rF2 | Massive Roadmap - New Cars, Tracks and UI!

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Studio 397 certainly weren't kidding when they said December still has some surprises in store for rFactor 2 - with the 'December Roadmap' releasing at the same time as several new tracks, new cars, a first stab at the new UI and plenty more besides!

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year so they say, and for sim racers December 2019 this old line is absolutely true! Huge updates for several of the top sims, and this time it is the turn of rFactor 2 to take the spotlight - in quite dramatic fashion too..

The Studio 397 / rFactor 2 Development Roadmap for December:

Before we string up the lights and begin to tell you the Christmas story of our December roadmap, here is the keyhole version for those of you that just can´t wait for Santa: lots of cool stuff you asked for, awesome new series, content surprises #1 to #5, rF2 improvements and the answer to your pressing question “when’s the new UI?” Now that you can see the presents, we promise it’s a lot more exciting when you sit down in your PJ’s and unwrap them one by one. So let’s get busy, shall we (wink)

A quick look out of the window confirms, winter’s here- at least in northern Europe. And that means the soothing sounds of our favorite race car engines have been temporarily drowned out by the incessant “Last Christmas” blaring from seemingly all around. But fear not, we haven’t succumbed to the sugar coating yet and the dev elves have been very busy in the simracing workshop – simracing is not just a season!

2019 - What a Year!

Let´s start with a quick roundup of the year. The studio was running on full throttle, and we were super proud to introduce iconic racetracks like Le Mans or Nürburgring to you. Great cars such as new GT3s, Cup cars and a full lineup of new Tatuus Open Wheelers seriously tempted even us to stop working for a moment and just get in there and race all of that awesome content!

While much of the team’s development focused on the UI and the upcoming competition system, 2019 also saw rFactor 2 show off new content at many events and in lots of different competitions, further highlighting our dedication to competitive racing simulation: from our endurance events like Sebring 12h and the rF24h at Le Mans (with a combined prize pool of over 20.000 Euro just in those races), to tournaments and competitions such as World’s Fastest Gamer, A1 e-sports league, ESL Mapfre Racing Series, and McLaren Shadow.

Clearly, investing your training time in rFactor 2 to become one of the fastest drivers in the world really paid off this year, not to mention the several thousand people who watched rFactor 2 esports live! Supporting grassroots and entry level racing (more on that later) will always be a core focus for us, but for 2020 our goal is to increase top-notch rFactor 2 events and tournaments to provide more regular, exciting broadcasts . This year, we celebrate that rFactor 2 was supported in many leagues and events. Next year, we promise to continue our work on creating “more things to race in!”

2020 - A Glimpse of the Future

There’s no slowing down for the turn of the year (get it???) – 2020 will be full speed ahead. Watch out for traffic signs on the winding road that is the upcoming year: Ratings ahead!, Daily races in 100m!, Slow down, ladder! and much more. You probably guessed it already, we are subtly hinting at the competition system.

But as we move onto the next level of integrating our competition system into the UI, we are equally as proud to announce one of our bigger championships hitting in 2020: the rFactor 2 Major Series, featuring 4 major endurance events throughout the year, bringing you the excitement of multi-class racing in a team environment. Different tracks at each event, adjusted classes and hours of exciting racing action is yours coming up. Specific teams, such as the top teams in class from VEC, will get direct invites prior to those events. Everyone else will be able to qualify per event. While those major series races will be partly “stand-alone,” like this year’s Sebring and Le Mans, there will be overall standings across the entire season, rewarding teams that are constantly bringing home points. Our goal is to ensure every endurance racing lover out there has a chance to get a spot in this exciting event in 2020. More details are under the hood, which we’ll reveal when the time comes.

Winter Sale

Nothing brings on the Christmas cheer like our winter sale! With rad discounts across much of our content and rFactor 2 at a tinsel-topped 50% off!

Audi R8 GT3 2019

We see you peeping through the door! You’ve been good all year (you have, haven’t you?!) and you just can´t wait any more, so here’s your present*!

As successful as the previous model has been in sprint and endurance GT racing, the German premium manufacturer presented the 3rd generation of its GT3-powerhouse at the end of 2018.

