Automobilista 2 May 2024 Development Update - The Road to V1.6 Pt1

You're telling us Reiza delayed it on purpose or lack of anything?
C'mon.

 

It seems you are a sad person (even your profile picture looks kind of sad).
Do yourself a favour and enjoy life more. Play whatever sim you like more. In my case I enjoy AMS2 single player most, so I don’t care where other people go…

 

it's incredible, isn't it?
Good memories to that time.
But hey, this game had colours more than just white, blue, black and maybe yellowas with my first games on 5.25" floppy disk

 

If anyone wants to know how lucky we have it, try installing mods for GP4. Trying and failing to get track mods to reliably work was so frustrating and really dampened my interest in the game. It made JSGME look more like AMS 2 CM in comparison because things atleast were intuitive and reliably worked with JSGME

 

I love having been born exactly at the right time to follow the development of computer games almost from their inception all the way to wonders like VR, the complexity of features made possible by modern computational capacity, the in-game cinematics of the last 20 years and the melding of different art forms in video games.

 

Man, my very first racing game was Stunt Car Racer on my C64

 

I feel like I've played this, but I don't remember having other cars on the track.

That working suspension though.

 

Looks like there always were an opponent

This is also how my C64 ran the game. Not at 50fps like my other video

 

I think my first racing game was Mario kart DS

 

Sorry, just tried to help to be more positive. Will stay on topic now…

 

I think reminiscing about our first racing games is a good way to to battle the grief many have for the update . Good Idea showing that comparison Crimson.

My first was RC Pro Am on the NES

Then it was Nigel Mansell World Championship which me and my brother would rent from a local movie rental.

And finally the one that made me a Formula 1 fan, F1 97 on the PS1. Remember loving the commentary and watching the timing info and how each driver could be stronger on some tracks and on the wet, it even had mechanical failures. I had no idea about the PC sims as I did not have a computer, so that was mind-blowing to 11 year old me.

Anyhow the update is most certainly gonna be worth the wait, whether it arrives on schedule or not.

 

Chiming in at the very end of this but many of us have bought wheels and other expensive equipment to enjoy our hobby. That being the case for me at least, I have pretty much all of the decent software to make use of that equipment.

AMS2 is my favourite, but it isn't the only racing game I play and I hope more good racing games get made so I can enjoy those too, it keeps things moving forwards.

Reiza have my money already and they will probably have more of it after just a few more F5s. It is an enthusiast's market, even the people who don't like X sim still payed for it.

 

Since your post is fully on topic and seems very sincere, I will answer in a way that is hopefully useful to others as well and does not cross any boundaries related to beta testing.

As Renato has described many times, the whole AMS 2 development process is a journey. Why is that? It's because Reiza's goal wasn't just to release AMS content within a vastly more advanced graphics engine (the main and really only major complaint about the original AMS). Reiza is led by and full of complete "gear heads" and racing geeks who want to advance the quality, accuracy and immersion of consumer sim racing. This cannot be done until the simulation engine (Madness from SMS) is reverse engineered so that every interconnected part of it is understood to a level sufficient to make a holistic simulation.

You (and others) are new here, so have missed-out on a couple of years of deep dives into various physics components that were confounding the way the cars behaved (mildly, and probably no worse than quirks in other games/sims to put things into context). Each cycle some new discoveries or intelligence would bring the whole diverse universe of vehicles in AMS 2 closer to where Reiza aimed. I am going to save you and other newbies a lot of tedious (and often frustrating) history by noting that tires are the holy grail. The holy grail of real life racing. The holy grail of racing sims. The holy grail of cracking the nut that can translate all the other hard work on physics into a cohesive and natural-feeling simulation (which was always a key strength of the original AMS).

I am happy to report that the holy grail (not perfection) has been achieved in 1.6. The culmination of years of work dissecting and experimenting with the vastly more advanced tire modelling available here versus in AMS has finally produced the result I, too, have been waiting for and trying to help in small ways as an internal tester--a cohesive sim where EVERY SINGLE vehicle that has received the "1.6 physics" treatment can now be hopped into and driven like the real counterpart. That's a bold statement, and not one I was ever certain I would be able to say.

I have driven enough various types of race cars and karts in anger on real tracks to know when something is credible. The remnants of oddness (that is the topic of your post) have been expunged...but not just simply. We now also have tires that behave appropriately when too cold or too hot for optimal racing conditions. And yet the cars in the game still behave better and more naturally than ever.

Physics changes and improvements in the game will never be done, but I personally cannot imagine any significant change needed going forward once all the tire compounds are massaged for dry, transitional and wet conditions in addition to the dynamic temperatures and track grip. There are now enough vehicles close enough to completed in the beta builds that it is safe to conclude that we have reached the destination for that part of the game.

