rFactor 2 | March Development Roadmap & Track Updates

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Studio 397 published their Development Roadmap for the month of March last night, with hints at a new recently scanned track and plenty of content updates - following up with new track update releases earlier today.
  • New 'AAA' European track in development.
  • Large PBR update to Lime Rock Park upcoming.
  • Several new 'Release Candidate' builds and further beta tests.
Starting out with the Roadmap itself, Studio 397 confirmed their track team have just returned from a European scanning mission for what has been described as a 'AAA' popular race circuit, with development work to bring the new venue into rFactor 2 expected to be completed towards the end of this year.

In other news from the latest posting by the Dutch studio, further insights into the ongoing bug fixing and development improvements have been shared, with several release candidate updates having already been deployed to the software, and more expected to be released over the course of the next four weeks.

In other news, Studio 397 also deployed new updates for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Portland International Raceway and Silverstone Grand Prix circuits within the simulation, as well as new O-Rouge liveries and minor livery updates to a collection of GTE cars, as detailed below:

Silverstone V2.21
  • Fixed: Starter Worker animation under Safety Car.
  • Minor Balance Updates.
  • Fixed: an issue where a camera was blocked by a digital flag.
  • Fixed: some digital flag uvw issues.
  • Fixed: Closed gaps around pit in detection.
  • Fixed: Start Flag Marshal animation under safety car.
  • Fixed: Pit Official animations.

Portland V1.06
  • Fixed: Starter Worker Animation under Safety Car.
  • Fixed: Issue with default mapper at night on No Chicane Layout.
  • Fixed: Pit Official numbering.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway V1.06
  • Fixed: Starter Worker animation under Safety Car
  • Reduced size of curb GP layout T6
  • Fixed: Various Collision Issues
  • Reduced noise on road surface
  • Regenerated all real road rubber profiles

rfactor_2_o-rouge_skins_04.jpg


As for the GTE car updates, the following changes have been applied:


BMW M8 GTE 2018 v2.25
  • Added new O-Rouge livery.
  • Corrected material alignment issue on some skins.
Aston Martin Vantage GTE 2019 v1.71
  • Added new O-Rouge livery.
Porsche 991RSR GTE 2017 v2.61
  • Added new O-Rouge livery.
Corvette C7R GTE 2017 v2.65
  • Added new O-Rouge livery.
  • Added missing windscreen banners.



Original Source: Studio 397.

rFactor 2 is available now, exclusive to PC.

For the latest news, or to find out answers to your most ponded questions, head over to the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment, start up a thread and get involved with the community today!


rfactor_2_o-rouge_skins_02.jpg
 
Last edited:
My best guess would also be Monza for the upcoming track. It's the only "big one" that immediately comes to mind out of what I think are the most iconic/historic European tracks not officially represented in RF2 at the moment that also fits perfectly with their recent car content. I know they only said "AAA" and "popular" and not historic/iconic, and those could really apply to a lot of tracks. But, when I think of Europe's most famous "AAA" tracks I think of: Silverstone, Spa, Nurburgring (though most people specifically mean Nordschleife rather than the modern track), Le Mans, and Monza. Of course there are several other famous and popular ones, but those are probably what a lot of people would list as a top 5.

What's the significance of O-Rouge? Is that a brand/sponsor/eSport site or something? I get that it's an homage to Eau Rouge, but.... why does every car feature a skin for it?

I don't want to jump into the usual "bash RF2's shortcomings every time a roadmap comes out", but I'm going to a little bit this time, because I got so frustrated I disconnected my wheel and pedals to take a break for a few weeks. Maybe I'll jump over to the stock cars 2018x thread and put more detail but the summary is I'm getting tired of the wildly inconsistent and unbalanced AI behavior with some cars and tracks. I'm not talking about having to adjust their speed - that's fine, though I spend WAY too much time running practice races just trying to figure out what works for car/track combinations. I mean when they are utterly useless, like they can't drive the track properly and ruin the entire experience. I won't hold S397 responsible for how things behave with mod content, but when it's "official" cars and tracks - I don't care if it's a new track or a legacy ISI track if the sh*t is stock content that was paid for I want it to bleeping work. Also things like safety cars and yellow flags should not be as laughably screwed up as they all too often seem to be. This stuff seemed to work fine in other "sims" almost 20 years ago.

I really, really enjoy the actual driving in RF2. I am mostly happy, in some cases thrilled, with the content s397 has done since taking over. I am entirely an offline player, and don't know if I'll ever really get into multiplayer. I have had some *outstanding* races vs AI in RF2, but it is really starting to grate on me that I feel like every time I try a car/track combination with AI it's a 50/50 chance they're just going to drive themselves into a wall every lap and ruin the whole event. It literally makes parts of this sim unusable to me, and it's finally gotten under my skin enough that I'm questioning if I want to keep buying into it.

I work in technology, and I really do understand that trying to update and "fix" an old product to modern standards is difficult. You usually end up with a bunch of workarounds that kind of/sort of get you what you want but it still ends up feeling like a workaround and not actually something new and better. And, adding or improving one thing tends to break something else that you didn't expect (sound familiar?) I honestly appreciate what S397 have done and are trying to do, but I really wonder if it's time to just salvage the good parts and move on to RF3 and build it all new. I'm not saying I hate RF2, in many ways I actually love it and it is the one I am rooting for the hardest. But I don't know, it's like in a long relationship when there's those little annoyances that build up over years and turn into resentment. I don't want that to happen RF2, let's talk it out and change some things, I want to stay together.
rF2 code been build very modular, so they can rewrite the parts that need to be upgraded.
You PC still runs fine on pieces of C code that's been developed almost 50 years ago.
Rewriting software from scratch would take another 5 years to develop.
 

How much money have you spend on your current simracing hardware

  • €0-150

    Votes: 84 19.4%
  • €151-500

    Votes: 119 27.4%
  • €501-1000

    Votes: 71 16.4%
  • €1001-1500

    Votes: 38 8.8%
  • €1501-3000

    Votes: 42 9.7%
  • €3001-5000

    Votes: 22 5.1%
  • €5001-10000

    Votes: 27 6.2%
  • I stopped counting a long time ago

    Votes: 31 7.1%
Top