Laguna and Cars - More Assetto Corsa DLC Previews Released

[Paul Jeffrey]

Check out these incredible new Bonus Pack 3 preview images and video ahead of the big launch tomorrow..

Thanks to the generosity of the guys behind at Kunos Simulazioni, players of Assetto Corsa will tomorrow be getting their hands on seven new high performance road cars and a laser scanned version of the incredible Laguna Seca Raceway as free additional content, and to help celebrate the build up to this momentous occasion Kunos have just swamped the internet with a bunch of awesome looking new preview images!

Scheduled to hit the PC version of Assetto Corsa tomorrow and with console players expected to receive the content early 2018, the new cars and circuit look simply resplendent in these latest preview images, really showcasing the very best of what Assetto Corsa is able to produce graphically.

Alongside what are very strong looking visuals are seven hugely different and equally entertaining cars to drive, each featuring their own unique little nuances that make getting under the skin of the Bonus Pack 3 content a driving pleasure. From golden oldies like the Alfa 33 to a high tech concept car from Maserati, fans of performance road going machines really have a little of something to enjoy in this upcoming new pack..

Fancy taking a much closer look at the upcoming bonus pack DLC with physics developer Aristotelis Vasilakos? No worries, we have you covered!

Assetto Corsa, available now for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.



Bonus Pack 3 DLC releases for free to PC on December 20th, with console to follow shortly afterwards.

Check out the Assetto Corsa Sub Forum here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussions regarding the sim. We host quality League and Club Racing events, have a selection of fantastic mods to download and some of the best community conversation. Join in the discussion today.

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Looking forward to the bonus pack? Which car most strikes your fancy? Enjoy the stream? Tell us you favourite and discuss away in the comments section below!

 

[MarkR]

It can be confusing but here it is FYI: HR are modern-day performance road tyres they put on the car in the factory, road tyres are standard road tyres, semi-slicks are popular track tyres (yet sometimes the HR has more grip as tyre techology has advanced quite a bit in recent years), trofeos are non-street legal (cut) slick tyres, which are there to bring out full potential on the track, they are not related to the Pirelli tyre with the same name. Hope it helps.

Thus, in terms of grip level: old road<road<semi-slick~HR<trofeo

Thanks, yes that explains the situation well, and best of all that is how the tyres in AC actually feel to me, the semi slicks feel like their real-world counterparts and now I understand your Trofeos are slicks that makes sense too. The name Trofeo was definitely causing the confusion for me, doubt I'm alone. Thanks for taking the time to explain and in a friendly tone too

 

[Tberg]

After a huge amount of 'testing'...no scrap that, a huge amount of fun with the Huayra BC at Laguna Seca I've figured out what really makes the difference between PCARS2 and Assetto Corsa and it's all to do with the tyres.

Here is the side by side video with both games looking glorious in 4K and Rift VR. Both car models look exquisite to me, they have that obsessive attention to detail that those expensive high-quality car models draw us in with.

One thing I did notice this time is just how much louder the PCARS2 sound is, for the money a Huayra costs I really hope it sounds a lot more like the PCARS2 version.

To get the lap times (a 1.30.1 and a 1.29.8) and handling as close to each other as possible I had to run PCARS2 on the default Hypercar Trofeo and the Assetto car on road tyres, using these settings the cars feel remarkably similar. If I put the Hypercar Trofeo tyres on the Assetto Corsa car the advantage in grip, stability, braking and handling goes massively in favour of Assetto, easily 2-3 seconds a lap faster and a car that is a handful on road tyres becomes easy to drive far more quickly.

From my experience, and I've been lucky enough to attend a couple of tyre manufacturer handling days with the same car on several brands of tyres the level of transformation of the car in Assetto Corsa seems too much. The Hypercar Trofeo tyres in AC seem to behave more like warm soft slicks. On the real cars when these track tyres like Cup 2, Trofeo, 595, R888, A048 do give tremendous grip and improved braking but get close to the limit they can get tricky and often there isn't that much feedback and they tend to snap more than less grippy tyres. In that respect the AC version of the Trofeo tyres seems a bit overpowered, they hang on forever and are super easy to correct at and around the limit. The PCARS2 Trofeo has a more real tyre feel for me with this car and track combination, but equally the PCARS2 tyres maybe don't quite have enough grip so as usual, it's pluses and minuses on both sides.