Paris played host back then for the first outing of the new Audi R8 GT3 LMS Evo and now you can try to master this rocket in rFactor 2 as the newest addition to our already big GT3 grid.

*The 2019 model is free for every one who already owns the previous Audi R8 GT3- Merry Christmas!

With a revised body, including a new front-end with bigger dive planes, changes to the rear wing size, and profile and other modifications (which resulted in a new rev limit, now at 8600 rpm in 6th gear), this knife is sharpened to the max and ready for another season of racing.


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Cote d´Azur

Between the beautiful sea, regal casinos and the lifestyle of the fast and famous, it´s up to you to carve your name into the tarmac as a winner of this challenging street circuit! We hear it´s pretty cool to win three epic races in a race career, with two of them being in Indianapolis and Le Mans–tracks you can already find in rFactor2–let us introduce you to an amazing looking piece of track along the Cote d´Azur. To make sure you know where to travel for your next holidays, we even named the Circuit accordingly. You’re welcome (wink)

As your engine echoes through the apartment canyons (which probably cost more than an entire GT3 season), you downshift to 2nd gear, your eyes locked onto the tight apex right in front of a stunning harbour scene (eyes on the apex!!), the road twists and turns like a roller coaster. The backdrop of this holiday paradise will keep distracting you as you approach the last hairpin, separating you from reaching the crown. Sounds cool? It is, and it’s your chance to experience right now!

You can grab this fresh circuit in the Steam Item Store


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Tatuus TRS FT-60

This Christmas, we will be releasing an update to the awesome Tatuus TRS FT-60. The car is used predominantly in the Toyota Racing Series, which is a proving ground for emerging talent in the open-wheeler season.

We’re releasing an update to the Tatuus pack! After further evaluating the real car performance, we have updated small things on the F4 and F3 cars. On top of that, we have even added something new! The FT50 was already part of this pack, but now we also have the FT60. This F3 is putting down 290 bhp exclusively on the real roads of New Zealand in January and February of 2020. We again worked closely with Engineering Consult and Toyota Gazoo New Zealand on the car, but this time we also created five amazing tracks, all of which will be released completely for free in the workshop: Highlands, Teretonga, Pukekohe, Manfeild and Hampton Downs. We will open a server for any competitor in the real series to set a benchmark time and let our online racers have a go at beating them.

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BMW M2 Clubsport

ust in case the sliding rear wasn’t enough for you yet and you feel like you need some more POWAAA for more angle, we just got the right update for you. From now on, you can not only dive into your future race career with the BMW M2 CS Cup, you can also enjoy the BMW M2 Clubsport, the 450 HP street monster. Live your “Touristenfahrten” dreams with this Bavarian masterpiece and tear up the tarmac whilst you look cool in every corner!

Le Mans Update

Le Mans has been updated to make use of all of the latest graphical developments. This includes upgrading all PBR materials, as well as a complete foliage material update and more. All of this has it looking better than ever before.

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KartSim Track Pack

After releasing the brand new track and our updates for Le Mans, we’re still not done releasing tracks. That’s right! It might have gone silent around KartSim for a while, but that doesn’t mean that nothing’s happening behind the scenes. For PFI we have updated the curbs and the track colour scheme, graphics and shaders, as well as roadside advertising. We also updated the AI and advertising for Buckmore and Glan Y Gors.

On top of that, we have three brand new tracks from the European karting scene!

Adria
Alongside the Adria International Raceway lies the Adria Karting Raceway, situated in beautiful Italy, just an hour south of Venice. Built in 2014, it is one of the most modern kart tracks, and hosts many international karting events. The track itself sports a nice looking combination of concrete and colored run-off areas and is just over 1.3 kilometers long.

Kristianstad
Located in the south of Sweden is the Kristianstad karting circuit, a 1.2 kilometer long track that was repaved and upgraded to meet the demands of a CIK grade-A circuit in 2012. The track has 16 corners, two chicanes, and a level difference of 6 meters vertically.

