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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According to Mike you probably don’t have a delicate right foot.


I find the McLaren F1 LM a blast to drive. With 670 bhp you obviously can’t floor it in first gear but other than a little understeer mid-corner (had to lower the front rollbar a lot) it behaves good.
Lol, with champs like you, very little realism can be expected.

Mod-Edit: And with posts like this you are out of this thread.
 
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I just noticed that the tabs in the advanced setup UI are now rollover/mouse-over activated. IMO, this is a step in the wrong direction for the UI. Those visual elements are very much reminiscent of tabs and I think it can be safely said that a healthy majority of people expect tabs to be click-on UI elements.

FWIW I would be in favor of getting rid of a whole lot of the existing mouse-over activation within the game’s UI in favor of basic clicking. Not everything mind you, but a whole lot of the UI’s selection actions would actually register more intuitively with my brain if it used standard clicks. I can only speak for myself, of course, in this particular regard.
I prefer the roll-over. Since we need to both view and/or edit inside all those tabs regularly, skips a bunch of useless clicks.
 
David Ignjatovic has earned himself a reply-ban. Have a great new year. :thumbsup:

Ouch! haha. Time to take a break, hey david. Better internet strangers clue you in before you do something to some one in actuality or hurt them, their feelings, etc... the game was fun, and now its more fun. Come on.

But david, its great when you nail the turn though isn't it!

I think thats the point of the title, not whether its 1 value off another or some such.

And david posting that video, man, why the attack. undisciplined and useless were the words used - doesn't think much of much at the moment.

Thanks mods. I don't know why at a time like this (AMS 2s high water mark and essentially its version 1.0 [1.1.]), such derision and nitpicking and frankly - fake criticisms, is beyond words.

As for the development updates its great to see that from a developer, not all titles go to such an extent, though sims seem to do so atm.

Guess that compass will be set right one day again.

If he wants a better game its the wrong way to get it - the madness engine is rock solid and the company has only built upon that; this release is without question fun and good. These people who make it are already motivated and passionate and do not require belittling to spur them on, there is already a fire in them quite obviously; company has expanded the tracks, cars, physics and base. Attacking people and those who play AMS2 and nitpicking will not get you there faster to this ideal place AMS2 is supposed to be in.

These new cars, they are clean slates and its just the beginning. This title just started - its been 6 months, or 1.5 years, in many ways its day one. And 100's of people (probably) just said to themselves holy molly/wow!

Ive seen a lot of dev and no doubt people out there have by now with this early access trend. Star Citizen, when I suggested people consider it day one, its a nice reset. Within 6 months (not saying it was my doing) they had secured marketing funds.

Doubled intake.

It can happen dude, it can happen to anyone - and any game of this quality. Its a different appeal/niche - but its up there now with ACC and rfactor 2 and if this had been 6 months ago, they would have blitzed it, mate. Because its only due to those titles amazing/incredible work this year and probably this cycle alone (no joke) that AMS2 is not a mile out in front in terms of its stock (still has to reach some commercial appeal, I know; but think about the music industry etc or a sporting talent, and its just waiting to be discovered).

Think about that and perceptions. I say star citizen was wow/amazing etc and substantiated it, and asked if the negative nellies would consider it be a top 10 title of all time or the decade it appears in, and it reset the switch. The work on that title may not have even existed up until that point but it did; the perception took a new trajectory when I claimed it was a top tier title in the making. Realign that belief, but that was my objective view point.

Maybe it helped get the investor(s) onboard, who knows. But I tell you right now - consider the stocks, or the buy-in desire, this title just skyrocketed that stock metaphorically; because in the microcosm, essentially, is a market as such and market forces based on theme-park type things (money down up front), and entertainment (money over time, or value I mean instead of money: thus transfering your hard earned into fun, etc, and perpetuation of the title and company who makes it); and this title tickles the right spots. Thats growth, and its due to something. This update. So I am never going to call the update bad, ever. How much I don't know - but this update proves "more" because if it wasn't, mate, the world as we know it would fall apart or would not be; its just how things work in this global society and just normally...

Thank you for the dev update too; and what David has been saying imho is not worth wondering about - in fact we better hope they don't NERF the McClaren, if anything, because the game won't be as good, how much I don't know, but some less goodness.

haha...david... come on man - what I remember from reading what the owner(s) of the company said, is that they moved to SETA tyre model and it was a tricky thing to apply such values.

