Assetto Corsa Competizione: Sizeable Rewrite Underway - New Hotfix Released

Paul Jeffrey

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ACC Hotfix.jpg

Kunos Simulazioni look likely to be busy in the months ahead, having already released 'build five' of the sim and a new hotfix today, the team have confirmed a sizeable rewriting is underway.


When I say rewriting, what I mean by that is Kunos are hard at work revisiting some of the code created for ACC so far, in an effort to maximise how the software will be developed going forward in order to bring new content and features to the simulation more quickly, and with greater ease than is possible at this moment in time.

Unfortunately for Kunos, that means a lot of work 'behind the scenes' will need to be undertaken to achieve this change in direction, a feat that the small Italian development team are in no way underestimating how time consuming and difficult that might be. With the simulation still at such an early stage of development, it is excellent to see Kunos are so dedicated to bringing about the best experience they can with this Unreal 4 game engine, and yet more evidence that the makers of netKar Pro and Assetto Corsa fully intend this new title to be their biggest and best creation to date.

The full Kunos statement:
Having a look at the 0.5 release patch notes, you will find that most changes are either new content or physics related. Regarding gameplay elements – including Multiplayer features – we decided to opt for a different path, which may need some explanation for non-developers.

While developing software, especially games, you constantly invent patterns and concepts. When we built the ACC gameplay during 2018, we aimed for a certain way to write the game logic, including everything from session handling, race timing, laptimes, penalties and so on. Our solution had some amazing feats and ways of working, but we also had to learn that one of the disadvantages was making the development of Multiplayer features not as efficient as we had wished for. You may have noticed that although we met our roadmap targets on time in terms of content and features, several things involving Multiplayer were late. This is not really unusual or surprising; moving a whole development team to a new engine and framework required us to learn about the new situation as the project evolved (but we didn't know where this would happen, obviously).

In December we faced the choice to either keep proceeding like that, adding as little changes as necessary to achieve a stable 1.0 Multiplayer, and then never to touch it again.

The alternative route is a rewrite of (a lot of) the code to switch to concepts that support our current needs and the things we learned. The disadvantage is obvious; we'd have to spend a lot of work to change ACC without – seemingly – adding gamplay related features and fixes for a certain amount of time, however, the gain is a much more stable environment, where we can keep adding features and also speed up future development.

I can tell it's unusual to go for a rewrite, but it expresses our approach and our plans to go on, even beyond ACC 1.0. Technically speaking, a few developers forked off the codebase and worked day and night to do the re-coding, with the goal of bringing those improvements to the main code as soon as possible. The new features on the list therefore are there, but not in this build, and we most probably will also bring them one after another even looking beyond the 1.0 release, since the development will continue to bring our audience the 2019 Season update, and more. ;)

Being myself also responsible for ACC Multiplayer development, I needed to slow down the work on the Rating System, but likely this re-work on some of the code that we use as a foundation will help the Rating System, too, to proceed even smoother.

As a bottom line: enjoy the new content, both the car and track (in my opinion) are fabulous, and see how ACC keeps developing in the future.

I'm writing this between Multiplayer tests (on the new code), we are on a very good way – but sadly we will not see this outside the test systems for the time being.


While the rewrite is a project that remains ongoing, Kunos are still working hard at the latest build of the software, and that can be further evidenced today by a very small new hotfix update for the recently released Emil Frey Jaguar G3, the car having come with a couple of issues (mainly around the audio), which has been addressed as part of the latest hotfix build, details below:

0.5.1 Changelog
  • Improved intake sound EQ (onboard view) for the Emil Frey Jaguar G3
  • Minor LOD tweaks on the Emil Frey Jaguar G3

Busy days, weeks and months are ahead at Kunos HQ!

Assetto Corsa Competizione is available on Steam Early Access now. Currently at build release 5 status.

To keep abreast of all the latest news and discussions from the world of Assetto Corsa Competizione then don't forget to check out our very own ACC sub forum here at RaceDepartment.

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Tires felt great to me in R1. Less great later. People complained about "delayed" feel so it became more responsive, precise and suggestive, more linear, which is perhaps what you relate to wooden feel ? Though wooden feel would break your FFB :D

Do you mean hysteresis at the very contact patch ? I don't think you can possibly feel hysteresis, you simply feel the grip which it produces with increasing grip as tread squeezes harder into irregularities of tarmac. You should feel tire flex and responsiveness.

The hysteresis (sponginess) occurs in 6 degrees, most of which you can feel in the contact patch. The difference between the axis of the wheel and the axis of the tire is the slip angle. This is never constant. As the tires squirm left and right you can feel the changes, feel the delta between the two angles changing. particularly when/as/if you change the steering angle. With stiff sidewalls and a big contact patch, this is something you sense more than you can measure. You can also feel the hysteresis in vertical movement (bumps) and, to a much lesser degree, torque (brake and engine). The Tatuus FA is the best car in AC to get acquainted with this sensation. It is almost absent in ACC (and was absent altogether in, for example, GPL).
 
Unfortunately, I have learned that it doesn't matter how many times you repeat this. Some people will just not get it, either by utter lack of wits, or by pure and simple stubborness.

