Automobilista 2 | New Update, Loads Of Content Now Available

[Paul Jeffrey]

Reiza Studios have released their much anticipated new 'landmark' Automobilista 2 game update - including a whole heap of new content for the simulation.

Yes it's here folks - the new build release of Automobilista 2 and some nice new free and paid content for good measure. We've got GT3 and GT4 cars from the likes of Mercedes, Porsche, McLaren and Chevrolet, the German Nurburgring circuit in different configurations, some fresh updates to the force feedback of the game, AI improvements and a load more goodies - certainly marking this one out as a key new update in the development of Automobilista 2 since it left Early Access.

Before we move on to the update notes, be sure to check out a couple of key messages from Reiza about this build:

Release Promo - Temporary free access to the Nurburgring track!

With the Nordschleife and 24h layouts not quite ready for this release, we have elected to temporarily offer the other modern Nurburgring layouts FREE to all users until the long layouts are added to the package at some point next week.

Please be advised that upon the addition of the Nordschleife & 24h layouts, all Nurburgring versions will revert to being available only for owners of the DLC or packages that include it.

Updated Force Feedback

This update adds fresh Force Feedback developments, the most significant being:

- Damping now adjustable via in-game FFB menu *
- Enhanced tyre flatspots **
- Enhanced feedback during braking
- Enhanced road feel (adjustable via FX slider) ***
- Improved scrub effect (adjustable via FX slider)
- Effectively eliminated FFB "deadzone" around center in some cars
- Improved gyro moment accuracy
- Now using SETA patch offset/deformation for mechanical trail (much more "organic" feel on edge of grip)
- Tyre temperature and pressure will affect feedback
- More distinctive oversteer / understeer feedback

* We recommend using damping in game vs on wheel setting. Damping in game scales with vehicle, so roughly same level for all cars. On wheel / driver damping doesn't scale with wheel gain, so if you have gain too low, damping will overwhelm FFB signal.

** flatspots are currently presented in "raw" form. Given tire is split into many small patches, you will receive "impulses" as there are "flat patches" on tire. It depends on amount of wear on individual patch. Hence the note "raw signal".

*** Road feel is based on physical surface mesh roughness / bumps - which on real vehicles would be "fed back" to the driver via vibration "travelling" thru chassis and as a result will be felt on steering rim especially cars and race cars that have racks bolted directly to chassis, without any sort of insulating "rubber mounts" - take note this would only "vibrate", not "move" wheel rim left-right. Given our gaming controllers are effectievly "1DOF" device - ie. able to move only left or right, we are shaping this vibration such that it can be felt on them too.

IMPORTANT: Custom Force Feedback profiles may be affected by code changes to the FFB system and not work as before the update. If you find that is the case consider sticking to the default profile until the author of the custom alternative updates his version.


Update Notes;

CONTENT

• Added GT3 series (currently featuring 2015 Mercedes-AMG GT3 & 2016 Porsche 911 GT3 R & 2019 Mclaren 720S GT3)
• Added GT4 series (currently featuring 2018 Mclaren 570S GT4, 2017 Camaro GT4-R & 2016 Porsche GT4 Cayman Clubsport)
• Added 2020 Porsche Carrera Cup Brasil (featuring Porsche GT3 Cup 3.8 & 4.0)
• Added Nurburgring Track (GP, Veedol & Sprint layouts - DLC TRACK, FREE TO ALL USERS FOR A LIMITED TIME

GENERAL

• Added support for overriding default liveries with user liveries (more info for this soon)
• Updated Force Feedback system & Added Damping slider to FFB menu
• Championship mode: Adjusted Stock Car championship rules to better match real regulations ( refuelling permitted in pitstops; use formation+rolling start; added mandatory pitstop; increased minimum race to to 15 mins to allow AI sensible pitting options

