What features do you want to see in AC?

[Requiem84]

We know that many features won't be available in V1.0 of AC.

I'd like to know what features simracers want most. Give your top 5 of features that you desperately want to have in AC, and explain us why.

I'll kick it off;

In random order;

- dynamic weather
This made league racing in GTR so awesome. If you'd see the clouds coming you were already anxiously thinking about your strategy

- some form of 'iRating'. Call it 'Assetto Punto's'. Implement this in AC, and it will guarantee much more online activity. People are simple beings. They need rewards to do things. It gives a good feeling if you finish high in a strong field and then get rewarded with many 'AP's. It keeps the sim alive and busy! Desperately needed!

If it's done by a modding team, perhaps we can do it better than iRacing does (i.e. rating per car).

- Sharing setups; essential for pickup racing as well. If your driving with friends online, it's convenient to share setups straightaway while practicing, or also helping other drivers you meet online.

- Mechanical damage based on driver input. Be hard on your gears or brakes, and you'll suffer some damage. For example, missing a gear or brake fading. Too much curb hopping and you could damage your suspension. Adds an element to races.

- Tire wear based on driving style. Makes racing much more tactical.

I'm curious to know what other people deem important.

 

[Simon Roberts]

There are some nice ideas, but also a load that are rubbish. It's a racing sim not drive around casually sim.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

When the driving is this realistic, especially at slow speeds, it very much can be a drive around casually sim if people want to...I let my wife drive (her first time ever using a toy wheel and everything) and she putted around for several laps having a ball.

Any sim or game with vehicles can be raced....this might be the only one that is actually realistic and convincing at slow speeds.

 

[Requiem84]

There are some nice ideas, but also a load that are rubbish. It's a racing sim not drive around casually sim.

That's how I felt first too. But then I saw the presentation Stefano gave on AC (see youtube). Their aim is to conquer a bit of the Forza/GT market. To do that, they have to make AC a little bit like a 'driving' sim too. From a commercial pov it quite smart actually.

I don't really mind, as long as the tire model/physics are still spot on (like in the tech-demo). I don't mind having the option to turn on all those aids etc, because I don't use them anyway.

The thing is.. many people here seem to judge AC from their personal perspective and preferences, while I think it is better for all of us if we take the perspective of KS. If the sim is a big hit, it will benefit us all with financial backing, better support, more money for dev's, more updates, more track and car licenses.

 

[Taranta]

 

[Mapu]

There are some nice ideas, but also a load that are rubbish. It's a racing sim not drive around casually sim.

I could be wrong, but what are you talking about? I mean it is only a "tech preview" and it was to be expected that most and major features are deactivated.

 

[Requiem84]

Simon was talking about the idea's in this thread.

Some people seem to want to make AC like Test drive .

 

[Mapu]

A résumé of ideas then, oh well never mind.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Requiem84 A Test Drive Unlimited with AC's physics would be extremely high on my wish list to be honest

 

[Arkadiusz Wawrzyniak]

The only features AC lack for me at the moment is dynamic weather conditions (or rain condition at least), night time. We actually don't know much of a damage model at the moment so I won't comment on that.

 

[Tony Rickard]

There are some nice ideas, but also a load that are rubbish. It's a racing sim not drive around casually sim.

At one point I turned off the lap time counter and simply drove around for the sheer hell of it. At which point I felt that driving simulators had finally come of age where simply driving on a computer was enough to satisfy a reasonably hardcore sim racer - as a genuine trackday for the hell of it sim.

Forza & GT keep pushing the sim aspect and the prospect of driving a huge variety of exotic cars seems great but fail to deliver, so the racing game aspect has to inspire the customer to drive it.

In a bizarre way the thought of an AC engine based title where I can tear around in a red & white Ford Gran Torino in a Californian city chasing bad guys is strangely appealling

 

[Sebastian Wolff]

I would like the driver`s shifting animation to begin as soon as I engage the clutch, and then come to an end when I actually shift.

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

aris and programmers in AC, remember that now we can use the benefits of button boxes, i hope there are some options in AC to use with the button boxes (even i don't have one so far).
in the TP i don't find them useful since you can use the mouse for most of the options, and while racing i didn't find anything. since AC won't have pit stops in v1.0 i don't see a use for them by now other than start the car maybe or turn off ABS, but for seat adjustments and so, please think about that

 

[Hannes-Joshua Thor Barthel]

ofcourse occulus rift support.. (but that already had it's own thread).. but is one of the things I am looking very much forward to in the future..

other than that.. hmm I always have some ideas and so from time to time.. but that are all minor things which I forget then again...

a thing like the look to apex thing of gtr2 would be nice (at least on a single screen).. but I mean realy that way of gtr2 which looks a bit left or right (with adjustable strength) while steering ..not that strange irritating thing slighty mad make/made..

 

[Marian Zelenka]

Separate "automatic blip&cut" option so I can flatshift and blip on downshifts when using sequential gear lever.

I hope at least race cars with sq sticks will have this option. It would be a big let down for me if they haven't.

 

[Juise]

I would like to have an option to server decide the time how long damaged and undrivable vehicles stay on the track.
Many games work in a way that the debris is connected to the vehicle where they came from and when the driver ESC out of the track the debris disappears with it.

In real life it takes atleast a lap to collect the cars and several laps if many cars and lots of debris. So I would like to something similar in simracing.
If you hit esc then you get out from the car as a player but the car stays there with it's parts.

Of course this will be a strain on the netcode so we would also need some way to restrict the amount of debris.

This would add some interesting realism to races and when it would be adjustable (the time until disappearing) leagues could decide how much to use it if they don't want or it becomes too hard for the server to handle.

I also went bit further with the idea as in our league we stream almost all of our races (iRacing, rF2 and once even GPL)
Usually there is no need for a safetycar on road racing in sim racing because the cars get collected instantly, but with this delay we could actually have a use for it. So i thought there would be an option to introduce the safetycar if the announcers watching the situation while commentating it decide that it's needed to avoid any further damage.

Of course i understand that both of these are very VERY low on the list for any developer and most of the racers also, but just thought I'll write it here so i can get it out of my system

 

[classicpark]

Safty car on track when there is a crash with two cars or more or by auto class racerules