rF2 March Development Roadmap

[Paul Jeffrey]

The March edition of the rFactor 2 Development Roadmap is here!

Firstly my apologies for the late posting... been a busy 48 hours!

Now on to the bit you came for, the roadmap...

Welcome to our third roadmap of the year. We’ve had quite an exciting quarter altogether with updates to many of our car packs, a new material editor, an exciting 12 hour race at Sebring and last but not least the release of our biggest pack to date, the Reiza pack, featuring no less than 6 cars and 4 tracks. Check out the trailer above. You can buy the full pack here, but there are also options to buy just the tracks or just the cars, or even individual items.

And those of you who follow our roadmaps every month will know there is a lot more to come, so let’s get started with this month’s updates!

Cars
We’ve just wrapped up the development of our brand new brake-by-wire system for the Gen 2 Formula E car. These cars are rear wheel driven, so the rear wheels also do the energy regeneration when braking. As much of the braking torque as possible will be used to regenerate the batteries, with the remaining required torque coming from the rear disc brakes. This is all controlled by a brake-by-wire system and we’re in final testing of it in the new car, so expect this one to be released next!

Tracks
The Nürburgring is going as planned as we’re moving towards the barriers and mapping out all the different pieces of graffiti on the track. Those of you who heard the podcast René and Marcel had with Davy Jones already know that we have two more tracks in progress, both of which we will keep as a surprise for later this year.

Performance
Very recently we’ve released a build that embeds some very specific performance logging in an attempt to catch the few cases people have reported over the years where they are “running out of real-time” because of hickups of the physics calculations. We have a dedicated thread on our forum explaining how to report these logs to us and although we have already received a few logs, we can still use a lot more so if this has happened to you in an on-line race, please help us out and submit your data, and we will try to help you solve the issues.

Competition and new UI Update
This month we’ll take a more in-depth look at where we are with the new UI and competition infrastructure. Our current UI is really split into parts, with a Launcher that is responsible for content management and on-line matchmaking and a main executable that can either be launched in single player or multiplayer mode. For our new UI we want to merge all of that into one. We are now at a point where we’ve replaced every bit of UI in the executable for both modes. In fact, one thing we are doing is eliminating the need to have two modes, merging single and multiplayer modes.

So let’s get started. When you launch rFactor 2, you end up in the main menu that provides you with a few different options. Here you can drive in single player, view a replay or live race or participate in multiplayer, browse various aspects of our community (forum, news, upcoming events) as well as configure the game.

The game options have been cleaned up and re-arranged to give a better overview. As an example we’ve kept the settings for recording replays here, but moved the actual playback of replays to a different location as viewing replays clearly has nothing to do with options. In general we now have more space as well to add extra context and help, making it easier for users to understand the many different settings. Session settings have also been revamped.

We’ve split those up into generic settings that span the different sessions, and session specific settings. We also exposed a few extras here, allowing you to for example configure more than one practice session without having to resort to editing text files. Car and track selections have been tweaked as well. For both we have added a few different views, ranging from a more graphical, icon based view to a more compact list. In all of those modes we’ve added quick search options, which usually help you find the car or track you’re looking for with just a few keystrokes. Car tuning is also still there, and here you will see our our new material editor being integrated nicely as well.

Moving on to the garage, you see we have grouped the different tuning options for a car into logical sections. Little details to make your life easier here is that we can show you in a different color all options you changed compared to the set you last loaded or saved, and we also still allow you to compare your own setup to another one, where we no longer list all options twice, leaving you to figure out the ones that actually changed, but more clearly indicating those. At this point it’s also interesting to point out another feature. As the whole UI is web based, we will also allow you to “share” your UI with a team mate remotely.

What this means is that while you’re driving he can log in to your game and review and make changes to your setup. Such changes will then be applied the next time you leave the garage. As you can imagine such features open up a ton of possibilities for people racing as teams, but also ways to give remote support and I’m sure our community will find many other uses as well! Apart from the garage we also have a monitor that allows you to view the action live from different camera standpoints, as well as to view an instant replay. Standings have been extended to show more information and the camera controls can be used for broadcasting races as well.

Competition is being developed now as part of the new UI, so it is easy to see what are the upcoming races. From a list of competitions you can sign up for the ones you want to compete in. Zooming in you can see past and upcoming events, sessions and standings. Joining a session directly takes you to the right server. This part is far from done but we just passed a few important milestones that will allow us to run not only hotlap competitions but also qualification sessions and actual races. We’re working on different ways to score those, from traditional “points based” ones to ones that evaluate the actual racing skills of every driver involved and ranking them accordingly. Another thing we’re integrating right now is a protest system. Currently we’re evaluating, through internal testing, how to best release this to the public and we are considering doing some kind of beta as a first step.

So, what is left to do? Mainly the features that are currently in the Launcher, two of which are crucial: the matchmaker showing the list of servers and the package management system. The matchmaker will receive some love as we will add features to see if a server has players or AI on them and we will also add more detailed information about each individual server. The package management system will be extended to allow you to directly browse the workshop and our item store, so all content can be managed in one single place.

