Automobilista 2 | December Development Roadmap Released

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Reiza Studios have released the final development roadmap posting of 2020 for Automobilista 2, once again giving us an interesting peak behind the curtain of development back at Reiza HQ.
  • GT1 content arriving this year.
  • Street tyre physics revised.
  • Spa-Francorchamps confirmed - includes historic layouts.

Roadmap time for the various sim racing games across the spectrum of virtual racing - and today is the turn of Reiza Studios and the AMS 2 title - with plenty of exciting news about updates and content revealed by the popular Brazilian development team....


The development roadmap posting in full:

Greetings everyone - here we are again for our last AMS2 Dev Update of the year!

As mentioned in our previous catch-up earlier this month, we have been working hard to deliver a quite substantial update for AMS2 in our 2020 wrap-up - the whole team has in fact been at it through the Holiday season so far in order to tick as many boxes as we´re able in this update, and we are now in process of rounding it up for release at some point before New Year´s eve.

To ease the suspense, we decided to bring this Dev Update forward a bit in order to give you all a glimpse into what you may expect for this final AMS2 update of 2020 - hope you enjoy it!

Back to the 90's with GT1 cars
AMS 2 Roadmap 1.JPG


On the content front, the highlight of the new update is the adittion of the 90s GT1 Series, with 3 iconic models (Mercedes CLK LM, Porsche 911 GT1 & Mclaren F1 GTR LT) arriving for AMS2 to bring what many believe to be one of the golden eras in sports car racing back to life!

These late 90s GT1 cars are some of the most exciting race cars ever - we felt very strongly about having them in AMS2 and getting their essence properly represented, and feedback in Beta testing so far seem to suggest we´re on the right track to achieve that.

The GT1s should probably be the highlight of this release but it´s not all - the update will also feature the legendary Mclaren F1 LM - the special edition of the already iconic supercar following its success at Le Mans. With 671 hp, the F1 LM is a mighty machine and to this day the ultimate enbodiment of what a Supercar should be.

AMS 2 Roadmap 2.jpg


s the tyre slogan goes, power is nothing without control and that certainly applies to the enjoyment of powerful sim racing cars as well - with that in mind we have thoroughly revised our street tyre physics in order to make the experience of driving a Mclaren F1 properly challenging, without being frustrating - these changes likewise benefit the Ultima GTR and Camaro SS with which the F1 will share the Street Cars category in the game.

The update in fact features a pretty substantial physics revamp, with all cars receiving updates to an extent or another, so you may want to revisit some of the oldies too!

Spa-Francorchamps Arriving for Automobilista 2!

The physics developments are obviously great value, and it´s in the most challenging corners that they become most noticeable - all the better then that this update will be the one to feature a track with no shortage of such corners, the epic Spa-Francorchamps!

AMS 2 Roadmap 3.png

The circuit originally made out of 14km of public roads linking various charming pictoresque villages deep into the Belgian countryside was eventually shortened to its current 7k, but retained much of its flair. Over the past few decades, Spa has become the quintessential race track on the international motorsports scene and arguably the overall favorite for both real and virtual racers alike. It´s only fitting then that possibly our most significant AMS2 update will also be the one to see its arrival to the sim.

The track team is still working hard as they have been all year in order to complete the track in its full glory - it is already in great shape but we wanted to cover some more ground on the art front before producing preview screenies, unfortunately none quite made it in time for this dev update.

We will indeed be running out the clock this month in order to get the track ready for release, and at this point it´s still possible we will opt to release the game update first, with the track coming a few days later - in any case you may expect our track team to continue to pour extra details into it in the days following its release, as they have in other recent releases.

Also worth reminding that even though the Spa DLC and the packs that include them will also see historical variants added to the pack at no extra cost, this initial release will only feature the Modern track as it is today - the 1991 layout should follow by February, with the 1970s 14km version coming later on in 2021.

AMS2 DLC Policy Moving Forward

The release of Spa will be another major milestone on the big plans we have mapped out for AMS2, many of which yet to come to surface. We love what we do and feel privileged to be able to do it, so we always strive to make our work as accessible as we are able to those who share our passion - even though these are already relatively inexpensive products, we do realise that these are specially tough times and that sometimes even small amounts of disposable income can be in short supply.

