Automobilista Final Build Released

[Paul Jeffrey]

Automobilista has hit its most significant milestone to date, reaching build 1.5.0 and is now considered in a final and finished release state.

Coming to pc gamers after a long and often spectacular road of development and change, Reiza Studios have now wrapped the development of the Automobilista Motorsport Simulation (AMS) racing title, a new release born off the back of the very popular and highly regarded Game Stock Car simulation from 2013.

The latest and potentially final major release, dubbed build 1.5.0, hit the Steam network late yesterday and represents the final efforts of the development studio before full attention switches to the new and as yet unrevealed racing simulation under closely guarded lock and key back at the studio in Brazil.

Although 1.5.0 is considered the final build for AMS fans need not despair as Reiza did indicate in a recent 'roadmap' post that some other bits might sneak into the sim over time, however for now this is it people, its done, it's awesome and it's available to play on Steam right now!

Build v1.5.0:

NEW CONTENT

• Added Buskerud Kart track (2 layouts)
• Added Mendig Langschliefe layout

GENERAL

• Added support for Ranked Servers: Lobby shows Ranked Servers average entrants ranking. Added player's server rank in monitor view (Only Reiza Official Servers will be ranked at this stage)
• Added "TIRE SETS" option to limit number of available tire sets over the race weekend (range 1-10 or unlimited as before)
• Added "RETURN TO PITS" option to RULES settings (options are Instant, Car must be stopped and Car towed to garage with semi realistic or realistic timings)
• Fixed various issues with Steam Achievements
• Disabled Pause While Zero Players server setting, as it is required for servers to announce on Steam
• Added Game tag to results file with property "Automobilista"
• Added Steam ID and Race Rank to player entries in Results files
• Added Game Version and Profile in use to title bar on Dedicated Server
• Increased frequency to smooth player´s steering wheel animation during replays (should no longer look jerky)
• Fixed Spotter announcing last lap one lap too early if you were a leader in a timed race
• Fixed Steam info not being parsed correctly when dedi is hosting without steam client logged in

USER INTERFACE

• Redesigned Monitor UI screen
  
• Added Escape Menu Confirmation option to Display settings
• Fixed multi join screen sometimes showing wrong track map
• Added RaceRank leaderboard to Profile page
• Auto select users time on TT Leaderboards
• Refactored internet connection type settings
• Garage UI now shows fuel by decimal point when step is less than 1.0
• Optimized UI files, removing unused files and entries

AI

• Tweaked AI suspension rates to smooth ride over curbs a bit
• New AI code which uses actual car width to calculate road width

AUDIO

• Enhanced surface sounds positioning
• Fixed various little sound replay bugs
• Lowered spotter default volume to 75%
• Replay surface sounds are now positioned (both pre 1.49 and new replays)
• Remote vehicles now also have tire sounds (although highly approximated)
• Tweaked dirt residue sound calculation (should hear it more often)
• Audio now is smoothly faded in / out when pausing / resuming game
• Added additional audio output configurations: Surround Headphones 5.1, Surround Headphones 7.1, Surround Speakers 7.1
• Added "Trackside Camera Audio Directionality" into PLR file for stereo configurations (with it non-zero, sounds in the back will be less loud then ones in front of camera)
• Fixed RPM limiter sound not being played
• Added new crowd samples (club, national in addtion to old grandprix type)