All I can say for certain is both games are a lot of fun and uncannily similar with PCARS running on Trofeos and Assetto Corsa on road tyres.

Noticed the sound differences too, other than the obvious different samples, don't be surprised if PC2 uses finalizing tools, either build in the soundengine or just mixed that way by the soundengineer. AC is far from that aggressive, but you can try enabling 'Loudness' on your soundcard to level the frequencies, it becomes much more like the saturated sound in PC2, like you'd hear from inside a canny cockpit with some loud engine, tyre, wind and roadnoise going on. Just put the volume down a notch and be careful with your ears

PS: if you use headphones, don't forget to enable 7.1 sound, it makes the mix better.

 

[garyjpaterson]

Thing that bugs me about the trofeos is the fact they are the default choice for some cars, which is a shame as most will jump in and drive thinking its the factory setup, when in reality its not.

And the name seems odd too, i hear it all over the place, people don't understand what the trofeos represent. Why its not been changed to something more representative I don't know.

 

[MarkR]

You

Thing that bugs me about the trofeos is the fact they are the default choice for some cars, which is a shame as most will jump in and drive thinking its the factory setup, when in reality its not.

Good point, this caught me out for exactly this reason, Trofeo in my mind = the Pirelli just about road legal high end semi slick. Just the same way Cup/Cup 2 = Michelin's finest semi track wizardry. Never would I have guessed it meant actual slick.

I know they are all just games in the end and can't simulate everything but it is rarely quite as simple as slapping on some new tyres and going immediately faster.

Just my experience but moving from road tyres track biased rubber (Pilot Super Sport, sub semi slicks) think means you arrive faster into corners, brake later and carry more speed through immediately puts more pressure on the braking system and at a minimum better fluid and braided lines are needed to stop the pedal going long as the pads fade. More often than not semi slicks require upgraded discs with fancy cooling, usually floating rotors to stop the heat transfer back to the wheel hub, and much better pads. Those usually harder pads need more care getting up to temperature and on goes the cycle. Finding the pedal no longer has much feel is often a downside. The same car is already on the way to becoming a bit of a bind for use on the road. As for Carbon Ceramic discs and pads, I've seen Audi technicians changing the pads every 2 hours and discs after a full hard day of track use, wow that is some expense and this was just on the RS4 and R8 not the really heavy cars they make.

Now the car is faster the next temptation is to move to faster track semi-slick rubber, Cup 2/Trofeo/R888 etc and even if the same brakes will stand the performance increase it's highly likely the standard suspension will now be taking a lot of pressure. Upgrading the suspension, stiffer springs, better shocks, thicker ARBS means the car can make the most the tyres on a dry track but compromise it for the road and the wet. Fully adjustable suspension helps manage the compromise but can be eye-wateringly expensive and is a lot of effort. Now you also need a second set of tyres with you in case it rains.

Then you add more power and the trouble really starts...

Now you've got so good you decide to put slicks on (if anyone will let you, few will in the UK unless on a test day with a race licence) and the cycle repeats again and it's no longer really a road car on track at all. You also scare yourself silly when you start to push the car before they even close to warmed up!

During the Porsche, Ferarri, McLaren hypercar shootout they had teams of technicians on hand to fettle the cars to the track and tyres.

There is a lot more to going faster in the real world and that was my main point in making the comments about the Trofeo tyres in AC, before I understood they were actually slicks, they just seemed overpowered and far too forgiving.

 

[ltcars]

Just a question. Are all Hypercar Road tyres on all cars the same? So has a Porsche Panamera Turbo theoretically the same tyres as an Mclaren P1?

 

[Maximilian Hinter]

The Giulia QV somehow behaves strange for me while initiating a drift, also very "wobbly" and jerky when you're trying to maintain a clean slide. It feels like the electronic diff (i guess?) is grabbing way too late, and there is always something intervening at the rear tires. It really doesn't feel natural like in other cars like the M4 for example. But maybe it's just me

 

[Tberg]

Just a question. Are all Hypercar Road tyres on all cars the same? So has a Porsche Panamera Turbo theoretically the same tyres as an Mclaren P1?

