rF2: The Big Interview - Submit Your Questions Here

[Paul Jeffrey]

We are soon going to interview Marcel Offermans, the head of Studio 397 and the rFactor 2 racing simulation, and we want your questions!

The last few months have seen a whirlwind of development and improvements for rFactor 2, with some significant changes to the simulation taking place as well as a number of high profile car and track licence announcements - not least of which is the legendary combination of the Nordschleife and Le Mans 24 Hour circuits coming to the title.

Following on from the successful Automobilista 2 interview, I'm looking to tour round all the major developers and have a word about how things are going in their respective simulations - starting with a discussion with Studio 397 and their rFactor 2 racing title.

In order to ensure we get to the bottom of the questions our community want to know, I'm asking you to submit your questions for Marcel in the comments section below, and I'll do my best to ask as many of them as possible when we have a discussion next week.

Feel free to submit a question about anything and everything you always wanted to know about rFactor 2 in the comments section below!

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[azqa]

May we have information on :


1 / Willingness to improve the AI over the next 12 months.

2 / Improve the offline experience over the next 12 months.

3 / Improve performance, including VR.

4 / Do you think that the shadow system will be improved in the next 12 months.

5 / Physics and realism of rain : will they be improved in the next 12 months ?

6 / Will there be 100% of the time a hotlap set up for the Nordschiefe or Nürburgring.

7 / The weather in the UI will be improved in the next 6 months.

8 / The reflections will be smooth in the future, they are currently at a low framerate.

9 / Could you much more communicate and transparently on the official forum and roadmaps, and trying to be precise.

10 / Will physics be significantly improved in the next 24 months ? Ditto for all elements of realism (realroad, clutch, etc.).

11 / Let us finally know if the old ISI cars, which are a very good base, will be updated in terms of physics (tires, chassis flex, ...).

I have lots of other questions, but these are the ones that came to mind.

 

[krusti]

Are some features about rules going to be expanded and polished?
For example, the ability to set how many cut warnings after a penalty, the ability to set which penalty for track limits abuses, a rework of the rolling start in order to make it bug-free, same with the safety car and so add new features like virtual safety car, slow zones (used in Le Mans and Nordschleife) code 60-80, double yellow flags, an automatic check about overtakes during a yellow flag and so on.

Is an in-game vocal chat possible and planned with the new UI based on HTML? Even only for a race director, so we can finally get rid of Team Speak and its whisper feature.

Is the driver swap feature going to be reworked as stated time ago?
And also, as it is now, in order to do a driver swap we have to join as a spectator ~5 minutes before the swap, in order to not saturate the server bandwidth, is this going to be improved? So we can stay in the server for the entire race and spotting while waiting for the driver swap.

 

[numbersevenhull]

Just the six suggestions cheers Paul

1) It's been nearly three years since you bought the rF2 licence. From the outside what did you originally designate as key areas for development, and having worked with the game for three years have any of your initial primary goals changed?

2) The new UI is probably the most highly anticipated area of improvement. What are your hopes for it and do you believe it will fundamentally change peoples interaction with the game, and if so in what ways?

3) Multiplayer, despite ISI initially charging for it, has always felt like an afterthought rather than being properly game integrated. Personally I have endures a horror show attempting to host a session online, being forced to read scores of forum threads, fight a war of trial and error with a router, changing port numbers in ini files, content errors and making mod files to email when wanting to do something as simple as host a game for a friend (it took over a week of serious research, utter frustration and head scratching!! That will be the end user experience for many). In what way, if any does the new UI resolve some of these common issues and will it finally be possible just to click a button in game a host a race?

4) Does the new UI permit online championships (with AI if required), and if so does it track points and allow save and return for longer championships.

5) Will you be introducing tool tips into the new UI, for game parameters, equipment use or car set up?

6) Why has Studio 397 never run 24/7 official servers in the game? I've often though that might give new players a clear and welcoming place to introduce them to the multiplayer. Will this change? And if so will your servers be focused on both racing and time trails?

6) Obviously rF2 is an ongoing project, but have you set a timeline/date for when you think you might be at Studio 397 v1.0, (what objectives remain before that), and have you considered any marketing options for relaunching the game when you achieve your primary goals, such as including premium content? How do you intend to increase the user base beyond your loyal fans?

 

[Danpros]

Is there some plans to add more Endurance cars pack like ferrari, lambo, nsx, aston martin in GTE, other manufactures in LMP2 and cars from LMP1?

 

[boxer]

1. Are there any plans to implement virtual mirrors, or is it too late in the development cycle for rf2?

2. I assume that when the Nord was announced S397 already had licensed LeMans, was it hard to keep tight lipped when we voiced our disappointment it wasn't LeMans?

3. Will the new GUI have the ability to filter content based on authors or other tags?

4. Any plans to add more McLarens, like the (MP4/6) and an up to date F1 Car?

5. Any plans to update old content to new standards and fix issues introduced with the various updates? Eve F3 being one of those cars that needs some love.

