Automobilista 2 V1.2.0.0 & Racin´ USA Pt1 RELEASED - Now Updated to V1.2.1.4

Thank you for your unwavering commitment to improvements
And for a rare Friday (AU) release day!

 

The only thing I can feel is a steep decline in simulation-value and most cars I used to love are very boring and simcade to drive nowadays, almost like all assists are on. I don't enjoy AMS2 anymore

 

While I dont see it that drastic, particularly the GT3 and GTE cars are suspiciously fishy in that regard. I mostly stick to the Group A and Procar, they go well together in multiclass on historic layouts and im eagerly waiting to put the 911 RSR 3.0 to that mix. I do not exspect much from cars that are electronically kept on the road, and where all you need to do in Spa is full throttle and steering the right line. Like Walter Rörl once said: „In einen Audi Quattro kannst Du einen dressierten Affen setzen, der gewinnt auch!“

 

GT3 and GTE are running computers and I don't care so much how they drive, but both classes were better before in terms of tyre-management, which isn't needed anymore. Group A and the M1 aren't tricky anymore as well like all Stockcars, Montana, V8 Supercar, GT1 or F Trainer just to name a few, that were much harder to drive before and they should be punishing. Is there any punishing car in AMS2 still? I can't find any car that spins when I do mistakes. They wobble a bit, but nothing more. Throttle control was in the past.

Tyres have in general way too much grip now in the dry and rain is a joke in most cars anyway (by design). My favorite sim now is BeamNG, which has >20 times the playerbase and only got better without any compromises in physics and no fancy cars either. It might be a bit too tough, but I rather take that. AMS2 was on par overall, but not anymore...

 

Try the Hot Cars, Copa Cars, ROFL, or the Caterhams, LOL! You don't need a wheel, you steer them with throttle.

No, serious, just use cold days to set up the race, put in a bit wet tracks. that's it. Not so easy anymore. Most player complaning about to easy driving use super optimal parameters 50°C track temperature and (Super)Soft tyres. Cars should be glued to the tarmac under such circumstances. Albeit, In the last version I did a 9+min in 911GTE on the 24h Nürburgring on SS tyres in the rain. This was when it deemed me, that something is going the wrong way.

On the other hand, the Porsche Cup cars still have that jumpy odd and unprecise Project Cars 2 feeling to them.

I really dislike it when a driving simulator "teaches" me driving styles that are not replicable RL.
After a long pause because of locksdowns and bad weather I unmothed the Z3 recently, and well, in the first corners id deemd me that AMS2 did tech me wrong... the steering was suddently unfamiliar direct and responsive, I had to control myself to not steer to much like AMS2 has made me get used to.

This was my point where I began to deem "simulators" as not very usefull.

 

50° C are actually far more challenging than 5° since the tyres in AMS2 used to overheat like IRL, but not anymore. 10° C track temp is probably the best in terms of performance I guess by watching VLN, now NLS races. Colder isn't a problem when it's dry, rather the opposite. AMS2 was a bit to harsh for beginners, because the default temperatures were too hot and overcooked the slicks soon, but this is happening in real life as well, so no reason to change it. This last two corners around Hockenheim are good examples. Even in a slow BMW with less than 200 hp you will spin if you take both corners as one without cooling the tyres a second before the last corner, because the outside rear-tyre overheat already on the first bent. AMS2 simulated this perfectly and now it's completely gone. Now it's more about pushing all the time without a brain and I can't call it a sim anymore.

 

I had my RL very first unintentional spin in a BMW 525i at ca. 50km/h. M-spec chassis -2.4° camber and 245x45 Pirrelli tyres in the rear. Im somewhat missing that happenig in AMS2 lately. As i wrote before, I get the feeling that AMS2 is "teaching" us to much safety. It also seems quite clear that something is wrong with handling and grip below 80km/h.
I'm also a bit in doubt about tyre pressure simulation. RL im use to the fact that a 0.3bar higher pressures gives me less grip, but more direct response and more direct steering feel at cornering speed., while 0.3 bar less ginve more grip, shorter brake distance, less TC activity but a mushy, indirect car handling. In AMS2 all there seems to be is less grip and less temperature build up.

 

Real cars don't drive like they are on ice. AMS2 used to feel like that, and good riddance. I was comparing multiple tracks on the McLaren GT3 between ACC and AMS2, and in general I find ACC more forgiving. Having said that, I still find that ACC feels really good and is possibly more realistic, but I still find the AMS2 model more fun generally. Please don't listen to people who think that cars should easily spin out while applying a tiny bit of throttle. If cars actually drove like that there would be thousands of race drivers dead every year.

 

I don't know about Hockenheim, but I can't push high performance cars all the time. They will overheat their tires. Unless this changed in these minor 1.2.1.x updates? Still, I hope tire degradation gets a good look so it's as brutal as it should be with soft slicks and hard slicks have benefits (I'm saying that I trust Reiza to do this with time, not that I know how it should be). And also the wet driving situation like you mentioned.

It's not this black and white. For sure some tires have to overheat and degrade fast if you apply slight throttle oversteer out of every corner. And then you really do risk a spin, because the otherwise balanced car lacks rear grip. Indeed this has always been a thing where people are doing fine for the first few laps and then they spin. Not sure about 1.2.1.x.

