RaceRoom Update Notes: New Tracks, New Cars and New Features

[Paul Jeffrey]

Sector3 Studios have taken to the internet today to share some interesting insights into the near future of RaceRoom Racing Experience...

Yes folks, it's time for another roadmap from a sim racing development team... this time the turn falls to Sector3 Studios and their RaceRoom Racing Experience title.

In the September 2019 'Developer Notes' thread, Sector3 have shared plenty of interesting updates about the title... read on to find out what they have to say...

This is a follow-up to the May 2019 thread.

Summer is short in Sweden, so we try and make the best out of it, and that means quite a lot of vacation days have been taken, and therefore a significant slowdown in development for a few weeks.

But here we are, back at it, skin maybe still peeling off from sunburns. I hope everyone had or might still be having a nice time out! I for one visited family and friends back in Belgium.
Is this relevant for these development notes? Well, sort of, as I landed in Belgium the very week of the Spa 24H. I went there on the practice days, 23rd and 24th in order to collect references for no less than 7 or 8 cars.

After those refs were taken, it was time to go up and pay a visit to Aris (Kunos), Paul Jeffrey (RaceDepartment) and Chris Haye (yey, thanks for the mention JF, was awesome to finally meet face-to-face - Paul).

I did queue to qualify for the ACC event, but suddenly had other opportunities to seize.

Anyway... Here is a quick rundown of the items listed in the notes from May, and where we stand for each:

Cars : The WTCR 2019 car class that we were working on is out and the esport season has started ( Check out the first race stream ).
We had a couple small updates since the release, and also WTCR 2018 car class received their physics update to match and be raced alongside the 2019 cars. What we still have not shipped is the BMW M1 Group 4, which is awaiting liveries, and the updated Volkswagen ID.R, remade according to actual telemetry for which I also need liveries. Discussions are to resume soon with Volkswagen Motorsport regarding livery designs and final sign-off of the new physics. As you may have seen, Romain Dumas and the VW crew have been busy breaking records in China as well!

Tracks : Two of the tracks we've been working on are now finished and being prepared for public use, so expect announcements and previews in the coming weeks. Our artists will immediately move on to new projects as we have reached agreements for four more in the meantime.

Force Feedback updates : Static friction and pneumatic trail effects have been in testing for a while now and I have to hold them back for now as we have to wait for a gap between two competitions before we push changes that affect handling and performance of the cars. Those effects are physics based and the pneumatic trail effect has an impact on the car handling, especially coming out of corners. The next period between esport competitions is December 2019.

Moving / resizing HUD elements : Issues reported on ultrawide monitors are considered fixed. Let us know if you still have any.

So, what's new?

Thomas Jansen has been recruited to help in the physics and AI department. After proving his worth as a betatester and delivering flawlessness™ in BOP, Thomas is now a consultant, working hand in hand with @Alex Hodgkinson . He is tasked with things ranging from damper tuning to critical AI physics improvements, such as preventing AI of recent cars from losing the rear so often.

Renato Lipi has been recruited as our new web backend developer. Renato will have a lot on his table with very big tasks awaiting him, such as a migration to AWS, development, along with the rest of the team, of the scheduled multiplayer / rating / career features, improvements to competitions, menus, and so on. I'm confident that his skills, in combination with a true passion and excitement for the projects, will help bring RaceRoom much further.

Anthony Monteil and @Robert Holm are cooking up some nice updates to the tyre sounds. A completely new set of recordings from Anthony, along with some code changes in the engine from Robert (allowing tweaks per car but also more randomness in the samples) should bring you a lot more information regarding grip levels while you are driving. I tried to demonstrate the progression in this video :

AI improvements: We acknowledge that the more demanding physics we have been delivering are likely too much for the AI to handle properly. There are plenty of places where AI now easily gets in trouble, so we're addressing this issue from an AI physics point of view.
What we need to avoid is for this job to put us in a spot where AI cars differ quite a lot from the player's car, making racing feel unfair as AI appear to have much better cornering grip, braking or power.

