rFactor 2 | Competition System Released In New Build Update

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Studio 397 have released a new build update for rFactor 2, adding the much anticipated first pass of the new competition system to the title.
  • New build includes minor fixes and new competition system.
  • Races due to start on Thursday within the system.
  • Further development will be ongoing throughout the coming months.

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From the release notes:

Today is a good day. Today is a new build day. You may have heard on the sim racing grapevine something about a new competition system within rFactor 2 that is under development..? Yes, that’s right, our December build update is here and a very first pass at organizing rFactor 2 multiplayer action has come with it, marking a very important line in the sand for us here at Studio 397 as we continue working incredibly hard to ensure the simulation delivers an experience our users demand.

The Competition System is now live as part of this build update, with the first racing events due to be uploaded and set to begin on Thursday December 24th.

November Roadmap | More Details On Competition Roadmap: Click Here.

Before we talk about the changes that have come as part of this new build release, let us remind you a little about why we want to include a competition system within the software in the first place.

Online racing, from a local level all the way up to organized and professional esport activities are an important aspect of the rFactor 2 journey, and have for a long time been very well represented by the many numerous community created sim racing leagues throughout the world.

Whilst these leagues are doing an incredible job of offering sim racers outstanding opportunities to race their favourite cars within the simulation, we realize that for the largest part of our user base racing in scheduled league events isn’t always the most convenient or accessible way for them to get involved in online multiplayer action, and finding servers that host content they want to race, at a time in which they would like to race it, has proven to be more difficult than it ideally needs to be.

Driven by a desire to offer quality racing for everyone, in a structured and organized way that increases the opportunities for our fantastic community to get involved, we have devised a new competition system within the software, one that offers up regularly scheduled racing in a variety of different car and track combinations within the sim and brings with it an element of matching together drivers of similar skill and ratings, to help streamline and improve the racing experience for our users, and put the emphasis back on what is important – getting on track and having fun.

Of course, this new system has been developed with expansion in mind, so what you will see as part of the new build today is certainly going to grow and expand over time – with so much obvious potential to enhance our multiplayer experience, we have taken the decision to adopt a cautious and regimented approach to deployment. What this means in reality is that we intend to spend time at each phase of development taking onboard community feedback in regard to how the system is working, and what features and behaviours the community would like to see brought to the system in future builds. By adopting this approach, we aim to maximize the potential of the system based on how it is used, and how the vast majority of people would like to use it going forward, to collectively develop something that adds genuine value to your sim racing experience within rFactor 2.

Before we take a look at the system in its current initial release status, it may be useful for those of you who missed it within the November Development Roadmap to have another look at our planned ‘mini’ roadmap of development over the coming months:

Ratings — are probably one of the most anticipated features, and one of the reasons for not having them active right from the start is that we want to test our algorithms on real-world data before publishing anything. Our current philosophy is to have a single rating system that encapsulates both your skill and safety record.

Protests and decisions — are also high on our roadmap list as we will no doubt have situations where an incident will need to be reported and evaluated by our stewards. Our goal here is definitely to let the in-game systems do a lot of the (easy) work here, monitoring when you cut the track or commit other offences and directly handing out penalties. At the same time we are aware that not everything can be decided by robots.

More competition formats — are things we will probably gradually introduce but as a feature they certainly need to be mentioned on any roadmap. We intend to run our GT championship, various hotlap styles, some completely new formats as well as more “league style” competitions in the system.

Roles and team based driving — will be added to allow multiple drivers to share an “entry”, or car, in a competition. Roles can be defined so teams can also have a manager or race engineer. Other roles are stewards, race control, and cameramen to facilitate broadcasts.

Broadcast integration — is probably another feature that will be gradually introduced, but obviously when broadcasting sessions that belong to a competition, we want to make sure that overlays showing standings, points, participants and calendars accurately reflect the competition they’re a part of.

Offline Championships — will be added once the online part is running smoothly. We will leverage the features we use online to also facilitate offline championships, where you can race against our AI.

These features will take us well into 2021, and we will revise and update them as the year progresses.

