rF2 Development Roadmap: Tatuus Coming Soon!

[Paul Jeffrey]

The latest rFactor 2 'Development Roadmap' is here - containing news on free Tatuus DLC, VR improvements and plenty more besides!

Catching me out by shifting the release date of the new roadmap forward a few days, Studio 397 have updated the community on their current development situation with rFactor 2 - including plenty of new and exciting news about the simulation...

June 2019 Development Roadmap:

Surprise, surprise! Let’s do the roadmap a week early, at the start of the actual Steam Summer Sale!

Summer Sale
There’s quite a few packs on sale this summer, more than we ever had, so let’s go over them! And of course, rFactor 2 itself is on sale as well!

We have three car packs on sale. The GT3 Power Pack and Endurance Pack are both 50% off, and the latest GT3 Challengers Pack has a 33% discount. Our first ever laser scanned track, that set a benchmark for future high quality tracks, Sebring, has a 30% discount.

A 25% discount was applied to the Formula E Race bundle, featuring the Gen 2 car as well as two, highly accurate tracks: Monaco and Hong Kong.

Our partners at Reiza Studios also have a special surprise for the summer. Not only are all three of their packs (the full pack, the car pack and the track pack) on sale, they also provided some fixes for the MCR 2000 as well as two brand new layouts for Imola, doubling the number of layouts available!

The existing layouts, the classic, dangerous 1972 layout surrounded by nearby barriers and the current configuration, fully adapted to modern standards but still retaining a lot of the unique challenges that made it famous are now augmented by the 1988 layout that introduced a few chicanes and the subsequent 2001 layout with further modifications and chicanes. I think it’s fair to say that this track can now be adapted to suit a car of any age! Of course, you get both new layouts for free if you’ve already bought Imola before! Just check the workshop for updates.

Last but not least, our partners at KartSim have put their package on sale at 50% off, a great opportunity if you want to get into karting.

Tatuus
We know we know, it’s been a little while…. open wheel fans have been sitting at the window longingly looking into the distance hoping for a sign. But wait no more, we are pleased to once again give you ‘open wheel’ aficionados something to get your pulse ‘racing’ again. So start getting worked up right now, because the Tatuus pack arrival is imminent. This punchy bundle of five unique open wheel Tatuus cars that includes the Tatuus F.3 T318, the Tatuus MSV F3-016 (aka British F3), the Tatuus PM-18 (Pro Mazda), the Tatuus USF-17, Tatuus F4 T014, and the Tatuus FT-50, will hit the ground wheels spinning on Thursday this week.

And one more thing, the Tatuus pack and all of it’s cars will be ‘free’ on the Steam workshop for everyone to enjoy!

New Build
We’ve also just released a new build with some fixes and new features in it.

VR Features
We basically added two new things. Support for “IPD” or “World Scale” adjustments, which allow the fine tuning of the distance between the eye cameras in game. Some headsets have hardware controls for this too, but due to popular demand from people in our community we added this as a software feature too. This adjustment allows changing stereo separation strength, which leads to different perception of VR image and in some cases increases comfort. We’ve added key bindings to increase, decrease or even reset the IPD so you can map those and make adjustments while sitting in the cockpit (don’t adjust and drive though!).

The second feature we added is for users of the Pimax (and possibly other similarly constructed headsets). It allows you to enable or disable a specific projection mode that respects the orientation of the displays in the headsets. On the Pimax they are canted. Setting this feature, that for now needs to be changed in the player.json text file, to “1” enables this new option for Pimax. As a side effect, rendering on Pimax becomes roughly 25% more efficient, which is a nice bonus.

Below is an overview of both settings as they appear in your player.json:

Changes
Other, smaller changes are:

• We’ve fixed a problem with our RSS based news feed in the old launcher (news failed to show up at all, should be back again now).
• The showroom was not correctly showing up in VR, now it’s back to normal.
• Temporarily we’ve disabled the heat haze effect as it was rendering incorrectly. We are working on a proper fix, it will be back soon.
• We’ve made some improvements to how our light probes are updated when jumping around in a replay between different times of day.

Road to Le Mans
The sign up for the qualifying races is going into the final hours, deadline is 15:00 CEST on the 26th of June. With qualifying races held this weekend the current 78 entries will fight to get into the final 45 spots. Oreca, BMW, Corvette and Porsche will race side by side for the ultimate glory. We will be crowing the 2019 winners of Le Mans when the race ends Sunday, July 7th.
As mentioned this race features our Endurance pack, which is on sale now. There is practically no excuse to not enter this epic event. Try out our recently released Le Mans laser scanned track. It can’t get any better than this!

That’s it for now. Enjoy the summer!

rFactor 2 is a PC exclusive racing sim from Studio 397 - Available now.

Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussion regarding this excellent sim. Like your racing hard and fair? Join in with our rFactor 2 Racing Club for all your eSport racing fun! Oh, don't forget we like mods to, with our own rFactor 2 Modding Forum for you to enjoy!

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[Spinelli]

Not just an open wheeler, but multiple different versions (I'm guessing different physics). Awesome!
Ability to adjust 3D depth for VR users. Awesome!

Nice update!

When they say "world scale," are they just talking about amount of 3D depth or are they also talking about the size of objects which would be FOV determined? Shouldn't the FOV of each game for each headset always be set so that the size of objects remain 1:1 regardless of which VR headset you use?

 

[A man with a Harmonica]

Unfortunately no mention about AI fixes. Please don't let the best AI logic on sim racing be abandoned to death.

