Slicks tyres grip in rain & other problems in AMS2

Hello.
I've just had another dissapointing session in AMS2 with rain. It wasn't the first.

Setting:
-23 AI opponents, 103%, medium aggresion
- GT4 class (I'm driving the Cayman)
- Spielperg modern GP, 30 min race (part of a 5 round championship), mandatory pit stop, no refuelling
- Real time, sync real time weather progression to race, real historical weather, custom date (I forgot to note exact date, but somewhere in late spring/early summer 2021. Not really relevant)

I start the race from pole in nice weather with some clouds and after 3-4 laps I have a comfortable 4-5 sec lead to p2. Maybe I should've set the AI a bit higher. Then after some 6 or 7 minutes (just when I drive past the pits entry rain starts and in 2 corners the track is soaking wet. Crew chief says we've got some rain rain, getting harder. Grip from slicks is gone almost instantly, I outbrake myself for T2 after the long first straight. Can't turn into a corner, no grip whatsoever. Finally I turn the car with throttle and pointing in the right direction I gently apply throttle again. Absolutelly no grip for acceleration, tail steps out violently, I somehow manage not to spin... at this time 3-4 AIs are whizzing past me as if they allready have wet tyres on. Remember, we started the race in dry. OK, I'll get them when I do my mandatory pit stop and change for wets. Time o brake for T3 after long back straight. No grip, I again outbrake myself, even though I brake at approximatelly the same spot as AI in front of me. I am too fast to turn into the corner - no grip at 40-50kph, but AIs are going through the corner comfortably at 50-60... I wash out into the gravel (mud at this point? ) where my slicks again have absolutelly no grip. Trying to point the car towards tarmac with throttle (steering is helpless) I spin and must watch all 23 AIs roll past me. I try to claw back to tarmac and spin again. I rage quit. I restart the race 5 times before I quit for good because the same happens every time. I guess I'm incompetent.
I experienced similar results with other car/track/tyre combos before...

This above is a (rather sulky) illustration of what bothers me the most in AMS2 at the moment:

1. the incredibly punishing grip loss of slick racing tyres (and all-weather street tyres-Copa fusca) as soon as rain starts. That is not how slicks (or street tyres) behave in light rain. This goes hand in hand with:
2. the incredibly fast and unrealistic weather changes. Remember, I had set real time with sync weather & real historical weather. It's great to see weather change during a 30 min race, but the pace at which this happens is just astonishing for a real time & synced setting. I'd expect something like it with 4-5x time setting, not with real time. This then goes along nicely with:
3. Dynamic/Live track is changing the grip level of tarmac way too fast when rain starts to fall. The grip changes too quick, there are 3 states I could observe : dry (before rain), damp (1-2 corners into the rain) & completely soaked (3 corners after rain start). Track visuals are changing in sync. This goes nicely with:
4. Even light rain seems to soak up the track (at real time setting!!) in 3-4 corners since rain has started. Not realistic at all! AMS2 has drizzle, light rain, medium & heavy rain. This could and should be better.
5. Some cars are so tail happy (snappy) in dry that I can't really call them anything else than shopping trolleys. Sorry. BMW M4 GT4 comes to mind, or 911 Cup. It's not my FFB, as some other cars are perfectly fine in dry. This is not related to above issues, but is still bothering me and stronly reminds of a Madness engine title that had lot of hit-and-miss content.

Now that I've defined the problem areas, I have a few suggestions:

1. adjust the weather system with regards to rain intensity. Light rain should be light rain - it shouldn't soak up tarmac as quickly as it does now and should still be carefully negotiable with slicks. Every time i raced with light rain, it felt like proper rain. Track got soaked in a couple of corners, no dry line was forming as we can so often witness IRL.
2. make another 2 level of precipation below light rain. Call them light drizzle & drizzle or whatever. That should make track only damp and should be completely possible to drive in with slicks, especially if a dry line forms (with light drizzle?).
3. make realistically slow weather transitions when sync to race (in real time) is chosen. If someone wants an insta-changeing weather, they can speed it up.
4. Make AI tyres at least somewhat alligned with player tyre in wet. This goes for slicks and also street (allweather) tyres. I know the AI is on different physics to player and can understand that from a computing perspective, but such glaring discrepancies just make it look bad.
5. polish all the content (cars) to the same level ASAP, before adding even more cars.

