Automobilista new previews and development update

[Paul Jeffrey]

Reiza Studios have revealed details of proposed updates coming to Steam Early Access title Automobilista during the month of June, with some exciting looking new items due to join the game.

Highlights of the latest Development Roadmap announcement include a first view of the new 1960's inspired Formula Vintage open wheel race car and news of further enhancements to the current in game AI. Additional news unrelated to in game content is the new Virtual Xperience portal (VX) developed to further enhance the online elements of the title. Allowing players the ability to set leader board times, compete against each other on official servers and share custom car setups amongst other features should improve the online useability of the title. VX will benefit from further developments due to be released for the portal over the coming months.

Additional to the previously announced content comes news that the team over at Reiza have secured a licence to bring the fabled Caterham brand to the sim, launching with several models from the manufacturer appearing in the first premium DLC package due to become available post version 1 release in July. The Caterham range of high performance low cost kit cars are an entertaining driving experience and popular throughout the club racing scene in the UK. Coming at the same time as 3 high quality British tracks they are sure to be a popular inclusion in the sim.

The full Reiza press release can be seen below:

"v0.9.4 Release
Last friday we released our latest v0.9.4 update. While this update hasn´t added any new content or features to the sim, there has been some valuable progress in particular to graphics & Artificial Intelligence.

Alex Sawczuk has been spending some quality time developing the shaders & RGB settings in order to improve lighting & color accuracy across the 24h cycle. The changes are subtle individually but all add up to a noticeable overall improvement - the environment is more lively and the slightly desaturated & bluish haze from previous versions is now gone. The changes are mostly already present in v0.9.41, and along with ilka´s beautiful new sky/cloud sets, make for some pretty nice sights:

A lot of man-hours & late nights have also gone into fine-tuning AI performance and behavior in close racing conditions across the board - as a result v0.9.41 features our best, most well-rounded AI yet.

Road to v1.0

Things continue to progress nicely towards v1.0, some are further along than others but while official release will not represent the end of new features or content for AMS, we´re pushing to wrap up a rock-solid v1.0 within the next few weeks.

With single player gameplay now mostly in pretty good shape, focus now is on wrapping up remaining functionality tasks, adding a few more options & ironing out the most significant bugs.

Multiplayer in particular will be at the forefront for v1.0 - the AMS Dedicated tool is already available for those who own AMS via Steam Tools, and if you are a league runner you may also PM me (Renato) for a free Steam key for the Dedi Tool.

Content-wise, things are progressing at a nice pace - there´s a good chance the new Formula Vintage series will be added in time for v1.0 (and not post-release as estimated in the original dev roadmap). Below is a preview showing how the 3D modelling is coming along:

The beta is already up to v0.9.5 and it features two new pieces of content - the Copa Montana, which is the last piece of content remaining from our crowdfunding campaign back, and the wonderful semi-fictional Mendig Flugplatz, a vast scenario roaming in and around a german airport, which will present some very unique challenges.

Unfortunately we have had a setback with implementation of driver animations as the developer in charge has left the project, so that´s one feature unlikely to make it in time for v1.0. This remains an important development for AMS though and we´ll be aiming to add it post-release.

Virtual Xperience - Automobilista Web Portal

We´re pleased to announce the Virtual Xperience portal (VX), the place we hope will help stimulate the community´s engagement with & around Automobilista.

From VX you´ll be able to check the multiplayer lobby and join sessions, register & find a league for your favorite car in a time slot that suits you, measure your hotlapping skills in the AMS leaderboards, join one of our official public servers, share your setups & replays and more.

The most complex VX module is the AMS leaderboards and its integration with the game, so this is what Luis Miguel, Dave Stephenson and Thiago Izequie who are the headlining this project have mostly been focusing on - currently only AMS Beta v0.9.5b is hooked up with the leaderboards so those who have it can already get your times up there We hope to integrate the system into the next EA release as well.

