Automobilista 2 V1.2.3.0 RELEASED - Now updated to V1.2.3.1

Renato has gone on record (this was at the beginning of the Beta) saying that AMS2 will not support mods, but Reiza won't stand in the way of anybody developing mods for it.

He also made clear that they are not going to take care of any issues mods have if an AMS2 update breaks mods.

Fair enough, I'd say...

 

A little off topic but can I just mention how much I appreciate the damage scaler? Having (fairly) realistic damage levels with it cranked to 200% really adds the element of needing to think twice with every move and be cautious of those around you for risk of messing up your entire race

 

I don't understand the damage, if I have it on impacting performance and 50% there is more damage than if I have it on full damage and 50%. Also on full damage even when I do have damage the HUD shows I have 0% and there is no visible damage at all.

 

To be fair I don't understand the scaling too. Should be 0-100%...why 200%?
Are we going to add explosions, collateral damages and diplomatic incidents?
I am a bit confused

 

I absoloutely love the new damage scaling! Its the best thing since the invention of the wheel! I mean its just awsome, I 200% love it! Im so happy Reiza did this, its so good, infact no its fantastic! I mean its just freaking amazing!.......... I suppose what im trying to say here is that I rather like it!

 

Anyone knows what's the difference between 100% damage scale and 200%?

 

100%= hit a wall at 60mph and you'll be a bit damaged. 200%= hit a wall at 60mph and you're pretty much fecked! Its fecking brilliant! Makes the racing so much more engaging! Couple this kinda damage with a ranking system like ACC's got and you've got some seriously good racing as folks WILL learn to drive better and more realistically! Trust me, ive been on the competition server for ACC, its a world of difference from you're average public server!

 

This. And I believe it will be adjusted so that 100% is maximum/realistic at some point soon.

 

Exactly this. There is no such thing as 200% (200% should be equal to 100%)

 

IRL = 100% 200% is twice as severe as IRL. It's no less realistic than 50% being half as severe as IRL.

 

200% seems to be the setting for proper realism (like how now in open wheelers even the slightest tap of the barrier can put your suspension sideways, look no further than most Monaco instances IRL for comparasion) while 100% seems to be the more toned down but still semi-realistic option that punishes you for mistakes but keeps it a little more minimal to prevent too much frustration

Keep in mind that very few sims simulate properly realistic vehicle damage, the closest we've gotten is games like BeamNG which aren't all too capable of proper racing yet and Wreckfest which focused on a very different type of racing, other than that one of the last properly in-depth damage models in a simulation that I can recall was GP4 way back in 2002!

These cars, whether tintop or open wheel, are fragile, and most games simulate them as being much, much stronger than they are for both gameplay and probably engine reasons

And plus, having a 200% damage option is another thing that used to be in GTR2 so just saying Reiza, where are our 2000s GT1s?

 

While we are on this damage subject, I wish the damage models of the open wheelers were more like iRacing:

I'm aware this is very demanding and it is very unlikely Reiza has the time to deal with it, especially when much more important features are still missing from the game.
But there you go, my two cents

Edit: iRacing's car behaviour visually, in general, feels much more "organic" than the rest of the sims. This is one of their yet to be beaten features. In AMS2 (and many other sims) the cars visually look like immutable blocks of steel.

 

200% damage is suited to single player not MP especially in open wheeler cars as the slightest touch along with netcode and the race is over. The amount of frankly exaggerated damage in Iracing is neither realistic or fun and i think Raceroom has got both the netcode and damage a lot better balanced and allows for wheel to wheel racing.

As for more severe damage making people more careful, that is not what i have seen from watching IRacing streams. Far from it, just watch oval racing or the amount of crashes in road races (even in high IR races). Or on the other side of the coin, it can become a precession as the slightest contact sends cars ricocheting off the track along with the excessive damage relative to the contact discouraging close racing. Maybe if Iracing fix their ****ty netcode and ghost contacts which cause cars to act like pinballs (alongside the random or OTT damage) it would help.

Damage is over rated. I would rather see cars racing wheel to wheel and a degree of contact allowed and not overly penalised. I suppose i prefer the balance of fun to realism. People like the idea of realistic damage until their race is over at T1 after spending over 30mins practicing/qualifying. Much like the option of different cars, setups & weather to be simulated and then only join or setup races with fixed setups and clear weather in a gt3.

 

Suspension damage is one part that has never been modelled well in any Sim that I have seen. It either breaks off and keeps its normal shape or it stays on the car and looks undamaged, would be nice to see that bent, twisted and broken at numerous points.

 

I'm not sure if it's possible in Madness if I'm being honest, although to be fair iRacing also originally had a damage model that was just "scripted" presets like AMS2 before it went more dynamic and physics-based so it might not be completely impossible
It probably wouldn't be easy though, that much is certain

 

Frankly iracing damage model and the way cars do not get repaired in the pits is one of the most horrible things in simracing... You can damage your fenders just by going at 50-60 kph over the humps on the outside of all Monza chicanes loosing 3-4s a lap in pace: you literally see the entire front quarter of the car become raised. Same with damages to the bottom of the car in the Ford chicane at Le Mans... Cars are made of paper in iracing any contact with the car shell in tintops will result in completely destroyed exterior and huge loss of top speed. In many cases cars are never completely repaired even though the contact wasn't that hard.
I would not want to see anything like that in AMS2 TBH: it could be more fun to see when you have a big shunt and you see more pieces of the car flying away but in normal racing it's quite horrible.

 

That goes beyond my point though. I only mean the visuals, not the physics implications of the crashes.
I dont care much about tintops, so cant say anything about them in iRacing nor in AMS2.
However, to me it is very clear that iRacing open wheelers crash model visuals (bent bits and parts, detached stuff) is much more believable than AMS2. Like I said, for the open wheelers in AMS2 things look like solid blocks of unbreakeable steel. They dettach, and thats it. In iRacing, on the other hand, bits fly around, parts bend, the crashed open wheeler really looks something that has crashed, and not just dismounted.
I may be wrong, but cant really recall any open wheel in AMS2 that has a pretty nice crash model.

 

Oh yeah actually, a good point is raised- how come on the tintops parts can be deformed before being detached but on the OWs it's either detachment or nothing? Plus the OW damage modelling is a little inconsistent- cars like the 49C and FCG3M2 have things like seperate winglets breaking off and full engine covers being exposed respectively but cars like the F-V12 are just front/rear wings and wheels?

Surely also having multiple parts breakable for realism's sake would be possible too? If cars like the SC2019/1999 can practically be torn down to nothing but doors and quarter panels then how come OWs can't have details like sidepod damage/removal? I understand a proper damage model is a tough task but I for one wish there was more detail, not just for the spectacle but the realism and immersion

 

Like most other things in AMS 2, it is a work-in-progress. Some cars have fairly mature damage modelling, while others are still simplified. Changelog notes suggest they are working their way through the various series over time and eventually all will be at the same good standard.