AMS 2 | Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit Headlines New Content Additions In Latest Update

[Paul Jeffrey]

Reiza Studios today deployed a brand new update to their Early Access Automobilista 2 racing simulation - adding new content, improved netcode and a raft of fundamental improvements to the title.

Update time! Yes, Friday, the start of the weekend, for most of us two days to rest and relax and more importantly - Automobilista 2 early access update time!

In this new build from Reiza Studios, the developing AMS2 simulation enjoys quite the array of changes and improvements, not least of which is some gratefully received netcode advancements for those with an online fancying, and AI balancing tweaks to be enjoyed by those that like their racing thrills against computer controlled opponents.

In content news, the latest build adds the impressive modern layout of Kyalami, plus the P2 specification Sigma P1 (with the updated 2020 P1 variant expected to arrive in sim once the real world version races on track). In old school content news, today's build adds the Passat to the Copa Classic FL category - however this car is know to cause a CTD at present, an issue that Reiza are currently investigating and expect to hotfix in the very near future.

Quick note - This is the last weekend to buy Automobilista 2 with the current 40% discount over its v1.0 price - as we have crossed the halfway point in our Early Access roadmap, by Monday pricing will be adjusted accordingly to be 20% off its v1.0 full price, remaining that way until its official release.

V0.9.0.1 CHANGELOG:

CONTENT

• Added Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit
• Added Sigma P1 to P2 Class
• Added Passat to Copa Classic FL Class

GENERAL

• Update App Key used in Live Motion SDK

NETCODE

• Reduced Fade Accel parameter to minimise chances of "ghost" car-to-car collisions in a Multiplayer Session

UI & HUD

• Fixed back button on TimeTrial screen
• Amended all brake bias labels to include F / R qualifier and all values to include front and rear.
• Fixed telemetry HUD screen anchors (affects ultrawide positioning)
• Fixed in-game menu anchors on various pages (audio, camera, controls & gameplay options screens, save/load setup, quick/full setup edit screens, VR)
• Added Track Altitude information to loading screen
• Added current time of day to Session Overview / Pause screens
• Added Imola 1972 & Modern trackmaps
• Added Stock Car Driver names
• Updated missing tire names for Caterhams, F-Ultimate, Copa Classics
• Added chat box to lobby page, multiplayer & pre-event screens
• Fixed bug with incorrect engine torque statistic in vehicle selection & loading screen due to reversed metric / empiric system conversion
• Adjusted naming for various Metalmoro MRX models
• Fixed track country label on lobby page
• Added exit confirmation to pre-event screen
• Coodown lap now defaults to manual player control

PHYSICS

• Standardized ranges, adjusted drag & lift increments per setting for cars with adjustable radiator & brake ducts
• Adjusted brake heating for all prototypes & GT cars
• Minor adjustments to Ultima Race, StockV8, F-Vintage tyre treads
• Reduced roll inertia for StockV8, SuperV8, Ultima Race, Ultima
• Slightly reduced grip off the ideal racing line
• Reduced Metalmoro AJR diffuser efficiency
• Adjusted StockV8 diffuser center of pressure slightly rearwards
• Adjusted Roco, MRX, ARC Camaro engine torque curves
• Moved default brake bias rearwards for Sprint Race, StockV8, Ultima Race

AI

• Slightly increased AI awareness of human players
• AI performance tuning for GT3, StockV8, P1, P2, P3, P4, Ultima Race, Sprint Race, F3, F-Vintage classes

TRACKS

• Spielberg: fixed hole in garage floor; replaced incorrect pit building walls & pit doors; remapped garage and pit stall locations; removed excess grid assignments (32 cars supported); rebuilt triggers.
• Brands Hatch. Fixed bug with cars appearing to float over the track; adjusted rolling start location; revised track limits; fixed garage door collision

VEHICLES

• AJR: Adjusted Driver Animation; Added Imperio #175 & Mottin Racing 46 liveries
• MRX: Corrected RPM LEDs for all variants
• Ultima Race: Adjusted collision mesh
• Puma P052: New liveries/updates/redesign for #01 #02 #04 #06 #07 #08 #10 #11 #12 #13 #19 #42 #53 #54 #69; Added community skins #17 #91

Original Source: Reiza Studios

AMS 2 is available now in Steam Early Access.