The leaderboards are linked to the Time Trial mode, which as you may have seen is effectively a practice session run under fixed configurations (but not fixed car setup) - noon time, max track conditions, no AI, no tire wear or fuel consumption - the sole purpose is scoring hotlaps to the leaderboards & future hotlapping competitions. Player times are automatically synced up with the leaderboards via Steam, and you can check how it ranks against the others both from the in-game monitor while running a time trial session, as well as from the Virtual Xperience leaderboards, selecting the car / track combo you´re looking to check out.

The other VX modules are coming along as well but these will be topics for our next dev update,

Further good news is that VX should be hopefully nicely complemented by developments being made to the Sim Racing System to better integrate it with AMS -Henrique Alves has presented more info about it here.

DLC development - Presenting the "Brit Pack"

Very glad also to confirm the Brit Pack as our initial lot of premium DLCs for Automobilista.

Besides the previously announced 3 tracks (Brands Hatch / Cadwell / Oulton Park) and the Ultima GTR (both road and GT versions), we will also be adding the MCR Sports 2000 and several Caterham models to the roster.

As usual our target with AMS is to assemble a package that delivers the most diverse & fun racing experiences possible, and with the upcoming premium DLCs we aim to retain that focus, at the same time expanding into more international & well-known tracks. England is arguably the mecca of european motorsports with some of the most interesting tracks and cars in the world, and the brits happen to make up a sizeable portion of our user base so it´s only fitting that our first premium pack revolves around a sample of their vast motorsports scene. Most importantly, these kit cars on these tracks represent some of the most fun to be had on four wheels, and that´s what we´ll be push to capture in the sim

The 6 components of the Brit Pack will be sold in a package as well as individually via Steam, with prices at release ranging from US$ 1.99 (for the MCR) to US$ 4.99 for each track, or US$ 19.99 for the complete pack.

You can however secure all this content, plus all the other upcoming premium DLCs by acquiring our membership packs , currently selling for US$ 54.99 (full membership including base game) / US$ 24.99 (membership upgrade for those who already own AMS). Please note that these prices will still be upgraded to US$ 59.99 / US$ 29.99 respectively in time for AMS v1.0 release, so those who have not yet joined in should push not to miss the current pricing. The membership pack also grants access to the Reiza 51 dev forum, Beta development version of AMS, and the chance to try out all this content in advance as they reach beta status.

Worth noting also that while some of this content had already been announced earlier on, the Caterhams and the MCR 2000 have just been added to the roster - that makes our membership packs pretty smart investing for those who had already bought into it at the original US$ 49.99 / US$ 19.99 pricing, as these extras will come at no additional cost to them (or indeed for those who participated in our crowdfunding campaign last year). With a couple of potential additions to the DLC roster still in the horizon, you should expect us to continue the trend in which the sooner you buy into our offerings, the more value you get for it

The contents of the Brit Pack are all officially licensed and we´re working in close proximity with the car manufacturers to ensure maximum accuracy; Alex has recently done recon trips to Brands Hatch & Cadwell Park, with Oulton Park scheduled for the end of the month.

The team is already well advanced on Brands & the road Ultima as you can see below:

We estimate the initial components of the Brit Pack to become available soon after v1.0 release, sometime in july, with Beta hopefully before the end of the month.

This about covers it for this June update - this was a big one! We hope you all enjoy the news. I look forward to catching up again in July, hopefully with AMS v1.0 release already behind us..."


RaceDepartment is the place for all the latest and greatest Automobilista mods and setups. Check out our AMS forum for the latest download links, all the news and discussions as well as our premium club racing events. What do you think of the latest roadmap?

Is AMS developing as you would like? What are you looking forward to the most? Let us know in the comments below!

 

[ouvert]

Not saying it simple .. but you can do it in one year .. lets leave it, I didn`t mean to start argue about it

 

[Will Mazeo]

Yeah sure....
I too wish it was not hard and new sim would be here in a heartbeat. But I doubt that will happen. Coding is not magic.
I hope I'm wrong tho

 

[fortyfivekev]

It takes a long time to build stuff from scratch but all of the current sim developers (except maybe ISI) should now be able to iterate reasonably quickly so I expect Reiza17, AC2, PCars2, R3E2, etc. are not going to be as long a wait as for the first versions.