6. Have you thought of development the next gen SIM or are you still committed in the continuing developing of rF2?

7. Is licensing a full series like “WeatherTech” a possibility?

 

[bigdaddy24]

Will the AI's ability to initiate a proper slip-stream pass be fixed which will be crucial at Le Mans?

I have good ai slip-stream passes. I would try this in you hdv file in BODYAERO there is a line the reads BaseDropoff, try 0.355

 

[thepharcyde]

1) RF2 lacks pick up and play multiplayer, please introduce some S397 some servers to entire people from the other Sims; will this ever happen?

 

[Ace King]

I have good ai slip-stream passes. I would try this in you hdv file in BODYAERO there is a line the reads BaseDropoff, try 0.355

Great info but the problem is that S397 GT3 mods containing these files are encrypted. I wanted to fine tune AI settings with some cars in a attempt to improve their stability and BoP but hit a brick wall due to their encryption. Thanks, i will experiment with your settings in the decent STK World Series mod.

 

[makan]

Do you have any plans to implement rating system like ACC/iRacing?

 

[Jasje]

Speaking about UI in VR: In Kartkraft you have a mouse pointer that points at where you look with your headset. When you map "right click" to a button on your wheel, it allows you to navigate through the whole game without touching your mouse or keyboard. It's super simple but brilliant at the same time and it's one of the best ways to navigate in VR. Would this be hard to implement? It's fantastic when you don't need to take off your hands of the wheel the whole time.

 

[frankis]

would it be possible to make that once that you've set your seat position, mirrors and ffb settings for one skin in particular the same configuration apply for the rest of skins?

 

[Ace King]

I have good ai slip-stream passes. I would try this in you hdv file in BODYAERO there is a line the reads BaseDropoff, try 0.355

I noticed the "Basedropoff" is a universal setting so it will affect both the ai and human's slip-stream. So, if there isn't a problem with the human driver slip-streaming opponents and you increase this setting for the sole purpose to improve the ai's slip-streaming then logic should show the human will now have a additional increase in the slip-streaming thus better than the ai has available! What's your experience?

Perhaps the AI slip-stream setting is hard-coded thus S397 will need to make this adjustemnt.

 

[Aussiholden]

Seriously, when will they stop wasting their time on trying to fix RF2, when they should be putting all resources on starting to work on a completely new RF3 from the ground up.

 

[1nProgress]

What is Studio 397's Main goal for rFactor2 and within what time frame do you expect to achieve this goal?

+1
Great question! I’m also curious on their long term vision and estimated timeline for product milestones.

 

[melanieuk]

- Nowadays the community wants graphics instead of physics

What a load of rubbish, we've been having physics updates in every single racing sim since Noah built the ark, it is only since project cars and assetto corsa, that sim racing visuals as started taking center stage. If the community didn't demand better visuals for their £300 to £1000 video cards, we'd still be playing these sims with 2006 visuals, and no this isn't a dig at rFactor 2, visuals and physics are in demand.

 

[sbart_uk]

My question is please can we have historic versions of Le-Mans and the Nurburgring. As no game has had a proper Nurburgring since GPL in 1998. With rfactor2's brilliant historical cars they need a proper version of these two great tracks to blast around.

 

[billyblaze13]

My question is please can we have historic versions of Le-Mans and the Nurburgring. As no game has had a proper Nurburgring since GPL in 1998. With rfactor2's brilliant historical cars they need a proper version of these two great tracks to blast around.

there is a historic (1967) LeMans available...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1213606756&searchtext=

 

[Magus]

- Are there any plans for R3E style leaderboards for combinations of official S397 content?

- With the new UI expected within the next few weeks, how much faster will we start seeing progress in other areas of the games's core engine (eg. gearbox, AI, etc)?

- You recently used the analogy of an iceberg to refer to the UI and what people will see with initial release vs what went on 'beneath the hood'. Do you expect a backlash from the community for the time it has taken to uncoil & rebuild such a convoluted task?

- Spa - When ?

 

[Boby Kim]

What a load of rubbish, we've been having physics updates in every single racing sim since Noah built the ark, it is only since project cars and assetto corsa, that sim racing visuals as started taking center stage. If the community didn't demand better visuals for their £300 to £1000 video cards, we'd still be playing these sims with 2006 visuals, and no this isn't a dig at rFactor 2, visuals and physics are in demand.

Thank for agreeing with me

 

[Fineraft]

My most important question is:

• Will there be a new endurance mod pack? Since you guys in secretly made the 24 heures du Le Mans track, this is the most interesting thing.
• Will you make an easier way to make skins? Since the release of the new material system for the S397 car packs, skin releases have dwindled. Old skins, which were based on the 24h du Le Mans cars, have become useless.
• Because like me, you guys are Dutch, our Racing Team Netherlands shouldn't have gone unnoticed. Do you guys have any desire to make the Dallara P217 and the beautiful Racing Team Netherlands car for Rfactor 2?
• Another question about endurance racing (yes I know, I'm an endurance guy), are there also plans for historic Le Mans content like the Porsche 917K, 927, Mazda 787B or the legendary GT 1 class?

I think this is it, guys. Thank you very much if you ask one of these questions.