Automobilista 2 | January Development Roadmap

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Yesterday evening Reiza Studios released yet another tasty look at the future of Automobilista 2, with the January edition of their Development Roadmap posting.
  • Championship tool coming soon.
  • Historic Spa 1993 in development.
  • Lots of tweaks and improvements expected.

Another bonza roadmap post from the mighty Reiza Studios dropped last night, with the Brazilian development team showing off plenty of new and exciting things coming to the simulation over the course of the next 12 months - including a welcome addition of Group C machines this month!


Check out the January Development Roadmap in full below:

Greetings Everyone! Here we are for the first dev update of what promises to be a very exciting year for Automobilista 2.

We have started the year as we left off 2020, with foot hard on the gas and already deploying a couple of substantial updates to bring some important core developments to physics & AI. Along with another batch of general developments, the latest v1.1.1.0 release has also introduced a couple of neat Ginetta G40 variants nicely filling that tin top club racing niche that was still under represented in AMS2.

Even before the update went out, we were already pushing towards some of the steps that will follow in the coming months - let´s take a closer look into those...

2021 Roadmap - Fast, But Steady

As suggested in the last two dev updates, we have been opting to slightly throttle back on our release schedule for new content relative to our original roadmap in these recent updates. We will continue to put more focus towards developing existing content and other core game developments, with new content progressing in parallel and at a more steady but still quite productive pace - current plans forecast a ratio of about 2-3 new cars / 1 track per month for the remainder of 2021 (not to be confused with an equivalent release ratio as some of that content will be part of the larger expansion packs).

For a similar reason we are also going to hold a bit longer on publishing our complete 2021 Roadmap until we have finalized our initial assessment of the planned features and finalized the remaining licensing deals for the content to be released this year, which we expect to take a few more weeks.

What we can advance already is that given this slightly stretched schedule, which will see the release of some content initially planned for 2021 rolling into 2022, we are also stretching the Season Pass term to cover all of our 2022 DLC releases. The Season Pass now should cover everything we have already planned to release for AMS2, not only retaining but expanding its value with some further not-yet announced items added to the overall package.

Even though part of the reason for holding on publishing the 2021 roadmap a bit longer is to ensure what we eventually come to present is a more reliable plan, we´d hope users will still keep in mind as we advance that the roadmap or even the shorter term plans usually presented in these dev updates are still targets that we can elect to flex if we find it necessary or useful to do so - neither the roadmaps nor dev updates should be taken as a commitment to a schedule but rather as a rough overview of our development plans, presented with the intent of giving our users some foresight into what they may expect going forward.

With all this said, we can also confirm we will continue our routine of major monthly updates all through 2021, and we do have some concrete milestones for the next couple of months we can already share - so let´s expand on that
:)


Coming Up in February

Excepting the usual likely hotfix for the v1.1.1.0 update sometime over the next week, our next major update should arrive as usual towards the end of February. Here are some of the highlights planned for it:

AMS 2 Spa Historic.jpg


Our track team is still working on Belgian territory, now taking a trip back in time to retro-reform our Spa-Francorchamps to its 1993 version.

The track was originally supposed to be based on its 1991 configuration, but we´ve opted to switch to the 1993 version thanks to higher quality reference material. Also, although the track configuration remained the same throughout the 80s and Early 90s, the 1993 revision featured some small adjustments to the curb profiles at the Bus Stop double chicane which remained largely unaltered until 2002, and contributed to a better flow of the track in that last part of the lap.

AMS 2 Group c.jpg


The much anticipated Group C Sauber Mercedes C9 and Porsche 962C duo will finally arrive in next month´s update, suitably in combo with its contemporary version of Spa-Francorchamps.

Similar to the GT1 cars that arrived in December, the Group C class represented another golden era in sports cars in history, and these two models were front-runners at its peak in the late 1980s, when it approached F1 in terms of both popularity and performance.

Having the series represented in Automobilista 2´s historical roster was therefore a no-brainer choice, and we are thrilled to see their arrival is finally just around the corner!

AMS Stockcar.jpg


Another much anticipated historical content arriving in the next update is the 1999 GM Omega Stock Car - the last "proper' Stock Car to race in the series before the dawn of the prototype era in the 2000s, the Stock Car Omega was still largely based on its production counterpart which replaced the Opala in the Brazilian market during the 90s. It also shared a lot of its DNA with its Australian cousin, the Holden Commodore.

The introduction of the 1999 Stock Car series will complete our tribute to the prime Brazilian championship on the verge of the 10th Anniversary of our very first title, Game Stock Car released in 2011. Time does fly when you are having fun!

The February Update should also feature some further Quality of Life improvements and fixes, the biggest priorities being to rectify some persisting reliability issues with FFB and Multiplayer.