I will keep repeating it nonetheless, because I'm also stubborn :)
Hmm. So you don't get the fact that this 'EA' was released based on a schedule that was disclosed. This 'EA' is now off target and clearly will no longer be met. Based on Kunos' last statement about the game it appears to be completely off the rails and will require many more months to complete. This was clear from the beginning? Really? I knew what I was getting? Really? So, the EA states ( all along) that the game will be released in stages, will require a huge re-write and will not follow the schedule we were told it would follow. We were all told this? Look, cut Kunos a break, I get it. But why act like this was the plan all along? Oh, I forgot. No matter what they do, it will be fine by everyone, because Kunos is involved. Right. I keep forgetting.
 
The hysteresis (sponginess) occurs in 6 degrees, most of which you can feel in the contact patch. The difference between the axis of the wheel and the axis of the tire is the slip angle. This is never constant. As the tires squirm left and right you can feel the changes, feel the delta between the two angles changing. particularly when/as/if you change the steering angle. With stiff sidewalls and a big contact patch, this is something you sense more than you can measure. You can also feel the hysteresis in vertical movement (bumps) and, to a much lesser degree, torque (brake and engine). The Tatuus FA is the best car in AC to get acquainted with this sensation. It is almost absent in ACC (and was absent altogether in, for example, GPL).

Interesting. I was considering hysteresis at macro level in the contact patch, not at the scale of whole tire construction. The deformation which occurs due slip angle probably is mostly depending on tire carcass not that much on rubber. I don't know where you take the thing about 6degrees from, while the slip curve is at it's peak there I get it is strongest at that point, but I don't get how it occurs at that specific angle, maybe you mean the point where full contact patch starts sliding ? In that case it is about the grip.

Why do you say that slip angle is never constant ? I mean, you can possibly go through a curve maintaining rather constant slip angle, especially under the limit. The name "slip angle" is quite misleading itself, as it is not like tire contact patch is constantly sliding in an angle, but it is more like each "step" of it creates a torque, do you mean that ?

I understand what you talking about tires squirming left and right, though I associate it more with slip ratio, than with slip angle. I haven't experienced it yet in a curve, just in longitudinal motion, when you are running out of grip car sometimes starts "swimming" gently. But it is what most would describe as the "seat feel" I don't know if we can perceive it in a simulation without great motion rigs, maybe with visual hints. I have heard about "floating" feel some slicks has before they loose grip, I heard it is scary.

If you talk about stiff tire having big contact patch it has to be heavily loaded tire, perhaps you talk about load sensitivity ? In that case it is about the grip. Also as for front tires affecting the steering, I suppose it produces a bit of damping too, so many users complained about wheel being overdamped in first ACC release, I think it was great, at least with my wheel.

Gotta drive Tatuus as you called it now, it's been ages since I drove it, perhaps I'll understand better what you mean. Strange that you call GPL as example, FFB wheel was just about to get introduced that year. I never played GPL, but people say that it was difficult, so perhaps it was realistic :D
 
You do know that AC and ACC are one of the very very few sims that run the AI on the same physics the real drivers are? pcars, rfactor use simplified physics for AI and basically "match" their performance to the correct laptimes but they are just not bound to the same physical laws you, as a real driver, are.
That's why each AI car hits the CPU performance so heavily.
Do I prefer 60 AI cars I can properly race with, that might use a different physics system than me over 10 AIs that follow the same physical laws I have to but are still not better to race with?

Yes I do, same like you and a lot of people.
But it has a really good reason to be so heavy for performance, as it's in theory a lot more realistic :)
What's the point on having real physics if the AI drives like ****? Bad compromise IMO
 
Gotta drive Tatuus as you called it now, it's been ages since I drove it, perhaps I'll understand better what you mean. Strange that you call GPL as example, FFB wheel was just about to get introduced that year. I never played GPL, but people say that it was difficult, so perhaps it was realistic :D

Actually, it was the great Alison Hine (with me on the GPL beta team) who said Kaemmer's ;67 F1 cars felt like they were on "wooden tires" (which speaks to the tire model, not FFB).
 
Actually, it was the great Alison Hine (with me on the GPL beta team) who said Kaemmer's ;67 F1 cars felt like they were on "wooden tires" (which speaks to the tire model, not FFB).

Nice. I see she has a website :)

I suppose it couldn't have been possible to simulate tires properly with hardware of those times, so perhaps that fact didn't help. Also there must have been less knowledge 20 years ago. Even today we still barely understand them. Because they are so incredibly complex. Marcel from S397 has said that their tire calculations works at 2400Hz ! It is interesting how other simulators does that. Another interesting thing is how many points on a tire are calculated.
 
What's the point on having real physics if the AI drives like ****? Bad compromise IMO
Dunno why you "disagree" with my post as I state a fact and then mention that I have the same opinion like you:

"Do I prefer 60 AI cars I can properly race with, that might use a different physics system than me over 10 AIs that follow the same physical laws I have to but are still not better to race with?

Yes I do, same like you and a lot of people."

Imo it's indeed a bad compromise like you say. I just didn't trash talked about it like you...
 
This is either a troll comment or the commenter is intellectually challenged
Thanks for the dig and calling me retarded. But, as I've said before sim racers are the most hate-filled people I've ever come in contact with, both on sim racing tracks and especially in the forums. I would so hate to meet most of you in person. Such cruel, miserable folks most of you are.
 

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