Automobilista 2 March 2023 Development Update

1. Sure is.

2. Well it completely ruins the experience in a league when someone has a random disconnect or is able to join only in the last minute, there has to be a timer added so people can join as late as possible if the server setting allows it

3. Then just remove live track for the replay, or generate a random one ! The replay when started creates a different track condition anyway, give people the option to disable livetrack for the replay and problem is solved

4. That's completely irrelevant and skill of a player has nothing to do with how the AI driver behaves during contact with the player or another AI. Are you saying it is alright that the AI is unmovable and should always behave like a robot on rails ?
I always drive with AI at 100 - 110 and have great races, but the fact that they cannot be interacted with if a collision happens is infuriating and immersion breaking too.

5. Hoping for the shadow bug to get fixed

6. The pitstop tire problem has been debugged by me and the devs said they will fix it by simply removing the "recommended" option as it is redundant.

 

For what is worth I've been spending quite a lot of time test driving RF2 these days and I can see even in a 10 years old sim there are still some "trivial" issues similar to AMS2, e.g. FFB inconsistencies between cars of the same class just to mention one.
So often, even after many years things aren't perfect either... Let's keep it in mind.

 

This raises some other issues with the legacy Pcars2 lobby system. The voting system to kick rammers is basically useless if you have to convince 30 people.

If the lobby host/server admin had the ability to kick/temporary ban it could help cut down on toxic players. We've had plenty of times where we've identified a toxic player and can't do anything about it.

 

This could be a pretty cheap LMH license
Just thinking loud...

 

why IF????
The host of a dedicated server has definitely the kick option in the web UI AND can also add the toxic users to a blacklist.

 

just a guess or do you have contact to the owner?

 

He is the owner

 

Just a guess. The main owner (Alessandro Fassina) is one of the biggest car dealers in Northern Italy beside being a pilot himself in the past. They are trying to launch the brand starting from racing and producing road going supercars.
I think they could use some advertising and definitely they won't be in position to ask big money. And hey, it's still an hybrid LMH and one that probably will not be in every simulator. By the way, the designer is the same as the Ferrari 333SP.
If WEC accepts them they are planning to participate on a race by race basis starting in Monza 6H in July.
Seems obscure enough for a sim like AMS2 that is always exploring paths off the common roads?
Like the Vanwall of AMS2?

Who are the key people in the Isotta Fraschini Hypercar project?

Isotta Fraschini hypercar revealed ahead of planned race-by-race WEC entry

 

Very few lobbies bother to run dedicated server, and those that have in my limited experience noticed worse netcode performance. Maybe I've just had a rare, bad sampleset to pull from, but we've noticed significantly more lag, jumping, and general buggy behavior when using the dedicated server on the same network.

Whether or not it's a feature of the dedicated server app, in game lobby hosting should have access to it as well.

 

That would solve one problem, but also introduce another set of problems.
In any field, customers always want to know a date.

Giving no indication of when something like a DLC will be available, will impact sales and result in accusations of 'lack of commitment' etc.
The other problem would be that Reiza may not have a '100% guaranteed release date' until hours before it's released - to that will be no good.

So, it's all a balancing act. An imperfect science that Reiza have admitted to not always doing very well. I don't think their intention is in the wrong place, but the execution has problems sometimes.

 

The fact that the season pass has been extended until 2023 does not mean that more content has been added, but that the content scheduled to cover one year has taken three years to develop and parts of the content are still missing to this day.
having AC2 around the corner and rennsport, not good news for AMS2 and its development cycle

 

Not sure what is wrong with your maths but it was never a one year SP. From day one of the sim it was a 2 years SP (2020 and 2021) and was later extended to 2022. So get the story straight before stating inexact things.

 

And also to set the record straight: Racin USA went from one part only to three all of which became pretty big by themselves.

 

Don't you know that getting extra content for free is a bad thing!

We all know that Reiza has issues with deadlines, but can anyone here seriously suggest the price for the pass or the individual content DLC's is excessive compared to any other racing sim on the market? Or that extra content is almost always delivered in lieu of having everything released like clockwork?

Not every developer needs to be part of the big money corporate publishing realm. Do we really want more games pulled from distribution because some arbitrary dates have passed or licenses tied up in law suits and financial shenanigans? There is a pleasure to a "what you see is what you get" developer, even if just to have one alternative approach to compare or grumble about.

 

I think BeamNG is an interesting comparison, though I suspect their business model would be significantly different to Reiza's.

