Sim Discussion Monday - Assetto Corsa

[Paul Jeffrey]

In today’s edition of ‘Sim Discussion Monday’ we talk about all things Assetto Corsa!

Love it or loathe it Assetto Corsa has quickly become one of the most popular racing simulations of the modern sim racing landscape. Bathed in exotic licences the likes of Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini all pitched together on laserscanned tracks, with high quality graphics and physics and a vibrant modding scene, Assetto Corsa from Kunos Simulazioni has very quickly picked up the mantle once held so tightly by Image Space Incorporated and the venerable rFactor platform.

However despite the popularity of the software Assetto Corsa still lacks many of the features considered essential in a modern racing title (think day / night transition, weather and driver swops), leaving many to feel the sim is so close to the top of the mountain, yet just falling short as it scales the summit.

Now in its third year of development, let’s use this article as an opportunity to discuss the game, share tips on optimising the experience on screen and through the wheel, highlight some great content and basically just talk about anything and everything Assetto Corsa!

Mondays be like...

 

[ears]

I don't consider day / night and weather to be an essential, but that's not to say I'm not in the majority there.

I thought I did, then VR came to rF2 so I played a lot of it. I never thought once to switch weather or time of day settings. Maybe I'll get there, but it wasn't the first thing I thought.

I played a bit of pCars online a year or two back but was always disappointed if an online race was night or rain, in a whingey 'oh no it be slippy' kind of way.

is there a difference between the percentage of players who think bad weather is essential and the number who actually would use rain if it was there?

Positives - early VR adopter; accessible (this was my first sim really); looks nice; good selection of high quality tracks (at expense of DLC)
Negatives - handling / FFB doesn't communicate to me the way some cars in rF2 and RRE do; sound can be a bit flat compared to others

 

[Jim Liak]

A small sim from a small team that became huge.
KUNOS with Reiza is a really nice studio with clever and honest individuals.
It lacks some features but this sim would never suppose to have them from the 1st time.
On the contrary we got for free many more features that were advertised on the 1st place.
Maybe it's the best sim regarding modding which adds value.

Summarize:
Not the best in all areas but it scores really high in all of them all tops in many of them.
It gives me the best feeling in my hardware (G27) , combined with really good presentation , superb community with excellent mods and apps (like minorating, srs, ptracker etc) , great netcode, official cars and tracks gives the best package overall.

Superb value.
Thanks guys @kunos @Aristotelis and the rest of the team.

 

[ImprezAlex]

Looking forward to getting the next update for consoles. I've been holding off doing my big WEC recreation until the new multi-class AI upgrades and LMP1 cars came in.

 

[Fairbanks_ABGF]

Don't play AC too much at the moment (I'm being unfaithful!)
But I've probably said it a thousand times before, and I will say it a thousand times again:

The F40 is a masterpiece. Driving it at the Ring got me hooked. That car alone has secured AC a place in my heart forever

 

[CC]

Lets talk about payware mods .

 

[AnklaX]

What's done is done. We know what Assetto Corsa is. It has a fan base now and we're happy with it.

What concerns me is what will become of Assetto Corsa 2 especially if Project Cars 2 turns out well. Having seen tons of videos, I'd say if they get the physics and FFB right, they'll basically be the king of Sim Racers and Kunos will have a challenge far bigger than any before and they had to overcome a lot of challenges being the tiny team that started out on AC dev. We know they're expanding but will it be enough for their next offering considering what SMS is doing with pCars 2.

 

[AnklaX]

Don't play AC too much at the moment (I'm being unfaithful!)
But I've probably said it a thousand times before, and I will say it a thousand times again:

The F40 is a masterpiece. Driving it at the Ring got me hooked. That car alone has secured AC a place in my heart forever

Yeah. That thing is so scary and yet satisfying. It's something else.

 

[Jempy]

Assetto Corsa is the only simulation I'm driving regularly ( at least 2 offline evenings to prepare league races and 1 for the Open or Championship races ) ....

Of course there are main features missing ... but we knew since the very beginning most of those should be missing.
Day-night transition or rain .... are really missing, but as Ears and Jim Liak mentioned ... many are asking for them .... but surely many from them also should drive less in rainy conditions...
I should drive in rainy conditions as I like it ( as belgian that's maybe quite normal, same for UK ! .... our climates are often ... rainy ).... and as I'm more consistant than quick.
But ..... rain and night ... will have to wait a few years for AC2.

One of the best FFB for such a wheel as G27 ... and rather easy to setup.

Negative points and features to be corrected urgently:
- original race penalties .... while false starts may be penalized by a Drive Through, I don't understand why the whole penalty system was not realized the same way yet.
- important server settings are still missing
- many cars of the same type of class .... have no other concurrent of the same period: 962C, Mazda 787B and Sauber C8 ..... are not even perfectly of the same period .... same for LMP1 ....
The only exception is .... GT3.
- not enough original laserscanned tracks ...

A chance AC Mod, Tracks and app, graphic modders are very good mostly.

Improvements will surely come .... but more coders only might make them quicker.

 

[frankis]

AC has a lot of good things like has been said. For me one I most appreciate is the VR implementation. I don't think there is another title that shows the interior of the cars so realistically and whith such fluent graphics.

But on the other hand one thing I really miss is a better FFB. In the last few weeks I've been playing more to RF2 and there's a huge difference. The better your wheel is the more you feel the difference. In AC as you increase the ffb strength the only thing you notice is more spring force to the center, while in rf2 you feel more the forces of the car.

All other things, like weather or night and day transition, can wait for a next version of ac, but force feedback should be improved, because a great sim like this dosen't deserve a ffb so poor.