To prevent this but also improve AI in general, @Robert Holm has experimented and came up an interesting self-learning AI. The way it works is that we take a car and we throw it on a track, then we tell the AI to drive and run tests to autotune itself. It all happens in a few seconds and the following measures happen:

• DECELERATION / BRAKING
  Performs brake tests and compares measurement with what AI thought would happen. Useful for preventing AI from hitting you in the back.
• ACCELERATION|
  Performs acceleration tests and compares measure against prediction, this will for example improve the calculation of slowdown penalties or the decision of when to issue a stop-and-go penalty after cutting the track.
• LAP
  AI performs a timed lap and logs it for developers to gauge the effects of their changes (for example, matching real world laptimes)
• CORNERING
  Keeps track of how far off the line the AI went and the amount of understeer. Used to prevent AI from cornering too early or too late.
• RADIUS
  A complex set of tests for grip levels per corner radius, allowing AI to be fine-tuned so they are not dead slow in hairpins or lightning fast in medium radius corners.
  
  I'm very much looking forward to seeing what the team achieves with this new tool.
  Watch it in action here:

Physics - Current projects are:

• GT3 overhaul (Release December 2019)
• DTM 92 / Touring Classics (Release TBA)
• VW ID.R modifications for an eventual release in store (Release TBA)
• Working on new cars as well that I can't disclose.

Art - Always complicated to talk about what our talented artists are working on as they're always the ones with the top secret stuff in their hands... Just know that we have 7 or 8 cars in the pipeline at the moment, along with official liveries of the 2019 season of three racing series (for cars that we already released). As touched above, two tracks are in their final development phase. Two more are lined up afterwards, currently receiving art polish and tweaks.

Damage - As you know from previous notes, we have suspension damage and flatspots in beta, and the only thing that was holding it back was the need for a modification of how damage options are handled. Right now, you have two settings to set for damage: visual and mechanical. That will go away and in the future you'll only have one damage setting with three choices: "Off" - "Minimal" and "Full". If you want suspension damage and flatspots, you'll have to go on "Full", while "Minimal" will give you damage like you currently have it. That modification is now done and we only have to wait until a gap in esport to push these game-changing updates. The next gap is in December. So that is when we'll push those.

Dedicated Server - The following doesn't require a gap in esport competitions and therefore will hit your server machines very soon.

Chat box - The server admin can now read and send chat messages. Messages from the server admin will be shown as originating from 'SERVER', like in this example:

In the server interface:

And in-game:

MOTD - The server can now be set with a Message Of The Day, a text-only short message that will be shown to players joining the server (in practice and standing start qualifying). Communities can now use this to show server rules or their website / Discord URL, etc.
There is some basic html formatting available

Will result in this aspect:

Weight Manager - We're adding an example of what can be done using the Dedicated Server's API with this tool. Feed it with a results file from a previous race and in a matter of a few clicks, you can set success ballast for the next championship round, saving you the trouble of manually going through their ID's and usernames.
We're adding a field to input a formula allowing for quick automated weights attribution. Example here with this RRVLN race result where we give ballast based on the finish position in class, with a maximum of 50kg:

Here's a list of the helpers currently in testing, allowing for creativity in the formula:

Pre-determined starting grid - As I write these lines, I'm not sure yet if it works as we added it this week and we haven't managed to organize a race with the betatesters yet. The goal of this feature is that you should be able to set the starting grid of your MP race and skip qualifying altogether. Either set the grid manually, or point the tool to a leaderboard with your league's team name and it will fetch all the players with that team name on that leaderboard and automatically generate the starting grid. Hopefully it passes QA swiftly.

An example import with a WTCR championship round from https://www.racingfr.net of how the starting grid can be imported from a leaderboard and then edited manually with a couple of clicks.

So that's it folks - plenty of interesting an exciting stuff on the horizon for RaceRoom Racing Experience - looking forward to it all dropping the coming months..

The RaceRoom Racing Experience sub forum here at RaceDepartment is the place to go for news and discussion about this excellent racing title. In the forum you can chat with fellow fans and take part in our excellent RaceRoom Racing Experience Racing Club - a great way to race in a clean, fair and fun online environment.

