I had one of the greatest experiences sim racing has to offer yesterday when I setup a race weekend with real weather at Spa. AMS2 automatically chose wet tyres. Everything felt automatic and it allowed me to just focus on the experience.
The whole day was rainy. I thought I would hate it. I don't like rain in sims mainly because I feel sims don't provide the feedback information necessary to drive in the rain and it just feels like simply less grip. Surprisingly, I was able to handle the car at speed (rain speed of course) and was competitive with the lot. I don't know how realistic AMS2's wet track surface simulation is but it allowed me to enjoy the experience.
It wasn't simply cloudy skies and rain, either, there were parts of the track with less rain than others. There was even a section of track where sun rays broke through the clouds while it was raining giving you that sensation of a sun shower or the end of a mid-day rain.
And dry lines started appearing, very, very clear, like in real life, especially towards the end of the race session when it transitioned from rain to dry.
The feeling of following up 2 or 3 cars ahead in their rain spray reducing visibility to almost nothing is brilliant.
AMS2's graphics shine when all of these separate systems come together to give you a visual and sensory experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Words can't convey the immersion and experience of it all. I can only recommend just firing up AMS2 and making use of real weather on your favourite track. I suspect even if it's not raining it will still provide a more immersive, perhaps surreal experience than just clear skies all the time. I loved this experience at my home track Mosport using AC's Content Manager with real weather in the middle of winter having to put up with 0 degree track surface and dark evening lighting. It was still a fresh, fun experience.
PS. Some advice for developers: Real Weather is a good example where a ready-made race configuration beats manual, tedious user setup of variables like weather. I suspect I'm like most, it's takes you out of the experience if you have to setup 4 slots of weather, etc. ACC gets this with their competitions, it's all just setup. The same applies for weather and other tiny features, like your car, classes, grid size, time of day, setups, etc. Prioritize ready-made experiences over simply requiring setting up all the features. How about a mini evening setting sun 12h of Bathurst? Or a snow/rain drenched night experience at Spa? Or rain/dry/rain/dry, N pit stop requirement, driver swap required, 24h-in-24minutes Nurburgring experience? There's so many options. To attract the average sim racer (ie. wants a simulation but is more causal about the details), I think this is the way.
The whole day was rainy. I thought I would hate it. I don't like rain in sims mainly because I feel sims don't provide the feedback information necessary to drive in the rain and it just feels like simply less grip. Surprisingly, I was able to handle the car at speed (rain speed of course) and was competitive with the lot. I don't know how realistic AMS2's wet track surface simulation is but it allowed me to enjoy the experience.
It wasn't simply cloudy skies and rain, either, there were parts of the track with less rain than others. There was even a section of track where sun rays broke through the clouds while it was raining giving you that sensation of a sun shower or the end of a mid-day rain.
And dry lines started appearing, very, very clear, like in real life, especially towards the end of the race session when it transitioned from rain to dry.
The feeling of following up 2 or 3 cars ahead in their rain spray reducing visibility to almost nothing is brilliant.
AMS2's graphics shine when all of these separate systems come together to give you a visual and sensory experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Words can't convey the immersion and experience of it all. I can only recommend just firing up AMS2 and making use of real weather on your favourite track. I suspect even if it's not raining it will still provide a more immersive, perhaps surreal experience than just clear skies all the time. I loved this experience at my home track Mosport using AC's Content Manager with real weather in the middle of winter having to put up with 0 degree track surface and dark evening lighting. It was still a fresh, fun experience.
PS. Some advice for developers: Real Weather is a good example where a ready-made race configuration beats manual, tedious user setup of variables like weather. I suspect I'm like most, it's takes you out of the experience if you have to setup 4 slots of weather, etc. ACC gets this with their competitions, it's all just setup. The same applies for weather and other tiny features, like your car, classes, grid size, time of day, setups, etc. Prioritize ready-made experiences over simply requiring setting up all the features. How about a mini evening setting sun 12h of Bathurst? Or a snow/rain drenched night experience at Spa? Or rain/dry/rain/dry, N pit stop requirement, driver swap required, 24h-in-24minutes Nurburgring experience? There's so many options. To attract the average sim racer (ie. wants a simulation but is more causal about the details), I think this is the way.
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