rFactor 2 - Q & A with the development team

[Bram Hengeveld]

Hi,

Spoken to the boss himself yesterday night and in a few weeks time he will be able to answer questions from the RD community!

Please use this thread to write down your questions for him. We will wrap up the most original questions that have not been answered before in previous interviews and will send it out.

Take note of a few simple rules:

• Don't use this thread for debates / discussions. Stay on topic: questions. Discussions are more than welcome here
• Read the entire topic so you don't repeat the same questions over and over again
• We all want to know when the game will be released, so avoid that question as it has been asked a million times before and we all know the answer already: "Released when its finished"

Shoot! What would you like know? Lets get the rFactor 2 ball rolling!

 

[Adam Eggbeer]

Posted by Tim Wheatley on the ISI forums:

General Product Questions

How will rFactor be released? Online? Steam?
We have our own online distribution system in development.

What are the minimum specs?
We have not yet completed testing. A non-netburst single core CPU above 3.0GHz with SSE2 would work, but a dual core 2.0GHz CPU would be better. 2GB RAM and either nVidia GeForce 8600 or ATI Radeon x1000 Series with 512MB video RAM will be required to take advantage of some features. rFactor 2 will not run on Windows 98, but will run on Microsoft Windows XP, XP 64bit, Vista and 7.

Will rFactor 2 support multiple CPU/GPUs?
Yes to both.

Have you changed your mind about the user file locations mentioned in a previous interview?
Yes.

Has force feedback been improved?
The force feedback is now much more correct. We are using a separate thread for physics and this has decreased latency. Right now we are working to refine and match for feeling with the new tire model.

Does rFactor 2 support multiple controllers like rFactor did?
Yes.

Has triple screens support been improved?
Yes. We now also support nVidia 3D vision and virtual screen angles can be adjusted.

Does rFactor 2 support many of the oval specific rules and regulations difficult to simulate with rFactor?
There has been some improvement in this area.

What are the different series that are going to be included?
We have been working on assets for several different styles of racing that are in various states of readiness. Some of these may not make the initial release, but those that don't will be added post-release as we did with rF1. Of course, we'll also be enhancing the released series in the future with more cars and tracks; so there is plenty of content to come. The series that are nearest completion and should be ready in time are:

1960's Historic Racing (includes both open-wheel and hard-top vehicles)
1970's stock car racing
Renault Meganes and Clios
Modern Endurance Racing (multiple vehicle classes)
Open-Wheel Trainers
Formula Renault 3.5
Formula ISI

This list is not definitive--there's always the chance we could hold something if we feel it's under par. Likewise, we could end up finishing something we didn't expect.

Modding

Will rFactor 2 be modding friendly like rFactor? What has been done to improve modding? Open script?
Many improvements have been made to make mods easier to find and install. No open script.

Will there be documentation supplied with rFactor 2 or will we have to figure things out ourselves?
Support will be provided and some documents will be provided both with and after the initial release.

How difficult will it be to convert tracks from rFactor to rFactor 2 and be able to make use of the new features available? What about converting without the new features?
Possible, but it will not be as simple as dragging and dropping. Mod groups are going to want to put in some additional effort to take advantage of the new features available for their work.

Are mods going to be easier to install? Can they be packaged?
We are currently testing our new packaging system.

Multiplayer

Will there be an in-game lobby filter to make it easier to find races?
A filter is available but the final criteria is not yet set. You will see server information such as pings for sure.

Will rFactor 2 have a ranking system?
No.

Will racers be more accountable for their actions and can server admins manage them?
An online login system should allow more control.

Can I block someone driving with keyboard from joining my race?
No.

Why is the ability to host a race from within the software being taken out?
To ensure a consistently improved online experience.

Have the mismatch issues found in online games been worked on with rFactor 2?
Yes.

Will there be driver changes?
The fate of this is tied to rejoins (see below).

Can I rejoin a server after being disconnected?
We’ve done some work on this, but it may not be ready for deployment of the initial release.

Can we force tire/part changes in hosting rules like many real-world racing series?
Probably not, but it should eventually be possible to see this information in result exports.

What is the multiplayer client connection limit in a race?
The number of drivers that can join a server at any time depends on how many drivers each specific mod supports (up to 64 most likely). Of course other clients can join as spectators if the server allows them...

Can I voice chat with other racers?
There will be no in-game voice chat. We feel other free programs do this very well and with far more features that we would want to implement.

Can I share setups with individuals/everyone in the race?
Yes.

Are fixed/forced setups supported?
Yes.

Graphics

What effects are planned with rFactor 2?
HDR, bloom, new shadows, ambient occlusion, heat distortion.