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[Durge Driven]

rfactor2 for 7 years you can pick grid, all ISI work

You can swap cars in garage............ no other sim I know does this ......they so dated


I support and buy all RR so disagrees fall on deaf ears

 

[Neils on Wheels]

I just did a 40 minute race from the rear and passed all 12 AI for the win with the difficulty set to 105%, and I found them very predictable and fun to race against!

Then you are unlikely to experience them ramming you out of the way.

 

[Michael Tobin]

Strongly agree AI is the worst, and physical ones too.

But Curb your entushiasm already promised 100 times that they were going to improve and here we are, being pushed off the track

Have to agree with this! I have lost count of the amount of times I have rage quitted against the ai because of getting rammed up the backside! Have tried adaptive ai and fixed but it makes no difference, they are just too aggressive under the brakes and don't react at all even if you brake just a tiny bit earlier than normal and so that leaves you with no confidence at all when a car is close behind! Its a pity because vr is great, sound is brilliant, great selection of tracks and cars but I am sorry this ai is rubbish and so the game is pretty useless to me until addressed but I am hopeful! Until then I will continue with Rfactor

 

[Case_]

Friendly reminder that if you have issues with the AI, it's most often your own driving that's responsible. Not always, but way too often. Some of the long-time complainers about bad AI in Raceroom have in past demonstrated this quite well with their clips of the supposed "bad AI". Most notably - early braking compared to what the AI expects, divebombing the AI and so on.

Edit: LOL, the disagrees.

 

[Michael Tobin]

Yes I have seen some of these clips and I am sure sometimes I am at fault but 90% of the time it is just wreckless ai who are programmed to brake at a certain spot taking no particular interest as to what is already on that spot! I don't have this issue with Rfactor or even Pcars for that matter! I have bought a lot of tracks and cars for this sim and I know it has great potential but I feel everything is geared towards online racing these days and ai is becoming increasingly overlooked! I am also not a novice sim racer so I am pretty good with my lines and braking but it seems to me at least that the ai lack awareness of whats immediately around them!

 

[Case_]

Like I said - not always. But way too often.

 

[melanieuk]

Yet more content and physics, physics, physics, physics updates or tweaks, for the past how much 6 Years, 2013 this game was released on steam, and it has the least people playing it at any given time, German sim racers are the ones that are keeping it alive, Free to Play games doesn't do it on Steam, they receive the least advertisement and least exposure.

It is a good thing Studio 397 has poached Feels3 from S3S, he must have been sitting there twiddling his thumbs, as there hasn't been any new tracks for this sim for a long time. Without him I wonder what the quality of their new tracks will be like now.

Ps.
And well done Studio 397 for employing a great track creator like Feels3.

 

[Case_]

It is a good thing Studio 397 has poached Feels3 from S3S, he must have been sitting there twiddling his thumbs, as there hasn't been any new tracks for this sim for a long time.

Just for the sake of objectivity - while I do not think releasing tracks is some kind of contest, if I'm counting correctly, Sector 3 have released 3 tracks for Raceroom in 2018 and 1 so far in 2019, with 2 more now confirmed to be coming soon and four more licensed in the meantime.

Meanwhile, S397 have released two tracks in that same time period, with a third one nearing release, and one semi-released (as it was an update for a track that was available for quite some time already).

Personally, I wouldn't say either of the developers have been particularly slacking (or noticeably more productive) in this aspect or "twiddling their thumbs", with similar amount of work being done and released by both, but that's just me I guess.

 

[Jonathan Young]

This is good to hear. Intrigued to know what the new content is going to be. I like Raceroom, it’s my second favorite sim. It ha great content and it’s really nicely packaged together unlike RF2. But they can’t go out for too much longer with that geriatric engine. If RR was upgraded to a more modern engine it would be a front-runner in the sim market.