Alahärmä
The Alaharma circuit, sometimes also called the Mika Salo Circuit as it was designed by the former racing driver of the same name, is one of the most beautiful outdoor karting tracks. Located in Finland in the beautiful town of Alahärmä on the banks of the river Lapuanjoki, the 1 kilometer long course winds down the river and has several corners that challenge even the most experienced drivers.

Zandvoort Update

Circuit Zandvoort got a small update, with some fixes and the inclusion of the 2020 GP banner near the end of the main straight. We wanted to make sure the final version of this layout was current. As you are probably aware, the track is currently undergoing changes. Expect more news about those early next year!

Graphic Improvements

This release marks the 3rd major instalment of our PBR revamp of the graphics engine. Last winter, we introduced PBR to vehicles via a new car paint material system, and in the summer we released Le Mans, our first track to make use of the technology. This winter, we bring the next step in the evolution of the environment shaders.

The major feature of this release is the introduction of pre-processor defines for shaders. This means we now can have a handful of shaders with many configurable options. We can enable and disable maps, configure which UV each map uses and change large parts of the logic carried out by the shader on a per material basis. This allows artists much greater freedom to achieve the results they are looking for.

As a result, we’ve added various tweaks and improvements to the full suite of PBR shaders, improving our solutions for Terrain, Road, Foliage and more.

On Roads and Curbs it is possible to fully configure the strength and full PBR profile of Dust, Marble and Groove effects as well as controlling the impact of detail maps across the road. It is possible to pre-bake wear into the road, allowing for a more natural feeling “green” road with subtle variations. It’s all real road compatible too, dusty parts of the road will clear off as vehicles drive over it!

The terrain shader is now more powerful, allowing more maps to be blended and the option to use a “splatter” map input in addition to vertex colour, as was used in the past to control the blending. Distant shadows can be pre-baked, and we have added translucency options to give an improved low light look. This all allows for more natural blending patterns and adds more depth to the scene.

We’ve taken the time to improve billboard lighting on foliage, adding more depth to trees, as well as giving a silhouette glow to them as the sun goes down.

Finally, a complex blend shader gives us the ability to blend different materials together. This is put to use across the scene Gravel Traps to Advertisement hoardings. For example on Gravel Traps we can input two sets of maps, one for the fine pebble details, and a second to achieve the raked pattern. These blend together to add more depth and allow the lighting to be more accurate. Advertisements can be setup with profiles, so a single albedo map with the sponsor logos can be used across all kinds of different surfaces whilst being able to configure a unique profile for each surface.

In terms of lighting, we have taken some small steps here after the preliminary results of the lighting review. The whole pipeline has been adjusted to work with real life albedo values, which meant existing content had to be completely reworked from the assets side. We have also addressed some issues with the direct light and ambient light balance.

All that said, there’s still much work to do. We intend to complete our lighting review in the new year, and also look at improving the PostFX.

Finally, a common question we receive is when will we offer modder support. This is a very important subject, and we want to offer that support as soon as we can. When we roll out modder support, we wish to have proper documentation and be sure that we are not going to make wholesale changes to the way things are setup shortly afterwards. As such, we expect that modder support will not come before the next stage of the graphics pipeline development is complete. As there is still a large chance that things maybe significantly re-balanced and cause major work to content already making use of these developments.

Public Beta of New UI

Rfactor 2 has always deserved a real ecosystem to showcase its core attributes. A place that is minimal without being sparse, and useful and intuitive without being cluttered. It might sound somewhat abstract, but our vision of a ‘UI’ has always been the visual representation and feel of ‘simulation’. Essentially, we’ve created a building block that has the flexibility to accommodate any new features that will come. Since taking over the development from ISI back in 2016, we immediately redefined our graphical identity. From that point on we continued to further redefine rFactor 2 in many other ways, bringing in great “triple-A” cars and tracks, overhauling the graphic engine, and improving on and adding new features all along the way…

But our starting point was always ‘the new UI.’ It served as a basis for the overall design charter – we knew right away that how rFactor 2 is perceived depends heavily on how well it visually brings across its true potential and the possibilities it contains. We put great care and effort into making sure ‘your sim’ shows in the best light.

