Will rf2 fit my needs?

roninho · Jun 10, 2020

Hi,
I'm thinking of buying a good setup for racing but am looking for some info if rf2 "fit" my needs.

So what my main priorities are:

1. Mid session save:
I primarly race100% full distance. Due to family life and work requirements i cant find the time to consistently free myself for hours, so i need a game that has this option.

2. AI
Due to interest in 100% races and not having the time i only play offline, and looking for some realism. So i am looking for a game that has decent to good ai in terms of racecraft and strategy (pit stops), but also overtaking (on ai and on me), ai behaviour in multiclass racing (le mans, does it turn into a crashfest and/or a long line of lmps not passing a gt car for laps, etc)

3. Safety cars & ovals
Im interested in indycar and oval racing, and liked rfactor1 (95 indycar mod). However i havnt seen many games who got the safety car working good (in combo with ai and offline racing)

3B. In addition flags and ai behaviour in general, so blue flags and lappers passing the lapped cars easy. Same for causing yellows, does the ai manage yo run a decent race without dozens of yellows?

4. Changing weather/rain
Again, interested in 100% races, with good ai and realism. Weather is part of that, and i know rf2 has changing weather. However i'm interested to know if rfactor2 is capable of having the ai perform "realistic": So do they adjust their strategy (change tyres and even their strategy) and does their performance change accordingly?

Those are my main requirements.
For context: i used to play rfactor1 a lot but moved back to gp4 due to the better match with my requirements (except for ovals), which i still play. But well i would like to enjoy a more recent game with better graphics, other mods, vr, etc.

Do you guys think RF2 would fit my requirements and why/why not? Also what would be my alternatives?

mharvey · Jun 10, 2020

With the right track and the right car, in the dry, with no flag rules, rF2 is the absolute best sim out there. But it stumbles in a number of key areas. Those key areas being 2-4 of your priorities.

1. Yes. In a roundabout way. Upon exiting a race, a replay will be saved. If you then watch the replay at a later date, you may resume your race from any point within the replay.

2. The general racecraft is pretty good, the AI blocks and overtakes you but it doesn't know how to draft properly. The AI has no idea about strategy either. For example, if it starts raining heavily on the final lap of a race, they'll stupidly come in for wet tyres. Also, there is a bug where if a car is planning to pit, no car behind it will overtake during its in-lap. This is fine for single class racing, but obviously breaks multiclass.

3. The safety car has been broken for 5 years. It'll come out when there's a FCY, but some cars will follow it at FCY speed, but others at 5-10mph. I, too, love endurance racing and rF2's safety car was the reason I purchased the game. It's a shame it hasn't been fixed.

3B. You can tweak the chance of AI mistakes in the player.json file and make them make more/less mistakes.

4. All manner of changeable conditions are possible, but the racing line doesn't change in the wet annoyingly.

As for alternatives, sadly I can't think of another sim with a proper working safety car. ACC seems to handle wet weather racing better, but it comes with worse force feedback and it's a huge strain on the GPU.

S397 have stated that they'll start looking at some of the core problems with rF2 once they've completed the new UI and competition system, so if you're patient I think they'll fix no.2 and no.3. However., no.4 feels like it could take a substantial amount of development time... so no idea.

roninho · Jun 10, 2020

Thank you for your reply.
So most is covered, but fcy/sc is an isdue and strategy issues in changing weather.

I read something about a stockcar yellow plugin, does that help?

mharvey · Jun 11, 2020

roninho said:
I read something about a stockcar yellow plugin, does that help?

No luck there I'm afraid. Actually, it was the introduction of that particular plugin that broke the SC!

memoNo.1 · Jun 13, 2020

You also have to have a lot of staying power when it comes to payed content. I bought the GT3 Pack over a year ago and it's still not completely fixed. The Coute Azure is still not officially fixed. but if something works as it should in this sim, apart from rain racing and the other problems mentioned here, there is almost no alternative to rF2. you should definitely take a look at the official forum and download t0p5ecret aka Mark his AIW files for existing routes. As a single player a blessing from Mark’s work.