BeamNG are fortunate that they have found a niche within the car simulator world all to themselves.
The niche obviously being aesthetically pleasing crashes that YouTube creators have gone to town on over recent years. This has given them mainstream exposure and no doubt driven very good sales.

As a result, they're in a pretty unique position where they have grown to 70 employees yet haven't released a single paid DLC.
So, their development roadmap isn't driven by commitments to customers, which removes some of the pressures Reiza find themselves facing.
For instance, they don't need provide specifics on features or timelines. During the development cycle, they simply release a few teasers of what they've chosen to work on, then show some more detailed information when the release is imminent. They do this really well.

Reiza are probably a smaller company with less capital and they're in a much more competitive market - having direct competitors like ACC, iRacing, RFactor etc. To attract customers and get much needed cashflow, they've needed to sell content before it exists, which introduces all the pressures of needing to commit to target dates. It still seems to be a viable and successful business model, just different to BeamNG and with a different set of pressures.

^^ this is mostly speculation really, so take it all with a grain of salt

 

If AC2 releases in the same shape as ACC did you have at least a solid year of fixes to make it playable.

 

Considering how little historical content is in AC. how poor the AI is in AC and how poor the oval racing is in AC I think AMS 2 is safe. I don't see AC2 having the same type of unique content as AMS 2. If things like 70s Spa and Nurbergring, CART cars, most generations of F1 cars and Aussie Race Cars are in AC2 I'll eat my words, but I'm not betting on it.

 

I agree. I think the confounding element with AMS 2 and Reiza that BeamNG as a fresh concept title doesn't have to deal with is legacy. In this case, two tiles--AMS (1) and PC 2. People expect a version 2 to be everything the first game was plus plus. The simulation engine change (required to address the major grumbles about the original AMS' graphics) meant that there were (still are) some backward steps from the highly polished AMS (which was the last in a sequence of titles that had many years of development and refinement). PC 2 and its legacy coloured the views of some people who do not understand the nuances of a simulation engine and that an engine can be great, but poorly implemented or not fully utilized. PC 2 was lauded by some, but called simcade crap by many others. As a result, AMS 2 gets hit from both directions...and will continue to until it fully surpasses both of these legacy titles.

The interesting history is that Reiza and AMS flew under the radar for a long time, and only when it was finished did all the accolades flow about how little independent Reiza managed to squeeze more goodness out of the ISI GMotor engine than ISI itself or other larger companies that used the same base. The same thing is already being said about the core driving experience of AMS 2 versus PC 2. But it was a ton of work to get there and it isn't finished yet. Then, there are the other parts of the game that still require improvement over the PC 2 starting basis. If SMS didn't already fix some of these things, with vastly more resources than Reiza has, it should be expected that progress will likely be slower than we (and Reiza) would prefer. That sucks, but the alternative is to have another slapdash title like PC 3 or any of the MSG titles (besides rF2).

I hate the wait, but I can have more fun with AMS 2 while it is still a WIP than I can on my latest total waste of money purchase--WRC: Generations. It received two weeks of post-publishing support (until December 31, 2022), is riddled with fundamental game-breaking flaws, and will never see another patch. It is another last-in-a-long-series of annual titles that I wrongly assumed would have some level of maturity and polish associated with it since it was lauded as a special "last and best edition" prior to a transfer of the official WRC license. Little Reiza has never been anywhere close to that level of unscrupulous mediocrity brought to us from big-name and big money publishers.

 

totally agreed. i wasted my money too. no one of my friends play the WRCG recently.
also i will never buy or play thier game. terrible experience. that seems like miscooked mixed dough of previous dlc contents.

 

If AC2 is as open to modding as AC was, all of that and more will be in the title... And with it being made on the same engine a lot of the work will be made easier for the modders to transfer their work over...

Sure it won't be developer made content, but there are plenty of talented mod groups out there already working on that engine ready to bring their work across... Sure the AI maybe a dud, but that doesn't stop a sim racing title from being a success...

As long as the net code is solid AC2 will easily steal AMS2's thunder... There's far more leagues running oval content in AC than in AMS2 currently... It's not just a handful of ovals, it's all of them...

And historic content... There's a vast library for AC for both cars and tracks, a lot of them very good quality... Entire decades can be reproduced in F1...

AMS2 has got a timer on it with AC2 and Rennsport on the way, but both won't be making waves until at least 2025... That's plenty of time to get the MP side up to scratch and have solid footing when those titles start to mature...