CONTENT FIXES & UPDATES

• New TV helicopter camera sample
• Removed helicopter sound from ambient audio sample
• Added audio environment settings to all circuits
• Updated TV cameras for F-Ultimate, F-Extreme, F-Reiza
• Updated Headlight textures in various cars
• Fixed rear view mirror resolution inconsistencies
• Granja: Revised AI paths in all layouts
• Boxer: Increased brake torque & adjusted front tire load sensitivity; Updated series skin set
• F-Trainer: Updated series skin set
• Karts: Adjusted fuel scale to allow 0.1L increments (needs Garage UI code tweak); Further adjusted AI, adjusted front tire load sensitivity; Removed redundant / innacurate feeler values; Reduced tire wear for all compounds; tweaked AI to reduce issues with rolling over curbs; Added more suitable standard tireamanagement / startskill multipliers
• AJR: Adjusted AJR RealFeel setting to reduce default FFB clipping; Fixed loop on high rpm in Honda Turbo
• F3: Fixed double arms in F309; Updated external sounds & fixed missing onboard pit limiter sound
• Caterham: Fixed double arms in various models
• F-Reiza: Updated LCD display
• Ultima: Fixed unbalance front brake torque in road versions
• TC: Classics: Corrected some pitch errors in external sounds

GENERAL NOTES:

Logitech G29 / G920 users: Support for auto rotation is on a dedicated Beta Branch labeled LogitechG29. Further instructions as to how to switch to a beta branch here.

If you have a bug to report please use the new bug report thread (make sure to check the opening post first).

If you experience any issues running the game following the update, it´s worth running a Steam Integrity Check to make sure all files have been added / updated correctly.

Automobilista is a PC exclusive racing game from Reiza Studios, and can be purchased from the Steam network.

If you enjoy Automobilista then take your experience to the next level with RaceDepartment! Join in our brilliant online Racing Club to take part in organised online race events, or head over to the Automobilista Modding Forum to have a look through our community made content, or if this isn't enough to keep you occupied, check out the general AMS sub forum and involve yourself in our wonderful sim racing community.

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Enjoying the new build? Satisfied with the "final" product? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Marc Collins]

I have been testing out some 1 hour races using the eec mod and its great fighting with the ai.. They try and overtake every chance they get... They are a little slow in corner entry and exit but the do overtake.. I race on 103% difficulty and medium aggression

Stock content is what Reiza promised to tweak and where the problems are for sure. Mods will be a mixed bag depending on what the author did.

 

[apex11]

So how in the hell do they manage to make for the most part every car feel so good FFB wise with only 2 settings??!!
When PCars 2 can't manage it?
Can i ever get PCars 2 to feel close to AMS FFB?
Anyone done it?

 

[P*Funk]

Well the basics of the Realfeel plugin involve way more variables, but they tune every variable to every specific car in house. You often see references to realfeel changes in the patch notes.

If you really want to there's plenty of places to read up on Realfeel, mostly forum posts from way back when to semi recently.

 

[BillGuy]

I may be imagining things, but I could swear I’ve had two or three instances in qualifying where an AI car on its in lap has moved over and got out of my way much more cleanly than before this release. Anyone else happen to notice this? I guess it could be related to the car/road width tweak mentioned in the release notes. Perhaps the AI couldn't previously get out of the way "well" because it couldn't judge how much road it had available to do that. Or again, maybe I'm just imagining things.

 

[apex11]

Well the basics of the Realfeel plugin involve way more variables, but they tune every variable to every specific car in house. You often see references to realfeel changes in the patch notes.

If you really want to there's plenty of places to read up on Realfeel, mostly forum posts from way back when to semi recently.

But how exactly would that help me get PCars 2 to feel close to AMS??
Some people are so focused on attack mode they don't read the posts correctly...i am not slagging off AMS FFB in fact quite the opposite...

 

[Conrad Miller]

There are so many people raving about AMS (for good reason, I totally agree with them) and there are so many people bashing iRacing for their physics and price structure. Yet I see thousands of people online at any given time on iRacing and see ghost town empty lobbies on AMS servers. Something doesn't add up here. Could someone give me a detailed explanation?

 

[P*Funk]

But how exactly would that help me get PCars 2 to feel close to AMS??
Some people are so focused on attack mode they don't read the posts correctly...i am not slagging off AMS FFB in fact quite the opposite...