If you need help and support getting the most from AMS2, start a thread in our AMS2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment and let our great community help you out.

 

[ermo]

Out of curiosity, what does “% wheel spin” mean? Percent of what? I only ask because it doesn’t sound like a terribly realistic way for TC to be implemented in real life. You’d need another wheel on the car with perfect traction to measure true road speed. That would be the only way you could judge how much faster the drive wheels were spinning compared to what they “should” be spinning at. Either that or you'd have to compare current wheel rotation rate against road speed from the past fraction of a second.

FWIW I just went out for a quick test in the F-V10 with TC set to 25% and it felt pretty much like TC wasn’t present at tall. I didn’t try any other values before popping back here to post this though. I can confirm my Driving Assists Allowed=Authentic in gameplay settings, BTW.

EDIT: See my response below.

Think of it as "% allowed wheelspin before TC kicks in". "Wheelspin in %" refers to the longitudinal slip ratio in the vehicle dynamics engineering literature. 5% = slip ratio of 0.05.

All wheels on modern cars have sensors that measure position of the wheel (typically via a ring mounted to the wheel-bearing that has lands and grooves that affects the magnetic field within a sensor) with respect to time (those who know calculus and dynamics will understand that if you know position in time, you can also derive velocity and acceleration).

These signals (along with G-sensor signals, ride height, steering angle, engine speed, engine load, throttle opening, temperature etc.) get fed into a Electronic Control Unit. This unit looks at the range of signals and if it is a RWD car and the ECU can calculate that the car isn't sliding from either acceleration, cornering or braking, the ECU can use the average of the front wheel speeds to estimate 0% slip (= true speed from rolling motion alone).

If the driver presses the go-fast-pedal and the rear wheels start spinning faster than the front wheels and the G-sensors detect acceleration, the ECU can estimate the rear-wheel slip percentage (slip ratio) and then adjust spark timing, throttle opening and brake actuation to help avoid more wheel slip % than the ECU was asked to maintain. This (and more) is essentially what ESC does on modern cars.

Could the label be better? I guess. But it is absolutely correct per the vehicle dynamics literature in what it describes already.

As an aside, establishing credible values for a car's dynamic properties is a remarkably complicated endeavour in real life and requires quite sophisticated hardware and software techniques as I understand it. Sims have it easier because they already have a solver running for the cars -- in real life, mother nature is the solver and we only get to observe it from the outside.

 

[RichardHessels]

despite Reiza being completely new to the Madness Engine?

It's not so new for Reiza, Madness engine is an upgraded G-motor engine, with better graphics abilities strapped on top.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

The guys saying "FFB should have no options" understand that no matter how many sliders the game has you can keep everything at default and just mess with gain right?

Raceroom might be too much but ACC with min force, dampening and road noise is pretty cool, i like to have tools.

In real life race cars power steering effect can be adjusted too btw.

 

[Óscar Melero]

I reallly hope AMS2 gets as optimized as PC2.
For me (GTX1060) right now, AMS2 on Medium settings behaves the same as PC2 on Ultra settings. 35-40 FPS. (P1's, Imola, Thunderstorm)

 

[MarcG]

What do real life drivers do? They tinker with setups to achieve what they want.
What do real life race engineers do? They tinker with cars to achieve what they want.
Why do Sim Racers do? They tinker with FFB to achieve what they want.

Those who want the bare minimum in Options have the bare minimum, those who want to tweak the hidden files have the ability to do so. There is no right or wrong way, there's is only the way you choose.

 

[David Wright]

I reallly hope AMS2 gets as optimized as PC2.
For me (GTX1060) right now, AMS2 on Medium settings behaves the same as PC2 on Ultra settings. 35-40 FPS. (P1's, Imola, Thunderstorm)

It does seem to depend on hardware. Like you I find I get better fps in PC2 than AMS2 (about 20% better), but others report the opposite. FWIW I'm on a GTX960.