AMS works well as a racing sim and to develop it into Reiza17 it obviously needs a new graphics engine plus more international content (and weather would be nice) but I expect we will be playing it this time next year at least in EA, hopefully before.

 

[xnorb]

I don't know if you're able to put engines like Unreal or alike on top of isiMotor, in fact i really doubt it except for some super weird Frankenstein solution which would basically have isiMotor as huge plugin for Unreal.

Writing your own graphics engine to replace gMotor is something different, but boy you're way overshooting the goal by doing so...

You have full access to the source code of Unreal if you license it, so if that's an option for Reiza they could just take driving physics of AMS and move that over to Unreal. (At least that's what i imagine would work, i have never advanced from writing Lingo/Actionscript, Javascript and PHP)

In the end all i hope for is Reiza will keep their natural non-cinematic look and the cars will not magically start handling completely different.

 

[bsmooth]

Coming from SCE this looks better and seems to react just as well. I went the Project Cars route, when it was first in Beta, and frankly was pretty disappointed in the direction they went. They went with all the glitz and effects and completly forgot about getting the important things right.
SCE at least in my opinion got it all right and made it even better, much better in fact than Rfactor2, which i've also had since it started.
Lets not throw it under the bus yet. They've taken a great sim and built upon it very well, and its accessable to more people because it can run pretty much maxed out and doesn't have any problems.
Adding those Historic Formula cars and cool new Truck/Cars isn't too bad either, especially being an old time GPL simmer. All thumbs up here, and looking forward to whats coming.

 

[Lars Hansen]

Caterham license? Consider it sold.
(Well, that is if I hadn't already opted into the programme)
Those things are just absurdly fun.

 

[Alex72]

How do you change the skies? Mine doesn't look like those...

Same for me i think. Still looks like before and i didnt see any selector in game for this.

Also, thats some sweet content incoming.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Are you talking about crashing it or reliability? The Eagle wasn't very reliable but it never crashed in 1967.

Reliability ^^,

For the GPL-guys, it was a car that often required a shift-r during practice ^^,

 

[Greg Latty]

 

[Rob Nelson]

Really happy with the development update and Reiza's work on AMS so far. Currently struggling to start-up any of the other sims and the Brit Pack is only going to make that worse.

Had to screenshot myself at the top of a Time Trial table as once this is released it will never happen again.

That's me at #5. Small victories

 

[Spinelli]

Except none of this dlc is the result of the crowdfunding campaign or backers voting. This is solely a decision made by Reiza to further extend the game while they work on Reiza 17. Which is a bit annoying to me as this is only extending the time it takes to get Reiza 17 out... Since they only have a couple track/sound/car guys working on the team. But they have said that all the stuff being added to AMS will appear in Reiza 17. And this licensed content is their first step at having more official content in their next game.

Yes but the extra cash of the updates combined with possibly more time before the 2017 game comes out means that Reiza will be able to afford and have more time to make more changes and bring us a PROPER new game for the 2017 title. Hopefully this means we won't just be playing a glorified rFactor/ISI-engined game with some "touch-up" features but a properly new, much-improved driving experience (especially around and past the limits, ie. slip angles).

 

[Alex72]

Did anyone know how to select the alternative new skies?

 

[alexSchmurtz]

Did anyone know how to select the alternative new skies?

You don't need to select them: they appear randomly. We used to have only bright blue skies… Now there is more variety: more or less clouds, and not at the same place.

 

[Nick Gregory]

I decided to but the All-Inclusive package last night, and I gotta say, I ain't gotta wait to fulfill my inner redneck anymore.

 

[Alex72]

You don't need to select them: they appear randomly. We used to have only bright blue skies… Now there is more variety: more or less clouds, and not at the same place.

Ah ok, thank you. Yeah so far i only seen the old ones.

 

[aussiemart]

Ooh Eagle westlake, awesome

 

[Hal Burns]

Reliability ^^,

For the GPL-guys, it was a car that often required a shift-r during practice ^^,

Ha ha "shift-R" = Standard procedure......never was any good in the Eagle or Lotus, the Ferrari was the best for me ( still plenty of Shift-R). The Historic GP cars may get to to buy in finally...that and the Brit Pack.

 

[Nick Gregory]