rF2 | November Development Roadmap - Formula E 2019/20!

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Studio 397 have released the latest of their monthly 'development roadmap' posts about the future of rFactor 2.

Maintaining a welcome tradition of updating the sim racing community about the goings on in the world of rFactor 2, the November roadmap post is here - and contains interesting insights and hints about where rFactor 2 is heading in the immediate future.

On the content side of things, the key highlight is of course the introduction of the 2019/20 Formula E content update - adding the new teams, drivers and liveries from the premier electric open wheel racing series in the world. Other key topics from the new post is news that the long awaited UI update for the sim is indeed on target for a mid-December release, and plenty of talk about E-Sports and competitions within the simulation.

You can check out the full roadmap update post below:

As the weather gets cold all around Europe and the northern hemisphere, everyone at Studio 397 is currently in motion and working on exciting projects cranking up the heat! It’s already November, but we’re not finished yet bringing you updates and new content for rFactor 2 this year. Next month we’ll look back at the year, but for now we are dedicated to working on the future of simracing and bringing everybody together for exciting and thrilling digital motorsport action. So get off the track, slow down and park your cars in the pits for a while and let’s talk about what awaits you in the rFactor world this coming month. Spoiler alert: before the clock strikes twelve, you will have heard back from us at least three more times! That’s how much we have planned to end the year on a high. And as you will see, we are already announcing a big event in 2020!

Screenshot Contest Winners
Last week we announced a screenshot contest, featuring our Nissan GT500. Thank you everybody for making an effort and submitting screenshots of your own liveries! We could not decide on a winner, so we picked two! And the winners are…..BrianB and ek0z from Discord – Congratulations! We will be in touch next week.

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Formula E 2020 Season Release


Just last weekend we saw the ABB FIA Formula E Championship start into its 6th season, with a grid so packed and full of big names that exciting racing was inevitable! Not hyped enough by what happened at the Diriyah ePrix, or missed it? Check out all the action here! Let’s start off with an interesting fact before diving into our actual announcement. Season six of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship is the first ever championship that sees all four German premium automotive brands battle it out on the same tracks, namely Porsche, Audi, Mercedes and BMW. Of course there are even more manufacturers in this season, with Nissan and Jaguar both coming back to strike hard against the German brands.

But enough about the new season. How does that relate to rFactor 2? As you probably guessed by now, we’re proud to continue our relationship with Formula E, and we’re releasing the 2020 season teams and liveries! Intense street racing with quick and agile open wheelers is waiting for you, featuring the new debutantes, Porsche and Mercedes, as a free upgrade to the current Formula E Gen 2 car. Go get it here!

And check it out, we also added the top wing cam!

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Sim Formula 2020 at InterClassics in Maastricht

On January 16-19th, 2020, the MECC in Maastricht will host the biggest simracing event in the Benelux. In collaboration with InterClassics, Sim Formula will host a 4 day long event, focused on simracing. The event is freely accessible every day. Known brands in simracing will be showing off their latest developments and products. There is also a simracing arena featuring various activities. For example, on Saturday there will be a hotlap competition on Circuit Maastricht (which is freely available in the rFactor 2 workshop if you want to come prepared). On Sunday afternoon you can witness the finals. René Hoogterp, a professional Dutch commentator, will participate in the live broadcast of this race.

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Qualifiers and Prize Pool

December 2019 will feature an online qualifier competition using rFactor 2, consisting of both hotlaps and races. In the first week of December we will open up a hotlap competition where the top 25 (with 5 reserves) will qualify for a series of races in the week of December 10-15th. In each of those races, a qualification session will be followed by two short sprint races, one with a reverse grid, to determine the fastest driver of that day who will then qualify for the final. More information on how to join will be published here on Monday.

The 5 fastest from these qualifiers will be invited to compete against each other on January 19th at the MECC in Maastricht in full-motion simulators provided by Upracer to determine who wins the first edition of Sim Formula. The total prize pool for this event is €10.000. Note that we are not covering travel expenses, so make sure you are able to travel to Maastricht to compete in the final if you join the qualifiers!

Masterclass and Congress

In collaboration with Adrenaline-Xperience by Atze Kerkhof all visitors of the event will be able to win one of three masterclasses. To participate, you can fill in a card during your visit to the event and drop it in a spot on the podium of the racing arena. The winner of the hotlap competition on Saturday will win the fourth masterclass. On Thursday evening, there will be an esports congress (for which you do need to buy a ticket). If you want to learn more about the world of esports, this is an excellent opportunity to listen to and discuss with an impressive line-up of well known, international speakers. For more information and tickets, visit this page.

Co-Hosted with InterClassics

The Sim Formula 2020 is full of action, but there is a lot more to see at InterClassics, the biggest car show of the Benelux, featuring many classic and fast cars. Just what the doctor ordered!

