Automobilista 2 V1.3.1.1 & Racin´ USA Pt2 RELEASED - Now updated to V1.3.2.0

I'll say it again, these are the best indycars (and likely cars period) in sim racing.

For those saying these cars have too much grip, go drive Iracing's indycar and then look at the criticisms of real racing drivers at the Iracing Indycar. They all say the same thing. Not enough grip, namely low speed mechanical grip. Tires are too peaky, feels like the car is on a wet track.

Pcars 2 felt the same way IMO, they just constantly blew the rear tires off and wallered around in a twitchy manner. AMS2 felt similar until this most recent physics update.

Now it all feels superb, and in optimal conditions, these cars make you feel like God. In Sub optimal conditions, they're actually kinda scary. I got 30 laps into a fuel run at Cleveland and the car got more and more twitchy as the tires wore out. Felt great!

The easiest solution is to run a manual formation lap but otherwise I agree. Now that the physics are 99% sorted, I'd say AI is the next big task to tackle. We got to get them to be more reactive to player, namely when attempting a pass. There's no reason I should have my nose cut off at every corner.

Also, stopping the AI from downshifting at the start of the race and damaging the Motor or just shoulder-checking the wall occusually would be nice.

 

Ah, where would we be without the Steam forums? Here's an absolute beauty from a typical contributor called MeinKraft999, responding to the latest content. I quote:

CLEVELAND - REALLY !!!!!!
I bought this game on release and so far I am more than happy with the way things are developing. BUT Cleveland. WHAT A ♥♥♥♥ TRACK. I ended up putting the raceline assist back on cos i had no idea where I was going. Watkins Glen big thumbs up fantastic track. But dont give me a content filler like Cleveland. its an insult. There are so many great USA tracks like Road America and Atlanta, Sebring, C.O.T.A ETC ETC, and they give me Cleveland. AND USA PART 3 is going to be all Ovals. If I wanted ovals I would have bought a Nascar game. Give me the Quality USA tracks please not the ♥♥♥♥♥ LIKE Cleveland. This is one track I will not be driving on again.

'It's an insult' no less...bless him.

 

@Dylan Hale I think you're correct in your sentiment. The Champ cars weren't known to be twitchy, but rather quite nice to drive and had a nice even power band, which is reflected very well here. What may be throwing people off are the relatively long gear ratios which help to counteract wheelspin out of corners.

My only complaint is that there seems to be an issue with the rain tires. Once track got visibly soaked and driving was hard, I switched over to wet tires and it made things worse. It was like driving on an ice rink. Is this a known issue?

 

I'm not certain all the cars in class even have rain tires at this point. The Toyota powered car didn't.

 

I remember thinking exactly that about Sebring. I'd never raced Cleveland until AMS2, but I've got to say I love it. It is damned disorienting, but like the Nordshleife, you just have to persevere, as painful as that may be in the short term.

Bet that was helpful, eh?

 

For anyone finding Cleveland difficult to learn try practicing at night, in that way when you race during daytime it will be easy.

 

In VR its amazing, because you can use the camber of the road to help guide you. On a flat screen it just looks flat, but in VR you can see the crown of the road.

 

Gotta say I absoloutely love the two new tracks, very very different, like chalk and cheese, great to have these extremes in approach. The New cars feel great. A.I. at Wakins is a bit of a situation but im not bothered as knowing Reiza, it will be soreted within a week (cause thats what they do, refine, refine,refine!). Also found some other little things that have improved, I say little, but its always those little improvements that turn out to be massive in'it! (like I can now use Silverstone 1991, nice one!) Bravo Reiza, cause some of these little things have put one massive smile on this simracers face! Cheers! Luv Ya!

 

Oh are they just a rain tire texture right now? That would make sense.

 

Haha I was literally just about to post this! What a stunning night track though, eh? I'm racing mixed GTE, GT3 and DPi around it now. An all-weather day/night endurance beckons. It's got such a great vibe

An old-fashioned, effort-heavy but highly effective way of learning a track is to drive it in your imagination, just before you go to sleep at night. Every time you make a mistake or feel like you skipped something, stop and check the track next morning, and then repeat the process. Bit obsessive I know, but it works.

 

What about when racing on road circuits with hairpins and tight corners? They would be very slow out of them with tall gears. With the default gears at Cleveland I could not even get into top gear, they all seem too tall by default there.

 

The game achieved a considerable improvement with patch 1.3.

The physics are getting rid of that annoying oversteer tendency, the FFB is more intuitive and the brake calibration is no longer a nightmare.

The aforementioned aspects were worked on in a great way, especially the GT3s feel at the ACC level (or better).

Also the AI in AMS2 improved a lot.

Why?

1) Competitors are generally divided into three blocks, so you can battle in different groups.
2) Within these groups sometimes each car has different behaviors and performances, it is variable.
3) When wheel-to-wheel battles do occur, they are generally intense but fair.

Surely some things can be improved,
1) immediately respect the blue flags as in ACC.
2) implement some mistakes or car breaks / punctures.
3) sometimes the acceleration of the AI at the exit of the curves is disproportionate.
4) the AI aggression slider does not offer great variations.

But in the current state of AI it is very good.

Other games like Race Room have very aggressive, annoying and unbearable AI with cars constantly hitting you from behind and pushing you off the track which is arcade and frustrating.

Fortunately AMS2 chose the path of simulation and is doing an excellent job.

Congratulations Reiza.

 

Yes! I think we'd all love to see that.

 

Wow! F-USA, Cleveland, Mid Oct, Light Clouds, at 1800hrs 5x time progression and about lap 5 or 6 the shadows of those cars on the back stretch wall with the cityscape in the background is something to behold. Then another 4-5 laps the sun setting and the airport lights coming on in blue at turns is amazing stuff. Well done Reiza!

 

I actually got so lost at Cleveland that I learned the whole circuit in reverse and was getting good at it too. Fired up my first race and it took me half a lap to realise what the !@#$ was going on. Once learned, it's a great circuit.

 

AI is still really class and track dependant, complete hit or miss.
Some classes and tracks are ok, others all over the place, in GT1 for example the Mercs are so much faster than the Porsches on about every track, it is really not too enjoyable to race.

 

Absolutely love Cleveland, awesome track. And come on people, a lap takes under a minute...how hard can it be to learn the track? Literally took me 5 laps, it's no Nordschleife.

AI does have major problems with the final kink though, they seem to love the wall to much

 

I love Cleveland too. But come on guys, it’s really not THAT difficult to learn. I mean it’s only a few straights and a few corners and can’t be compared with Nordschleife…
The easiest way to learn it for the first time is jumping right into a race against AI and follow them from last position at easy difficulty-level, then you have a lot of time to look around and concentrate on braking indicators, signs and such things… And if you turn on mini-track-map as well you simply CAN‘T get lost!

 

On the nordschleife there is only one way round, it is easy peazy to follow, Cleveland is just a mishmash of crossroads and lines going all over the place, a completely different case.
I think the easiest way to learn it will be to drive a very slow car there and then just move up in class when got the hang of it.