Massarutto Reveals more about Kunos / Porsche Relationship

[Paul Jeffrey]

Kunos Simulazioni Licencing Manager, Marco Massarutto, has revealed some interesting information regarding the level of attention to detail afforded the studio in their new partnership with the Porsche brand.

Massarutto has gone on record to reveal the manufacturer gave Kunos access to detailed CAD drawings of a production model yet to be revealed to the worldwide public, including allowing access to car in a professional photography studio in order to allow the development team the chance to capture every fine detail before digitally recreating the cars for Assetto Corsa.

The below statement from Massarutto makes for an interesting story, especially the information regarding how keen it appears Porsche are keen to allow Kunos the level of data and access required to efficiently recreate each of the new Porsche models coming to Assetto Corsa. With detailed CAD drawings, and on site surveys of the cars themselves, it is very possible that the upcoming Porsche DLC packages will contain cars with a level of realism that is perhaps greater than has been possible in previous releases by Kunos.

"There's a funny story behind these pictures, that tells a lot about how Porsche cares about our partnership. As you can see taking a look to my profile, sometime I had the chance to shoot the most beautiful and iconic cars we have in Assetto Corsa right in the respective factories, but never in a photographic studio. Before Porsche. Also, usually it never happens that you receive CAD data of a model that has not been unveiled yet, nor that you can take pictures, or even that ...you can have the chance just to see a new car before it is officially unveiled. And no matter what you work for the car manufacturer, unless you are directly involved in the development of THAT model.

Well, when last Spring we gone to Stuttgart to take the pictures of the Porsche models included in our project (and the project itself was far to be revealed) Porsche granted us the access to their new car - not to a dark, hidden, anonymous garage - but in a beautiful photographic studio. A huge studio, and right in the middle, the new - and still not unveiled - Panamera G2 was waiting for us. I'm not a professional photographer, but I'm good in shooting the kind of pictures we need to reproduce each car detail. And, even if I take care of other responsibilities in our company, this is a role I still keep for myself, since I love it so much. So, we did our job and then we moved to a different location to take pictures of many other - and more interesting - cars. Then we gone back home. Just few days later, some pictures of the Panamera, the same car, shot in the same studio, have been leaked on internet, before the official presentation. Potentially a bad issue: when we was at the studio, I didn't taken any picture even on my smartphone, just to be sure to do not show any picture accidentally to my friends. So, in our weekly call with Porsche I wanted to make sure that Kunos wasn't behind the leaked pictures, and they said "we didn't thought for a second that was you, anyway don't worry, we know it: the car was pretty similar, but wasn't the same, since the pictures show a different car plate; it was the other one, used for road tests. But thanks".​

Assetto Corsa is available for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 now. The first of the three Porsche DLC packages will be available October 25th, and retails for 6.99 Eur. Players wishing to take advantage of 28% savings when purchasing all three DLC packages can purchase a Season Pass from Kunos, with more details to following in the coming weeks.

Porsche Volume One DLC will contain the following cars:

• 911 Carrera S,
• 935 Moby Dick
• 918 Spyder
• Cayman GT4 Clubsport
• 718 Cayman S
• 917/30
• 911 Carrera RSR 3.0 1974

The Porsche Panamera G2 and a 1960's version of the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit will be added t to Assetto Corsa as free content in conjunction with the upcoming update to the game, expected to be release at a similar time as the Porsche Volume One DLC.


Assetto Corsa at RaceDepartment, the place to go for the latest news and discussions regarding the simulation. We hold regular club and league events using a variety of content, host some of the best mods available for the game and even have a dedicated Modding Discussion sub forum for modders of AC to share advice and WIP projects in AC. Head over to the Assetto Corsa sub forum today and join the discussion.

Looking forward to Porsche Volume One DLC? Impressed about the level of detail undertaken by the studio to get the new content as accurate as possible? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Radu Oros]

BMW M235i - Where is the role cage, racing tyres...I will stop there

Hoping to have understood well what you wrote, but the bmw m235i is the racing version of the road car. So the one in game does have role cage, racing tyres, setup.

http://www.assettocorsa.net/wp-content/uploads/preview-33.jpg

 

[kmanitou81]

When, When, are Kunos going to look at the bigger picture.

Aaaaaaaand Marco starts writing an angry letter to his customers.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

I been eagerly waiting for this DLC.

Hope it breaks all their previous DLC sales.

So they can start opening more doors and get more cash flow to acquire more tracks.