At the same time, AMS2 does feature many premium cars and tracks now which are quite costly to license and produce - sometimes releasing them as DLCs are the only viable way for us to offer them, and that will be increasingly the case as we go into 2021 and the arrivals of some major Expansion Packs.

Looking to best concile that reality with our wish to keep AMS2 as accessible as we can manage, we are opting to leave DLC tracks available for all users when running single player championships that feature those tracks. We are also evaluating a way to make DLC tracks available for all users in multiplayer races when joining as a client (this however most likely won´t be implemented in time for this upcoming release).

DLC tracks will remain exclusively available for owners in other game modes, when creating a multiplayer session and eventually for users who wish to add them when creating custom single player championship seasons.

Please keep in mind this may change as things evolve over the course of AMS2 development, so if you enjoy the game and want to see it continue to grow don´t miss out on grabbing the DLCs if and when you have the chance, specially during the seasonal Steam sales as the one currently ongoing

Core Game Developments

That covers the content side of things, but the upcoming update features a lot more in core game developments - besides the aforementioned physics revisions, below are some of the other highlights to look forward to:

The User Interface has received a very nice cosmetic facelift and all background screens are now available in up to 4K resolution.

We have implemented some much-requested quality-of-life features such as options to customize camera position and FFB Gain per vehicle.

While there has been no further developments to the Camera System in this update, we have revised a lot of our content to address issues with track surfaces and / or car suspension when these were contributing to an excessive amount of oscillations in cockpit view; while it remains important to tune your camera options to your personal preferences and some track / car combos make for inherently bumpy rides, we expect issues on the content side of things to have been greatly minimised.

AI Development has continued to be one of our top priorities, with a lot of AI performance callibration passes in parallel to the ongoing physics revisions, along with some further AI behavior code developments. We are now looking into the AI behavior under blue flags to improve their ability navigating traffic in multiclass races, most improvements will probably only make it in for our next update late in January but some early developments may possibly arrive already on this release.

On the Multiplayer front, we have made some valuable adjustments to the netcode in order to improve reliability in close racing, with Multiplayer tests in AMS2 Beta so far seeming to confirm good gains have been made.

Championship Mode will receive a big boost with several new championships being included in the next update both for the real and fictional series included in the game.

The Custom Championship tool which had been planned as one of the highlights of this update unfortunately won´t quite make it in time for this release - even though the structure for users to create and configure their own championshp seasons is mostly in place, it still needs a few more weeks of work for all customization options to be supported and for the feature to be fully tested - thus we´re opting to keep working on it a bit longer to include it a more feature-complete version next month.

The Custom Livery system has received some further tweaks and a complete template package for all cars in the game will finally be available in time for the update deployment.

Last but not least, we have some very cool developments coming up to further boost the value of the superb Weather System in the Madness engine - the first of these featuring in our next update is a more accurate probability system when running Random weather in a session, which ensures weather variations are more realistic to the climate of the track´s location - this allows for setting up races with unenscripted weather, without the risk of running into unlikely weather variations.

AMS 2 Roadmap 4.jpg


This is the first of several interesting developments incoming on the weather system front in future updates - more to come!


So Long 2020 - Here We Go 2021!

This update will conclude the work done in the first year of AMS2´s dev cycle - 2020 has obviously proved a challenging year on many levels for many people in all walks of life, so we´re pretty relieved to have made it through and delivered on the majority of our plans for the year - we like to think the game has seen considerable progress made in all fronts since its release, and we´re very pleased with its overall status as of this upcoming update.

At the same time, we remain aware there is a lot of work still to do in order for AMS2 to fulfill its great potential and to make it attractive to a wider range of sim racers - we go into 2021 with that goal firmly in mind, and confident that by this time next year we´ll have moved considerably closer to it. This is still just the beginning!

An updated 2021 roadmap will have to wait a little longer as we have been fully consumed by the ongoing work on this next update, but we should have a lot of interesting news to share already by the end of next month - stay tuned!

