rFactor 2 | RCCO eX Zero 2021 DLC Released

[Paul Jeffrey]

Studio 397 have today released the imaginative RCCO eX Zero 2021 electric car DLC for rFactor 2 - an rFactor 2 exclusive machine developed in conjunction with DTM Champion Mike Rockenfeller.

• New DLC available now for £4.55.
• Developed alongside 2013 DTM Champion Mike Rockenfeller.
• Created entirely within rFactor 2.

A DLC with a difference - rFactor 2 have today released a new car to the simulation that doesn't actually exist in real life... the RCCO eX ZERO 2021 has been released and it has been designed by the Studio 397 development team to a specification presented by former DTM Champion Mike Rockenfeller - bringing a brand new and exceptionally powerful electric racing car that should provide incredibly interesting driving coupled with ultra modern battery technology.

From the release notes:

As we draw ever closer to the end of 2020, the world around us is changing in ways we would never have imagined just 10 years ago. Humanity is becoming increasingly aware of the need to preserve our planet for future generations, sustainable options for ways of living are being brought into the conscious minds of consumers at a rate never before seen, and road car manufacturers are increasingly looking to alternative propulsion methods as the future of travel moves yet further away from the traditional ICE power units of today.

With Formula E and the new Extreme E concepts having already proven to be successful showcases for electric racing within the confines of current technology, we’ve been working with a partner to bring a rather different type of car to life within rFactor 2… As our readers well know, we at Studio 397 place an incredibly high value on the accuracy of our simulation, and our ability to recreate any number of different vehicle types within the title. This has led us to build a variety of different cars for the sim over the years, from formula to tin tops, powered by traditional internal combustion engines and modern battery power.

Ever keen to understand the intricacies of many varied types of racing machine, we took on a very different type of project recently; creating a car that confines to all the real world parameters in terms of physics and performance, but starting from a clean sheet of paper with a specification presented to us by 2013 DTM Champion Mike Rockenfeller. Welcome to the world the spectacular RCCO eX ZERO 2021.

Powered by a 100kWH battery and kicking out no-less than 1000hp, the eX ZERO 2021 is a custom-built car – existing only within rFactor 2 – that completely aligns with real world physics and behaviours that would exist should the vehicle find itself out on the real circuits. Enjoying the benefit of 4WD with a 73% rear torque split, the car is capable of 20 minutes of hard racing on a full charge. Lightweight at only 1000 kg without the driver, this car certainly offers exceptional performance and a very lively driving experience!

The eX ZERO 2021 has similar downforce levels to that of a modern LMP3 car, but considerably more torque through the slick tyres, meaning extraordinarily rapid acceleration that will leave the driver plenty of scope to modulate the throttle on corner exit – a critical skill in order to achieve good lap times.

To give you a taste of the kind of performance you can expect from new addition to the rFactor 2 vehicle roster, we enlisted the help of Porsche Carrera Cup Germany driver and rFactor 2 ambassador Rudy van Buren to put the new machine through its paces at the Belgian Spa-Francorchamps Circuit, a track well known to many sim racers, and a perfect venue for comparing the performance of this car to more traditional track based vehicles.


We’ve found the process of developing this car greatly intriguing, to have the scope to realize a vision such as this within rFactor 2 has been a refreshing journey for our development team – and the result is a car that will keep drivers on their tiptoes at every single part of a lap – it’s a wild ride!

We are very proud of the end result with the RCCO eX ZERO 2021 as it really offers something rather unique within the simulation – hopefully you enjoy getting out on the circuit with it too.

RCCO eX ZERO 2021 | Available now in rFactor 2: HERE

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.

 

[KittX]

In 1975, a guy named Ben Burtt was working for a guy named George Lucas.

Ben took a recording of a trumpeting elephant and mixed it with the sound of a car driving on a wet road and it became the legendary Tie Fighter engine roar.

Fast forward 45 years, and nobody has any idea how to make electric cars sound interesting? Nobody has figured out that square cut gear whine can be replaced by electric motor whine, a gearbox can be added for the nostalgic challenge, and air flow can be channeled through a mechanical noise generation device inspired by, oh I don't know, an elephant's audio system?

And even when you don't have to actually do it in real life and can just make a virtual representation, they just don't do it.

If I were designing performance EVs, I would be shopping the sound design opportunity out to all the major sound effects studios to see who wants to create the world's first signature electric racing sound.

I may be in the minority here (and I drive 30 year old car on a daily basis, and absolutely love every noise and vibration of it). but to me motor is motor, and worst engine sound is fake engine sound. Engine should sound just the way it naturally sounds to perform it's function. I race electric karts and love them for what they are, and I race normal karts as well, and of course i miss the off-throttle BANG behind your back, the smells. the vibrations, but first thing i turn off in the electric kart is fake engine sound. You can monitor the health of your batteries listening to the engine as well. The fake, synthesized engine noise from crappy speakers is last thing i want to hear, it's turning it into toy right away for me.

I wonder, when the combustion engine cars were just getting produced, everyone also wanted to put horse sounds to them?

Similar for gearbox whine... you may hate electric cars for global/political reasons and for these reasons I do too, but dailying a car without gearbox lowers the amount of elements that can be broken > lowers the maintenance cost.

 

[GuitarTech]

Make me boycott your arse for that "make our planet clean with electrics" brainwashing, S397. When most for most electrics half the car's weight is the battery. A battery full of scarcer by the day metals/minerals, i might add.