Later On...

The late March 2021 update will mark the first Anniversary of AMS2 EA release, and we´re pushing to mark the occasion with an even bigger update than usual.

On the content front, the March update will be fairly packed with some very interesting new cars, but we´ll save discussing more about these for next month
;)


Besides another substantial batch of QoL developments, the March Update will finally see the arrival of the highly anticipated Custom Championship Tool - we have again elected to push its release a bit further down the line not only to ensure everything is working well, but also to make a more feature rich release, including some further customization options for weather, track conditions, opponent and class selection which are not currently in the game but that are expected to be introduced along with the tool itself.

We´ll expand more on the above in next dev update, but here´s a small WIP preview of the configuration screen where users will be able to configure their championship rounds:

AMS 2 Champ Tool.png


The March Update will also see some more promising developments to the LiveTrack and Weather systems, aiming further fulfill the potential of the excellent technology we have in the Madness engine. Again, we´ll hold from spilling the beans too soon, but rest assured there are some exciting stuff in store here!

That covers it for January - we look forward to catching up with all again later next month!

Original Source: Reiza Studios

AMS 2 - available now exclusively to PC.

Want to know more about the sim? Got a trick or tip to share with the community? Fire up a thread in the AMS 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment and share that knowledge!

AMS 2 Footer.jpg
 
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Installed the game recently to try the newly released updates and gave it another shot past few days stuck indoors because of the weather. While I appreciate and admire the hard work done by the studio and their ambition to push out monthly content, I am not enjoying the game, the direction being taken and the raw feel of the game. Yes its "Work in Progress" but after this long its clear there is a lack of structure as what needs immediate attention and fixes.

New content alone wont save the game. The car physics, handling mechanism, tire model, graphic bugs, AI need lots of work and issues with past content still to be fixed. After so many updates I am having poor optimization. I cant race at sunset/night or set rain because I now get a huge drop of frames. This was never the case before. I did lower my settings but still nothing. Never had problems with this engine. Otherwise, I remain hopeful progress will be made.
I agree with all, anyway I think AMS 2 is great for casual races, it's what project cars should have been. RF2 and AMS 1 always will be there for a more hardcore action.
 
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Do you play ACC with a gamepad ?

Unless I am mistaken, no steering wheel works with GeForce Now.

I’ve always raced with a pad, all the way back to the GTR2 days. I’m used to it now, I’m quite happy playing AMS1 on an Xbox pad with no assists. I even played iRacing with a pad for a while and did ok. I know it’s not ideal but I don’t have the time to devote to racing to make it worthwhile getting a gaming PC and a wheel etc.

If you take the time to set things up properly it’s really not that bad. Yes you lose realism and FFB but it’s still better than not racing at all.
 
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Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? Replays are present in both test sessions and practice sessions for single races. Are you referring to the ability to save replays from these two types of sessions or is there a limitation with replays in practice sessions for multiplayer or championship mode?
Let's say I do 15 laps of practice around the Ring. I want to see all 15 laps in replay from beginning to end with the ability to slow them down, change camera angles. The only way I can do this is with a hack from PC2 where you drive into the pits in the wrong direction and get the session voided. Then you can watch every lap, but the telemetry is lacking. You don't know what the time is in each lap. I am not talking about time trialing. That function is in AC, ACC, RF2, F1. It was never in PC2 and apparently the port to AMS2 took the same non-feature.

I really don't care about a billion tracks and cars. One car and one track that I can work with from an improvement point of view is all I need. You need to replays of each lap to see lock-ups, tire slip, cornering angles.

If you have a way to do it, please enlighten me.
 
Yes but free DLC means everyone with the game gets it and so everyone with the game could enjoy the multiplayer race (unlike my dusty iRacing game because I don't want to spend roughly $27 cdn for 1 track and 1 car let alone sign up for a series)

Pay DLCs are necessary sometimes and particularly when you are wanting to extend the life of the game but that also means only a % of folks will buy it and your multiplayer grids will be potentially smaller.

Then just put some of the “old” DLCs in the base game. Also, some free stuff is great, but they don’t need to extend the season pass for the backers. That’s my opinion at least.
 
I agree about the appeal of the south american content but I wouldn't want them to stop working on european content too, they are the only sim offering a lot of historic tracks and it's such a blessing for the vintage racing fan that I am!
I agree but not the only just take a look at Rf2, Assetto Corsa or Pc2, i love Ams2 1965 Mini Cooper but it's a fresh clean air with all those brazilian cars and cups not very known in Europe, anyway i love vintage cars and tracks too, it could be great if they add some classy like knockhill or Motegi
 

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