UI & HUD

• Added support for additional UI track filters
• Fixed incorrect label on FOV options tab when in unselected state
• Disabled 'Reset to defaults' button in main setup screen when fixed setups are used
• Fixed RR compound decrease button altering wrong value
• Further reduced opacity of disabled menu options on in-game screens
• Fixed incorrect current lap in displayed on HUD when rolling start used
• Gaps now shown in laps rather than time for lapped vehicles on weekend results
• Added lobby detail page to multiplayer browser
• Extended MP player interaction dialog to include Vote To Kick
• Allowed Player interaction dialog acces to all users (previously host only)
• Updated all in-game leaderboards to allow access to Player interaction dialog (left click / Joypad X)
• Fixed player name clipping on in-game MP leaderboards

PHYSICS

• Revised tyre treads in GT, Prototypes, Stock Cars, Super V8 for more longitudinal slip & improved force combining
• Slight reduction to parking force FFB (all cars)
• Fixed missing autolift function in Mini gearbox
• Adjusted Max force for MRX (all variants)
• Reduced default viscous lock & preload baseline in cars in LSD diffs
• Slightly increased speed sensitivity in road tyre tread (60s Classics, F-Vee, Copa Fusca & Uno)
• Slightly further reducing lock per clutch in LSD differentials
• Corrected rev range error in Group A engines
• Adjusted default gear ratios for Group A
• Adjusted F-Ultimate sidewall stiffness

AI

• Scaled the pit exit speed by the outlap slowdown factor (this prevents the AI going offroad after leaving the pits in Taruma)
• Adjusted AI code to minimise weaving
• Adjusted AI calculations for enforced pitstops in timed races
• Further AI callibration pass for Group A, Procar & 125cc karts

TRACKS

• Added animated helicopter & drones to Adelaide, Brasilia, Brands Hatch, Cadwell Park. Campo Grande, Cascavel, Curitiba, Imola, Jerez, Silverstone, Montreal, Silverstone 2001,
• Hockenheim (all versions): Minor art & performance pass
• Montreal: Object LOD fixes & Minor art & performance pass
• Londrina: Adjusted triggers & start location
• Donington: Object LOD fixes; Minor art & performance pass
• Added VR cams for Adelaide, Kansai & Montreal
• Goiania: Fixed marbles
• Taruma: Minor art & performance pass
• Oulton Park: Fixed broken pitcrew/pitbox marker animations in Oulton / Fosters layouts
• Added helicopter & drone animations to Granja, Londrina, Hockenheim, Ibarra

VEHICLES

• F3 (F301) - Revised and updated liveries including new community skin; Updated leather textures on head rests.
• Metalmoro MRX: Added dirt / damage effects + Dangling damaged parts + new colliders (all variants)
• Camaro SS - Corrected LOD D glitch
• Added Gol) Dirt/Damage effects + Detachable boot lid (all variants)

Original Source: Reiza Studios

AMS 2 is available now, exclusive to PC.

The AMS 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment is a great place to hang out and discuss the simulation with your fellow sim racing fans. Head over, say hello and come join in the action - start a new thread today!

 

[Gringo]

I think I found the green hellView attachment 417221

Thanks for the heads up... fixed.

 

[daveclifton]

Where can I download AMS2 setups? I believe the default ones are bad.

 

[Squalido]

Nothing is perfect.. No sim is perfect. The new GT3/GT4's in AMS2 certainly aren't perfect.. but I had sooo much fun in the Porsche GT3 in AMS2 last night, I couldn't stop doing lap after lap. I'm happy they released them for that reason alone. I know quite well they aren't perfect, but I can see the direction they are heading and its a mighty fine one.

Just reading some of the above, I think people forget how bad other sims / content / cars where on early releases and just how long it has taken others to get to where they are now, which.. for the most part.. are still not perfect and have a tonne of bugs too. It's easy to say look at x or y sim, but x or y wasn't what it is today when it was first released either.

The same thing happened to me yesterday. I spent 2 hours just driving the Porsche GT3 around Nurburing. So much fun and I couldn't bring myself to stop playing. After 80 hours in ACC I thought I was done with driving GT3 cars, but it seems that it wasn't the cars what I was done with.

The game is not perfect, there are still many things to improve and fix, but since I bought it 4 months ago I can't stop playing it.