AMS 2 Roadmap 5.jpg


For now, we´d like to thank everyone who have been along with us on this ride so far, and wish you all a very healthy and Happy New Year in 2021 - may it fulfill all its promises!



Original Source: Reiza Studios.

AMS2 questions? No worries, check out the AMS 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment - start a new thread and let the answers roll in!

AMS 2 Footer.jpg
 
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Do you guys think it's worth buying this game now? I only tested a version of this game like 8 months ago and although there were some cars that I really enjoyed driving (like the V10 F1 cars) but most of the cars felt horrible and neglected in terms of physics (like the Brazilian Stock Cars which were nothing like driving a dowforce car and it had a really strong Project CARS feel to it) Do the new GT3/GT4 etc... cars have better physics?

Personally, I would say it is definitely more than worth buying. It is still a work in progress but there is a ton of content (that you won't find elsewhere), more is being added constantly and it is constantly being improved. I can guarantee that Reiza will keep working hard on it for many years to come. Most of all, I think it's a lot of fun and my go-to Sim probably for some time to come.
 
The problem is that simracing is a niche that is already a bit saturated. So a driver has his sim, and on it he has his favorite cars, setups (and he worked on them for months, maybe years), leagues, friends, his favorite youtubers streaming it every week, and everything else. To leave it all behind for a new product is something difficult.

But I believe all racing games have its place on the market. AMS2 is progressing well and if the game reach a daily player base of 1000 people it will already be good enough. I've joined the multiplayer after the GT pack release, Steam Charts was showing 800 online on the game, and there was a good number of servers to join. I've created my own server - F309 at Interlagos -, quickly it got almost 20 drivers and we had a lot of fun on it.

So I think AMS2 has a promising future. I bought all the DLCs until now and I think making it free for everybody on multiplayer is a very good move. I just hope Reiza do a superb job on the rating system that will come in 2021. I believe It will be crucial to the game popularity in the future.
Maybe, but the fact is there's too many small companies producing mediocre content.
Consider what would happen if rf2,AMS, raceroom joined forces and built a huge game with quality graphics, sounds, physics, cars and tracks etc.

Instead we get small games that take years to develop due to small teams and budgets.

Goto the bank, get a proper loan, build a sizeable up to date game, make money...
 
If you're going to invest a lot of money you'll need the widest possible appeal to recoup costs, so rather than the ultimate "Sim" you'll get whatever gets the biggest sales. Codemasters is the closest you'll get to a big budget racing game studio (if you don't include GT Sony and Forza MS) and I'm guessing not everyone here is onboard with there approach to "simulation".

If it has the ultimate graphics a bunch of people will complain they can't run it, everyone has a different view of the best physics, people who like Formula cars won't be happy with licensing money being spent on tin tops etc etc.

I suppose now Codemasters belongs to EA we'll get the motor racing equivalent of Fifa Ultimate Team to spend our money on :)
 
Really looking forward to the updates. The GT1 and Group C cars are amazing. SPA is nice to have, but I would rather have Reiza focussing on niche content and bringing us more tracks from South America or lesser know tracks or perhaps US tracks. Keep it up. I am very happy with my season pass.
 
Maybe, but the fact is there's too many small companies producing mediocre content.
Consider what would happen if rf2,AMS, raceroom joined forces and built a huge game with quality graphics, sounds, physics, cars and tracks etc.

Instead we get small games that take years to develop due to small teams and budgets.

Goto the bank, get a proper loan, build a sizeable up to date game, make money...

...and lose diversity and competition (the latter often automatically means less quality in the long term).

I think quality of the sims are ok in general. You need the right people to get things sorted. One "supercompany" like you said were full of issues, starting with the question of the competences...no guarantee for better results.
 
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Maybe, but the fact is there's too many small companies producing mediocre content.
Consider what would happen if rf2,AMS, raceroom joined forces and built a huge game with quality graphics, sounds, physics, cars and tracks etc.

Instead we get small games that take years to develop due to small teams and budgets.

Goto the bank, get a proper loan, build a sizeable up to date game, make money...

I guess one of the main problems is that the face of content delivery has changed. I doubt anyone really wants to make the perfect sim. Then what? Nobody will spend any more money on it.