So a public beta is not the first step, we are well on our way already, but it’s the first time it sees start lights and, more importantly, it’s a preview of more exciting things to come!

In this first beta phase, we’ll be looking at getting your feedback and ideas, so please do post in our forum thread here

To access the new UI you will need to subscribe to a special branch on Steam – here’s how to do that;

Step one
Right click on rFactor 2 in your Steam Library and go to Properties

Step Two
Click on the tab at the top of the window ‘Betas‘ and from the drop down select ‘Public-Beta‘

Now in the background rFactor 2 will now load the Public Beta branch, it make take a little while first time!

Sim Formula 2020

After no fewer than ten 15 min races, thrilling starts, a pile up in T1 and a change of format we have five winners already invited to the InterClassics event in mid-January!

Well known simracers: Risto Kappet, Jeremy Bouteloup, Hany Alsabti, Zbigniew Siara and finally Jarl Teien will be fighting on track for a prize-pool of € 10.000 + everyone is already a winner of Sprint pedals from Heusinkveld. The race will be streamed from location, and Rene Hoogterp will be calling all the action there.

InterClassics will open January 16th at 12:00, where you are able to give it a go – and work to become the fastest on track. Friday you can meet the pros and get some precious tips and tricks. Saturday you set your best lap and then finally Sunday you can see the finalists duke it out from 13:00 CET.

Meet us there!

All Cars Updated

Our entire updated roster of cars, ensuring full compatibility with the new UI icons display system. Because cars should shine bright and proudly show off their armor in their new home!

We also snuck in some other updates to a few cars, you can read about it in the changelog below. In short, minor updates for GTE’s to improve close racing and other minor fixes.

Changelog Cars
ALL cars have been updated with new icons and logos compatible with the new UI.

Workshop Items

StockCar 2015 – v2.00
Howston G4 1968 – v2.00
Howston G6 1968 – v2.00
Indycar Dallara DW12 2014
Nissan GT500 2013 – v2.03
USF2000 2016 – v2.00
AC Cobra 427SC 1967 v2.01
Chevrolet Camaro GT3 2012 – 2.00
Corvette C6R GT2 2009 – 2.00
Kart Cup – 2.01
Honda Civic BTCC 2013 – v2.00
Formula Renault 3.5 – v2.00
Renault Clio Cup 2010 – v2.00
Brabham BT20 1966 – v2.00
Howston Dissenter 1974 – v2.00
Panoz Roadster 1999 – v2.00
Nissan GTR 2011 – 2.00
Formula 2 2012 – v2.00
Skip Barber – v2.02
– Added rain effects

Tatuus Pack
– ALL Tatuus – Added upgrade.ini into unencrypted .mas for league use
Tatuus F3 T318 2018 – v1.06
– Separated WSK and Asia as opponents
Tatuus USF-17 – v1.07
Tatuus PM-18 – v1.07
Tatuus FT-50 – v1.07
Tatuus MSV_F3-016 – v1.07
Tatuus F4 2018 – v1.07

Steam Store Items

GTE
– ALL: Diffuser adjustment in GTE cars to reduce aero push oversteer of leading car.

Porsche 991 RSR GTE – v1.99
Chevrolet Corvette C7.R GTE – v2.05
BMW M8 GTE – v1.81
Aston Martin Vantage GTE – v1.11

LMP

Oreca 07 LMP2 – v1.69
Norma – v1.76

GT3

Audi R8LMS GT3 2018 – v1.51
– Changed naming to reflect 2018 in the car list
Bentley Continental GT3 – v2.55
Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R – v2.51
Mercedes AMG GT3 – v2.51
McLaren 650S GT3 – v2.43
Aston Martin Vantage GT3 – v1.47
BMW M6 GT3 -v1.45
McLaren 720s GT3 – v1.43
Porsche 911 GT3R – v1.41
Radical RXC GT3 – v2.55

Other

BMW M2 2020 – v1.31
– Fixed collision box
– Added ‘Clubsport’ upgrade

Formula E 2018 – v2.03
McLaren Senna – v1.07

Final Word
Once again, we like to thank you for you continued support. We are hugely passionate sim racers and look forward to bringing more developments and surprises throughput the year – Happy Holidays!


rFactor 2 is exclusively available for PC.