I'm pretty sure the tyres in AC that share the same label are the same tyre.

 

[garyjpaterson]

I'm pretty sure the tyres in AC that share the same label are the same tyre.

Kind of.

Think of it more as a category of tyre. Each car with ‘streets’ are all slightly different, based on the loads of each car etc. Copy/paste the ‘streets’ from one car to another and its going to perform a little different to the ‘streets’ that it came with.

Same goes for each category of tyre, similar performance and behaviour but not exactly the same.

 

[aphidgod]

Correct... they're not all identical. They're all close, clearly in a well-defined "category" as Gary said, but not identical.

 

[Aristotelis]

Just to be clear, tyres values are created depending on their dimensions, load index values, compounds and such.
Obviously every category has comparable tyres, but there is no such thing as "identical tyres" from one car to the other, except if they use the same dimensions.

 

[protonv5]

And what exactly is the 67MB update for AC today? Hopefully fixes some of these issues. And the blue-grey Laguna Seca.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

And what exactly is the 67MB update for AC today? Hopefully fixes some of these issues. And the blue-grey Laguna Seca.

I guess you are unaware that there is a changelog in the main ac folder:

1.16.1
- Corrected Lamborghini Huracán Performante ECU cutoff gearchange time
- Improved AI behaviour through Corkscrew at Laguna Seca
- Windscreen reflection adjusted in BP3 cars
- Laguna Seca fixed a billboard position
- Laguna Seca re-white balanced tarmac on cloudy conditions
- Laguna Seca moved ribbon to correct tree

If you are bothered by the color of the tarmac there is a mod available by @Patrik Marek that changes it to a slightly more grey color.

 

[protonv5]

I guess you are unaware that there is a changelog in the main ac folder:

1.16.1
- Corrected Lamborghini Huracán Performante ECU cutoff gearchange time
- Improved AI behaviour through Corkscrew at Laguna Seca
- Windscreen reflection adjusted in BP3 cars
- Laguna Seca fixed a billboard position
- Laguna Seca re-white balanced tarmac on cloudy conditions
- Laguna Seca moved ribbon to correct tree

I was not aware. Thank you. And also to Kunos for the patch!

 

[protonv5]

Now if only the patch could help my behavior through the Corkscrew.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

And the name seems odd too, i hear it all over the place, people don't understand what the trofeos represent. Why its not been changed to something more representative I don't know.

Yes, with the Pirelli Trofeo R being one of the most popular extreme tires on the market, it fools people into thinking it's suppoused to represent that tire.

 

[Tberg]

Correct... they're not all identical. They're all close, clearly in a well-defined "category" as Gary said, but not identical.

Makes sense

Just to be clear, tyres values are created depending on their dimensions, load index values, compounds and such.
Obviously every category has comparable tyres, but there is no such thing as "identical tyres" from one car to the other, except if they use the same dimensions.

Well, I thougt wrong and glad we got that straight

 

[MarkR]

- Laguna Seca re-white balanced tarmac on cloudy conditions

Good to know the AC PC devs are listening and reacting as fast as always. It didn't really bother me, I've seen that shade of blue on tracks under heavy skies here in the UK.

We've disagreed many times over the console version but I equally thank you for sharing this information.

 

[MarkR]

Just to be clear, tyres values are created depending on their dimensions, load index values, compounds and such.

Respectfully of your great tyre and handling work, does that mean for example the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio simulates the Pirelli P Zero Corsas 60 treadwear rating as evo magazine reported in issue 243? Michelin Pilot Super Sports have a treadwear rating of 300 as a comparison. The Alfa pretty much destroyed its front tyres in a few laps.

Personally, I don't expect games to simulate to that level so this is purely a question out of interest and games feeling as close to the real world as possible if that is not possible or an unrealistic expectation that is fine, for me AC (on PC) is close enough already.

 

[Si]

Correct... they're not all identical. They're all close, clearly in a well-defined "category" as Gary said, but not identical.

exactly, you cant expect 'street' tyres on fiat to be the same as 'street' on a M4.......just like real life the M4 tyres will be more grippy. Not because of size, but because they are far more expensive...ergo more grip.....but probably less durability.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

I drive the Supra around laguna...