Sound

Has work been done to improve sound such as echoing in tunnels?
We are working on this right now. Both walls and tunnels.

Cars

Can we have glowing/reflective numbers for night racing which is easier than doing it now with rFactor?
No plans for this, but you can do this yourself.

Can cars now make proper wheel to wheel contact?
Yes. We have improved collision detection.

How exactly has the tire model been improved?
The tire model is new and one of the most important features of rFactor 2 which will interact with the new weather and real road models. Real life drivers deal with many changes during an event as they can arrive at any turn and can find themselves with more or less grip than they felt on the previous lap. The tire, track and weather model should allow users to experience many of these changes for the first time.

The tire is now considered to be a separate simulated body to the rim, and the contact patch has a huge increase in processing allowing different and constantly changing levels of heat and wear all around and across the tire. Tires will hold a history of what you’ve done to them and all these factors will give a constantly changing experience in terms of grip, handling and even pit strategy.

Has damage been improved?
We’ve done some work on this but are not yet sure what will be in the initial release. A new feature which may make it would be that paintwork can be scratched/ripped by contact. Tire damage has also been implemented (see above).

When I change tires (or go onto the grass and make them dirty, etc) will the look of the tires change? Will there be visual tire wear?
There will be both physical and visual wear for tires. Dirt and grass pickup not yet decided.

Tracks

Will there be any laser scanned tracks in rFactor 2?
No.

Will there be pit crew animations?
We have a new skinned animation system that allows for the addition of animated pit crews, and while it is our intention to add this it will probably not be included in the initial release. We will most likely ship with a minimalistic pit crew and then build on that until we have a fully functional crew for the many different types of cars we expect required...

Will tracks have scripted events like the crew jumping onto the pitwall for the finish, a firework show on the first lap or spectators leaping out of the way on a hillclimb or rally stage?
Again, scripted animation events are something we have in the pipeline, but most likely won't make the initial release. The plan that has been talked about it to have events that can trigger other events, and so on. Our animated pit crews will depend on these triggered events so we'll HAVE to add them...

Can I set points where the green flag would be waved for start/restarts?
Currently, we have internal triggers that tell the starter/flagmen when, and what type of flag, to wave. We will be expanding the flagmen functionality post-release, so we could probably add trigger-driven events to the system easily enough.

Weather

Will the weather change during a race? Will it affect grip and visual effects as it does?
Yes to both. Weather will affect both your visual and physical experience.

How will the weather effect the drivers view?
There will be fogging, a wet windshield, raindrops and wipers.

A.I.

Can the A.I. in rFactor 2 have personalities so that one driver is perhaps more aggressive than another?
Yes. AI can be setup individually and overall. In fact if you really wanted to, each driver can have a preferred line around a race track. You can make individual drivers better/worse in qualifying versus the race or even give someone a slow reaction speed at the start.

Will A.I. in a slower GT class let a faster car through?
Blue flag code has been improved, AI should move away from the racing line in appropriate situations.

Output

Will more information be in the files that keep track of laptimes, aids used, weather, etc?
We are currently setup to export XML files which contain some information, but we will be moving towards a JSON system which should allow extraction of information at a much greater depth.

Can more information be on the results, like tire compounds, number of pit stops, etc?
The JSON generated information will evolve (see above).

Some interesting things in there that should make this game great.

 

[Rich_A11]

When I change tires (or go onto the grass and make them dirty, etc) will the look of the tires change? Will there be visual tire wear?
There will be both physical and visual wear for tires. Dirt and grass pickup not yet decided.

This is really important and will make corner cutting easier for you to manage because if driver is punished for putting tyre on gravel and/or grass there will be no advantage in cutting. In real life it takes a couple of corners to clean tyres, depends how long tyre was on grass/gravel for. Gravel is possibly worse than grass but grass should have very little grip. I know it's big job, I'm admin at EOAA so know few things about modding. Guess a track would need gravel to have different material ID for gravel areas and then terrain ini controls amount of grip loss and maybe multiplier for time needed to clean tyre. Time is amount of time tyre is touching material x multiplier so if tyre touches material for 1 second and multiplier is 1.0 maybe clean time is 10,000 meters.

I know it's tough job but I think well worth it and you probably wouldn't have to do any other cutting work at all except for obvious cuts. Everything else sounds good, can't wait. The thing that really bothers me about sim racing is that carelessness is not punished and I get sick of following drivers who constantly put tyres on gravel and grass and car is unaffected. Maybe marbles ought to require tyre cleaning time too.