 

[Peter Kerényi]

I wasn't talking about the little things, but about major physics-flaws in ACC that doesn't appear in AC (which has other flaws). When I was starting with Forza about 6 years ago, the physics were nuts, but those basic stuff was working. Nowadays many start with ACC on a console or just getting used to this game and when they drive in AMS2, they suck and blame it on the game. But it isn't AMS2 fault that they suck, just the bad habits they learned in ACC.

So this discussion of ours made me do another comparison, Mercedes-AMG GT3 @ Nurburgring "without" chicane.

Let's start with AMS 2: First time in the car. The new FFB is indeed much better. Hats off. The camera setting of Legacy + 50 World Movement is also good. Car wasn't bouncy. It was a good experience. First timed lap around 1:56 half, second 1:55 half.

ACC: Not really using that car. Bit colder, cloudier conditions. Of course could be different BoP as well as baseline settings. FFB is maybe a bit less communicative. First timed lap around 1:56 half as well, but I could only improve to low 1:56 in the short session.

I felt that in braking/entry I was much more confident in ACC. Mid-corner the ACC AMG was a bit more nervous. On exit the TC on the AMS2 car was much less restrictive and the car more planted, but at the same time more alive at the back. When I lost traction a bit in AMS2, I feel like I lost less time. Biggest difference was the Schumacher-S where I could drive in AMS2 with full throttle effortlessly, whereas in ACC I needed to lift. I feel like in AMS2 mid corner the front drags around the back a lot more in AMS2. In ACC I made up the time in braking/entry, I felt much more confident especially into T1 and the chicane.

Since BoP and tyres are not quite given in AMS2, and conditions/track state could be different, it is quite irrelevant, but IRL they lift in the Schumacher-S in GTWC Europe (this is not the fastest lap but this is what I found):

This is in no way pro/against any sim, I just wanted to compare them and provide my experience. In this case AMS2 was also very pleasant to drive! Kudos to both! And neither lap was flawless, far from that.

 

[MadDriver11]

Totally agree with Renato. There is too much scrutiny and hate against this sim which is not justified by facts. The amount of hard work, good content and refined driving experience AMS2 is gaining almost by the week is unprecedented. No developers have ever dropped updates, hotfixes and general improvement like Reiza.
And that is on an already great sim.
Keep up the good work Rezia

 

[leclettico]

I wasn't talking about the little things, but about major physics-flaws in ACC that doesn't appear in AC (which has other flaws). When I was starting with Forza about 6 years ago, the physics were nuts, but those basic stuff was working. Nowadays many start with ACC on a console or just getting used to this game and when they drive in AMS2, they suck and blame it on the game. But it isn't AMS2 fault that they suck, just the bad habits they learned in ACC.

Pick up the Mp4/12 at Nurburgring.
Try a test day, Clear, at 10:00 am
Try to mess up the set up.
At the extreme levels.
All the ride heights up all the bumps down.
Try a lot of combinations.
I lap always more or less the same time.
With a gap of 3 or 4 tenths.

I learned it recently.
One of the things that keeps me away from AMS2 is the absolute lack of the need to setup the car.
I don't feel that need, and I really don't know why.
I'd really love to fall in love with AMS2, but I can never really understand when a car can be "complete". It's always a sort of perpetual postponement.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I tried acc amg and ams2, i felt much more info what car is doing in ams2!

As disclaimed, it's all subjective.
I am on DD wheel, SC2 Pro, so may be it let me get more details through.
On AMS2 I can feel a lot of exaggerated "feel good" noise, but no real information I can use to comfortably get car to the edge.
Classical music vs hip-hop, just different style.
But somehow none of the other sims I've tried present GT3 class in the way AMS2 does, which makes me wonder more about physics, as FFB with custom profile can be tuned to the less exciting level.

 

[Rafael Placce]

Where can I download AMS2 setups? I believe the default ones are bad.

You can download setups in the leaderboard in time-trial mode

 

[daveclifton]

You can download setups in the leaderboat in time-trial mode

How? I can see the wrench icon for each lap, but when I click on it nothing happens. Any ideas?

