Lots of Goodies in the July rF2 Development Roadmap

[Paul Jeffrey]

The latest rFactor 2 'Development Roadmap' is here - and it's packed full of exciting information...

Well it looks like July and August are going to be something of a bumper month for rFactor 2 fans if the latest development roadmap is anything to go by... Studio 397 have broken from tradition slightly today, releasing the latest monthly development roadmap blog post a few days earlier than usual, packing the new post full of some very exciting updates and information about where rFactor 2 is heading in the very near future.

Highlights from the new posting today include news on when we can expect the very intriguing 'Reiza Bundle' DLC, confirmation the Sebring is coming very soon indeed and of course an insight into some great updates for the premium GT3 and GTE pack of cars.. oh and more VR fine tuning and performance boosts too...

Check out the full rF2 'Development Roadmap' below:

Upcoming Events
First of all, we have a few events planned that we want to announce.

ChinaJoy
August 3rd to 6th, Studio 397 will be present in Shanghai for the yearly ChinaJoy event. If you’re in the area, please drop by and take advantage of the opportunity to say hello and take rFactor 2 for a spin.

SimRacing Expo
September 14th to 16th we’re happy to announce that we will be present at this year’s SimRacing Expo at the Nürburgring. We invite everybody to come and visit us for a glimpse into the future of rFactor 2. As always we will bring a few surprises!

McLaren Shadow
Earlier this month, McLaren introduced their all new hunt for the brightest and best esports talent, dubbed “McLaren Shadow Project“. This is the follow up to last year’s “World’s Fastest Gamer” that saw Rudy van Buren take the win. We are delighted to announce that we will be part of this competition again, building several new McLaren cars for the upcoming events. And the best news is that they will all be available for free!

Upcoming Releases
Then, there are a lot of new releases coming up now and in the near future.

Today: New Build, GT3 and Endurance Pack Updates
We are about to release a new build with a few improvements and new features. Especially, but not exclusively, for our Virtual Reality users, we have included a new feature called “Stabilize Horizon” that allows you to enable a low, medium or high amount of stabilization, which helps keep the horizon stable on bumpy tracks and still works properly on strongly banked tracks. We’ve also made a few changes in our DX11 graphics engine. First of all, we caught and fixed some issues with the brake disc glow on some cars. An issue that only showed up on 6-core CPUs with no hyperthreading and caused rendering problems in our shadow maps was also found and fixed. For tracks, we added support for a new dirt map, a feature you will see on Sebring and that will be explained shortly in our developer documentation. We slightly adjusted the logic for our “pit director” that will tell you how and when to leave your garage as he was a bit oddly placed in some cases. Last but not least, we also spent some time optimizing our post effects, which has resulted in a healthy increase in performance with those enabled.

In our previous roadmap, we already announced that we were close to releasing an update to our very popular GT3 cars. Over the last couple of months, we’ve received a lot of feedback on these cars, and we sat down and incorporated all of that in this update. On top of that, we’ve included the new in-car traction control and anti-lock brake settings, position lights colored green for the GT3 class and our very latest set of tyres to align the cars with our endurance pack. We also tweaked the Balance of Performance to ensure continued close racing.

As part of our continued development of the Endurance pack, our visit to Duqueine Engineering, which we will report on in a separate blog, also got us some crucial feedback on the handling characteristics of the Oreca and Norma cars and a unique chance to compare telemetry. These and other tweaks based on feedback have been incorporated in an update of the Endurance pack.

Both packs will be released later today. Leagues that don’t want to immediately make the switch are encouraged to keep a copy of the previous version. That said, we’ve tried our best to ensure a good balance of performance and also made sure you can run classes from both packs together nicely.

Tomorrow: Sebring
Since taking over the development of rFactor 2, our goals have been clear: take an already incredible sim as a base and move the bar higher, push new and exciting features that you want, and give you the chance to experience a professional grade simulator – at home! The release of Sebring tomorrow is another step in that direction. We will follow up with more details later.

Next Month: Reiza rF2 Bundle
Some of you might have seen the teasers that were posted by Reiza Studios. We can now officially announce that they have been working hard on bringing some great content into rFactor 2. No less than four cars and two tracks will be part of this pack, all of which will be released in August. We expect Reiza to soon release more details of their planned content!

Community Night
Earlier this month, we scheduled the first community event, and we would like to thank everybody who watched and participated in it. Because of its success, we decided to do another one on Friday, July 27th at 20:00 CEST. We will obviously take this opportunity to look at the updated GT3 and Endurance packs. We will also take an in-depth look at Sebring International Raceway and provide some background on the process of creating it, so make sure you tune in and follow our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/rfactorlive. We certainly hope to see you there. In any case, happy simracing, that’s all for this month!

rFactor 2 is available exclusively for PC from Steam now.

Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for all the latest news and discussion with regards to the simulation. You can take part in lively debates with fellow rFactor 2 fans and take part in some great Club and League racing events..! Head over to the forum now and share the love this simulation so very much deserves...

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Excited by the content in the new roadmap postings? Looking forward to the coming months for this sim? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!​

 

[dreamer al]

I checked and I see that the xbox 1 controller isn't available in the selection menu. You tried the 360 profile?

Yes I tried with the 360 controller profile. But thank you for trying.

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[Ed Trevelyan-Johnson]

Whoever created that trailer my hat is off to you, very professional piece being clean and to the point while using calm music.
Thanks S397, I'll be seeing you at the steam store later today!

That's very kind. Thank you! It's my favourite piece of music I've used on these trailers so far!

 

[Will Mazeo]

And then Apex announce a lidar based Sebring in their Facebook lol

 

[Marcel Gerber]

And then Apex announce a lidar based Sebring in their Facebook lol

lol and what is with their Spa version?

 

[Neils on Wheels]

I'm still holding off for the GUI update, any news?

 

[dreamer al]

Ok, I've updated the file uploaded before. Follow the instructions, in the folder there is a new version that introduces support to the xbox one controllers.
https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/how-to-enable-the-controller-vibration-in-rfactor-2.22341/

Thank you. It did work at first , then it stopped. I will experiment with it later

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[tax]

I understand laserscan is pricy, but with so much terrain to recover from such a serious competition, major titles to come out soon and so much still to do, it seems to me like a very risky move. I'm really loving what they are doing, so i'll get this one; but i honestly think that such a pricetag is not a smart move for the simulator. At all.

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

Edit: nvm

 

[Will Mazeo]

Well the dollar price (8) is not expensive compared to iRacing tracks, which are either 12 or 15 dollars each depending on track. The problem with Steam is that the price varies depending on region, so for me it shows as 9 euros, which would equal 10.5 dollars. But I believe it's something the developer doesn't have control over.

They have control of that for sure.
For regions like Brazil it's crazy expensive for a track. 1 euro = R$4,33 right now, and the bad thing is that this price changes every day, the GT3 pack is like 20% more expensive now than when I bought it.
But in the end I cant complain, S397 is not guilty for my country's economy being

 

[tax]

While i'm still skeptical about the marketing decision i must say that after some laps i rate this as probably the best track in any racing simulator EVER. Worth every penny. If it's not a concern , this is like 500% worth it, even if it looks a bit pricey, you wont get this quality anywhere else.Buy it right now.