Finally

In case you’re wondering how the public beta of the new UI is coming along, we are on schedule to release that mid-December. It will be released as an “opt-in” public beta on Steam, so you will need to enable it yourself and you can quickly switch between the two. Both versions will be fully multiplayer compatible.

Enjoy the last month of the year!


rFactor 2 is available exclusively on 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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Gentlemen, there will be people looking through this thread, with the express aim of reading about the development roadmap (mentioned in the title of the thread). For that reason, we at RD ask people to do their best not to go too far off topic, or indeed go on about off topic subjects for extended periods. It's not that game pad functionality, or the merits (or otherwise) of game pad use are not interesting, but perhaps (if you wish to discuss them) they would be worthy of their own thread (which you are very welcome to start). I'm very grateful for everybody's input, but please, can we stop with the OT game pad references in this thread and all play together nicely. Thanks in advance for your cooperation. :) :thumbsup:
 
On the subject of the UI and competition (I might be off topic as they are hardly mentioned in the road map... :whistling: ), I don't see why they would do something different from the competition so far: a hotlap contest, then one race for the top guys. I'd love to be wrong because I don't think that will bring any new player... I had no interest whatsoever in their comp so far, as I'm not an hotlapper fan, and I have no chance to run in the race itself.
 
The problem with the format of current competitions is, as you say, that it essentially becomes a hotlapping contest. With only a couple of competitions a year and the way the hotlap format works, it means only professional esports athletes will have a chance to take part in a real race since you need to commit the 1000 laps and be extremely quick as well.

No offense to those esports guys, many of them do this for a living now, but it leaves not much online racing left for the larger community. There needs to be races at every level, even the leveling is secondary as long as there are regular races and events. Just like in games like CS:GO, Fortnite or PUGB, there are the top level competitions, but the top esports guys all started with playing regular online matches.
 
Sure refunded aok, just waiting on the DLC refund.
I really wanted to keep it, but I'm just not willing to invest more time troubleshooting it as I'm tight on time already. I gave it 3 hours and that's enough. It looks ok, and drove ok, but tbh I don't think it's any better than some others. They all have pros/cons, and they're all fun to drive.

Think I'll pick up MotoGP2019 as a replacement, as I've never played a Bike sim and it has solid reviews + full controller support. And I need to subscribe to AM2!



Thin

My god, you're tight on space, tight on money, and tight on time, I suggest a different hobby buddy
 
My god, you're tight on space, tight on money, and tight on time, I suggest a different hobby buddy

I suggest you keep your suggestions to yourself.
I have AC, ACC, PC2, WRC8, DR2, F1 2019, MotoGP2019, and rFactor2 installed and jump between all of them.

It pays to read the full thread to get the context, not just dive in and make assumptions and post knee-jerk responses to the first thing you read.

7 pages of discussion on the problems with rFactor2 indicate it's got more than a few issues fanbois can't paper over by snarking at someone who rightly complains about a crappy first user experience -> https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/ok-what-has-happened-to-rf2.64608/

Hopefully the new UI/UX about to be released for beta testing will fix some of those issues.
 
I've refunded it. That was a total waste of a sunday afternoon. I finally got it working with my Razer controller, and then it started going a bit strange.

My controller works perfectly fine in all the other sims I have but now in rFactor2 it glitches like crazy on the steering thumbstick, and also has no FFB/Rumble for XBox type gamepads. I only just noticed it says "partial controller support" on the Steam Store, so I guess that's what it means. Seems to be a lot of controller issues on Steam forums about it too.

Pretty disappointed in it really, given all the high praise it gets.
I had to laugh driving over flat grass, it was like bouncing over a pile of boulders. I don't know how that works as "realistic Physics" but I guess it must be if everyone praises it.

Enjoy the new UI!
There is a thread, either here or at the S397 forum, about the Xbox controller. He did find solutions to his Xbox controller. And yes.....PARTIAL does, in fact, mean partial.
 
There is a thread, either here or at the S397 forum, about the Xbox controller. He did find solutions to his Xbox controller. And yes.....PARTIAL does, in fact, mean partial.

As per the mods post at the top of this page, can we please not go there about controllers/wheels anymore.
I already solved it myself, as I posted about already on page 6.

Fwiw it would also help better if people who actually wanted to help could post links to solutions not just "it works". I've helped two other people since on various forums with the exact same RF2 issue, and certainly wouldn't blame either of them giving up and refunding due to the frustrating experience it is, partial support or otherwise.
 
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All is matter of personal preferencies.
I looked once at Monaco e grand prix.
It has been for me the worst race experience I had so far on tv.
Just like a joke.

Of course I will not purchase the dlc. But as I said, just a question of personal preferencies.
 
Anybody hear of any further news on the UI? The Roadmap stated:

Finally
In case you’re wondering how the public beta of the new UI is coming along, we are on schedule to release that mid-December. It will be released as an “opt-in” public beta on Steam, so you will need to enable it yourself and you can quickly switch between the two. Both versions will be fully multiplayer compatible.
Enjoy the last month of the year!
 
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