It should depend on the tires of course. Grosjean said in an interview that you can push Indy tires a lot more than F1 and you don't have to think about tire management the same way. They also slide around more. No idea about details, but there are actual big real life differences in this area and it changes everything.

Another thing people may just ignore is when you compare real life lap times and sims. It depends a lot on tires and BoP which are not set in stone between series. Devil is in the details.

But yeah even I don't believe that cars should spin super fast like they do in some sims. There is just criticism for that kind of behaviour. On the other hand try overshooting a corner with decent rubbering. It's pretty easy to spin a car in AMS2 if you get your rear tires on dirty tarmac. Not to mention if you put a loaded rear tire on grass .

 

The McLaren GT3 was still quite a bitch to drive and I guess this is history with the latest update, but I don't care about GT3. The modern Stockcars drive like they have TC and ESC lately, the Super V8 is easy af, I can't spin the Montana even if trying. All are glued to the tarmac now and only total noobs can spin those cars.

 

We shouldn't fall into the trap of diagnosing the entire game based only on the GT3/GTE cars. I think it has been acknowledged that the McLaren 720S has some power delivery issues that make it hard to spin on power in low gears. Some of the Porsches suffer from this as well. I would still consider the GT3/GTE cars challenging under braking as the rear tends to snap out when trail braking, leading to slidey corner entry behaviour. This is a pretty common criticism of AMS2, and I think further work to make the braking more predictable would be helpful.

I don't think anyone is disputing that most cars got "easier to drive" on the throttle after v1.2. That was needed because the old tyre models were too unpredictable and prone to overheating, coupled with diff problems that would just send you around for no good reason in slow corners and made many cars fishtail like crazy even when applying throttle in a straight line. I remember the Group C, Super V8, Old Stock, and Camaro SS being totally awful in this respect. The Montana too used to be totally awful, spinning randomly in Interlagos t4 like 50% of the time because the suspension was completely wrong. Now they are actually fun to drive for me, although some other person might consider them "ruined".

Right now the penalty for overdriving seems to be more on the tyre overheating/blistering than actually losing control of the car. Sure, you can tear around like a maniac for a few laps with TC off in the GT3 cars, but your tyres will likely be cooked for good after that. Maybe the balance could be adjusted so that the penalty for overdriving with TC set too low would be also felt in loss of control. Then again, I'm not really pining for ACC-style lumbering, uncatchable spins or cars that unsettle immediately if you run over a kerb with a tyre that's 0.5 PSI off the optimal pressure.

 

Hi ,
beside all the issues and discussions about the let's say "technical" stuff of the updates,
it is great to see that also the quality of the graphics is developing very well.

We all know that Reiza is working really hard to provide us, the community with more and more
improvements and we should all appreciate this, even if the game needs some time to get "perfect".

I enjoy it very much racing in all the different seasons combined with the real weather conditions which is really great and makes AMS2 very unique in sim racing.

I am about doing some videos for the updated racetracks in this version to see the differences of the seasons which are really great done by Reiza.

So many thanks to the Reiza team for providing the season foliages to more and more tracks !

I have completed a first video for Donington , winter season.
More videos for all updated tracks (Donington Park, Cadwell Park, Oulton Park and Snetterton)
will be published throughout the day on my channel.

If you like, have a look, enjoy and keep on racing everyone !

Have a nice day !
Just2Laps

 

There seems to be quite a lot of difference in people's experiences here. I have trouble keeping the group C Sauber in a straight line! And the super V8 I aquaplaned it at a wet hockenheim on the straight and spun it almost into a wall. Never experienced that in a sim before, whilst it scared the **** out of me it was amazing at the same time.
I think the default setups are just safer now than they used to be. I am sure if you set a car up to be as fast and pointy as it can be you won't have problems spinning it, if that is what floats your boat. I have seen many things over the years with race drivers saying racing cars aren't hard to drive but hard to extract that last few tenths.

 

I'm loving the seasonal updates for the tracks - really adds a range of atmospheres to each location, almost making them feel like new tracks. Just need to add some wind now so the tree branches move about .

Had a quick race in the McLaren GT3 and my first impression was the the physics changes may have slightly improved the issue of the rear braking free under braking into corners - will need to do a few more races although "before and after" comparisons are tricky when "before" is based only on memory perception.

Edit: 2nd impression is the braking issue is still present although perhaps lessened.

 

I thought the trees did move? Grass does, saw it last night, the yellow flowers were gently moving about. The crowd could do with some atmosphere, that is very sterile. Bigger fish to fry first but maybe some time later.

 

yes I totally agree, the group C and super v8 have to be driven on tender hook. The Super V8 in ams1 behaves much more like I would expect and can be pushed.

 

I've not noticed them moving although perhaps I've not looked closely enough, or maybe it's weather dependent or affected by a gfx setting that I've turned off. I was only be facetious anyway.

Agree that the V8 still requires a careful touch on the throttle, particularly exiting certain corners, eg. T5 at Silverstone, the AI will give it pretty much full throttle through there onto the Wellington Straight and I find it hard to match their pace without it ending up with serious oversteer. Likewise exiting Luffield.

 

Using the default FOV@70 in the Bumper view I have the feeling that the helmet overlaps too much the screen, no?