These features and developments will largely be driven by how the system is adopted by the current and future rFactor 2 racing community of course, and should be taken as a broad guideline as to our development intentions rather than a set of absolutes. We are exceptionally keen to ensure this development phase is driven by the wants and desires of our community racers, as we look to build something together than improves and enhances the overall experience of racing within rFactor 2.

With that all said, let us take a look at what has changed as part of the new build today.

  • Fixed v-sync not working
  • Fixed an issue where certain car classes would not show in a session
  • Various minor graphical bug fixes
  • Fixed issues with aspect ratio
  • Added competition system
So that’s it for the new build update, but it certainly isn’t the end of the rFactor 2 story this month. Tomorrow afternoon we plan to release our new Endurance Pack 2 DLC, adding three pretty fantastic new cars in the form of the Cadillac DPi-V.R, the LMP2 specification Ligier JS P217 and the brand new GTE Chevrolet Corvette C8.R… three cars we are sure you will enjoy racing just as much as we have enjoyed developing over the last few months.

From all at the studio, enjoy the new build and have a great Christmas and New Year!



Original Source: Studio 397

rFactor 2 is available now exclusively on PC.

Got questions? Our community have answers! Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for a great way to engage with your fellow fans of the simulation.

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I never had any big issues with rfactor 2, it's a great simulator, however, this time they messed up big with the ui.
Unfortunately 2020 isn't over!
That was an amateur step, release a new feature that is completely broken during Holidays season will give their developers a lot of work to realese a new hotfix and make some of us play another simulator
 
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Shannon Flynn

When in doubt, pass out.
I must say that the new UI has improved greatly since the last time I tried the beta a year or so ago.
It still seems a little slow, takes an extra click here and there when it shouldn't and isn't terribly intuitive. I'll have to spend some more time with it to determine how I really feel about it. :)
I honestly haven't played rF2 for a few months, but IMO it's still the best damn driving experience around no matter what the wrapper looks like.

Already signed up for the first competition thing. Hopefully there will be some drivers online soon!
 
i have Rift S too and never had issues in VR, both in old and new UI. so maybe you have to starting to think that you have a local problem
The problem is not with my Rift S per se, but with the mouse cursor in rF2, using the new UI in VR mode. I do wish people would take the trouble to read all of my replies concerning this problem, I'm getting tired of having to explain it again and again. And no reaction from S397 at all, as usual.
TL,DR: it has nothing to do with my Rift S or my mouse: the rF2 new UI has a fault in VR mode..
See here: https://forum.studio-397.com/index....inter-in-vr-flat-mode-do-not-correlate.68193/
 
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I didn't think I was going to say this but I actually like the new UI. I have had no problems with it so far, it's easy to navigate once you get use to it and that doesn't take long. A lot of it is similar to the old one. All UI's are pain to start with no matter what game. There are a couple of things that need to improved, you have no idea what a showroom looks like by selecting it, it's not until you go to it that you can see what it looks like and also a lap counter is needed in the replay so you can select the section you want to watch.
 
There are no other versions.
Removed it, unsubscribed and validated the files removed from "installed" GameData, resubsribed and downloaded again - same result.
Have you participated online with a server that may have made a custom vmod. Those often are saved as mods and may cause conflicts especially if there are any track updates since you drove there,
even if the track is the same.
 
launch the rFactor graphics configuration tool and set your res to 1920x1080 windowed and VR set to hmd+mirror
Your rift will still be at the correct resolution when you are in game.
Thanks mate :) that is the fix I've been looking for for weeks now. But why didn't anyone at S397 tell me? After me mentioning this all over the place? Why didn't the various people who slagged me off for complaining about the bugs in rF2 know this? Is this even officially documented anywhere? Happy End :)
Just goes to show: every day's a school day :)
 
Thanks mate :) that is the fix I've been looking for for weeks now. But why didn't anyone at S397 tell me? After me mentioning this all over the place? Why didn't the various people who slagged me off for complaining about the bugs in rF2 know this? Is this even officially documented anywhere? Happy End :)
Just goes to show: every day's a school day :)


So pleased that sorted it out, New UI is still a dogs dinner though even with a working mouse :)
 

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