 

[mantasisg]

Patiently waiting for UI and Competition system breakthrough, hopefully polishing it after first appearance will not take ages too. There is so much wishes for everything else about this software

 

[fxr]

Great update! Love me some Tatuus!

I'm curious if the competition part will be a la iRacing/SimRacingSystem or just limited time events. Driving in hourly series of cars/tracks with a safety/skill rating would make rf2 simply amazing for me and probably a lot of others. Either the series are curated by someone or let the community vote the content/calendar or both. At least seeing how new content is delivered in packs that fit a series looks promising in delivering an experience like that.

This sim has so much potential and for me, personally, I really like where it's headed. Sure, we would all want more and faster but I can totally understand why things take as long as they do.

 

[RichardHessels]

One thing about the presentation.. was that the best shot they could take of these cars lining up?.

 

[Ciccina2016]

@Marcel

I don't want to disappoint you when we announce our next sale, but I'm pretty sure the Tatuus cars won't be discounted. Ever.

Marcel
my understanding is that you have been workin on trackmap and other overlays.
Can we hope to get this soon?
Can you release a beta version?

 

[Deleted member 909406]

I did not expect such a sale from these developers. Now I think 50% and 30% is enough? I was once told here by one of the developers: "this is just not my cup of coffee." Apparently they still needed my money. Times are changing and we are with them.

 

[BrainsBush]

this threads mental. free proper race cars? oh no must moan about it!

so here's the important question: who pronounces it tattuss, or goes for tatoooos or says tat-you-us?

It's one Tatuu and two Tatuus. Right?

==

Giving us the Tatuus for free doesn't sound really Dutch. I bet it has to do with this weeks temperatures.
Let us all buy the extra content so the office will get a better airco. Much deserved.

Marcel & team: DANK!!

 

[Oldzeb]

6 cars Tatuus free!

 

[Nick Hill]

I love lower powered open wheelers, can't wait to thrash some of these little beasts around a few smaller technical circuits (esp Oulton Park). Thanks Marcel and S397 for this!

Absolutely, same here. I love F1 and appreciate that sims allow me to get a flavor of what it might be like to drive one...but the harsh reality for me is, I generally lack the time/talent/patience to become really effective in one. Whereas, in that F3/F4 sweet spot, you've got relatively low power and relatively high downforce, so I can really thrash one around a track.

It's the embodiment of the "it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow" phenomenon for my time/talent/patience level.

 

[Alex72]

Absolutely, same here. I love F1 and appreciate that sims allow me to get a flavor of what it might be like to drive one...but the harsh reality for me is, I generally lack the time/talent/patience to become really effective in one. Whereas, in that F3/F4 sweet spot, you've got relatively low power and relatively high downforce, so I can really thrash one around a track.

It's the embodiment of the "it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow" phenomenon for my time/talent/patience level.

Exactly my feelings. Its easier to push and drive well in less powerful cars. I love me some ultra power but it takes more practice. These are going to be a great addition.

 

[pevides]

Wow... strange way to ask for something. Talk and then ask them to so something for you. How's that worked out for you in other aspects of your life?

You see your own comment? That`s because comments like these exist, that you have Tatuus, instead of a new UI or a improved A.I, or new LMP1 category. STOP flirting the developers, if you want a good SIM.

 

[Boby Kim]

Unfortunately no mention about AI fixes. Please don't let the best AI logic on sim racing be abandoned to death.

+1

 

[pevides]

Seriously, who cares about lmp1? It`s just a waste of both: time and resources lol,
How can you complain about free content, I bet when they do add lmp1 you will complain about the price too

I don`t care about the price. STOP flirting the developers, if you want a good SIM.
Just because these "Tatuus" can be free, you don`t need to be all happy. They are just dust to make you forget about the really important stuff for some time.

The priorities are all wrong in Studio 397.

 

[Nick Hill]

I don't want to disappoint you when we announce our next sale, but I'm pretty sure the Tatuus cars won't be discounted. Ever.

I will get stuff chucked at my head for this probably, but good for you guys. In addition to sim racing, I also enjoy wargaming - two decidedly niche markets that don't do much in the way of sales volume. Steam I think sets up some unrealistic expectations with consumers - we expect to regularly score titles/DLC at 80%, even 90% discounts because of how often Steam runs big sales. I am as guilty as anyone - I open the "an item on your Steam wishlist is on sale" emails with gusto.

Deep discounts might work as an effective strategy for AAA titles and maybe even some of the bigger indie developers who are looking at much larger markets and looking to gobble up their share, but it's really not sustainable for niche developers.

 

[Oldzeb]

I'll not bother with the Tatuus pack and will pick it up the next time they offer relatively new DLC at 30% discount. Still waiting for the UI though and its taking a ridiculous amount of time to deliver.

 

[RichardHessels]

It's one Tatuu and two Tatuus. Right?

Tatuuses...
Repeat their name.... and you sound like a firetruck.

 

[haunetal1990]

Tatuuses...
Repeat their name.... and you sound like a firetruck.

Haha
One Tatuus
Two Tatuus..
It’s like
1 Google
2 Google xD

 

[Hailstorm BLX]

this threads mental. free proper race cars? oh no must moan about it!

so here's the important question: who pronounces it tattuss, or goes for tatoooos or says tat-you-us?

Taters.

 

[Andy_J]

I'll not bother with the Tatuus pack and will pick it up the next time they offer relatively new DLC at 30% discount.

Not the greatest of ideas but if you would rather pay for it later then that's your choice.