It won't help you to do that and I'm not slagging you off either. I'm just explaining that the FFB is not just 2 sliders but many, but that the advantage is that they tweak them in house mostly but you can still edit them yourself.

It was purely informational and conversational. Its not meant to be a pissing match.

 

[John Chaser]

There are so many people raving about AMS (for good reason, I totally agree with them) and there are so many people bashing iRacing for their physics and price structure. Yet I see thousands of people online at any given time on iRacing and see ghost town empty lobbies on AMS servers. Something doesn't add up here. Could someone give me a detailed explanation?

iRacings main appeal is to have clean races online and that's why it's multiplayer population is bigger than the other sims. The huge amount of money invested into it probably stops some people from leaving too.

 

[aleph]

iRacings main appeal is to have clean races online and that's why it's multiplayer population is bigger than the other sims. The huge amount of money invested into it probably stops some people from leaving too.

I have never tried iRacing and I may be wrong here, but I believe you must be online for any activity, even tuning, hotlapping or practicing, so comparison with any other sim is not really valid (unless you count only people who are actually racing). A more apt comparison would be the actual number of people who subscribe to iRacing vs. the number of buyers of other sims.

With AMS, the AI is so competent at this point that many people, like myself, just race offline.

 

[Marco Dakic]

Same here, if the AI get a little tweak for the Straights i will have no more interesst in Racing Online, because the AI is good enough to feels like to Race against Humans, aswell as with the AI you have a more competent Field to Race against then on Servers (No time differences between 6 seconds what i often see online, more Consistent Race Action, Always full field, you can choose everything what and where you Race)

 

[RaceNut]

So how in the hell do they manage to make for the most part every car feel so good FFB wise with only 2 settings??!!
When PCars 2 can't manage it?
Can i ever get PCars 2 to feel close to AMS FFB?
Anyone done it?

PC2 FFB seems to be based on a very different philosophy from most titles, one that is said to represent real-world FFB as well as the unique character of the car. While it runs counter to what we are used to in most other titles (broad coverage of fundamental steering feedback among cars), some of the cars do provide reasonable feedback in PC2 but, are also very dependent on achieving the proper balance in Volume / Tone / FX. Such balance can vary quite a lot from one car to the next so recording the settings that work for each car can be helpful. Still, expect varied results among different cars - I'm told it's as designed by WMD members.

I would much prefer SMS provide FFB as most other Sim-titles do as it's quite possible to de-tune FFB to better replicate various cars RL feedback or disable it completely (for purists ) but, it's not so easy to make fundamental FFB information where the game-FFB doesn't produce it in the first place. That's just my 2-cents worth.

 

[apex11]

The problem with FFB is (aside from its subjective nature) that simply by making it "more like a real car feeling" that won't necessarily work once you actually take away the whole structure of the car and sitting in it etc...
I do find it incredible that between the human mind and the FFB you can feel so close to actually driving a racing car (and i have don this numerous times in real life)
I eventually got PCars 1 almost perfect for me and the Clio CUP was awesome to me felt absolutly perfect as a FWD race car as these are mainly what i have driven in real life...but pn PCars 2 I can't get the Clio to feel like that with the FFB...
I'll give Jack Spade stuff a try..

 

[sebduloiret]

There are so many people raving about AMS (for good reason, I totally agree with them) and there are so many people bashing iRacing for their physics and price structure. Yet I see thousands of people online at any given time on iRacing and see ghost town empty lobbies on AMS servers. Something doesn't add up here. Could someone give me a detailed explanation?

lol, i ask myself so often this question ^^

 

[Mitja Bonca]

Is this really worth of buying it?
--
Truly, I wanted to buy this sim at least 10 times by now, but some how I have always changed my mind in the last moment - really don`t know why exactly. For sure I do not care about the money, I would pay hundreds of euros for something that I would like (iRacing was the best example, were I spent $500 in 2 years), but this title just doesn`t convince me some how. Maybe, if there was no Assetto Corsa, I would buy it instantly, but now when we have this great, for me the best sim ever, I have lots of questions why should I buy it. Can someone convince me?