Fanatec 12 hours of Sebring
A week ago, 40 teams divided into three classes lined up for the 12 hours of Sebring, and wow what a race it was. Right from the get go we had action and close battles that lasted right until the very last minute of the race. The top 3 in each class got cash prizes and Fanatec vouchers, and commentators and spectators joined forces to nominate a driver of the day, who walked away with a SimLab rig. Also, a record number of viewers watched the event and every two hours could win a Fanatec voucher and even a Podium Series wheel! All in all this event was a big success and we will certainly host more as we ramp up towards the release of our competition system.

rFactor 2 is a racing simulation exclusively available for PC.

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[MarcG]

Yeah i know the Replay-workaround. But like you said, its not ideal.
If a nearly 15 year old game can make it work (GTR2) then today it shouldnt be so hard to implement.

How many other Current Sims have a Mid-Race Save Feature? If it wasn't that "hard to implement" don't you think every Sim would have it? (bar iRacing of course!)
Also comparing to GTR2 is irrelevant, there's a lot more detail in a Race that needs to be saved in a current Sim compared to GTR2, more advanced Tires, Weather Systems, Dynamic Surfaces, Physics all of which need to be Saved at the point the User wishes and all more advanced than GTR2.

I agree a better Mid-Race Save Option (Than Resume From Replay) would be better, but it's a lot harder to implement than you think, for now RFR does a job and does it well enough

 

[Will Mazeo]

Yeah i know the Replay-workaround. But like you said, its not ideal.
If a nearly 15 year old game can make it work (GTR2) then today it shouldnt be so hard to implement.
Also a proper driver-change feature would be nice (also for offline play, like in GTR2)

I was going to say "wait for the fanboy to throw a stone on you for saying this" but I arrived too late
Indeed if you check the race log it has almost everything needed for a proper save/resume funcion. Add the track and weather conditions to that and just make the game recreate the moment from the info in these files. I believe it's way easier than some people want to believe.
There is a issue with the AI taking control of cars in online race when people do a driver swap. It doesn't work offline? I never tried endurance with the AI, even in GTR2 I wouldnt let it take control so I dont know

 

[mantasisg]

I believe it's way easier than some people want to believe.

I believe that you believe that he believes. Do you believe me ?

 

[mantasisg]

These goes in without the saying, absolutely must have, can't wait.

• Finally making us aware if server has all UI, or there are real players lol
• One launcher for SP and MP

The most excited about these

• More information about server
• Matchmaker
• Signing in to competitions
• Racing skills ranking
• New material system integrated
• Browse forums, news, and stuff

Very interested in matchmaker + racing skills + ranking. I believe all these will work together, and I am very interested in picking up the car + track combination and try to get higher in the rankings, thats very big gameplay improvement for me, and then having this to help to find an online server to race ? If so. Thats very awesome. Very interested how it will actually work. I expect it will be something like having servers in priority that has people racing that are close to my ranking. And obviously if server will have many splits.

Signing to competitions is very awesome, it will bring some organization less randomness. It should help to see whats going to happen, instead just going to server and hoping that it will pick up. Should be very good if you like to plan things in advance, and just don't go "with the flow", but like the idea that you can control something, in this case your time and quality of it.

Not sure whats about material system, I think it is about new cars paint shaders and advanced skins crafting, I am not really familiar with that, but it is interesting.

Browsing forums directly from UI must be superb. If you'll find yourself like asking, or looking for help, forum will be very approachable, and thats very awesome feature IMO.

 

[delpinsky]

Can't wait for this...

Let's hope to try the new UI as soon as possible...

 

[Marc Collins]

Can't wait for this...

Let's hope to try the new UI as soon as possible...

Yes, this will be nice, but only after every car ever produced for rF2 gets renamed and recatalogued in a consistent manner so a master list actually makes some sense. Reading chaos in a single long list versus having chaos hidden behind index card-style letters will not actually help.

Tracks have the same issue.

On my my personal to-do list is also a per-car smoothing setting and per-car seat position memory. Many of the older cars (or maybe its an older tire model??) require a higher smoothing setting to avoid undue jolts than the newest cars (e.g., the DLC and Brabham BT44) that are as smooth as all cars used to be in rF2 back in the day--at least on my Fanatec rig. I now have two sets of vehicles, including a split in the cars in the new Reiza pack. MCR2000 and Puma 052 are sublime. The other four require bumping up smoothing to make them equivalent. I used a smoothing setting of 3 for many years. Somewhere along the lines something changed and now one of two different settings are needed, depending on the car (either stick with 3 or bump up to something closer to 10). I suppose this always should have been a per-car setting anyway, to go along with the FFB strength level setting that was made per-car a few years back.

 

[dotMastaz]

Goog job Studio 397, but there are several issues with the grey UI : contrast,...

