Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Kunos Simulazioni have released a brand new build of Assetto Corsa Competizione – adding, amongst others, new online features in anticipation of the upcoming SRO E-Sport GT Series.
Continuing the journey through Steam Early Access, the latest build for Assetto Corsa Competizione is indeed a rather large one, and somewhat pleasingly for players with a keen eye on online racing, release 7 is chock-a-block full of new and improved features that have a definite focus on improving the online racing experience.
As well as improvements to the online experience, the new build contains a huge list of changes that can be seen in more detail below, not least of which is the much anticipated inclusion of dynamic weather options across all game modes – a brand new and exciting feature that has hit the title for the first time as of the release today.
ACC Release 7 Update Notes:
Gameplay:
- Opened SRO E-Sports Series - Round 1 special event.
- NOTE: This special event is controlled remotely and may be invisible for a short time after the release.
- Reintroducing Endurance game modes.
- Added Custom Race Weekend mode that allows you to completely customize a race weekend, including number of races, mandatory pit stops and time multiplier.
- NOTE: Some features, such as the Superpole session will become available in the full release of the game.
- Introducing penalties for various on-track transgressions: pitlane speeding, cutting, failure to serve mandatory pitstop within the pit window.
- Penalties include warnings, drive-through, stop&go and disqualification. Cutting is penalized depending on time gained. Cuts with large gains result in DQ straight away. Speeding in the pitlane may remove your fastest lap in non-race sessions, and serious speeding results in DQ straight away. Added penalty for reversing.
- Introducing pit stops with refuel, tyre change, damage repair and serving penalties.
- Introducing dynamic weather, custom weather and track status presets: the Weather page in the menu now allows you to select existing presets and enable dynamic weather for each single one of them. The preset defines the starting conditions, and also have a significant effect on what you can expect. Weather variability can range from 1 to 100%.
- The Custom weather preset allows you to set each aspect of the conditions, including cloud cover, the intensity of rain and levels of track wetness and standing water.
- NOTE: Selecting the Clear weather preset and high variability doesn't mean that you can expect drastic changes over a short period. Cloudy weather on the other hand, has a much bigger probability of producing precipitation, but variability can also render conditions to improve significantly.
- NOTE: The weather is designed to be dynamic over realistic periods of time. However, as it uses game-time, the player can accelerate weather transitions by using the time multiplier.
- Various improvements in cut detection and corresponding penalties.
- Fixed engine start assist sometimes failing to restart the car.
- Added input to change secondary (Racelogic device) pages. Cycles between current laptime, delta, stint time and speed). Default key is ALT+D.
- Added input to toggle wiper on and off. Uses last selected wiper speed. Default key is ALT+W.
- Replay pause: now updated on random access.
- Replay pause: now possible to use the free camera controls with the same speed as 1x speed.
- Improved management of automatic highlights priority and avoiding flood.
- Option file for replay in [Documents/Assetto Corsa Competizione]/Config/replay.json
- Added possibility to reduce saved replay time in options/general.
- Fixed wheel speed with different replay playing times.
- Fixed replay focused camera for disconnected cars during random access.
- Next car/previous shortcut is now based on relative car positions.
- Improved logic for white/yellow/blue flag and optimizations for marshalls.
- Fixed fireworks/tracklight/endmode for replay.
- Permanent spotter message groups.
- Added short wait time at the start of the formation to allow enough time for manual starting procedure.
Ratings:
- Fixed Safety Rating (SA) decaying in both race and solo conditions.
- Improved Racecraft Rating (RC) development directly after unlocking.
- Improved Consistency Rating (CN), should now be more sensitive to inconsistencies.
- Improved Consistency Rating (CC) to be less volatile.
- Improved ingame rating widget to highlight rating value gains.
- Rating widget will now allow to unlock the highest rating Competition (CP) and remain in collapsed state then.
- Added data charts and insights for SA and RC rating Driver Profile Rating Page.
- Fixed driver category assignment in Total Rating page, added Beginner and Rookie categories.
- Due to the significant changes in RC and SA, both ratings will be reset. Progress in TR, CN and CC will remain.
Visuals:
- Fixed a bug in VR that caused the racing HUD to flicker and hit performance by constantly re-rendering the overlay.
- Introducing visual and mechanical damage:
- Mechanical damage affects bodywork, suspension, aero and tyres.
- Visual damage affects bodywork, windows, can deform body parts and also affects the functionality of headlights.
- Added dynamic windshield dirt effects that are cleaned off during pit stops.
- Added blurred brake disc visuals.
- Fix for Dash and DashPro cameras having wrong offset/rotation when using custom settings.
- Fix for wrong camera pitch after F1 cycle with lock to horizon enabled.
UI/HUD:
- First release of the new multi-page and multi-functional widget, replacing the old Standings widget.
- It contains a real-time track position page, standings, pit stop strategy and car electronics. Navigation is possible with all navigation inputs, including keyboard arrows, D-Pad and mouse.
- It enables the player to control all car-related inputs (TC, ABS, wiper, lights, rain light etc.) on the fly, without having to map each key to the steering wheel/button box.