 

[sssweat]

I bought ams 2 a few weeks ago but I finally launched it this weekend for the first time. I am an iracing driver, this is basically the only game I play.
But I liked ams2. Graphics are fine, wish we had that grass in iracing for instance. Sun light is well done too, a bit better then iracing.
Ffb was set on old default, I saw here I should set it on new default so will change it next time. It was a bit heavy for my taste and moves a lot.
I drove the sprint car and really liked it. It just felt weird at each turn exit to lose a bit the rear, always the same angle it seems. Controllable easily but each acceleration there is almost 5 tenths where the rear lose grip and then it's full throttle full grip. I'm not a real life driver so I can't really say but I would expect more grip or more drift, but not that 5 tenths slidding at high angle.

One thing I really liked was the rain. Every session had rain, graphically this is nice but wipers do not seem to work on sprint cars even if the water doesn't disturb on the windshield lol. It magically disappears? Lights don't work too it seems, I wanted to turn them on in the storm but they couldn't. Another thing I noticed is the track becomes dry from storm to clear way too fast I think. On another side, this is clearly not the most realistic change of weather so it could be just that lol. I also would like to ba able to know which weather is expected for the session, at least a rough estimation of future weather.

 

[David Wright]

One thing I really liked was the rain. Every session had rain, graphically this is nice but wipers do not seem to work on sprint cars even if the water doesn't disturb on the windshield lol. It magically disappears? Lights don't work too it seems, I wanted to turn them on in the storm but they couldn't. Another thing I noticed is the track becomes dry from storm to clear way too fast I think. On another side, this is clearly not the most realistic change of weather so it could be just that lol. I also would like to ba able to know which weather is expected for the session, at least a rough estimation of future weather.

Yes wipers not working is a known issue. Not all cars have headlights - some even have "fake" headlights like NASCAR so it depends which car you drive.

The most realistic weather progression comes when you set this to Real Time. By default it uses Sync to Race. Real time weather is based around two kinds of weather in the space of an hour. You define the weather at the start of the hour and at the end, and the game does the transition at a random point during the hour. If you use Sync to Race for a short race, or accelerated weather (x2, x4 etc) this increases both the wetness of the track and the subsequent rate of drying and so its not realistic. Basically if you want realistic weather for short races you can only have one kind of weather. If you want to experience realistic weather changes during the race you need to do a race of 1 hour or longer.

I don't understand why you don't know what weather is expected in a session. The game lets you choose, unless you opt for random weather.

 

[Neils on Wheels]

Exactly, who else better than the dev of the sim are in a better position to set it the way it is supposed to be.
The self appointed experts? No they are not.
A gain slider is all I want and need. The developers should take the time to set each car the way it is suppose to behave and all we should need to do is enjoy the result without any worries or concern. Leaving the adjustments to the user is admitting that their is no right or wrong, make it whatever feels right to you. We might as well adjust our own physic while we are at it.

Yeah cause people appoint themselves as experts when they move sliders around in the options.
Personally i think that label would be more apt for those that dictate to others what ffb should be https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/my-t300-ffb-settings.165919/

 

[sssweat]

Yes we can choose the weather but then you have to remember it or else, it seems it's not written anywhere

For the weather, I understand what you say but if it rained 3 minutes before, I don't expect the line to be dry so quickly. Why is the rate of drying linked to the speed of weather? It should be only based on cars passing by, no?

For the lights yeah maybe the sprint car doesn't have any, I didn't check but it's a possibility

 

[DaVeX↯]

Sprint cars doesn't have lights.
Wipers are still WIP.
Drying speed is in sync with weather change speed (specially if weather is synch with race length) because the track temps change accordingly with the weather transitions.

Before switching to new FFB profile backup/delete your Automobilista 2 folder inside the Documents folder and start the game in order to create a new profile and avoid FFB issues.

 

[BrunoBæ]

Read this somewhere and it works for me. No more sudden brake lock up (If that's the problem).
1. Calibrate your pedals. Don't just press the pedal all the way, press them until 100% and stop.
2. Set brake sensitivity to 50. I used to set it to 20 to reduce brake lock up.

Can anybody confirm if it change anything if you do NOT press the brake further after reaching 100 in calibration?
I have some difficulty with the brake precicion on my handcontrolled wheel - and tried this suggestion.
But I dont feel it changes anything.

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: Intuitively I feel it should be the other way around. Because if you in the calibration is able to move the brake lever/pedal a little further after reaching 100 then the braking out on track should be a little less than 100 - if you dont press too hard. OK?

