rFactor 2: American Updates

[Alex Franchini]

ISI has published a series of new US-centric content and updates for rFactor 2.

The three new circuits are made by third party affiliates and are all D-shaped ovals. Apple Valley Speedway, Northside International Raceway and Eagle Creek Speedway are all available for download to go with freshly updated versions of the Stock Cars and the Dallara DW12 Indycar.

As mentioned above, the Stock Cars have been updated to version 1.04. The new update adds a new skin (the #32 Joey Gase RF2 car) and fixes a couple of things, like tires.

Stock Car:

• Added #32 Joey Gase A.I. car and skin.
• Tires tweaked, which now require more camber.
• Fix for tuning upgrades.
• Fixed typo in setup notes.
• Reduced AI sampling rate slightly (afforded by newer AI bumpstop overrides)
• Slightly tweaked default setup for most configs.
• Added several tracks to trackconfigs.ini
• Added several AI setups to help their competitiveness on newer circuits.
• Other AI adjustments for newer tracks.

Dallara DW12:

• Fix for weak overall Force Feedback feeling.
• 120″ wheelbase default now (with 119″ 2nd in list, in order of usefulness)
• Reduced real road rate slightly.
• Increase in wet cooling effects across all tyres.
• Small tyre fix which helps to improve optimum camber angles.
• Attempt to make AI less prone to cut corners (especially slower turns and very high speed turns).
• Minor AI physics correlation improvements (less longitudinal grip).
• Roll Damping (in the form of natural / self damping) now embedded into ARB adjustments.
• Removed ‘wedge’ from pit menu HUD for Road Courses.
• Enable pit-adjustable rear wing for speedway configurations. (The last car bug reported by Max)
• Added toe-offsets.
• Minor turbo sound tweaks.
• Added GrooveSqrdEffect with the primary purpose of reducing speedway grip a fraction.
• A tiny bit less sensitive to dirty air (more so on the speedway configuration side).
• Leading draft significantly cut too (reducing fore balance shift which cause weird feeling spinouts if someone managed to get VERY close behind) to a more realistic level.
• Slightly reduced cooling on minimum radiator.
• White edges on digits fixed
• Changed “Chevy” back to “Chevrolet”.
• Add 1 onboard camera.
• Steering wheel hand rotation now matches wheel a little better.
• Some other graphical fixes.

Have you tried the latest updates? Let us know what you think of them!

 

[Wedge]

Plus 3 new tracks and Crossply's T70 Lola mod! And everything can be easily downloaded (and updated in the future) from Steam Workshop!

 

[P*Funk]

Always great to see a contemporary sim that focuses on American racing beyond just iRacing.

 

[P*Funk]

However it appears that my install now has two versions of the Stock Cars with 1.0 and 1.04 in the content list and I can't remove the older one leaving me with a double car list in game.

That's a bit odd.

 

[JeffL]

Is it being used by a mod?

 

[William Wester]

I removed v1.0

 

[P*Funk]

Well I unsubscribed from the Stock Cars in the workshop and now the 1.0 cars disappeared but the 1.04 remained.

Sometimes the convenience of the steam workshop appears to come with some gremlins I suppose.

 

[xnorb]

Guess it's about time to finally take a look at the US series

 

[TzZyO]

American cars, eh. So, when do we expect the Panoz and the road going 'Vettes to receive an update finally?

 

[PaulH]

Some very good content, tried out a few of the new tracks, I do like a bit of Nascar, great fun!
Just hoping the AI are up to 250 lap races

 

[Rodent]

My first reaction was "ugh, more american tracks I don't care about" but I've come around I think, glad RF2 is becomming a decent oval racer, it means it has a niche filled. If I want Ovals I'll RF2, if I want to race around Spa I will go elsewhere.

That and free is never a bad thing.

 

[Brandon Wright]

Dallara DW12:

• Fix for weak overall Force Feedback feeling.

This is good news. The DW12 doesn't have power steering and drivers often comment about how physical it is to drive and I didn't feel like this was well represented. Can't wait to take it for a blast around Indy Road Course.

 

[monsieurjackb]

The FFB change is great news, can't wait to try it out! Always liked the DW12 on Rfactor just the ffb annoyed me. I'd just always assumed it was an issue my end so am really glad that it has been sorted

 

[yusupov]

it was actually correctable by upping the caster to 8 or 9, something no one ever does & id never even heard of doing till i asked about it on the isi forum.

glad they resolved it though.

 

[P*Funk]

Just hoping the AI are up to 250 lap races

Well I can't get through a 20 lap race without being taken out it seems because they still don't know the meaning of hold your line. Seriously, they still drive like road cars, taking a defensive line into a corner when you have a run on them even if the defensive line is slower than the one they're holding meaning that in 2 more corners they'd still be in front. This leads to large packs of race cars separated by several seconds followed by those packs recombining as the leading pack slows itself down with 3 or 4 cars taking defensive lines when a car behind them with the draft gains a bit on them. They of course still drive horribly slow in some corners with a characteristic puff of tire smoke braking far later than I can or should before I basically run them over from behind or kill my run to avoid slamming into a wall of slow cars.

Its almost fun even so if they just didn't have no awareness of you being next to them. Its actually worse than iRacing rookie because even those idiots will instinctively not ignore the spotter and drift down 2.5 lanes to hit you... at least not as often.

Anyway that's my experience. If someone has some voodoo magic numbers for the AI to get them to behave better I'm all ears.

 

[Simon Christmann]

Oval AI is still WIP

 

[Emery]

Oval AI is still WIP

LOL, I was going to say the same thing. Pretty certain it will take a core update (instead of a car or track update) to fix oval AI behavior because track updates can only do so much.

 

[Zotto]

Love'n it baby!!.. Keep them ovals coming! Could never have too many ovals and non-oval racers would/could never understand this..

 

[William Wester]

Love'n it baby!!.. Keep them ovals coming! Could never have too many ovals and non-oval racers would/could never understand this..

I used to be a big oval fan in my younger days, more the short track stuff watching super late model stocks with the locals and some of the NASCAR stars (Dale Earnhardt, Mark Martin, Dick Trickle, Rusty Wallace, Matt Kenseth, Allan Kulwicki, etc.) for the special races. The closest track is the high banked 1/4 mile bull-ring Slinger Super Speedway in Slinger WI (Matt and Allan's local track growing up).

http://www.slingersuperspeedway.com/ (33 deg banking, world's fastest 1/4 track)
http://www.milwaukeesportsgeeks.com...m-to-be-worlds-fastest-quarter-mile-oval.html

While I followed NASCAR (been to Daytona, Michigan, Bristol) the super speedways were never my favorites. With that said, I can understand why many don't like NASCAR outside of the US, I think of it a little like soccer where the action is somewhat the same. I never liked soccer as it's boring for me, mostly running back and forth with very little scoring (not like US football, my opinion). Soccer and NASCAR is an acquired taste and not until you get to know the sport can you appreciate it.
To me "virtual" oval racing is not like "watching" oval racing - it takes a consistency, door to door battling, and strategy to be successful. While I don't follow NASCAR closely anymore, virtual oval racing is still fun for me. I like variety, road courses and ovals depending on the mood.