, I would put series money that the main reason Pcars 2 has many bugs and inconsistencies probably has to do the publisher Namco. Forcing them to release a game that wasn't ready and not giving them the time they need post launch to fix those problems, instead pushing them to release DLC.

This is why AMS 2 is what Pcars should've been. They have the time to actually flesh out the game instead of overworking to meet a deadline. This is why Renato can miss a deadline by 3 years so long as they're constantly proving that they're doing work and releasing updates for the sim. You're not gonna make an amazing sim in a year, SMS understood this Namco did not and ended up killing Pcars because of that fact.

 

Cool, so what did everyone think to the April update?

 

April update as of scheduled date or release date as we may be talking about two completely different things

 

everybody who knows PC2 and AMS2, knows that the visual representation of replays is definitely bad.
So telling something about bad physics just from videos you have seen w/o having it driven is just like talking about good sex just from spectating pornos.
If thats all your knowledge, stop talking about something you have absolutely no idea.

 

On a similar note (the replay part, not the... *** stuff), can we please get steering input in replays to sync what they do in gameplay? For some reason all my steering inputs look ridiculously exaggerated in replays. I know PC2 used to do this, but Madness engine games are the only ones I have seen do this.

 

It would be nice if the replays were more flexible, e.g. you can skip to different parts instead of having to start from beginning and fast forward.

On the April update, the physics changes are awesome. The cars feel so nice to drive, to the point that I've only been playing AMS2 since this update came out. I noticed they fixed the AI on the 1971 Nordschleife so that they don't take each other out on the first corner which is a big deal.

I'm really looking forward to the full 1.5 physics to see how the Porsche's drive. Well done Reiza.

 

Famous and old request. It has been stated it is not really possible due to livetrack logic.

 

Replay skipping is apparently a LiveTrack limitation. Believe me, that opens up a Pandora's box of other potential issues with track state syncing.

I was late posting

 

Whilst I agree with the premise of your post...

Having AMS2 and pCARS 2 in the same frame doesn't help AMS2 at all... As any mention of the pCARS franchise puts a lot of people in the mindset of "that's just an arcade game" and dismiss AMS2 straight out as a result...

I really hope when you talk with sim racers about AMS2 you put some distance between the 2 titles... Otherwise anything positive you say about AMS2 will be dismissed far too easily as "It's the Madness engine, it can't be good"...

Given it was a crowdfunded project to begin with there's far more scope for blame on SMS just from the set up of the project...

I may have forgotten most of the bad choices Bell himself made from being a "investor" but when FCYs were taken out it was a case of "People don't want to sit around driving slow, we don't need that..." not a case of the publisher doesn't want us to put that in the game... It was already in game and got taken out...

There were some talented people working under Bell, but the decisions made during the pCARS franchise were largely on him... Number 3 is the one that the publisher gets more share of the blame... There should of been no sequels... Just pCARS and development...

If that had happened AMS2s growth wouldn't of been stunted by the messy work that went into the pCARS series... As Reiza wouldn't have to work through all the bugs...

 

I'd second that...

But it seems like a larger issue than simply the replays... Ever ridden on board with an AI?

The crazy buggers turn right to go left on an oval...