Assetto Corsa Competizione Won't "Support" Modding

[Paul Jeffrey]

Kunos Simulazioni reveal more on the moddability of the upcoming Assetto Corsa Competizione, and it probably won't make for happy reading for some...

With a brand new game engine in the form of Unreal 4 alongside what is a reasonable short development timeframe until Early Access release, Kunos Simulazioni have confirmed that the new title will not follow in the footsteps of the original Assetto Corsa and support modding right from the very beginning, no doubt leaving many content creators disappointed to miss out on the opportunities afforded by the greatly improved graphics engine in ACC.

Although not officially supported, the possibility does remain however for talented community members to work out how to bring content to the game, as has been proven by some hardy souls over in the original Project CARS - it just means that tools and ease of access to modders will not the as it was in the first AC title.

Understandable given what Kunos have to go through to get the game to market later this year, but no doubt a blow to those players who enjoy sampling what the community have to offer. You can check out the full Kunos statement below, taken from a recent FAQ article on the 505Games website...

Assetto Corsa’s structure was designed from the beginning to be moddable. Being developed with UE4, AC Competizione processes data and assets through a completely different structure and file format. Therefore, the game will not be compatible with mod contents created for Assetto Corsa. Also, our team does not have enough experience with UE4 to tackle both the development a brand-new game and the challenges of supporting an open platform in the time frame available for this project.

We are fully aware of the importance of modding and its contribution to the success of Assetto Corsa. It’s a great way for new talents to emerge, for the community to “suggest” new directions and/or simply to make a product richer. It is not a coincidence that some of the best community members are now contributing with us to the evolution of the software.

However, for ACC this element will have to be put in stand-by mode for a series of reasons. The most important one is that we have given ourselves an enormous task of rebuilding, once again our software from (almost) scratch. In a world where pretty much, every product you see on the market in simracing is an evolution of games that have been on the market 10-15 years ago, our approach is to get a big axe and reset things to (almost) zero before starting with a new project. ACC is no exception.

In this case the task is rendered more complex by the fact that we are using, for the first time a third party engine that we did not design ourselves and the truth is, given the amount of time we have available to deliver ACC to the public, we have more than enough on our hands trying to figure out how to use the engine effectively to also think about how to make the platform moddable.

As you can imagine, this has been source of endless discussions in the last year and half as every decision comes with pros and cons, there is going to be pain no matter what your final call will be. It goes without saying that we believe we made the right call even if that means losing the huge benefits of a moddable platform.

We know this might not cover everything, but over time we will continue to answer your most frequently asked questions! Once again, we want to thank our community for the outpour of support you’ve shown us since our announcement last week. We absolutely cannot wait to tell you more about Assetto Corsa Competizione in the near future!

Assetto Corsa Competizione should be available on Steam Early Access Summer 2018.

Check out the Assetto Corsa Competizione here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussions regarding this exciting upcoming sim. We intend to host some quality League and Club Racing events as well as hosting some great community created mods (we hope!). Join in the discussion today.

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Do you think modders will find a way to mod ACC? Will the lack of official modding support hurt the game in the long run, or do you think it a sensible approach by Kunos given the new technology in use? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[vegaguy5555]

Wouldn't modability make cheating also easier? If aim is at eSports, lack of mods might be a good thing.

It creates a bit more pressure on Kunos though, because modders can't assist with features, like real head motion, crew chief, content manager, gbW, minorating, helicorsa, sidekick, SRS and RSR did. Most of those are a must-have for me in AC1.

Hopefully the camera movement is like Real Head Motion, and there is some kind of crew radio. Creating something as good as Crew Chief by Jim Britton would be an enormous task, so support for that would do (shared memory API)

Amount of cars and tracks in Blancpain is fine... but inbuilt features need to be better than AC. There is some promising news already with Leaderboards and online rating system confirmed.

I think you are right on the mark. Sounds like ACC is going to be much more cheat proof.

As far as help with moding. Kunos are hiring some of those guys. So ACC is looking to be a very polished sim.

 

[felippekiss]

in parts since surely kunos will do natively many of these apps already included, the multiplayer system we will have to wait and see what they will do

 

[justfdl]

I paid for every dlc and my base pre 1.0 game wasnt as cheap as g2a or even steam sells it for now.
so much bullshit... but hey sure go this way.. im not buying it again.

The expectations of some people are stunning to put it mildly. I bought AC the first day in EA, I bought every DLC the day it came out, and still this is one of the cheapest games I paid for ever. Because I have over 1500hrs and counting, taking that in consideration the price I paid is nothing.