Raceroom drip feeds (usually high quality) content, Iracing is Iracing. Codemasters will always give you half a game and you buy the DLC. Project Cars to be fair to it was quite a decent deal in terms of what you got. AC was pretty poor to start with and Rfactor is a mess of small amounts of decent stuff, some decent mods (nowhere near as many as AC) and quite a lot of stuff that looks like it's from 2005. Reiza seems on par with Sector 3 and doing small amounts of decent stuff.

I do thank all those people in the modding scene for their AC work though. I don't think we'll never see the likes of GPL and GTL released again so their stuff is amazing.
 
Honestly I think Reiza is a great company. They are not afraid of being criticised and always open for suggestions, insights and all that. Their workrate is outstanding. Personally I think their FFB, AI, and selection of cars + tracks are among the best, and probably even THE best. Reiza's only issue I've with AMS 2 is what route they want to go. I mean what kind of vibe. AMS 1 was Brasil/UK/Lesser known tracks & cars, but whats AMS 2? Ah well. I play the sim daily and it's outstanding how it improves every (half a) month. Its an evergoing project till end of 2021 and hopefully more years to come. People still playing it in 2035, like Diablo 2: LoD is still being played today.
 

Tarmac Terrorist

Paul McCaffrey
Right you lot, i've kept a close eye on this thread because like many of you, im very excited about the new update, but it aint here yet.

So whilst waiting, i spent the entire day making this for you all, half way through it went wrong, and i lost everything, but then summit happened which made up for that and decided to finish it for you.

It was inspired by this thread, and a debate i've been having with Pete (you'll find out who he is, some of you probably know him) about AMS2, which has shared alot in common with some of the questions and arguments put forward in this thread.

Anyway, its taken me the whole fecking day so I hope you enjoy it whilst we wait for the update...

Oh and if you're not enjoying AMS2 or having problems with it, this might just give you some hope!

Happy New Year all!
 
2.6 gb big update just now

V1.0.6.2 -> V1.1.0.0 CHANGELOG

CONTENT

Cars:


  • Added GT1 Series (featuring Mercedes CLK LM, Porsche 911 GT1, Mclaren F1 GTR LT)
  • Added Mclaren F1 LM to Street Cars series
Tracks:

  • Added Spa Francorchamps 2020 *Part of Spa-Francorchamps DLC Pack
  • Added Ibarra Reverse layout

GENERAL

  • Introduced track specific weather probability system for more realistic random weather
  • Random weather condition is now preserved if session is reset
  • Disabled "Real Weather" option (until system implementation is complete)
  • Added option to customize FFB gain per car
  • Adjusted netcode parameters for more reliable close racing and more accurate timing predictions
  • Adjusted default cockpit camera settings
  • Increased cockpit seat position storing from 20 to 100 vehicles.
  • Added live edit messages for vertical and longitudinal cockpit seat position
  • Added F-Ultimate & F-Reiza championship seasons

UI & HUD

  • Added new main menu panel arts & backgrounds
  • Updated track loading screens & increased resolution to 4k
  • Added loading bar gradient & fixed position on ultrawide resolutions
  • Fixed monitor controls and back button positions on ultrawide resolutions
  • Update Control Assignments screens to include per vehicle FFB gain increase / decrease
  • VSync is now always enabled in Main Menu
  • Added tag (AI)/* to AI players in multiplayer
  • Added additional states to DRS HUD informing detection zone & availability
  • Vehicle default sorting reverted to alphabetical order
  • Corrected various vehicle naming inconsistencies
  • Fixed Velopark incorrect track grades