 

[Zolazem]

I haven't tried the update yet, but reading the comments here I get the impression that it was again a hit-and-miss experience as with the previous update. In the previous update I tried the new Group A cars and the the M1 Procar and I can't point my finger at it, but it was a very underwhelming experience. The FFB being pretty flat and cars with wierd physics, that instantly gave me a PC2 flashback. The bounciness of the 190 and M3 and their very unstable behaviour under breaking made it impossible to move the car around a track in a reasonable fashion. Those cars are in several other sims and they don't react like that anywhere else. The M1 on the other hand felt like it was on rails, something quite unusual for a GT car from the mid/late 70s. And the FFB being a constant construction sight since months tells me that there are more severe issues, while good FFB has allways been a trademark of Reiza products.

In my POV - wich is allways easier when you are stitting iny your comfy chair - it might be better to release one car at a time, but with everything ready and thoroughly tested. Maybe it might have been better to just release the M1 or just the Cup car. S397 have had similar issues in the past where they shipped just too much stuff creating a big backlog of issues, with some of the issues still not fixed. But in general the releases have been getting better and as the releases got smaller with one car at a time fixes could be applied faster (as with the Ferrari GT3 and Bentley GT3 for example). And in general I get the impression that quality over quantitiy is where this genre is going.

Now to sum this up: in general I think that there is potential for AMS2, but I am allways left alone after each update, wondering if I should spend more money on DLCs. That's the part of the community that you are ignoring. While it might be true, that the current influx of money from new players might be pretty much a needed boost, I am not sure if Reiza is shooting themself in the foot in the long run. My 2 cents

Are you serious start complaining and criticizing when you not tried the update yourself, what a sad life you have then.

 

[CrimsonEminence]

How? I can see the wrench icon for each lap, but when I click on it nothing happens. Any ideas?

Add the desired laptimes ghosts to your session and load the track, then you see a blue wrench next to the ghosts in the session menu, click on it and you fetch the setup.

 

[daveclifton]

Add the desired laptimes ghosts to your session and load the track, then you see a blue wrench next to the ghosts in the session menu, click on it and you fetch the setup.

Perfect, thank you.

 

[Case_]

Huh? That's random.

Well, maybe. But the person I was referring to clearly understood whom I was talking about and what it was about, since my comment is now gone without a single word, because they can't stand criticism (despite always talking about how welcome all opinions are and such), especially not from someone like me But, to be fair, I fully expected that, it's not the first time it happened and probably not the last time either.

 

[amsterDAN]

For me, this was never a make-or-break update for the game. I absolutely did not buy AMS2 to drive GT3s around the Nurburgring, which I can already do in literally every other sim; I bought it to crash Copa Montanas around Cascavel and what not. My enjoyment of this sim has never hinged upon whether or not Reiza nails the GT3 and GT4 car classes; it's my oddball sim that I turn to whenever I want to drive something completely different from the other sims. So to me this update is more or less just bonus content, and in that respect I am perfectly pleased with what we received. Sure, there are a few issues to be addressed with the new cars, but on the whole I found it to be good content that just needs a little more dialing in. (Currently the AI is an absolute disaster, but I'm confident this is on the top of Reiza's list of things to address because the issue is really rather glaring right now.)

Honestly it seems to me like most conversations about AMS2 follow the same trajectory. On one side you see a lot of angry people demanding nothing short of absolute perfection from Reiza, and if anything is the least bit buggy or wonky they say Reiza sucks and has lost them as a customer forever. On the other hand, you have fanboys that think Reiza is incapable of doing anything poorly, and with every update they come out of the woodwork to shout "Finally we can uninstall all other sims because AMS2 is officially the king!" and vehemently dispute even the most reasonable of criticisms. It often seems to me that the people caught in between these two extremes, trying to share their thoughtful and nuanced opinions, simply get drowned out by all the noise flooding in from either side. The bottom of so many posts seem to turn into these strange emoji tug-of-wars; you post a criticism and the fanboys hit you with a cascade of laughing emojis, or post praise and the Reiza-haters do the very same thing. For whatever reason, it frequently feels to me like this is the sim that's most difficult to have a satisfying and productive discussion about; I've just come to expect that any opinion I express - positive or negative - is gonna be met with roughly 50% mockery and derision and 50% enthusiastic agreement. It's honestly gotten silly, the insults people receive for expressing their opinions; people telling each other they must lead sad pathetic lives because they had the audacity to say something about this game; people demanding to see each other's physics degrees and programming credentials because they had the nerve to form an opinion on how a car handles; etc etc. Smoke some weed and chill out about it, we're ultimately just a bunch of dorks playing with our pretend racecars, you guys.