Questions? Ask the community and post a thread in the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment! If you love racing online, why not check out our rFactor 2 Racing Club - a fantastic place to experience this sim with in a clean, safe and competitive environment.

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  • Deleted member 875593

You know what the problem with your argument, and this kind of argument in general, is? It assumes everyone spends 10 bucks daily on overpriced fast food or coffee.

It's like the whole thing about "we pay thousands of bucks for hardware, and complain about 10 bucks for a track" again. It's a fallacy.

Also, the point isn't about the absolute price tag, about the number itself. It is about the relative one, the subjective one. And it's perfectly OK to simply disagree with someone else's subjective perception of value of some abritrary item. You think it's a fair price for an unofficial track? Well more power to you, sir! It's awesome people have different opinions on stuff! That's how discussion works, and that's also how improvement and progress works.

(And BTW, to everyone else, I'm sorry that I steered the discussion towards pricing *again*, as if that's something that needs to be endlessly discussed again. I should've known better to avoid the fairly innocently meant remark completely, it's not like I don't know how that always goes. But, I mean...it kinda feels like tapdancing in a minefield sometimes when trying to express some sort of opinion on the internet - there's so many things and topics you need to completely avoid...)
I urge you not to call me "Sir". It makes you in my eyes standing on podest pointing your finger at me. But i think that´s how you feel anyway, officer.
 
I'll be frank, in my personal opinion the UI is not great, looks dated already and i sort of liked that Rf2 was staying off the curve of overly produced guff like you find in PCars or GRID etc. I liked the simple 'flight sim' type approach to it all....
It feels like they are trying to do the very last thing they should be doing...trying to get it like PCars and GRID..
12 year olds will never be rf2 core base so why chase them?

It just doesn't sit right with me at the mo...maybe i will grow to like the UI but for now i reversed back.
If you are loving it fair play to you...please don't try to belittle or argue with me, it is my current opinion and no random internet person will change that so don't waste your fingers.
No agenda here either, i own and play ALL 'sims'...like them all...
 
But what really still bothers me are the loading times! they are getting worse. That really doesn't work, that's why I only rarely drive rF2. I spend 40% of the time on the loading screen.
The more content you have, the slower the loading times. Make race events for your favorite car/track combos and use the race events instead of All Tracks And Cars to speed up loading times.
 
The more content you have, the slower the loading times. Make race events for your favorite car/track combos and use the race events instead of All Tracks And Cars to speed up loading times.
and I don't understand that either.
I have all DLC's in every Sim.
R3E always loads at the same speed, in AC I have countless mods and AC also loads perfectly.
I really don't want to criticize rF2. This sim is incredibly good. But the loading times drive me crazy.
 
and I don't understand that either.
I have all DLC's in every Sim.
R3E always loads at the same speed, in AC I have countless mods and AC also loads perfectly.
I really don't want to criticize rF2. This sim is incredibly good. But the loading times drive me crazy.

I think you are talking about race event loading time, not the game itself. In that case loading time was significantly improved a couple of updates ago. If you don't see the improvement empty cache folders and try again. Keep in mind that for each track, first time loading might not be faster still.
 
But the loading times drive me crazy.

you are not alone, loading time is atrocious in RF2, it has been improved but still is atrocious. The typical RF2 defender are in denial of all the maddening issues making having any fun with RF2 nearly impossible. So any issue anyone bring is not really an issue as it is for the greater good of the perfection of RF2. On many level for them it is not a game anymore, not even a SIM, it is a religion.
 
you are not alone, loading time is atrocious in RF2, it has been improved but still is atrocious. The typical RF2 defender are in denial of all the maddening issues making having any fun with RF2 nearly impossible. So any issue anyone bring is not really an issue as it is for the greater good of the perfection of RF2. On many level for them it is not a game anymore, not even a SIM, it is a religion.

Well that is major over reaction over the loading times. Also as you say they were improved not long ago, and quite significantly.