The ecological footprint from e-cars is terrible: they require a lot of energy to manufacture, use a lot of materials that're rare and expensive ( and even more energy used to even get all this stuff out of the ground), and up until now, nobody has any recycling concept to dispose or recycle the batteries when they reach end-of-life.
All in all, a giant con job from the politicians under the motto: look, we're doing something for the ecology, please vote us in again. And please think of the children
The IC motor is going to be here for a lot longer than they would have us believe, e-cars are not the long-term solution that they are marketed as.

 

[doddynco]

Electric cars can sound awesome. This one does not.

 

[Caleb Lee]

...and Working Yellow Flags.
And decent AI.
And a working UI so I don't have to dig around in files.
And working virtual rides...

rFactor 2 has some of the best AI on the market, what are you on about? And virtual rides work as well, I dunno about that gripe either. There are a BUNCH of bugs but those aren't some of them.

 

[Tarmac Terrorist]

rFactor 2 has some of the best AI on the market, what are you on about? And virtual rides work as well, I dunno about that gripe either. There are a BUNCH of bugs but those aren't some of them.

When it works its awsome, but yes, some of it is completely fecked! BMW CS for instance, bought it, can't use it (offline anyway), why, A.I. are fecked!

 

[Jonny Austin]

What an odd choice of car for a sim that is already a hodgepodge of unfinished ideas.Imagine coming up with this when they could have released a Ginetta or Rebellion LMP1 car to have a proper WEC series grid.

 

[muzikant]

I don't think you see point of the complaints. Many fans want this title to succeed, and pay for every overpriced piece of DLC to support the studio, so they can fix it and get up to standards the project they picked up years ago. Yet we live off promises for years, while other studios make new, better and complete titles for 5x less price in store. Do you think those countless bugs and problems will keep that "wider audience" playing if they buy this game?

Yess because the ffb road feel psyg...!!

 

[Peter Kerényi]

I don't want to be rude or anything, I criticize rF2 enough as it is for different aspects apart from driving experience and feel, but based on pictures and videos the cockpit looks like what I would expect in a quick AC rip mod. I was quite surprised and excited when they announced this... different thing, but the graphical quality is really not paid-tier. Going here after the 488s, I no longer know what to expect from new rF2 content...

Maybe it looks better in "real" gameplay but the content I have seen did not "sell" it to me... or put it on my wishlist at all.

 

[GuitarTech]

rFactor 2 has some of the best AI on the market, what are you on about? And virtual rides work as well, I dunno about that gripe either. There are a BUNCH of bugs but those aren't some of them.

Go and drive GT3 in Spa and then tell me that the AI doesn't need work....

 

[GuitarTech]

Screw the bugs i want more content.

Screw the content, I want less bugs

 

[Ryan Soucy]

And talking of having artists around twiddling their thumbs, did anyone else ever get bothered by the oversized Brabham BT20 wheels?

 

[GuitarTech]

And talking of having artists around twiddling their thumbs, did anyone else ever get bothered by the oversized Brabham BT20 wheels?

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That is the limited edition off-road version

 

[DaVeX↯]

Tyres are quite okish for car body dimensions...the real issue is the driver model...smaller and with plenty of space...so...we need a bigger driver model or smaller car?

 

[erniedaoage]

For people complaining about bugfixing, every bug which gets fixed within the game doesn't make you any money at all. Those sims today have to put out content after content to keep the cashflow going. But what did they think about this? honestly i don't know, I mean iracing did a fantasy indycar, but at least it has a real engine with real engine sound. This thing sounds like my daughter going downhill on our vacuum cleaner. I totally get Formula E because its a real series, this is not even a prototype vehicle. Most of the historic content in rf2 is massively outdated and i don't think that stuff will ever be updated, because it's not generating money. Honestly i don't even think this DLC will generate enough money to succesfully maintain itself.

 

[Caleb Lee]

Go and drive GT3 in Spa and then tell me that the AI doesn't need work....

I never said it doesn't need any work on any track, but it's some of (if not the) best on the market.

 

[leillo1975]

It's a really fun car, and is ... HIPER-FAST!. Here is my video:

 

[DaVeX↯]

A good alternative to that Zero thing...

 

[Case_]

It's funny. There's a Spa release and I'm like...yeah, well, cool I guess, it's always nice to have official tracks. Then I see something like this and think "OK, this sounds like it could be a lot of fun! Count me in!"

I don't know. I guess I'm just really failing at being a real simracer, because apparently I should be REEEEing about how it sounds like a hairdryer, is a fantasy car and can only do a couple of laps.

I mean I might like it, I might not. Depends on the handling, really (which has nothing to do with whether it's electric or atomic or powered by a bunch of hyperactive hamsters). But it surely sounds a lot more exciting than a slightly different version of yet another car or track I can drive in every sim I own.

 

[Ryan Soucy]

For people complaining about bugfixing, every bug which gets fixed within the game doesn't make you any money at all. Those sims today have to put out content after content to keep the cashflow going.

Well, because they have failed to create a compelling experience for me (I don't race in online leagues and after watching the rF2-based leagues during the lockdown, I don't regret it), I have not bought a single piece of DLC from S397. I own 98% of PC2, AC, and all of AMS, and AMS2 (so far), so they have been losing money. I'm sure there are people who feel the same. And I REALLY like Formula E. I really want to race those cars, but I know if I buy it, I'll go in and race a couple times then never go back. There's no championship. No Attack Mode on tracks. Forget a career or car development...

Correction: I did buy the URD GTE mod. Because VIPER. I have it in AC though, so I raced it twice in rF2 and haven't touched it since. Don't think that goes to S397 though.

 

[fireballr18]

For people complaining about bugfixing, every bug which gets fixed within the game doesn't make you any money at all.

I know a lot of guys who lost hope in rF2 and stopped purchasing content, because of don't care for bugs.

It's like having a Maserati, which must be stopped each 100km, because something got broken.