Sim Racing: The Big Mid Season Review - Part 1

[Brownninja97]

he might be basing it off the past as he said development is long and for sims its even longer. So it might not be based per say just that it is suffering due to taking too long.

 

[M D Gourley]

I own most if not all of the top well known Sims and for me personally money well spent...are they all perfect in my eyes...not really...but I do enjoy the variety that every one of them give me, so depending on what mood or what Sim I decide to fire up it is indeed a great day...after all ' Sim Racing is an Individual Pursuit'

 

[RaceMan763]

it'll probably be garbage anyways with the way sim racing has gone off the deep end...

When did you become so salty about sim racing? You always seemed like a such a reasonable voice.

 

[David Dominguez]

Physics -
Body roll and weight transfer through the FFB are superb in AC, putting the feel of the car right at your fingertips brings a level of immersion many other driving and racing sims have so obviously failed to achieve in my years of sim racing experience.

What do you mean with the last sentence? I don't know any sim that doesn't properly simulate body roll/weight transfer and its influence on FFB.

 

[xnorb]

AC is toasting my i5 3550, and although it's a nice feature to have AI's physics calculated correctly, i prefer being able to race against 15 cars with simplified physics than being only able to race against 5 cars with correct physics...
If i could run AC properly i assume i'd split my time between AC and AMS, so all my time goes to AMS.

 

[Fat Rich]

AC and AMS really stand out for me because of the amount of additional content and updates this past year, but mostly for the quality of these updates. Very impressive from such small development studios.

 

[Oscar Hardwick]

I think to rate AC higher doesn't make sense. It's prettier sure but doesn't have the physics fidelity of AMS. Add to that AC has only recently added some pretty standard online functions and is still missing out on a great deal of online functionality comparative to AMS. Mainly because AMS has that gmotor base to work off of but you have to play to your strengths.

Also Empty Box complaining that a tiny dev team develops fairly slowly... someone missed out on their Cheery-Ohs this morning.

 

[F_B]

In my opinion Automobilista needs a solid online structure with many people to race against with. Now it’s a wasteland (or the populated server are closed). Beside from that it get’s a 9/10 from me. This and AC are my to go sims atm. Although I also enjoy RRE and rfactor 2 for some offline races against the AI. Good times to be a sim racer right now.

 

[xnorb]

In my opinion Automobilista needs a solid online structure with many people to race against with.

You can't even guess how much i hope Reiza will do something great with their online service to get us all together online to race against each other.
But i think an RPGish approach like the one of iRacing is required for this to work.

 

[David Dominguez]

It's difficult to have any kind of "online structure" if you don't have players to start with.

 

[xnorb]

It's difficult to have any kind of "online structure" if you don't have players to start with.

According to Steamspy there are about 24.000 owners and 17.000 players.

Sure, those are low numbers but in the end it's all about presentation and heck, even SimRacingSystem manages to get sometimes great grids, and it has only 4000 users (of which i'm sure the vast majority only registered but never even check for races) and the userbase is split up over 4 sims.

 

[David Wright]

For online racing the number of people playing the game at the same time is the statistic that matters. Steam Charts states the maximum number of players over the last week was 180. If most of these are not racing online then this is a very small pool to create a structure especially when they will be spread over the relatively wide range of racing series on offer.

 

[F_B]

Yeah, I guess it’s just the fact that Automobilista is the least popular (not in a negative way, it’s just not known) sim out there, which is sad. It has so much to offer.

 

[David Dominguez]

For online racing the number of people playing the game at the same time is the statistic that matters. Steam Charts states the maximum number of players over the last week was 180. If most of these are not racing online then this is a very small pool to create a structure especially when they will be spread over the relatively wide range of racing series on offer.

This.

 

[fortyfivekev]

AMS is my preferred sim right now with AC second. They both have a lot to offer, AC is a great driving sim and AMS a great racing sim. Both developers have done a good job this year and when you see they are passionate about their products it does rub off onto the community.

 

[Ole Andreasen]

Thanks Paul for this very extensive piece of work. You have been around in every nook and cranny, enlightened me on some points of which I wasen´t even aware. That you started with two of my favourite sims just added to the fun for me...

I look very much forward to the next sections of your reviews - to Raceroom especially, but to all the others also.

 

[P*Funk]

For online racing the number of people playing the game at the same time is the statistic that matters.

But with no easy autonomous sytem to connect people together there's no motivation to be online frequently and not just whenever you feel like it. With a better promise of online matchmaking you can find an increase in interest I would think.

Afterall, most of the most dedicated iRacing players will show up for the so called strength of field race right at the start of the week's rotation. In iRacing the community for some cars, such as the sprint car, are only really active on one or two days a week. Structure makes the few able to have a better chance to hook up. If Reiza's structure is effective the few of us who want an online race will more likely find a way to make it work.

 

[Helmut Skrdla]

I liked the AC review (can't judge AMS as I don't own it), and I like AC itself (else I wouldn't have spent 10 hours this week alone on creating a mod for it). Still, couldn't help rolleyes a little at...

The Assetto Corsa strapline reads "Your Driving Simulator", and boy does it deliver that on track driving experience.

...because it actually reads "Your Racing Simulator", and then the rest of the sentence wouldn't hold quite as true. It's true that (by what stock content is included, and by the features still missing) is more of a "track driving simulator" right now, so turning the tagline around seems a bit strained, especially as the review itself then goes to great lengths to clarify where it falls short for an actual racing simulation.

The rest of the review is really top, thanks for taking the time

Oh, and "with no little difficulty experienced" regards the menu navigation, I think you meant no difficulty... i.e. easy.

 

[Blimey]

Voted 6 for AC because of lack of features, simple, if people think this game is a 9/10, then GTR2 is a 15/10.

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

What do you mean with the last sentence? I don't know any sim that doesn't properly simulate body roll/weight transfer and its influence on FFB.

It means what it means, through the ffb you can feel the body roll and weight transfer right the moment the car starts to slide, and not like iracing where is not the case in most logitech wheels, and you loose the car and there's almost no input on the ffb