rFactor 2 | Upcoming Q4 2022 Update

rFactor 2 BMW.jpg
Its been an exciting year for rFactor 2's development and its showing no signs of slowing down. In fact with a new build on the way, new content and its inclusion in the Low Fuel Motorsports platform, its doing nothing but accelerating!

BTCC​

Studio 397 have just announced that the BMW 330e M Sport BTCC will be joining its ever growing roster of BTCC cars aiming it the 5th car of its class to be added! This is a car that has been much talked about over on the forums at S397, and will be a big hit with Colin Turkington fans!

Avery welcome addition to go with the existing BTCC cars and also the BTCC tracks we now have in the game, but it seems there may be more on the way, will we see another track from the series maybe, I can certainly think of a couple I'd love to see in fully laser scanned glory!

Bahrain​

Talking of tracks, the first ever laser scanned version of Barhain is coming to the sim in this content drop and as some of you may know, it was already used in the recent Virtual Le Mans opening round, so that may not be news to you.

What is news is that they are planning to release four different configurations of the desert circuit, which should certainly keep us busy, and by the looks of the screenshots and video of the track I'm sure its designer Hermann Tilke would be proud to see it represented in all its digital glory!

Low Fuel Motorsport​

rFactor 2's online presence has shot up recently with its inclusion in the fantastic Low Fuel Motorsport platform, making it the second simulator supported by the system after Assetto Corsa Competizione, and so far its been a resounding success, with multiple L.F.M. servers attracting up to thirty drivers per race! I've never seen so much activity in RF2 online outside of a league in a long time!

There's all of this and more, because along with the new content comes a new build of the simulation which packs a host of new features, fixes and improvements!

The track limits system is again receiving updates and refinements and I have to say, it's already one of the best track limits systems I've ever seen in any sim, which must be a big plus for the online community at LFM.

UI​

Further improvements have been made to the UI making it faster and more user friendly, track loading times have improved and there is even a function to quit to desktop instantly using a key press combination from anywhere within the game!

Offline​

One of the biggest improvements for offline players in the new build will be a fix to the A.I. that has solved a long standing issue with their brake and throttle behaviour. This has had knock on improvements to the way they sound and look going around the track and most importantly their driving. Infact its also solved issues with certain A.I. cars ability to make it round specific tracks!

You don't even have to wait for the update (which should arrive early November) to try out some of the improvements as there is a beta Release Candidate you can already opt into through your steam library!

If you're not sure how to opt in, or you would like to see a comparison of the old A.I. vs the new A.I. I've put together a little video showing you all of that and a couple of other features of the new build as well, hope it's of use to you!

What do you think of the rFactor 2's progress over the last year, do you see it as a brief revival of what has sometimes been a controversial racing simulator, or do you think the future is bright and getting better?

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Tarmac Terrorist
If I can drive it, I'm Rocking it!!! Besides writing sim racing articles I am running my own YouTube channel called Tarmac Terrorist

Comments

Can anyone help:)....In Paul's video above there is a 'MINI':inlove:...where can I get that, can provide a link please, if possible...thanks in advance:thumbsup:
The classic Mini was part of the last group of DLC, it can be bought on its own here or bundled with a couple of BTCC cars (the Hyundai i30 and Ford Focus) and WWT Raceway/Gateway here

If you're interested in the other stuff in the bundle, it's almost always a better idea to get it that way if you can because it's often like 30% cheaper than buying each part individually (using this as an example it costs £13.89 for the bundle while buying it all piece by piece comes to £19.83)
 
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Can anyone help:)....In Paul's video above there is a 'MINI':inlove:...where can I get that, can provide a link please, if possible...thanks in advance:thumbsup:
its still broken... its gearbox is manual but you have to treat it like a SEQ.. ie: you cannot gear from 4th to 2nd.. you have to go through 3rd.. 4th>>3rd>>2nd.
(irrespective of rpm etc.)

Other than that its a fun car

The BTCC with new AI fixes makes for some nice door to door action.
 
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Premium
its still broken... its gearbox is manual but you have to treat it like a SEQ.. ie: you cannot gear from 4th to 2nd.. you have to go through 3rd.. 4th>>3rd>>2nd.
(irrespective of rpm etc.)

Other than that its a fun car
Thanks for taking the time to reply 'TheRealCeeBee'...if it's still broken I think i'll pass for now:(
 
Premium
After a few weeks of research I decided to give rF2 a go yesterday. I was mainly interested in the LMP/GTE, BTCC classes and the LFM integration. I found the regular pricing for the dlc a bit on the high side, but took advantage of the current Halloween sale. The dlc outlay is comparable to the other sims I have such as ACC, AMS and Raceroom, but they seem to offer more in terms of value.