 

[FernandoAFM]

The only thing I'm not happy with (still going to buy the DLC) is that again we see a lot of interesting race cars from different eras... But we have neither the tracks nor the competition for them. RF2 finally woke up and now promises "series DLC" - I'll never get back to ISI but that move may give Kunos food for thought.

Wonder what happened to the DRM mod, they also planned a Porsche...

I'll keep buying AC packs just for being a car nuts... And I like the models and physics.
But..:
I really miss the complete series package games as well.
Race 07, GTR 2, GT Legends, NR 2003, TOCA... If I wanted to drive a different car, I'd simply change games.
I felt those games were much more focused and simulated actual racing (flags, rain, time transitions, pit stops) better. Maybe because devs didn't feel the need to pack a car museum into one single game?
Ideally, I'd love to have both. But as it is right now, I miss those days.
Maybe I'm a 23-year-old nostalgic.,.

 

[kmanitou81]

I'll keep buying AC packs just for being a car nuts... And I like the models and physics.
But..:
I really miss the complete series package games as well.
Race 07, GTR 2, GT Legends, NR 2003, TOCA... If I wanted to drive a different car, I'd simply change games.
I felt those games were much more focused and simulated actual racing (flags, rain, time transitions, pit stops) better. Maybe because devs didn't feel the need to pack a car museum into one single game?
Ideally, I'd love to have both. But as it is right now, I miss those days.
Maybe I'm a 23-year-old nostalgic.,.

Have you looked at Raceroom recently?

 

[P*Funk]

Have you looked at Raceroom recently?

Yea, my wallet started whining so I had to look away.

 

[Rodent]

Grab their Black Friday sale if they have one this year, problem solved.

 

[kmanitou81]

Yea, my wallet started whining so I had to look away.

I don't want to defend their garbage business model too much, but if you grab a pack of tracks and a pack of cars on sale, you'll have a pretty good game already. Of course, just using the competitions to sample cars and tracks is totally free.

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

Back in the day when playing Test Drive Unlimited, I always wondered what it would be like to have such a game but with some more "realistic" driving behaviour... Seems like AC (on top of having racing potential) is further opening that door, especially when I look at the joy one might have with some of these exotic cars around the Nürburgring.

I'm finally starting to consider to check out how much this game costs...

 

[JJ72]

When, When, are Kunos going to look at the bigger picture. You look at RF2, Pcars, AMS, they all have low powered cars, that aid to competitive close racing (Clio Cup, Formula Ford for example). Yes all these high powered cars that are entirely an extension of a males genitalia, are nice to have, and maybe, maybe, fun to drive, but when are Kunos going to look at the "grass roots" of racing, where people careers all starts (in the 21st Centenary), and not at the pinnacle where most people retire?

Please don't say "your not happy, go race them sims" I am not saying I am not happy, as I have full DLC's, fully support Kunos, but give us something really different

like what...mx5 cups?

 

[Leynad777]

Nice, but i really have a feature-request: sort all cars in BoP-classes to have equally balanced mixed grids other than GT3-cars. You can´t even mix GT4-cars together because of performance-differences. The gaps are not that huge and with giving one car more hp and another some weight would do the trick. Adding weight is possible with the AC-server, but Kunos should do this job. Make it like the performance-stages, just with another letter. A bit like in Forza i guess, but they did it right. Second missing feature: Multiclass-Multiplayer-races.

 

[Bob Schumaker]

I have to say it, this is pretty darn cool.

 

[Andreas Knöpke]

Nice, but i really have a feature-request: sort all cars in BoP-classes to have equally balanced mixed grids other than GT3-cars. You can´t even mix GT4-cars together because of performance-differences. It´s not that huge and with giving one car more hp and another some weight would do the trick. Adding weight is possible with the AC-server, but Kunos should do this job. Make it like the performance-stages, just with another letter. A bit like in Forza i guess, but they did it right. Second missing feature: Multiclass-Multiplayer-races.

Nope.
Kunos won't do that.
The cars come with the specs as provided by the manufacturer.
There is no artificial balancing, only the GT3s are balanced towards each other.

If they were to balance all sort of cars we would not be able to find out which of the 3 hypercars laps the ring the quickest

 

[Leynad777]

Nope.
Kunos won't do that.
The cars come with the specs as provided by the manufacturer.
There is no artificial balancing, only the GT3s are balanced towards each other.