These things could quite easily be done at a later time actually, simply patch for your tracks and new documentation. Visual GFX to signify dirt on tyre would be nice, when 90'C tyre touches gravel it's like sticking wet lollypop in sugar, actually that's good point - tyre temp affects amount of pickup.

 

[Erwin Greven]

I don't know if it is asked before but is there a possibility to implement a Moto GP mod (at least bikes) into rFactor2?
I am a track builder and i work on a 1953 version of the TT-circuit of Assen.
Some have tried to build a bike mod for rF1 but the game is generaly suited for 4 wheeled cars.

 

[Brian Duddy]

Well, that's a long bump... and no questions ever answered...

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Still on the to do list Brian. Gjon promised to answer our questions at a later date. At the time the thread was started he had not much to tell about rF2

 

[Rich_A11]

Is there going to be an active anti cheat system i.e. online serial account login and then active updates to anti cheat system by ISI indefinitely to ban cheats from going online.

I have made several posts here about it http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/704-Is-anything-being-done-with-rfactor2-to-stop-ram-cheats

In short, saying you don't want to give away any clues about anti cheat as it wiill aid cheaters is complete none sense. Sure you don't need to go into specifics but you do need to outline what's being done to stop cheats because many I know are not going to buy rF2 until they know more about anti cheat measures and they want to see updates to anti cheat system because everyone knows that preventing cheats is an active process. Can you imagine if law breakers and civilians did NOT know that those who break the law go to jail - we would have more laws being broken! Not telling people what anti cheat measures are in place is essentially the same thing i.e. no apparent deterent or sense of security.

 

[Erik Tveit]

I would like to know if there is any chance of having next improvements at rF2:

1.- AFTER THE CRASH - In the case a player press esc and abandons the game after a crash or an engine failure. That woud be great if the game could take control of the accident letting the stopped car/s remain at the place the accident happened, with the game authomaticly deplyoing a crane, marshalls whatever in an attemp of emulating what happens in a real race after a crash, or a stopped car near the track. That would be great add to the sim, specially to leagues where there is a person taking car of the Safety Car. No sim has managed to do it. Of course it should have the option to set it on or off.

2.- PIT CREW - Normally at a real race it is not the driver of the car who makes the changes on the car, he can decide what he need, but he never does the work as there will be always a pit crew ready to do it. The idea is, as now we have the option of enter the server as driver or spectator, leeting a player join a server as PIT CREW for one or more drivers to make the needed changes on his driver/s car.

To grant security, drivers should be able to set a password to let his PIT CREW act on his car pit stop settings (this password could be set in the main settings menu as PIT PASSWORD), and the PIT CREW should type it in order to join this driver as pit crew, otherwise they will join as spectator only or they simply would not be able to join the server. There should be aswell an option to set it on or off, as some drivers can be alone.

3.- MODS & TRACKS INSTALATION - I guess that there would be a way to optimize the instalation and location of these files on a special folder for it (even if it is not bad at the moment), or a new system to grant a MOD install or uninstall is clean and fast and always keeping a clean rFactor 2 install. That would make life much more easy to some users. ¿Have you worked on it at rF2?

Thanks for reading!

I'll ask about the same.

 

[David Garcia]

That features could be the quality and diferential point from other simulators, with some other good ideas I have seen around.

 

[Ivo Simons]

In the recenlty released Simracing Magazine there is a Q&A with ISI which gives us more details of the soon to be released rFactor 2.

Below you can find a little recap of the Q&A with the most important details.

• There will be no demo before the release
• Factor 2 will go open-beta in 2011 ahead of the official release (possibly in 2011 as well)
• There will be no DirectX 11 mode
• More licensed content will be added after the release
• rFactor 2 will come with improved netcode
• rFactor 2 comes with an online account system providing matchmaking & updates. It’s free for the first 12 months after purchase and a paid service after that.
• The engine powering rFactor is now called isiMotor 2.5

You can read to the whole Q&A here.

 

[Kariem Janssen]

Iam not gone pay for online gaming simple, so iam gone play it just for 12 months than,,,

 

[Ivo Simons]

Its not that you cant play anymore online if you dont pay.
If you pay you get some extra features. But you are not forced to pay to play online, even after the 12 months.

 

[Kariem Janssen]

Thnx ivo,

 

[Philip Antonia]

All sounds good enough to me. Provided it has the same strong online popularity at communities like RD then the annual subscription will no doubt be worth it. Can't wait for the open beta:good:.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I don't understand the point of an annual subscription to be honest. Unless this means that ISI is also going to provide us a free service so we can host online races and events for free.Now it are communities as ourselves that pay for the online hosting and the data for downloads etc.

