F1/CART Mods

[D_S_T]

Hey all. Coming back to sim racing (RF1) after a looong layoff (VR is what got me back). I'm pretty exclusively interested in driving/racing CART/Indycar from mid 80's to early 2000's and all F1 up to the hybrid era.

When I was doing this earlier there were a ton of mods that encompassed whole seasons of the above with tracks and differentiated (unique physics and models) cars.

Do mods like this exist for the current sims and where are they hiding (I've looked)? What I've found are a lot of single generic cars with maybe a skin pack OR mod teams in disrepute (Sim Dream) that give exactly that......... but, stealy.

TIA _ DST

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

What you are looking for is actually available in Automobilista 2 in developer quality. 90s CART and a ton of F1 cars of almost all era's from mid last century until today.

 

[D_S_T]

What you are looking for is actually available in Automobilista 2 in developer quality. 90s CART and a ton of F1 cars of almost all era's from mid last century until today.

https://www.game-automobilista2.com/vehicles

Is this it for what's available? 8 specific F1 cars and a load of generics? Is there an active modding community that has developed something like CART Factor or F1 2002 for AMS2?

Dug further and the CART (Racin USA) DLC for AMS2 looks awesome but the F1 stuff............ hard to be anything other than skin packs on a generic spec car.

Where can you race the 2002 F1 season in a properly modeled Arrows A23 or a 2001 Minardi that isn't a repainted Ferrari?

Does AMS2 have an indie mod community?

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

has developed something like CART Factor

The developers of this game are the previous modding team that made CART Factor

All the (Formula) cars have amazing livery packs available made by the community https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/categories/automobilista-2.195/

Don't agree it's all generic. Yannik wrote a great article about the various seasons available in the game here: https://www.racedepartment.com/news/automobilista-2-the-ultimate-formula-1-season-guide.567/

Might be a bit outdated now but you get the point.

 

[D_S_T]

The developers of this game are the previous modding team that made CART Factor

All the (Formula) cars have amazing livery packs available made by the community https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/categories/automobilista-2.195/

Don't agree it's all generic. Yannik wrote a great article about the various seasons available in the game here: https://www.racedepartment.com/news/automobilista-2-the-ultimate-formula-1-season-guide.567/

Might be a bit outdated now but you get the point.

I mean I get it.......... but at the end of the day the 2001 season would consist of a full grid of one car repainted, right? Same for the other seasons, with at most ~4 unique cars, yeah?

Not a huge issue with CART where there were 3 - 4 chassis manufacturers but F1?

I did just buy the base game and the USA DLC and it looks really great in VR, other than the shadows, which I'm hoping I can tweak to be non-terrible through the settings and IMO it's worth it just for the CART content but I don't think you can call a single (or 2, or even 4) F1 car(s) a "season."

Has the game been opened up to modders to create new car models, like Rfactor seemed to be when these guys created CART Factor and full grid F1 season mods seemed to be pretty commonplace. I honestly don't know, I've been out of it for a while.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Nope, just the liveries and minor tweaks as you can find on the previous link to the downloads section.

 

[blackskull101]

I mean I get it.......... but at the end of the day the 2001 season would consist of a full grid of one car repainted, right? Same for the other seasons, with at most ~4 unique cars, yeah?

Not a huge issue with CART where there were 3 - 4 chassis manufacturers but F1?

I did just buy the base game and the USA DLC and it looks really great in VR, other than the shadows, which I'm hoping I can tweak to be non-terrible through the settings and IMO it's worth it just for the CART content but I don't think you can call a single (or 2, or even 4) F1 car(s) a "season."

Has the game been opened up to modders to create new car models, like Rfactor seemed to be when these guys created CART Factor and full grid F1 season mods seemed to be pretty commonplace. I honestly don't know, I've been out of it for a while.

You nailed the main problem with almost all new sims - they are not open for modding.
That's one of the reasons why older titles like Automobilista 1, rF1, GTR2, GT Legends, Race 07 and even GPL and F1 Challenge are still around. If you want actual full seasons with different cars and correct period tracks, those older sims are your best option.

 

[D_S_T]

Thanks all.

Good to know, and happy to not continue looking for something that just doesn't exist. Are there updated shaders/graphics/vr support on any of the old bones to pretty them up?

 

[blackskull101]

There's the Anniversary patch for GTR2, and also the Crew Chief plugin if you use the Steam version of the game.
There's the Race Remaster project for Race 07.
Many mods for rF1 use updated shaders (they are usually included in the mod)
And of course there's the Content manager and Custom Shader Patch for Assetto Corsa, if you play that sim.
Other older titles like F1c and GPL have also received some "facelift" (to a certain extent) with the release of the more recent mods for them.

 

[jgf]

If open wheel is your main interest, rfactor seems better suited than GTR2, though it doesn't have variable weather or day/night cycles. It does have a good selection of F1 mods from the fifties to the present, many CART/Indycar mods of the past thirty years, and a good assortment of F2, Formula Ford, even Formula Vee mods.

But I think GTR2 looks better and is easier to mod/tweak.

 

[blackskull101]

And if older graphics aren't a problem for you, many IndyCar/CART seasons and virtually all F1 seasons are available in F1 challenge 99-02 - many of them as race-by-race - i.e. there's a specific historically correct carset for every race of the season.