There are lots of other things still in need of care and attention in the game. But the reason I have spent my time over the past decade or so helping Reiza is because the philosophy is that the realism and immersion of the driving and racing of the vehicles comes first. There are several other titles that have various superior features to AMS or AMS 2. I prefer(red) using them because it was the closest experience I could find that occasionally could make me forget I was in a chair in my home and not in a real race car. None of the "video game" racing sims or games could ever trick my brain in that manner. That is the ultimate test for me, and with 1.6 AMS 2 has arrived for me.

In closing, because I have also repeated this dozens of times over the life of AMS 2 and since you reference it, do yourself a favour and at least initially use the Default+ FFB profile when you get the 1.6 update. Here's why:

• Every vehicle has been painstakingly custom tuned to work with the latest physics
• The Default+ profile is, in effect, the "default" profile for the game
  • Default is only needed if you have some odd hardware scenario or, for some inexplicable reason, prefer to not get all the FFB signals available to help you control the car in difficult, pressurized, full-race conditions
• Custom FFB files have personalization/customization options unavailable in Default+, which may be of interest to some people, however:
  • You cannot appreciate the differences and features a custom file brings to the table until you have already properly configured and then experienced the default designed by the people who are presumably the experts in what the game can and should feel like
  • Using a custom file without first nailing down the optimal settings (particular to you and your hardware) of the Default+ is akin to remixing a piece of music before you have even heard the version presented by the artist and their professional sound engineers (not a good idea)
• It is unfortunately easier to screw-up your FFB settings than it is to get them right
  • This applies to the levels in the game settings as well as what may be a huge array of settings available peculiar to your own wheel hardware
    • There are many myths abound, especially for DD wheels, that are along the lines of zeroing-out settings in the game because they are not needed or advisable for DD wheels, or, because you have control of all the settings through the wheel itself--no is the simple answer
  • There are other posts about how to do this, but the key is use all neutral settings and avoid use of hardware "flavour/mixing" options until you have optimized the game settings in that neutral state
    • For DD wheels, some minimal or 'neutral" friction or damping level will be required as that is a basic part of the wheel's operation and not a "mix" issue
    • Just like above, feel free to add "distortion" or "bias" to certain elements if the base game is not satisfactory to you, but you cannot expect the game to impress if you have already twisted its output before starting

A long-winded answer to a long-winded post, but hopefully useful to you and others reading

 

Years ago guy called Madcowie recreated HumpBack track from Stunt Car Racer into Grand Prix Legends.

It worked really well. GPL didn't have damage calculation from shunts taken directly to bottom of the car, and since you could control your pitch mid air by throttle and brake (by gyroscopic effect from the rear wheel rotation) you were perfectly able to do good laps on that track.

Edit: I found the track on my disk and the year was 2002.

Edit 2: A vid of another Stunt Car Racer recreation for GPL called Rollercoaster:

Edit 3: And this was the one I meant:

 

go for a maximum of 30 pages and we will have 1.6 (normally) I can't wait to try it.
personally reiza to all my support, I have been playing games for over 30 years and I have never seen a studio so invested and attentive. I tried all the other sims and AMS2 and the one I clearly think has the most potential, and when I hear the feedback from the beta testers I can't wait

 

There are several groups that do exactly this on their dedicated servers.
Basically a group admin will sit the race out and act as a race steward and warn abusive players then they have carte blanche to boot/ban them with immediate effect.
RWB have in the past run open events iirc "Funday Fridays" where players looking to join the group are able to come race with the crowd.
This has a dual purpose, the team wants to see how you race and interact with others before they decide to let you join, if you race cleanly and with respect for others, great you're in, skill level is immaterial in this though, you don't have to be an alien, just be mindful of other players, obey blue flags and don't be a d**k.
SHOULD you be said D**K? Then the server admin WILL boot you for bad behaviour, accidents DO happen, but repeat offences will result in your removal from the event. Any application to join the group will be refused.
This is one of the races I had when I applied to join the group. Even though a friend of mine was one of the founding members and had been a friend for over a decade I still had to show up and race before being granted the right to join.

The idiot "back marker blocker" in the yellow Puma that I faked out in the final turn was booted from the session after the race and was refused entry, the guys who either got out of the way or held their lines were allowed to join.
If the player in question changes their attitude and behaves as required by the groups rules than fine entry will be granted, they've learned their lesson, though reverting to being a d**k will get you booted from the group and permanently banned.