I spent a few hours getting set up (setting up my wheel/pedals was a little fiddly) and practicing with different cars and I was impressed with the driving experience most of all. Graphics-wise rF2 sits between Raceroom and AMS2 (in my opinion). I found the UI to be pretty good, but not as accessible as more recent sims.

Overall I’m happy I took the plunge with rF2
 
Can anyone help:)....In Paul's video above there is a 'MINI':inlove:...where can I get that, can provide a link please, if possible...thanks in advance:thumbsup:
Its official paid DLC, you can get the car on its own throught the Rfactor 2 steam store here: https://store.steampowered.com/itemstore/365960/detail/81/
Or (and this is much better value by far!) you can get it in this pack which comes with one track (World Wide Technology Raceway) the Austin Mini & Two BTCC cars! (Hyundai i30 and Ford Focus) https://store.steampowered.com/itemstore/365960/detail/1022/
 
its still broken... its gearbox is manual but you have to treat it like a SEQ.. ie: you cannot gear from 4th to 2nd.. you have to go through 3rd.. 4th>>3rd>>2nd.
(irrespective of rpm etc.)
Sadly this is the case for both the Mini & the Caterham. I'm very much hoping it will be fixed soon and I think it can because there are other official manual H-Shift cars in the sim that don't have this problem. I've been banging on about it over at the S397 forums and will carry on till we get a fix because they are great cars!
 
What's the point of this article? Only 2 items have been announced. Just wait a few days, who are you, who are you, a simracer that can't wait for new stuff?:roflmao::roflmao:
"What's the point of this article?" Many, and at the same time, none at all.

"who are you" Nobody, and at the same time, a fella who loves simracing.

"who are you, a simracer that can't wait for new stuff?" Oh I can wait, but at the same time I don't have to, because of the RC build being currently available, as stated in the article, there's even an explaination of how to opt into it in the video, so I guess if you were looking for a point, I guess the point is you can opt in now and try it out for yourself, which also gives you the opportunity to report back any problems you find with it to S397 to help them iron them out before the full release (also explained in the video), which in turn helps us all out, does that make sense ol mate?

P.S. I like old Vauxhalls to!;)
 
It's not only expensive DLC'S they are broken too.My oh my great sim,well made.:whistling:
Granted the mini is about £1 more expensive than a Raceroom Car & Granted the gearbox does not work as it should, but as I stated in an earlier post I'm sure it will be fixed as there are other H-Pattern shift cars in the sim that don't have this problem.

But going back to the price of the car, what do you get for your extra pound over a car for raceroom? A car that exists in DX11, in a sim that has working tracktemperatures, rubber build up (and not pre-programed either, the rubber builds up where the actual cars have actually driven, not only that, now the rubbered in line becomes more slippery in the wet!) day to night transitions and weather! All of this driven on fully laser scanned tracks!

So all in all a much more complex car in a much more complex sim, so the extra pound makes sense to me. Not that there's anything wrong with Raceroom, it does'nt have all those features but does very well at what it does have, just cheaper. Both sims are a heck of alot cheaper than iracing, thats for sure!

Oh and the Caterham, they gave us that for free!

Then there's the mods in the steam workshop, tonnes of them, some of them by some of the best mod teams out there at DLC quality, and even laser scanned tracks. There's you're value for money!:)
 
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After a few weeks of research I decided to give rF2 a go yesterday. I was mainly interested in the LMP/GTE, BTCC classes and the LFM integration. I found the regular pricing for the dlc a bit on the high side, but took advantage of the current Halloween sale. The dlc outlay is comparable to the other sims I have such as ACC, AMS and Raceroom, but they seem to offer more in terms of value.

I spent a few hours getting set up (setting up my wheel/pedals was a little fiddly) and practicing with different cars and I was impressed with the driving experience most of all. Graphics-wise rF2 sits between Raceroom and AMS2 (in my opinion). I found the UI to be pretty good, but not as accessible as more recent sims.

Overall I’m happy I took the plunge with rF2
So glad you are enjoying it! Its certainly one of the more fiddly sims, but the latest UI is so much more user friendly now. The driving experience is fantastic, definately the best thing about the sim! The inclusion of Rfactor 2 into LFM is absoloutely fantastic! I've been on their servers racing BTCC and they are packed! There's even practice servers with no race or sign up and they are packed all day long, its amazing, breathed alot of new life into the old sim!