 

[Case_]

Personally i think that label would be more apt for those that dictate to others what ffb should be https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/my-t300-ffb-settings.165919/

Dictate! LOL. Yes, by making a thread about what my FFB settings are and talking about how I believe FFB should be roughly set up correctly, I *dictate* to others what they should be using.

FFS...

 

[Neils on Wheels]

Dictate! LOL. Yes, by making a thread about what my FFB settings are and talking about how I believe FFB should be roughly set up correctly, I *dictate* to others what they should be using.

FFS...

Bit of a contradiction to your stance on here is it not? On the one hand you think you don't need options for ffb & yet you clearly use them way beyond default settings.

 

[David Wright]

Yes we can choose the weather but then you have to remember it or else, it seems it's not written anywhere

The current weather is there but yes, the future weather is not displayed.

For the weather, I understand what you say but if it rained 3 minutes before, I don't expect the line to be dry so quickly. Why is the rate of drying linked to the speed of weather? It should be only based on cars passing by, no?

It rained yesterday. My drive got wet. It dried out without any cars passing by

 

[Case_]

I don't see any contradictions between me saying "make a solid FFB (like in AMS1) and stand by it" and me using sliders in a random game to make tweaks to its FFB, no.

AMS1 has a solid FFB and stands by it. rF2 has a more or less solid FFB and stands by it (but it has often awful gain defaults - especially when it comes to many mods - that also reset with every car update). ACC has a more or less solid FFB and mostly stands by it. iRacing has a more or less solid FFB and stands by it. Even Raceroom has done a lot to make its default FFB solid lately (which was badly needed).

And yet, FFB in each of those games feels different, and communicates some things better and some worse than the others (for various reasons). And that's absolutely OK. It might not fit my subjective expectations, but it's solidly made and the game stands by it.

If you really feel the need to, then by all means, throw in some sliders for people to somewhat tweak the subjective part of the FFB to their personal preference, within reasonable limits. I don't think it should be essential (again, look at AMS1 or rF2), but whatever. But a way for people to fundamentally change the games FFB should not be needed, nor should it be encouraged by the devs by literally making an option for it in the game menus.

 

[Damage Inc]

Ill start with that Reiza is my Favorite developer & AMS 1 is probably my favorite ffb & Physics of any sim i use.
Now to the point idk where all the praise is coming from in terms of physics/ffb But i hope to god reiza doesn't listen to them. if there old PC2 users then it would feel like a large improvement. Or maybe they never drove the original AMS to get what the cars could/should feel like. I will remain optimistic & continue to Support Reiza. But at the current EA state it just doesn't feel very natural & i'm getting alot of the pc2 arcade feelings in physics & FFB.
I know they will keep developing it & hopefully things will get ironed out. Just in the current state compared with AMS 1 the only thing that seems better is graphics, while the driving seems to be downgraded in almost every aspect.
Hopefully no one gets too offended by this, as I'm not someone who usually makes complaints or negative post. I generally don't say anything even if i have complaints, I honestly just want AMS2 to be the best Sim possible.

So PC2 is no longer even simcade but arcade now? You know when I play Outrun and Ridge racer I see the similarities......not. PC2 is a sim, whether accurate or not in some or many (depending on who's opinion) areas. Inaccuracy does not make it arcade.

 

[sssweat]

It rained yesterday. My drive got wet. It dried out without any cars passing by

You know what I meant lol, it didn't dry in a few minutes I guess ;-)

 

[Farrow_21]

So PC2 is no longer even simcade but arcade now? You know when I play Outrun and Ridge racer I see the similarities......not. PC2 is a sim, whether accurate or not in some or many (depending on who's opinion) areas. Inaccuracy does not make it arcade.

Sure Don't get hung up on the exact word. Replace it with simcade Either one works to describe it feeling Unnatural.

 

[BillGuy]

You know how you can mildly cringe or jokingly “die a little” when you hear people speak “backslash” in a URL? Being American, that’s how I feel every time I see someone call the Sprint Race series in AMS 2 “Sprint cars.”

I absolutely don’t hold it against anyone in any capacity. I just find it amusing how ingrained motorsports is in me from my youth that this trivial bit of phrasing triggers a logic prod in my brain.