 

[Robert Wiesenmüller]

Now this is what it looks like, you buy the game, play 12 months with all features and start enjoying leagues and mods. After the 12 months the game will revert back to a stripped-down version which makes online racing a pain in the ass. Let's face it, when online racing is as easy as before, no one will subscribe. To enjoy the full game again, you'd have to pay a subscription for a yet unknown fee year after year. I need more details about the subscription content, but for now, this is scaring me.

 

[Ben Tusting]

Having done this interview myself (and others at rFactorNews.com), the "keep paying after 12 months" is not about subscription like iRacing, but about to keep getting updates and new content. You will have a full game (even if you don't pay afterwards) and will still be capable of playing online, etc...

Just FYI.

...

 

[Sam Binfield]

Now this is what it looks like, you buy the game, play 12 months with all features and start enjoying leagues and mods. After the 12 months the game will revert back to a stripped-down version which makes online racing a pain in the ass. Let's face it, when online racing is as easy as before, no one will subscribe. To enjoy the full game again, you'd have to pay a subscription for a yet unknown fee year after year. I need more details about the subscription content, but for now, this is scaring me.

I think you have misread this, or at least misinterprited it. When the 12 months (more like 14 including the beta) are finished, all the content you have already will remain, regardless of whether you begin paying or not. Unlike iRacing, ending your subscription will only stop you recieving new content, and you will keep all of the content you had at the time that you stopped paying.

To be honest, my own take on the whole thing will be that any naysayers will eventually cave and join the service anyway, because I feel that they are in the minority. Then again, should the service be prohibativly expensive a la iRacing, then it may just be abandoned.

What I want to make clear is that there is no comment in this interview that says rFactor to will become 'stripped-down' and thus useless by choosing not to pay the subscription. I don't think it is unreasonable to pay for new content, providing it remains mine, as it will in this case. I feel it will be interesting the check back in 14 months from the release in order see what will happen then, anything prior to that point is just mere speculation.I think you have misread this, or at least misinterpreted it. When the 12 months (more like 14 including the beta) are finished, all the content you have already will remain, regardless of whether you begin paying or not. Unlike iRacing, ending your subscription will only stop you receiving new content, and you will keep all of the content you had at the time that you stopped paying.

To be honest, my own take on the whole thing will be that any naysayers will eventually cave and join the service anyway, because I feel that they are in the minority. Then again, should the service be prohibitively expensive a la iRacing, and then it may just be abandoned.

What I want to make clear is that there is no comment in this interview that says rFactor to will become 'stripped-down' and thus useless by choosing not to pay the subscription. I don't think it is unreasonable to pay for new content, providing it remains mine, as it will in this case. I feel it will be interesting the check back in 14 months from the release in order see what will happen then; anything prior to that point is just mere speculation.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

the "keep paying after 12 months" is not about subscription like iRacing, but about to keep getting updates and new content

Thanks Ben, that cleared it up!

 

[Terry Rock]

This approach to marketing rFactor2 (giving new, improved, updated content for a small fee every year), is the new way to go. I like it. I've always "hated" buying a new game every year that didn't in any way interact with the past version ( i.e F1 2000, F1 2001, F1 2002, F1 Championship season etc...). For the guys who went that route, "How much time did you play the previous version, once the new one came out...maybe never?" This new method is better as long as the price remains within the realm of reasonable. I'm in.

 

[Sam Binfield]

The only thing that concerns me with the release of rFactor 2 is that lack of detailed information about physics and FFB improvements. Clipping monitoring would be fantastic, as has been shown recently in the forums. The game's main selling point is clearly not graphics, they are good, but they are not the USP in the same way that they are for C.A.R.S. Thus, its unique selling point needs to be the physics simulation, and so far there has been no evidence for this, not to say that it hasn't happened.

In particular, as well as overall improvement to the physics simulation their needs to be new features that are simulated for example, proper turbo modelling (with sound support), proper transmission, and clutch simulation. From a modding point of view this has introduced fudged solution and it would be better if they could be done properly. A good example of this would be the simulation of the Watt's linkage in ORSM's V8Factor. Increased documentation for modding would be fantastic, as a lot of the documentation for rFactor 1 appears to have disappeared, leaving a select few who can create really good mods, and most of their knowledge comes from years of trial and error experience.

Finally, I feel that the FFB really needs to be up to standard in that it is flexible enough to be customised effectively for all mods. As good as realfeel and LeoFFB are, it would be nice to only need the official FFB code, and this would help ensure that everyone gets the same experience with every mod.

This has certainly turned into a long post kind of day for me :tongue:.