 

[David Wright]

There are so many people raving about AMS (for good reason, I totally agree with them) and there are so many people bashing iRacing for their physics and price structure. Yet I see thousands of people online at any given time on iRacing and see ghost town empty lobbies on AMS servers. Something doesn't add up here. Could someone give me a detailed explanation?

1. What you read in forums isn't representative of the wider sim racing community. iRacing for example has its own forums and so I doubt that a representative proportion of iRacing fans will post in forums such as this. If you visited the iRacing forum its unlikely you would find them singing the praises of AMS,

2. People have different requirements for their sims. Just because AMS meets the needs of its fans and customers doesn't mean iRacing doesn't meet the needs of its fans and customers. Minis and Range Rovers are both good cars but people who buy one are unlikely to be interested in the other. AMS and iRacing are both sims but they are targeting very different audiences.

3. iRacing offers "popular" content such as NASCAR and IndyCar (it is a US company with a strong US customer base), fully licensed GT3 cars including Porsche and Ferrari, and fully licensed F1 cars. It also offers laser scanned versions of "popular" tracks such as the Nordschleife, Spa, Monza as well as lots of US tracks including the ovals vital for the US racing series. Although not perhaps "cutting edge" in terms of graphics its graphics engine is newer than AMS offering features such as VR.

4. iRacing has targeted on-line racing exclusively since its inception. It has pioneered ranking by safety and speed and has always tried to grow the range of racing series in line with membership so that there are enough players in the lobby for each series. AMS offers a wide range of racing series but this only spreads the small player base even thinner, and then add in the mods and 3rd party tracks and this only makes things worse for on-line play. Instead, AMS offers its players AI, something which iRacing doesn't. So the large majority of AMS players are probably racing the AI.

 

[David Peres]

Is this really worth of buying it?

I've been in a similar position. I was (and still am) a huge fan of Assetto Corsa, and although AMS always looked nice to me I dint see how it could provide anything that I couldn't get from AC, so I held of buying it for a long time. Plus, the graphics looked dated and that put me of.

That said, I bought it on the black Friday sale, and now I kinda regret that I haven't bought it sooner. I don't like to choose between sims and genuinely think that all the current sims are top notch. I play AC, AMS and R3E and I love them all, but if I had to choose just one for some reason I can say that I would go with AMS.

However, the reasons for it are kinda personal, so it depends. First, I love the content in AMS. Before buying this game I had zero knowledge about Brazilian motorsports, but now much of the content in this game has become some of my favorite in all of sim racing. So many absolutely amazing tracks that I had never heard about before. They're unknown, but only because of circumstance and not because they lack quality.

Same thing for the cars. AMS doesn't have as many cars as AC, not even close, but it has more motorsport variety, official licensed series (from Brazil... like Stock Cars, which are really cool. Challenging but very fun to drive), and a better simulation of proper racing in ways that AC is unfortunately lacking. Plus, very good AI.

If having famous cars and tracks is important for you then I would say that this isn't your sim. Also, the graphics are indeed dated, but they still look very good IMO, and the picture quality is razor sharp, which is important to me. Basically, AC is my "Top Gear simulator" (it's the best in the market for that) while AMS and R3E are my choice for racing, but I love the content in AMS so much that is almost all I play at the moment.

Also, the FFB is amazing. It feels different from AC in some ways and similar in others... I like both but find the FFB on AMS to provide more detail and information, and it feels more "connected" and responsive, while in AC things can sometimes feel a bit "boaty" with some cars.

The best advice I can give you is that you buy it and drive a few cars for 2 hours and then decide if you wanna keep it or refund it. I also bought it as an "experiment" and I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I do.