 

[eSTee3]

I've said this on one of the previous AMS2 news stories on this site, but I LOVE how AMS2 stories always seem to have the most (in number and on the passionate meter) posts! AMS2 has quickly become my #1 most played Steam-based racing game to date (just under 190 hours). It has beaten out R3E and ACC (both over 150 hours each).

I've been playing and enjoying racing games for over 30 years and AMS2 contains alot of why I enjoy it after all these years, in one nicely wrapped package... VARIETY.

Thank you Reiza

 

[Avo77]

Smoke some weed and chill out about it, we're ultimately just a bunch of dorks playing with our pretend racecars, you guys.

Perfect definition.
Sadly weed is not legal in the rest of Europe...

P.S.
Making copies of my master degree. Maybe it will be useful for other discussions...

 

[TShrimp]

I tried acc amg and ams2, i felt much more info what car is doing in ams2!

Same here. Just seemed to feel like I knew what was going on with the car. The feedback I was getting in AMS 2 was just phenomenal.

 

[Austin Ogonoski]

Id like to be a glass half full guy in this case because I agree it looks bad from an optics standpoint if I poo poo on Reiza, so Ill instead just make a general commentary.

As a sim racer its frustrating that after 14 years of "modern" sim racing (lets call GTR 2 the start) that we still cant trust if an update is going to be of the quality we expect it to be. Every piece of add on content from every single developer is a diceroll between "pretty good", "borderline undrivable," and "missing basic features." It's an insane pendulum swing for how experienced a lot of these devs are and we still have to go through it several times a year, year after year. Sometimes there are multiple games on my HD collecting dust simply because all of them are waiting for an essential update to un-bork a car (or cars) and I just end up playing sim city instead.

 

[F2020]

Just put some good time in the update, loving the new FFB, didnt realise you had to delete the old settings & reset it etc... anyhow its all reset and feels really good

 

[Blamer]

Honestly it seems to me like most conversations about AMS2 follow the same trajectory. On one side you see a lot of angry people demanding nothing short of absolute perfection from Reiza, and if anything is the least bit buggy or wonky they say Reiza sucks and has lost them as a customer forever. On the other hand, you have fanboys that think Reiza is incapable of doing anything poorly, and with every update they come out of the woodwork to shout "Finally we can uninstall all other sims because AMS2 is officially the king!" and vehemently dispute even the most reasonable of criticisms. It often seems to me that the people caught in between these two extremes, trying to share their thoughtful and nuanced opinions, simply get drowned out by all the noise flooding in from either side. The bottom of so many posts seem to turn into these strange emoji tug-of-wars; you post a criticism and the fanboys hit you with a cascade of laughing emojis, or post praise and the Reiza-haters do the very same thing. For whatever reason, it frequently feels to me like this is the sim that's most difficult to have a satisfying and productive discussion about; I've just come to expect that any opinion I express - positive or negative - is gonna be met with roughly 50% mockery and derision and 50% enthusiastic agreement. It's honestly gotten silly, the insults people receive for expressing their opinions; people telling each other they must lead sad pathetic lives because they had the audacity to say something about this game; people demanding to see each other's physics degrees and programming credentials (...)

If we could rate posts (as we can rate mods) with one to five stars, I'd give you ten stars

Just... don't be surprised by this attitude because this happens in each and every game we have on the leftside games tree.