Conclusion
I was very excited about AMS2 when it came out. Tried it first in EA and refunded immediatelly. Felt completely wrong to me at the time. Then tried it again in v1.1 and kept it (see/revisit my rant about it here) but didn't really take it up. Revisited in 1.2 and kinda liked it but not enough and left again. With 1.3 a good move forward was made in many areas and with 1.4 it has matured somewhat. The driving is acceptable (most of the time, depending on the car chosen). The cars & track selection is good - not all is my cup a tea, but I like it mostly and have bought all DLCs except the US pack 3 & latest supercars. The AI is improving all the time - last update really made good progress in that regard (I haven't seen any lane changing & twichingin braking zones which to me was another game braking behaviour previoulsy). But the above issues still brake the game for me and I'm dissapointed every time I get to drive in wet, even in 3rd year of development. It would be a shame that such a great weather system would not be used because it isn't calibrated properly.

Thank you for reading.

TL;DR: player's slick & street tyres have no grip in wet. Rain makes track wet instantly. AI has plenty grip.
Regards, TinMan

 

"sync weather progression to race"

This is why the track went from dry to soaked within a single lap... If you want it to progress slower do not use this with real world weather... Use 2 slots a dry slot and however wet you want it to get and it will work much better with sync to race...

Any sort of acceleration is bugged within the Madness engine so try to keep everything progressing at normal pace...

The slick tyres in conditions that slowly ramp up do not suffer the issues you describe on a lot of the cars I've driven, there's a point where the temperature comes out of the tyres and it's like ice just like real life, but it's not within the one lap unless I've done a short race with 4 weather slots or real world accelerated weather... What you describe when you go off track is simulated conditions though, as soon as the grass gets wet slicks have zero grip on it... I've found that a couple of cars now get stuck in the gravel traps as well even in the dry... Which is a great level of simulation...

The AI runs on a completely different physics platform because of how complex the physics are for the player alone... Running with AI on that physics would be impossible for the average user on their PC... Thus, as with any game with AI there are ways to game it to gain an advantage and areas where you have to adjust for the AI's advantage... On quite a few cars there's a gap between dry and wet where the AI has an advantage...

Another thing to keep in mind when racing in changing conditions in AMS2, the rain looks harder than it is... As such it's really easy to come in too early for wet tyres...

You can edit the AI to be slower in the rain, but the gap between slicks and wets will still exist... Using this information...
Information for Customizing AI drivers in AMS2 V1.3

As for street tyres... They are probably the low end of the to do list for Reiza to polish as there's so many other areas that require attention... I don't have a lot of experience with the cars that run on them so I cannot really comment on how bad they are atm... But slicks are within the realm of simulated for me...

 

TS is absolutely right. Returned from a very long period in ACC to AMs2 due to "update, just to find a lobby with GT4 @ Imola in the rain that was simply undrivable for all.

Just the same situation as in 2020 when a GT4 league test run in AMS2 @ Donington made the majority of the members to vote to go back to R3E.

 

Must be an issue with the GT4 tyres...

Light rain in a DPi is slick territory at Interlagos... GTE as well...

 

not only the tyres. On wets it also seemed like TC and ABS have no function. Might also be a Cayman problem in AMS2. The car my absolute favorite in RL (most affordable Porsche of our times, like the 924 in the 80's) and most sims, just not in AMS2, were it was always quirky from the very beginning.

 

Although I have seen rumblings that the driver aids in AMS2 aren't great, I turn them off so I can't really comment... They are one of the reasons I don't really like ACC, you have to use them to be fast...

Both the DPi and the GTE don't need driver aids in the wet for me...