 

[Luke Maney]

When I make a pass I stay on that line, I don't get in front of the car I just passed. So maybe that's the problem with those who think the AI rams them? I just stated that I passed 12 cars over a 40 minute race and the AI were very well behaved except the second place car blocked me (which was very realistic...Assetto Corsa AI does the same thing...I like that) and after I passed him he gave me a little nudge like he was miffed at me? So I personally think R3E AI is very good. But maybe the circumstances are different that you guys are experiencing?
I'm just saying that to take away AI spinning off or crashing is not the right move, that's realistic and immersive:
I can't wait for cars to catch fire and to drive thru smoke from those fires and have oil on the track cause crashes and stuff like that. That's where this SIM racing needs to go, more realistic immersive elements!

 

[Durge Driven]

I would like a few more sims like RR and iRacing you don't need pilots licence to run them

 

[anthony monteil]

Did new cars get mentioned, I missed that part?

R3E if your reading this, I would like the damage to be more realistic and I would like to see more old school race cars like Can Am and seventies F1?

He he, you know we love these cars aswell ! Since the beginning of R3E development and even before, 70's F1 and Can Am have always been part of our content list plans, especially Can Am and Gr6 - Gr7 prototypes, but so far some others contents always got the priority. Hopefully, they will happen one day

 

[CDwyer]

Friendly reminder that if you have issues with the AI, it's most often your own driving that's responsible. Not always, but way too often. Some of the long-time complainers about bad AI in Raceroom have in past demonstrated this quite well with their clips of the supposed "bad AI". Most notably - early braking compared to what the AI expects, divebombing the AI and so on.

I am a slow racer, I have gotten better in RR, not particularly faster, but better, so I have less of a issue with the ramming, but I did have issues, I am just not sure that "git gud" is useful, the game has AI scale, it acknowledges that there is a span of talent in the user base, I feel that should also be reflected in the AI behavior. I stuck with it despite a lot of frustration, because the benefits of the game made it seem a good reward for me to learn to adapt. How many just give up?

 

[Case_]

I am just not sure that "git gud" is useful, the game has AI scale, it acknowledges that there is a span of talent in the user base, I feel that should also be reflected in the AI behavior

My point wasn't really "git gud", though (well, in a way, maybe, but not really). More like "think about what you're doing, the problem might not be the AI, it might be your bad habits" and "analyze what happened and why objectively", and also "set your AI accordingly" (or, preferably, train the adaptive AI appropriately).

I am also quite slow. Most of the time, when I have some issue with the Raceroom AI, it's absolutely my fault because *I* did something wrong, and I can't blame the AI for not being able to anticipate that or respond to it. Even humans will have trouble responding fast enough or predict your actions on track if you do something they did not anticipate, let alone a relatively simple game AI. For example, if you brake noticeably earlier than you should, people *will* rear-end you too, because they simply didn't expect that.

And we have plenty of slow(er) drivers having no real issues with the AI, so it's really not about pace.

There are some issues with the AI, clearly. But, as suggested, people are also generally pretty quick to just blame everything on the AI.

 

[Chris Haye]

Fun read! Lots of great incremental improvements to look forward to, but it's especially good to see the '92 DTM cars getting some updated physics.

 

[thepharcyde]

Shame eSport, delays releasing updates; why not deploy on a beta branch?

I've got into RRE again recently, given mostly complete classes.

 

[Jerec]

I wait for ne never coming day, when we see Ferrari and Lambo in R3E or the DTM 2019.

 

[deadsilence001]

Thank you RaceDepartment for reporting these important news! Glad to hear Sector3 is working hard to deliver R3E's customers a great simracing experience. I often play Single-Player on a lot of sims and I'm so happy they're working on AI's flaws. I have every track and let's say 70% of cars, so I can't wait to feel every improvement.

 

[RichardHessels]

I don't play RaceRoom or any other online only game/sim because I don't play online. If RR had offline availability for single player than I will get it, but until then I'm not playing it.

RR shines in the single player department. AI might not be perfect. But you can have great offline races. So fact check before you shout.

 

[Miguel Amorim]

RaceRoom is one of my favorite sims, along side with Assetto Corsa.
Obviously it would be great having a DirectX upgrade, as well as night and day cycles and dynamic weather (for example), but I believe that would only be possible if the game would migrate to a new game engine.
My fear is that the game would become unplayable on my laptop, as it happens with other recent UE4 game release ...

P.S. Looking forward to GTR3 news, though.