Welcome to day 1 again. What I just drove was awesome. Without question and without reservation (custom ffb version 30 [itself 3 iterations deep from the maker where bumps are concerned/style]) from their forum; but default was very good and I am particular about that, added in 50 dampening to custom setting and 65 gain; blends brilliantly, else to taste)
 
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I wish they'd include some options for messing with sharpness apart from manually editing that xml file in the documents folder. I know you can play with SS but people's opinion is the xml edit is less of a performance hit?
 

bgil66

@Simberia
Someone help as the computer is driving my car out of the garage, I have looked everywhere on how to turn this off but nada... I get control of the car after pit exit. Oh and the Mclaren F1 woah baby!!!!
 
You shouldn´t say it out loud because it´s just plain wrong :p For the sake of general information since this is becoming a very common misconception, here´s brief recap of content we have added to the game since the original EA release, their origin and pricing - I´ve bolded content completely or mostly scratch-created by us for AMS2, and detailed in italics the ones that used PCars2 models (I´m deliberately not including AMS1 conversions for the sake of brevity, even tho it´s a large list of content that has also received considerable rework for their AMS2 release):


TRACKS:

Cascais - FREE, Reiza
Kyalami - FREE, Reiza
Bathurst - FREE, Reiza
Silverstone - Part of Silverstone DLC, scratch-made track mesh, uses some PCars2 trackside objects

Silverstone 01 - Part of Silverstone DLC, scratch-made track mesh, uses some PCars2 trackside objects
Silverstone 91 - Part of Silverstone DLC, scratch-made track mesh, uses some PCars2 trackside objects
Silverstone 75 Part of Silverstone DLC, scratch-made track mesh, uses some PCars2 trackside objects

Nurburgring - Part of Nurburgring DLC, extensively reworked Pcars2 mesh, uses mosts PCars2 trackside objects

Spa Francorchamps - Part of Spa DLC, scratch-made mesh, uses some PCars2 trackside objects


CARS:

Roco 001 - FREE, Reiza
Sigma P1 - FREE, Reiza

Ginetta G55 - FREE, PCars2 3D model
Ginetta G58 - FREE, based on PCars2 3D model
Lotus 49C - FREE, PCars2 3D model

Brabham BT26 - FREE, Reiza
Mclaren M23 - FREE, Reiza

Lotus 72E - FREE, based on PCars2 3D model
Brabham BT44 - FREE, Reiza
Stock Car Cruze 2020 - FREE, Reiza
Stock Car Corolla 2020 - FREE, Reiza
F-V10 Gen1 - FREE, Reiza
Mclaren MP4-12 - FREE, Reiza

BMW Procar - FREE, PCars2 3D model
BMW M3 E30 - FREE, PCars2 3D model
Mercedes 190E - FREE, PCars2 3D model

Lotus 23 - FREE, Reiza
Mini Cooper 1965 - FREE, Reiza
Mini JCW UK 2020 - FREE, Reiza

Mercedes AMG GT3 - FREE, PCars2 3D model
Porsche 911 GT3-R - FREE, PCars2 3D model

BMW M6 GT3 - FREE, Reiza
Mclaren 720S GT3 - FREE, Reiza

Porsche Cayman Clubsport GT4 - FREE, PCars2 3D model
Camaro GT4R - FREE, Reiza
Mclaren 570S GT4 - FREE, Reiza
Mclaren F1 LM - FREE, Reiza

Mclaren F1 GTR - FREE, PCars2 3D model
Mercedes CLK LM - FREE, PCars2 3D model
Porsche 911 GT1 - FREE, PCars2 3D model


Now keep in mind that for the cars that do use 3D model assets from PCars2, we still produce most of the textures, physics, audio assets as well as the AI, and obviously these all had to be licensed by us to be included in AMS2 (at a cost that oftens rivals or exceed that of the overall production) - the same will apply for any future content that still uses PCars2 assets (which are also not free).

I´m not sure if there´s ever been another PC racing sim that has had that much content (most of it free) delivered within a single year, but we are nevertheless confident it´s a pretty impressive tally - one that has taken a lot of sweat to put together and that we´re very proud of. If you don´t like the game or for whatever reason don´t like the approach we´re using in order to deliver free content for our users at a more rapid pace by all means say your piece - when it comes to factual information let´s stick to the reality as relayed above ;)

Come to Brazil Renato!! We love you!
 
Thanks mods. I don't know why at a time like this (AMS 2s high water mark and essentially its version 1.0 [1.1.]), such derision and nitpicking and frankly - fake criticisms, is beyond words.
David was not banned because of his opinion, which he is perfectly entitled to just like everyone else. He earned it for the way in which he expressed himself, which was against our posting rules. That's an important difference which I want to make clear, because we will not be gagging people just because they have minority or negative opinions. :thumbsup:
 

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