Hope this helps

 

[Brandon Wright]

I have never tried iRacing and I may be wrong here, but I believe you must be online for any activity, even tuning, hotlapping or practicing, so comparison with any other sim is not really valid (unless you count only people who are actually racing). A more apt comparison would be the actual number of people who subscribe to iRacing vs. the number of buyers of other sims.

With AMS, the AI is so competent at this point that many people, like myself, just race offline.

Yes, you must be online to do iRacing. But most people's PCs are probably always connected to the internet so I'm not sure why that would be an issue (as long as you don't have really low data caps). I've only been back on iRacing for two months but I've already had better racing in that time than I did the rest of the year with all the other sims combined. It's really great being paired with people of similar ability and having an actual chance to win as opposed to be constantly mired in the mid-pack while aliens hold a monopoly on the pointy end of the grid. Worth every penny for me (YMMV).

 

[tlsmikey]

Agree with what has been said. AMS is fantastic but what holds it back is the lack of commercial content and VR for me. They have a fantastic selection of cars but the liveries are brutally simple and I often wish for a lamborghini or mclaren logo here and there. I know it's petty, but it bothers me at times.

VR of course is pretty much all I use now. In fact AMS is the only reason I still have screens.

 

[aleph]

Yes, you must be online to do iRacing. But most people's PCs are probably always connected to the internet so I'm not sure why that would be an issue (as long as you don't have really low data caps). I've only been back on iRacing for two months but I've already had better racing in that time than I did the rest of the year with all the other sims combined. It's really great being paired with people of similar ability and having an actual chance to win as opposed to be constantly mired in the mid-pack while aliens hold a monopoly on the pointy end of the grid. Worth every penny for me (YMMV).

I didn't mean this as an issue or a criticism or iRacing. What I meant is that, in strictly statistical terms, online users comparisons involving iRacing are not valid (except against RRE), as no other sims require you to be permanently connected to their servers. In my view, valid comparisons would be: (a) number of iRacing subscribers against buyers of other sims; or (b) number of iRacing users who are actually racing at a given moment. Even so, these figures would be somewhat skewed, as iRacing has no offline mode or AI and therefore online is the only way to race.

I would bet that if we somehow could count the number of hours spent inside each sim doing anything (which is ultimately what is being measured with iRacing), Assetto Corsa would be a close contender and even AMS wouldn't be that far off.

 

[Ami_M3]

Is this really worth of buying it?
--
Truly, I wanted to buy this sim at least 10 times by now, but some how I have always changed my mind in the last moment - really don`t know why exactly. For sure I do not care about the money, I would pay hundreds of euros for something that I would like (iRacing was the best example, were I spent $500 in 2 years), but this title just doesn`t convince me some how. Maybe, if there was no Assetto Corsa, I would buy it instantly, but now when we have this great, for me the best sim ever, I have lots of questions why should I buy it. Can someone convince me?

David Peres summed it up nicely. Most people that have both AC and AMS put AMS higher.

For me, it's not even close. AMS is way more competent sim, IMO the best there is at this time. I'd put them in the following order: AMS, rF2, R3E...(space)... AC. Last time I played AC was about 8 months ago, things may have changed since then, but I don't care - not enough time to give it another chance.
However, this is all subjective, you picked AC as your favorite so we are at opposite poles.

If you don't care that AMS doesn't have Ferraris, Lambos, BMWs etc (it has Porsche Cup car, but it's called Boxer cup - awesome to drive btw) and base content is strictly motorsports you may like it. Everything in AMS is top notch, whole range of open wheelers, gokarts, EVERYTHING. At this point my favorite car is probably Metalmoro AJR (check it out on youtube). Reiza team put a lot of work tweaking every file so each car has amazing FFB and physics.
AC has way more licensed content, and IMO that's the only advantage it has over rF2 or AMS.
Try it, if you don't like it - refund it. My advice is to get the season pass as well, and definitely try Metalmoro AJR when you'll be testing the sim.