- NOTE: the MFD uses navigation inputs, which means input overlap may need some bindings to be remapped.
- NOTE: the MFD navigation in VR is not yet functional, thank you for your patience.
- Introducing weather forecast and grip status widget: a simple widget on the HUD that alerts the player of changing weather forecast in 10 and 30-minute projections. It is also visible on the race and setup screens.
- NOTE: It shows weather forecast in real-world time, which means in accelerated sessions the forecast will be translated to a time that is easier to understand for the player.
- Fixed timing issues on car dash displays.
- Additional server information on Multiplayer lobby page, including session status and dynamic weather indicator.
- HUD pages can now by cycled backwards using Shift+F2.
- Added realtime track position widget.
- NOTE: it is now the default page inside the MFD in multi-car sessions.
- Weather and Track status summary now visible on the weather tile in the Single Player page.
- Added helper information for various single player pages and the new weather page.
- Added tyre pressure readout on tyre app to help users who do not use cockpit cameras monitor tyre pressure.
Physics:
- Optimizations in multithreaded CPU calculations.
- Brake duct simulation. Influences brake disc heat and braking efficiency, but also rim and air temperature inside the tyre and thus pressure and general tyre temperature.
- Brake duct settings in setup aero screen for all cars. Setting 0 is a completely closed duct and can provoke brake fade very very fast, exceeding 1000°C. Never to be used in a real race, but added for simracer's gratification. Setting 6 is completely open and can keep the brakes very cold.
- The peak temperature is of course important but keep in mind that a low setting not only heats up more, but doesn't cool down the brake in the straights, so the heat accumulates and keeps dissipating heat to the tyres.
- Ideally you want your front brake HUD to show green or slight yellow at the end of your braking zone and your rear, green. Don't judge after just 2,3 braking zones. Do a couple of laps and let the brakes do some heat/cool cycles to arrive at a balanced condition.
- Suspension damage for all cars (WIP).
- Basic aero damage for all cars (WIP).
- Optimizations to tyre flex at very low speeds, to diminish or even eliminate an FFB vibration around 50kmh.
- Added tyre pressure and potential puncture influenced by riding kerbs aggressively.
- If you ride stepped kerbs with low tyre pressure (cold tyre) the tyre flex might provoke pressure loss. How much pressure loss is not easy to predict, but the lower the pressure the more pressure loss will happen. Hitting the kerbs and sliding laterally over them with low pressures can result to a tyre deflation losing all pressure instantly in less than a lap. Avoid kerbs with very cold tyres at all costs. When the tyre has adequate pressure, the risk of loss of pressure is almost null so you can attack kerbs again. Be careful when racing on slick tyres when it starts raining. The tyres will lose temperature very fast and so you must avoid kerbs until you enter for your pitstop. Any pressure over 26psi is relatively safe. The whole system is complex, brand new and we are still working on it. Thank you for your patience.
- Improved collision model, which significantly benefits car-to-ground collisions. Also brings significant improvements to car behaviour when attacking any kind of kerbs.
- Start ECU assist now has more discreet intervention because of the launch control implementation. To start, just floor it in 1st gear with clutch on and revs will be limited to 5000rpm. The less start assist should aid when trying to spin around on grass after a track exit.
- Tweaked TC logic for all cars. Permits more slippage in straight line and more angle. Can result in more oversteery cars in lower TC settings so take care when track is slippery.
- Fixed bug that could cause an event to start with tyres in ambient temperature if user clicked directly on drive.
- Wet tyre adjustments.
- Slick tyres optimum pressure range now 1-2 psi higher.
Audio:
- Exterior engine volumes are now higher.
- Interior engine volumes are now higher.
- Fixed wind sound in tunnel/underpass sometimes not played properly.
- Fixed pit alarm sirens sometimes not played properly.
- Tuned exterior volume for engine reverb and reflection.
- Tuned volume attenuation curve for opponents when the player is in cockpit/chase cameras.
- New radio messages and alerts, including penalties, damage, tyre pressure warning.
- Fixed possible crash changing device for xaudio2.
- Fixed inconsistencies in ambient zone audio.
- Updated fmod to version 1.10.10.
Multiplayer:
- Fixed issue where the HUD would vanish after a session transition.
- Enabled server rating requirements, see updates in https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/...server-configuration-for-server-admins.54830/
- Added dirt and visual damage to Multiplayer.
- Improved server lobby stability.
- Enabled dynamic weather in multiplayer server configuration, see updates in https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/...server-configuration-for-server-admins.54830/
- Improved race-weekend track condition simulation in Multiplayer when dynamic weather is used.
- Safety (SA) and Racecraft (RC) ratings will change with a drastically reduced rate on password protected servers.
- Added server admin commands: /kick and /ban.
For more Assetto Corsa Competizione news and discussion, head over to the ACC Sub Forum here at RaceDepartment. If you enjoy online racing yourself, you might enjoy our ACC League and Club Racing forum, a place to take in clean, fair and competitive online racing in this sim.
SRO E-Sport GT Series – Check out the latest news HERE.
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I hold hope of further VR Optimisation...and VR Mouse Support!