PHYSICS

  • Revised tyre physics for street cars, F-Vintage (both gens), F-Retro, F-Classic (all gens), F-V12, F-V10 (both gens), F-Reiza, F-Ultimate, Copa Classic, Hot Cars, Lancer Cup, Puma P052, M1 Procar, Group A, Opala 1986
  • Revised rain tyres for GT3, GT4, P1, P2, P3, P4, F-Retro, Procar, Group A, Opala 1986 Copa Classic, Hot Cars, Lancer cup, Puma P052
  • Revised Ultima GTR, F-Retro, F-Classic (all gens), F-V12, F-Ultimate & F-Reiza aerodynamics
  • Adjusted logic for pre-race tire & brake pre-warming & tire pressure conditions (slightly under peak conditions for more realism & avoid unnatural tire inflation)
  • Reduced default number of clutches for several cars & further reduced rate of differential locking per clutch
  • Further revised F-Retros, F-Ultimate & Ginetta G58 suspension rates
  • Further adjusted exhaust parameters for all cars (results in more accurate visual & audible backfiring / spluttering)
  • Reduced max height to account before front wing / splitter stall in several cars
  • GT3 Series: Added 15kg to Mclaren 720S, subtracted 10kg from Mercedes AMG GT3, added 10 HP to Porsche GT3-R for improved BoP
  • Further revisions of FFB max force to iron out potential peak force inconsistencies
  • Small adjustments to center of gravity height in Opalas, F-Retros, F-Ultimate
  • Reduced Ginetta G55 engine inertia
  • Futher reduced differential preload baseline settings
  • Disabled viscous differential in street cars
  • Adjusted default roll bars, ride height & differential settings for F-Classic (all gens), F-V12, F-V10 Gen1 & 2
  • Adjusted default Differential settings for F-Retro, Stock Car 2020
  • Adjusted F-Ultimate ERS to not kick in until 75% of throttle is applied

AI

  • Added preliminary new logic to improve AI overtaking lapped cars
  • Added new tolerance parameter for AI to not concede position to player until a given amount of the car length is alongside (prevents issue with AI cars appearing to be "scared" out of the way when approached from behind by player)
  • Slightly raised AI CoG height multiplier & adjusted AI damper rates to avoid cars bouncing at hard compression
  • AI callibration pass for all cars that received tyre physics and / or aero updates
  • Reduced range of lateral movement away from ideal line & rate of movement when taking urgent action
  • Created new AI paths for Nurburgring Nordschleife & 24h layouts (improved & more consistent performance)

AUDIO

  • Updated Sprint Race sounds
  • Adjusted tranny volume for GT3 cars to more balanced levels & more torque dependent; adjusted volume balancing; optimized number of samples used to minimise potential performance issues

TRACKS


  • Removed wave length in artificial road noise (slightly reduces car / camera vertical movement oscillations)
  • Temporarily removed animated Helicopters & planes until remaining functionality issues are addressed
  • Revised road mesh & reduced noise (high frequency bumps) for Curitiba, Kansai & Taruma
  • Updated Bathurst trackside camera
  • Velopark: Minor performance & art pass; updated AI with improved performanceUpdated Nurburgring 24h layout trackside cameras to reduce shimmering / trembling & added VR cams

VEHICLES

  • Added BMW M6 GT3 dirt / damage effects + dangling damaged parts + new colliders + detached diffuser
  • Gol Copa Classic: Fixed LOD errors at longer distance
  • Mini Cooper UK: Fixed LODding issues with windows
  • Lancer Cup (R/RS): Added Dirt/Damage + detached bumpers (LODA/B/C) + dirt texture for wings (RS) + modeled inner panels (LODA/B/C) + new collision + dangling damaged partsdriver animations + Detached Gear Shifter
  • Fixed Mini cooper 1965 damage on lower LODs + Detached gear shifter (cpit) + detached bumpers on LOD C
  • Lotus 23: Fixed LOD D missing, added damage models on lod B/C, detached dangling parts on LodC, closed panel gaps on LOD A and Cockpit, removed unecessary damage models for tyres
  • MCR S2000: Added dirt/scratch textures
  • Added missing tail light for Sprint Race, Stock Car Cruze 2019 & Ultima GTR
  • Fixed LOD errors in cars with DRS wings which could make rear wings appear to flick open at certain distances


Edit:
  • "Added Spa Francorchamps 2020 *Part of Spa-Francorchamps DLC Pack".


There is a DLC shown in Steam, but unable to purchase?? I realise that it was most likely to be added within a few days. I am confuzzled. However, I have included on my "Wish List".
 
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How much money have you spend on your current simracing hardware

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  • €1501-3000

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