On the graphics front, one of the things I love about its graphics is the definition of the lines, all the edges are so crisp, compared to ACC its night and day in that department (ACC of course shines graphically in other places). The wet weather graphics are also some of the best i've seen! Here's an example:
 
its still broken... its gearbox is manual but you have to treat it like a SEQ.. ie: you cannot gear from 4th to 2nd.. you have to go through 3rd.. 4th>>3rd>>2nd.
(irrespective of rpm etc.)

Other than that its a fun car

The BTCC with new AI fixes makes for some nice door to door action.
Have you tried the BTCC LFM servers? They're packed!
 
shame literally all of rf2's worth while content is jammed behind expensive dlc, the default content is garbage
Less expensive than iracing still though, and you get weather! I will say though I do wish it had a system that let you buy cars and race them against other cars you don't own, that would be a game changer both for the devs and the customers I think.

On default content (or free through steam workshop), yes some of the older stuff is dated, especially the original ISI stuff. But there is also some really great, top notch free official content from S397, including tracks and cars! These for example:








And lets not forget the fact that RF2 is a sandbox sim! You can buy the base sim cheaper than quite a few sims, buy no extra DLC at all, and populate it with some of the best mod cars i've ever seen (if you find the right ones). Also there are so many modded tracks you could probably find anything, and some of them are laser scanned!

You could buy Rfactor 2 for just above "25 and have more cars and track combo's than you could ever drive! Thats the value for money side of things!
 
its still broken... its gearbox is manual but you have to treat it like a SEQ.. ie: you cannot gear from 4th to 2nd.. you have to go through 3rd.. 4th>>3rd>>2nd.
(irrespective of rpm etc.)

Other than that its a fun car

The BTCC with new AI fixes makes for some nice door to door action.
That is not true,im making a VW GOLF MK1,it as a manual 6 speed gearbox,i can go from 4 to 2,from 6 to 1 etc etc,using a H patern shifter.
 
That is not true,im making a VW GOLF MK1,it as a manual 6 speed gearbox,i can go from 4 to 2,from 6 to 1 etc etc,using a H patern shifter.
It is true for the Mini and the Caterham, but I know it can be fixed as other official S397 H-Pattern cars can skip shift, as well as mods like Tommys DTM and as you say, your Golf. So im sure they can sort it!
 
Premium
And even with that great discount, on my country a single RF2 pack is a lot more expensive than a full AMS2 season pass :-(

With all this LFM buzz and AI improvements I tried the new beta build after a couple years without touching the game.

I was really impressed by the easy of use of the UI for a VR user, it's definitely a very good improvement on the QOL aspect of the game. Performance vs graphics quality in VR is really good too, better than I remember from two years ago. I don't want to write about the physics/FFB aspects because it always was great to me, those weren't the issues for me which led to not playing the title (bar some weird quirks from the tyre model)

On the announced AI fixes, I have to say that the annoying brake/accell while turning is tonned down significantly, but AI at 100% still is reckless and lack awareness, making impossible to race with the AI on powerfull open wheelers like the Formula ISI 2012. Racing slower cars against AI is a lot better tough.

I think S397 is on the right track with this update, LFM integration will boost player base which will lead to more optimizations, bug fixes and hopefully more features. Only thing I'm mad right now is the cost of the DLCs because I can only drive the base content, and they are not much inspiring sadly.

I'm happy to see improvements on this very good title.
Are you using the tweaks on the player.json file published in the Studio 397 Forum?
(under Third Party Content / TrackAIWs - first page)
These are still very much relevant, being that you must first run at least 45min of practice for the AI to learn the track/car combo and then run Quali, so the AI is distributed in the grip according to their skill.
 
Premium
I like RF2, have always kept it up to date and up to a point I was buying the DLC.. But I am a multiplayer racer so I still do everything in iracing.

Its interesting with LFM, that announcement made me want to have another look but you essentially have to buy 100% of content to race online. Want to take that gt3 you do own on a multicalss race with LFM - sure after you buy every single piece of gt3, gte, lmp content.

If they had something like LFM years ago I may have done that over time like I buy iracing content over time but there is very little chance I am going to buy all that content to run one thing.

Yes, I know the resaons, they are technical.. That why techies are not in charge of product development. They make cool products but dont think about the end user as they should.
There is always a series running free content (in this case, the Alpine mod on free official or mod tracks).
Then you have BTCC, which obviously implies the purchase of the DLC and the SCC series, with the Oreca and the GTE cars, which can all be bought on the Endurance Pack, currently at 50% discount (@ €21,00 for 2 LMP2, 2 LMP3 and 6 GTEs).
As the SCC series is run in many different tracks, there will be weeks in which your will won't need a DLC track to race. First week was Road America 2019 (workshop) and currently São Paulo (free base content - which to be honest really needs an update).
This coming week is Spa, so DLC track.
 

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