Do you go to the movies? How much do you pay, take this in relation to the time you're entertained, and you're never going to go with an attitude like that.

I for one will get ACC the day it's released in EA, and if there's any DLC offered I will get that, too, because I know I will get my time out of this game.

 

[nikkk78]

open the package ... the sdk and editor tools are missing...

 

[Isaac Chavira]

It's still in 'Alpha'. But if they don't do this, it will peeter out very soon. Even if they do a yearly release. iRacing allows skins still. We can always go back there.

 

[Neilski]

open the package ... the sdk and editor tools are missing...

What "package" do you mean?

 

[Marocco2]

What "package" do you mean?

upak file. 3.8GB inside ACC folder

 

[Neilski]

upak file. 3.8GB inside ACC folder

Yeah, that was my suspicion. That's an encrypted game file, as far as I'm aware, so we don't welcome people posting the contents on this forum. I welcome your reply @nikkk78.

 

[Marocco2]

Yeah, that was my suspicion. That's an encrypted game file, as far as I'm aware, so we don't welcome people posting the contents on this forum. I welcome your reply @nikkk78.

it's a screenshot

 

[nikkk78]

Yeah, that was my suspicion. That's an encrypted game file, as far as I'm aware, so we don't welcome people posting the contents on this forum. I welcome your reply @nikkk78.

I did not publish anything..., just a screen to show the pack contents....
If we want to start Mod discussing for ACC game... it is necessary to start from here...
do you have alternatives? Kunos not from editor, sdk or tools!!
what are we talking about in this thread? Mod ACC or?

 

[Neilski]

I did not publish anything..., just a screen to show the pack contents....
If we want to start Mod discussing for ACC game... it is necessary to start from here...
do you have alternatives? Kunos not from editor, sdk or tools!!
what are we talking about in this thread? Mod ACC or?

Thanks for the reply. I didn't reckon that even a screenshot was OK but I'm currently checking with the other staff to see if I've misunderstood our approach

 

[Marocco2]

I did not publish anything..., just a screen to show the pack contents....
If we want to start Mod discussing for ACC game... it is necessary to start from here...
do you have alternatives? Kunos not from editor, sdk or tools!!
what are we talking about in this thread? Mod ACC or?

Ping Pong

 

[EdgeOfControl]

nikkk78, how did you open the pak file? mine keeps telling me its encrypted

 

[DriveClubMaster]

Well from what i have gathered is that they are saying that it wont be moddable from the start because they are still figuring out new game engine which could mean once the game is finished than they can look into how to make it moddable.

 

[CC]

Since day 1 we have been able to unpack the pak and messing around unpack the entire game itself into folders, but its not possible to change any scripts or audio files themselves,
with some effort I could change the 3D models of the cars but again to me its of no use with no physics or audio support in which is encrypted by god, its useless,
but skins is possible among other textures and settings
but all the cars and tracks have been available just locked inside the .paks.

 

[CC]

open the package ... the sdk and editor tools are missing...

There is no SDK and editor tools here for this game its all packed using UE4, everything,
it saves the .pak files and encrypts the data/scripts and FMOD files does its own thing,
but you no chance of getting full mod support from this game just models and textures,
not worth my time anyways

 

[CC]

Why people are not taking full advantage of these methods and tools is mind blowing,
I mean there is quite a few tools and ways and methods to get stuck into this game and mod the back out of it,
anyways ill leave this here.
https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/ride-3-modding-tools.24888/

 

[CC]

Yeah, that was my suspicion. That's an encrypted game file, as far as I'm aware, so we don't welcome people posting the contents on this forum. I welcome your reply @nikkk78.

All UE4 games are encrypted, Kunos said they are not blocking modding this game at all,
there statement was if you are clever enough to mod the game go for it,
but its complex to say the least, but not banned.

 

[Isaac Chavira]

I just want to make my own livery like in iRacing. Official plates and sponsor decals but we can make the livery.

 

[nikkk78]

Why people are not taking full advantage of these methods and tools is mind blowing,
I mean there is quite a few tools and ways and methods to get stuck into this game and mod the back out of it,
anyways ill leave this here.
https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/ride-3-modding-tools.24888/

this method works for the substitution of liveries or textures .... but.... the creation of complete mod whith sound, physics and animations ... is much more more complex ....
Probably when will be created tutorial step by step .. maybe users will start to develop new content ..
it is clear that ACC did not get the success of the predecessor AB ... even though almost everyone buy it ... kunos should reflect ..