Durge Driven · Jun 13, 2020

Name one sim meets all his requirements

The engine was developed for online, things like visuals and offline were cursory

Need new gmotor which is not happening, haters saw to that

Biggest loss to sims since Papyrus imho

Durge Driven · Jun 13, 2020

I tell you one thing rF2 can do for you no other sim can

You can buy all GT3 and test all of them in a single session logging all sectors for every car you drive

That will save you 14 room reloads ( 15 cars ) in any other sim

...as time is a issue

Durge Driven · Jun 13, 2020

Another weird

benefit is multi-tasking

True story on ISI it was I that told Tim Wheatley that rF2 did FSW (fullscreenwindow ) perfect better then any sim ...........he never knew lol that is what lead me to using the taskbar
I believe this is from gmotor 64bit that actually did something positive for multi-tasking

Don't take my word, set it and boot a room , hit the Win key bring any amount of apps up
Real beauty is to run a " offline room online" ...then your room does not pause

Get a message, hit Ai control, win key , answer then back to the lap without crashing lol
You can even have apps on top so you can watch the race at same time

As well image quality imo is better in fsw with Nvidia at moment I test new cheap 4K TV in fsw and it looks brilliant ... if you run single screen of course

roninho · Jun 14, 2020

Well Gp4 did all this.
Decent ai, normal use of flags and weather isnt THAT much to ask? Mid game save i can see being hard with all the data you need to keep.

John Kerry · Jul 6, 2020

Hi 'roninho'. I don't know if it's too late as I just saw this.

As far as I know, no modern sim has a save feature but rf2 can be reloaded as mentioned above.

The problem with rf2 for me is the AI and the UI, both are bad.

I also race offline and the AI is so bad. It is erratic and unrealistic which removes alot of enjoyment from the racing. One example is you could be 3 sec ahead of an opponent on a lap and the very next lap they catch up and overtake you very aggresively even though your lap time has not changed alot. There is also the 3 or 4 wide through a corner; overtaking anytime anywhere....etc, it is horrible.

The UI has been a work in progress since 2016 and it is still in a very poor beta stage. So many promises and very little delivery or improvements. I regret buying rf2 because the base game is still a work in progress yet they are happy to release many new cars and tracks which are not cheap.

My opinion is rf2 is a game that has alot of potential but just doesn't deliver for my game driving needs.

Squared Circle · Jul 7, 2020

John Kerry said:
Hi 'roninho'. I don't know if it's too late as I just saw this.

As far as I know, no modern sim has a save feature but rf2 can be reloaded as mentioned above.

The problem with rf2 for me is the AI and the UI, both are bad.

I also race offline and the AI is so bad. It is erratic and unrealistic which removes alot of enjoyment from the racing. One example is you could be 3 sec ahead of an opponent on a lap and the very next lap they catch up and overtake you very aggresively even though your lap time has not changed alot. There is also the 3 or 4 wide through a corner; overtaking anytime anywhere....etc, it is horrible.

The UI has been a work in progress since 2016 and it is still in a very poor beta stage. So many promises and very little delivery or improvements. I regret buying rf2 because the base game is still a work in progress yet they are happy to release many new cars and tracks which are not cheap.

My opinion is rf2 is a game that has alot of potential but just doesn't deliver for my game driving needs.

Can't reproduce this AI behaviour - which cars/tracks to try?

John Kerry · Jul 9, 2020

Squared Circle said:
Can't reproduce this AI behaviour - which cars/tracks to try?

I have had these issues with these car/track combinations to name a few:
Honda Civic BTCC at ' Botniaring '
Nissan GT1's at Zandvoot
One of the Tatuus at Vintage Monaco ( at this race while I was leading on the last lap at the last corner hairpin the AI came for at about 2 seconds behind and rammed me from behind spinning me out.)