 

[darkelf1]

i only played GTR2 before, not very interest in Race series and RF, after AC came out, i found it somewhat like a GTR2 successor, bring my good memory back, so i soon became a AC fan.

Actually the main reason i love AC is i always love to collect mods, tracks, and skins, especially formulas, No F1 on PC from 2005-2009, that's the reason i play GTR2 at that time. Now i collect almost all formula mods in AC.

 

[Graham Laing]

Lets talk about payware mods .

Let's not .............

As you very well know :-

http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/paid-mods-post-your-opinion.139505/

 

[Poloman]

My favorite sim at the moment.
For me it has the best package,good visuals,many cars and track and excelent handling,especially "out of the box".

While i would use rain and night,propably more than those that are crying for it,i really want to do a 24hour race with drivers swaps etc.,and i will propably use rfactor 2 for fulfilling my desire,i dont think they are mandatory.

If i could choose a couple of thing to improve on the game, i would start with the penalty system,the flag rules( please i really want the safety car) and more feature to improve the (online) racing day.
One thing that i believe could be easy to add is and online instant replay,it just doesnt make sense that there isnt one,it will help when broadcasting and for having a race marshal checking on the fly reported incidents.
I know they originally didnt plan for the online but it has becone the go to sim for many communities and they should include more club racing features in the game.

 

[samcar304]

Great Sim, do I favour it over the others? not really. I struggle to pick a favourite because they are all good for different reasons.

 

[Will Mazeo]

All other things, like weather or night and day transition, can wait for a next version of ac, but force feedback should be improved, because a great sim like this dosen't deserve a ffb so poor.

I won't be surprised if weather is coming, the wind stuff was the first step ya know, winds say where clouds go

 

[Facundo Estevez]

This is easily the one I play the most. Easy of use, configurability, mods (both free and payware, I don't mind paying for quality), the community, FFB, the on-screen personalizable widgets which I love, the oh-so-amazing Content Manager, RSR, SRS.

This I could ask for: A proper clutch simulation (I should be able to move by simply lifting the clutch, engine stalls), night/day, rain, better tyre simulation (nothing compares to rF2 yet), different terrains (dirt), flex chassis (this is a stretch); and of course, an official iRacing style ladder. The devs should definitely get off the high horse, take constructive feedback from the community without exploding (I'm looking at you, Stefano).

I love it anyways.

 

[august_r]

Not sure all of you know, but AC currently has drivers swap.

It's not as easy to implement, since it depends on server side configuration of the driver's Steam ID, but it's there and it works AFAIK.

 

[Oscar Hardwick]

I will upfront say I love my Reiza and AMS the mostest and always see through a certain biased set of goggles on what I do and what I do not like...

When AC released it was a mess. The multiplayer barely worked. The racing slick tyre physics were complete ass gravy and made everything drive like it was on rails with driver aids on. The devs were ban happy to any criticism and just wanted to push their next DLC as opposed to fix the game.

However. The multiplayer is now pretty good, perfectly good enough to sustain league racing of the highest quality. The racing cars on slicks now drive much more believably, the GT3s feel weighty and work you out around the track in a way they couldn't have come close to upon release. The content that has been released seemingly increases in quality all the time and the work that Kunos have done with third parties on completing is breaking ground in the right kind of way for the sim racing world. The devs seemed to have mellowed out a bit as well although how much of that is just that pCARS guy wanting in on the bat**** crazy dev action I don't know. That chap makes everyone look good.

I think AC is in a good spot and I'd like to see it continue on it's current path for improvement.

Also since day one the road car and road tyre physics have been unparalleled by other sims. No question. No discussion. Top quality road cars are why the track day servers have remained so popular.

Keep it up Kunos. Rocky start with a much more polished finish. GG WP.

 

[MarcG]

It's a highly polished all round Sim, lacking in a few small areas but makes up for in others. The attention to and indeed overall car detail is the best in the business for me, sitting in any car with VR is an absolute pleasure of which is also the smoothest experience on my rig.

Good to see the AI have been updated recently, I've not raced them much but keep meaning too so maybe I should have a proper go next week when I'll have time. The FFB is OK, not upto RF2 standards for me and I don't have the time nor the will to dig deep into the settings and try to improve it, it's fine for what it does out of the box.

I've enjoyed watching this team grow and it's been a pleasure to follow ACs progress itself, it's another highly rated Sim in our little world that I can take great pleasure in driving and supporting the devs through DLC (even if they are millionaires and don't need it ).

I look forward to what the future brings from Kunos.

 

[Davebrave]

AC has a lot of good things like has been said. For me one I most appreciate is the VR implementation. I don't think there is another title that shows the interior of the cars so realistically and whith such fluent graphics.

But on the other hand one thing I really miss is a better FFB. In the last few weeks I've been playing more to RF2 and there's a huge difference. The better your wheel is the more you feel the difference. In AC as you increase the ffb strength the only thing you notice is more spring force to the center, while in rf2 you feel more the forces of the car.

All other things, like weather or night and day transition, can wait for a next version of ac, but force feedback should be improved, because a great sim like this dosen't deserve a ffb so poor.

I was going to say the exact same thing. I like both and despite I have played Assetto Corsa for like ten times more hours than rFactor2, after some weeks playing rF2 and making some adjustments to the graphics I don't feel comfortable at Assetto Corsa anymore (regarding FFB). Even with the FFB Clip app, I don't seem to find the sweet spot... I'll try the Look Up Table thing and see if it improves.

But regarding AC in general, I think as someone else already said, it's a well balanced simulator. Of course I miss night/day transitions and changing weather because when you're hotlapping for instance, you get bored of the same conditions after a while. It's not that I will always drive in the rain, but I'm asking for at least something like clouds actually moving... from sunny to cloudy... things like that give more inmersion to the game.