In EVERY one of these groups I've joined there are people who are willing to help those wishing to learn and improve their skills, I'm one of them...
Never be afraid to ask the "Aliens" out there for help, sure some might just say "HURHURHUR GIT GUD NOOB!". Their loss not yours!
You might just find someone willing to give you some of their time and knowledge to help you out by running training sessions which can help YOU to become an alien yourself!
After all... They were all noobs once too, They asked for help from someone else in their past and got it, those who REMEMBER that will often be happy to "pay it forward". After all...
The more great racers there are the more intense and challenging the racing gets, the more challenging the racing gets the more fun the racing becomes and we ALL are forced to learn and improve... This is what we're after...

Win or lose both were epic battles..

Regarding the vote to kick system?
I'd love to see a better system in play for managing troublemakers, as @Majestic said there's nothing worse than just under half of the lobby voting to kick an a**hole just for nothing to happen.
That's how a great lobby can be destroyed by one damned idiot with an attitude coupled apathy of the majority. Nothing comes of it and people will leave..
On the other hand, giving the host in public lobbies the godlike power to exclude people runs the risk of some hosts abusing such a system, e.g. booting a player for being faster than them despite being a clean and fair driver.
I'd like to see changes made to the lobby system, we have a minimum player rating option but nothing for a maximum rating, it must be galling for newcomers just wanting fun races with those at a similar level to have a bunch of aliens come in and wipe the floor with them, their only other option is private lobbies and this limits the numbers to people they know and can invite, it's harder to make new friends this way.

Another possible option and one I think is more workable and less open to abuse by a single individual is forced or mandatory voting, e.g.
If there is a claim of deliberate malicious driving then the victim or the host can call for a vote.
A message is pinged in text chat of an upcoming Y/N vote.
If 1/3 of players agree? Then action is taken.
If the subject of said forced vote tries to jump out and back in to avoid the consequences?
Then they get auto-banned from returning to the session as long as the host doesn't change.

I'd also like to see an option to auto-kick rammers, I recall a session at Le Mans where we had a safety car, so as we formed up behind the safety car a complete TOOL ploughed through the entire field and utterly trashed everyone's player ratings in an instant.
This tactic actually allowed them to go from dead last to 1st place as the game assumed everyone had cashed so the rammer profited whilst everyone else got shafted.
Combatting this behaviour is tricky, maybe closing speed without any attempt at braking and causing multiple impacts should result in an instant kick and no impact to the ratings of any victims?
Or ghosting the cars running at safety car speed would be simpler to achieve and less damaging to the ratings of those obeying the rules when an idiot tries to cause chaos?
I have no idea how hard these methods would be to implement but, systems such as these could make AMS2 stand head and shoulders above other racing games as THE game that does the most to promote fair play and good track etiquette.

IIRC Race Driver Grid was the 1st game to implement a vote to kick system, it worked well as the lobby sizes were far, far smaller than they are nowadays, as soon as a request to kick happened the chat window showed exactly who was up for the vote, sadly (imo at least) enough idiots complained that this naming and shaming in text chat wasn't fair and the auto generated messages were removed, the true chaos merchants abused this system by leaving before the required number of votes were met and would rejoin in the final seconds before the start of the race, either way the messages ended up being a warning to them a vote was happening so by removing them getting such NED's (Nearly Educated Delinquents) booted actually became easier and given that the max lobby size was just 12 securing enough votes was much easier than it is right now. You only needed 6 to vote not 16/17..

The problem is that no matter how good any fair play system is someone invariably will find a way to abuse it to their advantage. Making it a much more difficult proposition to create one that works fairly and without bias...

Most of us want clean fun racing at every level of skill, most games have some form of vote to kick system but it's all too often ineffective by either general apathy or, the jump out and re-join tactics by those just out to cause chaos.
Most of us know accidents DO happen and that a quick "Sorry I f*****d up!" or another form of apology USUALLY avoids bad blood developing.
A classic example of this..

I caused a huge incident into T2, I could and SHOULD have lifted off and therefore avoid getting pinched between laurie and MySimRacer, I had to give back the place though MySimRacer had spun out so another player benefited. Whilst going along the straight I opened chat and gave a quick "Sorry" to apologise, then dropped back to the required position.
After the end of the race I again took ownership of my cockup apologising again to both laurie and MySimRacer via in game chat and the discord group chat.
I recall hearing MySimRacer saying he was looking at the replay and he rightfully sounded annoyed, after doing so he replied to my apology stating we were both to blame as I was trying to avoid rear ending laurie so moved to where there WAS a gap just as he had moved left to get a wider approach to T2.
Net result? All good and made some new friends, gave and received some respect from a really talented group of racers and had some epic battles along the way!

 

Hello,

so I’ve been away. Well done very getting to the thread to 115 pages!

But I couldn’t work out what the current state of play was. So 1.6 isn’t out until the end of the summer, but we should all be patient if it slips.

The part 2 of the dev update is now split into part 2 and part 3.

was there a time frame of part 2? Looking fwd to when it’s out.