Automobilista 2 January 2021 Development Update

Greetings Everyone! Here we are for the first dev update of what promises to be a very exciting year for Automobilista 2.

We have started the year as we left off 2020, with foot hard on the gas and already deploying a couple of substantial updates to bring some important core developments to physics & AI. Along with another batch of general developments, the latest v1.1.1.0 release has also introduced a couple of neat Ginetta G40 variants nicely filling that tin top club racing niche that was still under represented in AMS2.


Even before the update went out, we were already pushing towards some of the steps that will follow in the coming months - let´s take a closer look into those...

2021 Roadmap - Fast, But Steady

As suggested in the last two dev updates, we have been opting to slightly throttle back on our release schedule for new content relative to our original roadmap in these recent updates. We will continue to put more focus towards developing existing content and other core game developments, with new content progressing in parallel and at a more steady but still quite productive pace - current plans forecast a ratio of about 2-3 new cars / 1 track per month for the remainder of 2021 (not to be confused with an equivalent release ratio as some of that content will be part of the larger expansion packs).

For a similar reason we are also going to hold a bit longer on publishing our complete 2021 Roadmap until we have finalized our initial assessment of the planned features and finalized the remaining licensing deals for the content to be released this year, which we expect to take a few more weeks.

What we can advance already is that given this slightly stretched schedule, which will see the release of some content initially planned for 2021 rolling into 2022, we are also stretching the Season Pass term to cover all of our 2022 DLC releases. The Season Pass now should cover everything we have already planned to release for AMS2, not only retaining but expanding its value with some further not-yet announced items added to the overall package.

Even though part of the reason for holding on publishing the 2021 roadmap a bit longer is to ensure what we eventually come to present is a more reliable plan, we´d hope users will still keep in mind as we advance that the roadmap or even the shorter term plans usually presented in these dev updates are still targets that we can elect to flex if we find it necessary or useful to do so - neither the roadmaps nor dev updates should be taken as a commitment to a schedule but rather as a rough overview of our development plans, presented with the intent of giving our users some foresight into what they may expect going forward.

With all this said, we can also confirm we will continue our routine of major monthly updates all through 2021, and we do have some concrete milestones for the next couple of months we can already share - so let´s expand on that

Coming Up in February

Excepting the usual likely hotfix for the v1.1.1.0 update sometime over the next week, our next major update should arrive as usual towards the end of February. Here are some of the highlights planned for it:


Our track team is still working on Belgian territory, now taking a trip back in time to retro-reform our Spa-Francorchamps to its 1993 version.

The track was originally supposed to be based on its 1991 configuration, but we´ve opted to switch to the 1993 version thanks to higher quality reference material. Also, although the track configuration remained the same throughout the 80s and Early 90s, the 1993 revision featured some small adjustments to the curb profiles at the Bus Stop double chicane which remained largely unaltered until 2002, and contributed to a better flow of the track in that last part of the lap.


The much anticipated Group C Sauber Mercedes C9 and Porsche 962C duo will finally arrive in next month´s update, suitably in combo with its contemporary version of Spa-Francorchamps.

Similar to the GT1 cars that arrived in December, the Group C class represented another golden era in sports cars in history, and these two models were front-runners at its peak in the late 1980s, when it approached F1 in terms of both popularity and performance.

Having the series represented in Automobilista 2´s historical roster was therefore a no-brainer choice, and we are thrilled to see their arrival is finally just around the corner!


Another much anticipated historical content arriving in the next update is the 1999 GM Omega Stock Car - the last "proper' Stock Car to race in the series before the dawn of the prototype era in the 2000s, the Stock Car Omega was still largely based on its production counterpart which replaced the Opala in the Brazilian market during the 90s. It also shared a lot of its DNA with its Australian cousin, the Holden Commodore.

The introduction of the 1999 Stock Car series will complete our tribute to the prime Brazilian championship on the verge of the 10th Anniversary of our very first title, Game Stock Car released in 2011. Time does fly when you are having fun!

The February Update should also feature some further Quality of Life improvements and fixes, the biggest priorities being to rectify some persisting reliability issues with FFB and Multiplayer.

Later On...

The late March 2021 update will mark the first Anniversary of AMS2 EA release, and we´re pushing to mark the occasion with an even bigger update than usual.

On the content front, the March update will be fairly packed with some very interesting new cars, but we´ll save discussing more about these for next month

Besides another substantial batch of QoL developments, the March Update will finally see the arrival of the highly anticipated Custom Championship Tool - we have again elected to push its release a bit further down the line not only to ensure everything is working well, but also to make a more feature rich release, including some further customization options for weather, track conditions, opponent and class selection which are not currently in the game but that are expected to be introduced along with the tool itself.

We´ll expand more on the above in next dev update, but here´s a small WIP preview of the configuration screen where users will be able to configure their championship rounds:



The March Update will also see some more promising developments to the LiveTrack and Weather systems, aiming further fulfill the potential of the excellent technology we have in the Madness engine. Again, we´ll hold from spilling the beans too soon, but rest assured there are some exciting stuff in store here!

That covers it for January - we look forward to catching up with all again later next month!

 

OIhhhhhhhh. Niceee! <3

 

I must really say, after having always a bit of a hard time, getting into AMS2 to drive a race weekend "just for fun", without the main reason to drive it for reporting issues, it's now really clicking on me with this recent update.

I ended up quitting AMS2 yesterday just because i was too unconcentrated to keep driving, while actually wanting more, after driving a P1/P2/P3/GT3 multiclass and Stock Car 2019, while having an amazing day in front of my monitor, instead of being frustrated with another occurance of a glitch or issue, that lets me grab my keyboard, alt-tab and report it.

I experienced some cars character yesterday, like in no racing simulation before, beginning with doing setup for a prototype like the Sigma, just to see, that it is actually quite complex and all variables are connected to each other and show some interesting (and reasonable) dynamics. Or the even still a bit flawed group A cars and M1 Procar delivering an experience to throw a car around a track in a manner, that actually made way more sense to me, than before (and in some way, it felt more like a car, that i would handle with respect and awareness, instead of a racing game, which really surprised me, didn't even experienced this in AMS1 this way).

Btw. increase diff clutches for now, if the M3 DTM is doing the spin(TM) into corners, transforms the last 2 classes at least bit.

I think, it's fair to say, AMS2 has still some flaws and rough edges after almost a year, but it's also not at all on the wonky state, it was 5-7 months ago. I mean, my frustration is on the low side of things to begin with, because we factually have an indy-developed game here, that was communicated to be not finished at initial release, it is, how it is.

I'm really thankful for the golden times of racing simulations, we have right now, feels like 2005 again, but with way more stuff!!