 

There is a bug in custom championships with real weather that causes those bonkers weather changes, avoid real weather in the championships. That's why you lost so much grip so fast, there was no real "transition" it went from dry to soaked, and no dry slick in the world will work with a soaked track. Try random weather with 2 or 3 slots and sync to race and you will see much better and realistic results.

The AI unfortunately is very inconsistent in the wet, I can hang with them when there are no lakes on the road, but as soon as those appear on the racing line there is no chance. Try Imola or Silverstone historic soaked for an impossible challenge, the first right hander in Silverstone turns into the atlantic ocean and not even the AI can handle it .

 

I was just on a practice session with DTMs at Galeao. It started to drizzle and we were still going very fast on slicks, it took a bit more of rain to actually make an impact.

 

I'm now running a custom championship with real weather, but without weather acceleration.
Seems to work as intended.
With acceleration doesn't work as it should, so avoid that for now.

Safest option is indeed to set up some slots with the weather you want.

 

Ok guys, thank you for the input, especially about the bugs regarding the real weather and championships and the possible solutions. I guess to to enjoy AMS2 somewhat one has to resort to all kinds of workarounds and that is another area that needs improvement. The experience for me starts to crumble at this point, regardless of how well simulated rain & grip are (or aren't) when setting the session with those workarounds.
Regards

 

IMHO, what it seems like is something you want to run us a bit buggy and you don’t want to do something which makes tour situation better. Leaving a game due to it being buggy will mean everyone stops playing all games. Go and do your thing, but workarounds are expected with a game which still has a few issues

 

Any game with AI is like this... There's always ways to game the AI and workarounds that you have to deal with in order to have the best experience with them... It's just the nature of the level of physics and what computing power is left over for the AI to use...

I'm more annoyed with the seemingly non-existence of fuel weights and tyre wear rates of the AI... If fuel weights and tyre wear was to be simulated properly and the effects of the puddles were to effect them then the AI would be the best out there... With only an issue of narrow AI paths on certain tracks and the transition between dry and wet being left to clean up for the AI to be more believable than the sprint races that can be had believably with them now...

Anything longer than 10 laps and the player should have a disadvantage at the start of the race and an advantage at the end of the race if they qualified near the front of the grid... And anything over 20 minutes and the last quarter of the race is the players domain as the AI's stamina rating takes over causing them to go slower...

Whilst for me the experience in AMS2 begins to crumble when there's other cars on track, especially in MP where the terrible p2p predictions even make the AI dumb as hell... It's absolutely sublime outside of the rain looking heavier than the conditions when it's just me, the car and the track...

If Reiza could just fix the MP code it'd be more than a track day simulator... The AI will always be limited because of how complex the physics are so I'm not as concerned about those fixes although they would be nice to help blur the lines between knowing they are a bot and racing them as if they are real people... Without a positive MP experience it doesn't really matter how good the AI is, the majority of players will still go elsewhere for their sim racing...

 

Variable weather doesn't work without time acceleration unless you're willing to make a race that's multiple hours long. The weather slots are 1 hour long each. If you don't accelerate a 20 minute race, you get 20 minutes into the first slot and then the race ends.

The Livetrack state should not be accelerated, only the weather.

 

The OP used acceleration and real weather which is what caused their issues with a soaked track...

 

It is the same if you use manually selected weather slots.

 

It isn't the same for me... When I use 2 weather slots for a 30 minute race it'll change slowly during the session and slicks will be good for at least 10 minutes when I start with light rain... It's also random as to which lap that wets will be needed...

When you use real weather with acceleration you get a soaked track straight after it starts to get into light rain...

 

I still had the rapid weather changes even without time acceleration

 

Interesting. I've had multiple laps of drizzle without the track getting really wet.
Perhaps the car/track combo also plays a role?
Mine was with the Fusca B (Passat for me) combined with the caterham (with 130ish HP)

 

Bugs causing different experiences between users is becoming a common trend in AMS2.
Which made me think of this meme a user posted in a thread I started on another form.



Someone, should sticky a thread with all the bugs and current workarounds

 

No, I actually used real time, so no time acceleration.