You can add individual weight to each car with the AC-server, so you are wrong. But it´s not the job of the user to find out, which weight to add to balance them out. GT4-cars should be possible to mix and when they race in RL, they adding weight or restricting performance to balance them out. Certainly the unaltered version should be like it is. They just have to add a second version with some sort of BOP-class-info. More performance with software tuning is nowadays the most normal thing in real life, so it´s not artificial at all.

 

[Stereo]

But it´s not the job of the user to find out, which weight to add to balance them out.

There's no one amount of weight, or engine power, that will balance a class of cars completely. In RL series they change BoP very frequently because it even depends which track you're at.

Users can't do it, kunos can't do it, all you can do is if you care about it, run leagues with their own rules to address the imbalance (eg. winner gets more ballast)

 

[Leynad777]

There's no one amount of weight, or engine power, that will balance a class of cars completely. In RL series they change BoP very frequently because it even depends which track you're at.

Users can't do it, kunos can't do it, all you can do is if you care about it, run leagues with their own rules to address the imbalance (eg. winner gets more ballast)

I don´t say it must be a perfect balance on all tracks, but it´s working good enough with the GT3 cars, DTM-cars as well and it could work with many other cars with minor performance balancing like adding weight or turbo power, restricting tire-choices and so on. And when one car is a bit faster on a specific track, than it´s like that and you have to find out which is the winner.

Running only cup-races is just plain boring and every way of mixing cars is not working except GT3. And the BOP is the main reason why the GT3-class is so popular.

And when Kunos is only making most cars just to use it for hot laps and boring cup races, than they should add a proper trackday-mode with a lot of AI-cars by chance, but that´s missing as well.

 

[Blimey]

I don´t say it must be a perfect balance on all tracks, but it´s working good enough with the GT3 cars, DTM-cars as well and it could work with many other cars with minor performance balancing like adding weight or turbo power, restricting tire-choices and so on. And when one car is a bit faster on a specific track, than it´s like that and you have to find out which is the winner.

Running only cup-races is just plain boring and every way of mixing cars is not working except GT3. And the BOP is the main reason why the GT3-class is so popular.

And when Kunos is only making most cars just to use it for hot laps and boring cup races, than they should add a proper trackday-mode with a lot of AI-cars by chance, but that´s missing as well.

Not enough GT4s in AC, the Lotus GT4 is not the GT4 we know in VLN or SRO races.
Reason why GT3 is popular is because they're supercars turned into hardcore racecars capable doing 300km/h and have decent cornering speeds with great brakes.

 

[RichardHessels]

When, When, are Kunos going to look at the bigger picture. You look at RF2, Pcars, AMS, they all have low powered cars, that aid to competitive close racing (Clio Cup, Formula Ford for example). Yes all these high powered cars that are entirely an extension of a males genitalia, are nice to have, and maybe, maybe, fun to drive, but when are Kunos going to look at the "grass roots" of racing, where people careers all starts (in the 21st Centenary), and not at the pinnacle where most people retire?

Please don't say "your not happy, go race them sims" I am not saying I am not happy, as I have full DLC's, fully support Kunos, but give us something really different

They have quite a some lower powered cars that can do great door to door racing.
Lotus Elise, Mazda Mx5, Tatus F4, BMW 1, Alfa MiTo, Old en new Abarth's.

 

[Leynad777]

Not enough GT4s in AC, the Lotus GT4 is not the GT4 we know in VLN or SRO races.

There is the BMW M235i, which can be tuned up to 450 hp just by software in real life and it´s listed in AC under GT4 already, but it´s just to slow with it´s 314 or so hp now. Same with the Lotus GT4. So balancing a GT4-class with Maserati, Lotus, BMW and Porsche would be no problem if Kunos wants it.

Reason why GT3 is popular is because they're supercars turned into hardcore racecars capable doing 300km/h and have decent cornering speeds with great brakes.

Similar handling with the Pagani Zonda R, Ferrari FXX K and 599XX, but not with the popularity i guess.

 

[Blimey]

There is the BMW M235i, which can be tuned up to 450 hp just by software in real life and it´s listed in AC under GT4 already, but it´s just to slow with it´s 314 or so hp now. Same with the Lotus GT4. So balancing a GT4-class with Maserati, Lotus, BMW and Porsche would be no problem if Kunos wants it.


Similar handling with the Pagani Zonda R, Ferrari FXX K and 599XX, but not with the popularity i guess.

They want to maintain the "realism" that they've worked hard for.