I agree that loading still doesn't take a short time. But it is also relative to how much time do you spend on track after loading it up. If you are at the track for 2-5 minutes, then yes.... loading for 1-2 minutes seems a bit long. But if you spend up to 15minutes and more, then that is not that much of a big deal.

Worth to mention that once you load same track second time in a row it loads faster again.

Also loading times are different to the complexity of tracks. So there are tracks that does load quickly actually.

I am using a lot of rF2 and loading times are not maddening, and does not reduce the fun I get. Bigger tracks load longer, small tracks load fast and thats it. Small tracks you lap in less time, big tracks you lap in more time and it balances out. But I get the frustration if you are a type of simracer that juggles the content more than actually uses it.

No one would say no to better loading times. But if you can't get past a minute or two of waiting, then perhaps you aren't interested in it ?
 
The "New UI" is alright, it does a job but at the same time takes a lot of getting used too and it's quirky in its own way. What troubles me is the direction S397 have gone with it, there's far too many clicks to get somewhere,, the "start" button should've been named "home" (long ago...) and there's no fluidity too it, but at the end of the day it is just a UI which is not the most important part of the Sim.

Now I've long been classed as a "fanboy" of RF2 (well newsflash I'm a fanboy of every racing sim so bite me!), I'm well aware of the Sims flaws, but for me the UI was the least important aspect of the game to concentrate soooo much time on. Sure the new Competition Infrastructure will be built into it and with that a lot of essential under the hood work as gone on surrounding this area, but I cant help but feel S397 are ignoring the main issues with actual gameplay in favour of a UI. It's taken too long, it's taken resources away from more important (IMO) areas and other Sims have simply caught up & overtaken RF2...lapped it even!

I mean look how far ACC has come since release, RRE is getting a lot of attention, iRacing bringing out AI whilst RF2s AI gathers dust, AMS2 release in March is highly anticipated by many - RF2 will gradually fade away to being a "what if?" sim.
I therefore believe S397 need a new approach in 2020, concentrate on what actually matters - fix the age old bugs everyone harpers on about - improve the AI and take notice of Single Players (FFS!) - just generally look to improve the actual hardcore Game not fanny about with the UI for too long. It's all well and good releasing shiny new DLC, but if the core of the game continues to go untreated then it'll be lights out and a DNF next to the Sim and that pains me to think this way.

I love you RF2, but for the love of christ step it up in 2020!

Merry Xmas!
 
you are not alone, loading time is atrocious in RF2, it has been improved but still is atrocious. The typical RF2 defender are in denial of all the maddening issues making having any fun with RF2 nearly impossible. So any issue anyone bring is not really an issue as it is for the greater good of the perfection of RF2. On many level for them it is not a game anymore, not even a SIM, it is a religion.
Not trying to argue with you, but as many "typical rF2 defenders" as there are who seem to hold the sim as a religion, there are as many people whos religion it is to take any opportunity to steer up trouble and talk dominantly negative about the rF2 community and the sim itself. And surprise, surprise: it's allways the same bunch of names that I read. And while there are a few people in the rF2 community who are a bit extreme sometimes, the majority is very helpfull and shares a balanced view about the product, while I think that only a minority uses rF2 exclusively. So it is infact right, that some issues are considered less severe by some people who prefere the sim, but I haven't come across a single post, not even from the hardcore rF2 users who claim it to be perfect. That's showing the product and the community in a much worse light, than it really is.

And in that regard, the loading times are actually a great example because I know both extremes very well. On one hand I have rF2, wich takes ages to load but runs great with big grids and a beautifully rendered Le Mans, while one the other hand I have ACC with blazing fast loading times but atricious performance on track, where it really matters. Now please explain to me, wich one would you use? Am I a typical rF2 defender now, because I consider it "not really an issue" in the grand scheme of things? You know what, I think it is fine to not like a product and to give feedback, may it be positive or negative and to move on at a certain point. But as long as people make it sound like, that the rF2 community is the "specialy" bad one and as long as those threats turn into personal topics, where the focus isn't on the product anymore, you will see those religious "fanboys" and "haters".

Anywhay, you will find good and bad anywhere and rF2 and it's community isn't any different than those other communities and products out there. So please consider this, next time you mention that point again. ;)
 
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