 

[PXYCO]

I hope Studio 397 will facilitate the integration of Custom Liveries.. currently this is a disaster

Btw. good job on the new UI

 

[Marcel Offermans]

Why do people have such fetish for release numbers. By now this could also be rFactor 3.14159265359

I could not resist... you know there is actually software that uses "pi" as it's version, adding another decimal for every release it does? The program that does this is TeX, a typesetting system often used for scientific publications. They're currently at 3.14159265 For some background, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX

...back on topic now

 

[Case_]

Can't wait for this...

Let's hope to try the new UI as soon as possible...

While it looks really nice, I have to wonder if it solves the biggest problem I have with rF2 car selection - finding the actual car I'm looking for because it's not located where you would expect it in the list, but somewhere else entirely. Or telling two different versions of a car apart reliably.

Same goes for tracks.

 

[Denis Betty]

While it looks really nice, I have to wonder if it solves the biggest problem I have with rF2 car selection - finding the actual car I'm looking for because it's not located where you would expect it in the list, but somewhere else entirely. Or telling two different versions of a car apart reliably.

Same goes for tracks.

There is definitely room for improvement here. It's often even more difficult when using mods - especially selecting modded cars as opponents. Gee I hope somebody mentions all of this to S397.

 

[MarcG]

While it looks really nice, I have to wonder if it solves the biggest problem I have with rF2 car selection - finding the actual car I'm looking for because it's not located where you would expect it in the list, but somewhere else entirely. Or telling two different versions of a car apart reliably.

Same goes for tracks.

You may of missed this part in the RoadMap:

Car and track selections have been tweaked as well. For both we have added a few different views, ranging from a more graphical, icon based view to a more compact list. In all of those modes we’ve added quick search options, which usually help you find the car or track you’re looking for with just a few keystrokes.

 

[Steve Bird]

One improvement would be not having to wait ages for all the content to cache prior to getting into the main menu. I've got loads of content and it takes around 5-10 minutes to get to the menu after launch and that's without anything updating.

 

[mantasisg]

Yeah that bugs me a bit too. Usually I just launch rF2 way before I am going to play, and just keep launcher ready. I don't have every item in workshop, it takes ~2minutes to synchronise with workshop.

I tried to unsubscribe to the content to win those minutes. But unsubscribing deletes the content.

Also common thing that I forget that the way to delete content is to unsubscribe, I delete files manualy, just to find that content gets redownloaded and reinstaled automatically.

Thats going to be mentioned more and more, if some preferences aren't going to be added. Like for example more flexible subscribtion models. Not sure if thats not entirely up to the steam though.

 

[dajdosta]

You may of missed this part in the RoadMap:

Car and track selections have been tweaked as well. For both we have added a few different views, ranging from a more graphical, icon based view to a more compact list. In all of those modes we’ve added quick search options, which usually help you find the car or track you’re looking for with just a few keystrokes.

While this is certainly welcomed (in fact it is feature I was requesting) I am ungratefuly hoping for more. With search one can easily find if he knows exactly what he is looking for. But that doesn't solve the problem with categories, classes. If I want to see all F1 content will I still have to browse all vehicles one by one? I know I cannot expect all modders to follow same naming convention therefore it would be nice if each user would be able to customize mod names for his own UI. I am aware that could be confusing for some and would make it harder for detecting problems so maybe displaying original mod name along with user defined would solve everything?

 

[Case_]

@MarcG I wouldn't say missed, I don't think that addresses everything I was talking about. But yeah, cheers for pointing that out.

 

[Steve Bird]

While it looks really nice, I have to wonder if it solves the biggest problem I have with rF2 car selection - finding the actual car I'm looking for because it's not located where you would expect it in the list, but somewhere else entirely. Or telling two different versions of a car apart reliably.

Same goes for tracks.

So true.....It makes me mad.

 

[mantasisg]

Yes usually takes about 5-10 seconds to find it, instead of 2.

 

[enduser282]

Why the arrows at the edge of the screen, is this an ipad app?!
Especially in the setup screen there s enough space to put all tabs, likewise the setup screen in AC is probably the worst menu i ve seen in a game ..we copy the good stuff not what's wrong with other things!

Mods will need new menu pics, i wonder how will our new client look like at release.
In the looks category there s also the loading screens, some uniformity would be nice , current system is cheessy with all kinds of loading pics and various layouts. Something better imho is a big raster for track layout with a simple background and the track info coming from a txt.
That said i m a fan of Grammond's f1gp menus photo background per type of screen/menu.

I will also admit that i mainly just want a freakin save button (race weekend) and offline championship.
For AI races its good to see their tire used and fuel amount, fuel calculation is misleading so far (track parameter for fuel usually doesnt work) and ruins AI races we only need the calculation after 2 laps appearing in the setup menu, pls sort this out.

 

[Kranky Pantz]

S397 has been doing great work so far.

Looking forward to all of the improvements, especially the new UI.

Hopefully it doesn't break the ways mods are so easily installed and integrated from the Steam Workshop and other sources, but I'm sure they've already taken that into consideration.