rFactor 2 October Roadmap Update is Here

[Paul Jeffrey]

The latest monthly roadmap update on the state of play in rFactor 2 is now live!

It must be difficult to find new things to discuss each month when Studio 397 sit down and plan out the latest roadmap blog posting, and it is testament to the Dutch studio that pretty much consistently since taking over the reigns of development for this outstanding simulation the developers have been able to bring news of progress with the sim, often breaking new ground as they continue to breathe fresh life into the title following acquisition of rF2 from Image Space Incorporated.

For the month of October, S397 have released another new piece of content in the form of the Finnish Botniaring track, plus updated fans on the progress of the mammoth task of bringing a modern laserscanned version of the epic Nürburgring track in Germany - one of the most sought after pieces of sim racing real-estate within our hobby.

So without further ramblings from me, let's see what Studio 397 have to say this month....

The full October 2018 rF2 Roadmap can be read below:

It´s getting colder outside, and most of us probably have either switched to winter tyres already or are planning to right now. Brace yourself, winter is here! But as simracers, we’re lucky, our season never ends, so let´s get into this month’s roadmap. It was once again a busy time for us. Let’s be honest here, that probably never ends either: we are pushing rFactor 2 further every single day, but it’s always great to head out to the community with good news like releases or announcements!

Botniaring
In 1989, the gates in Jurva opened to what now is known as the longest and most versatile racetrack in Finland, the Botniaring. It also features different layouts, thanks to the extension of the track in the past from a length of 2618 meter to 4014 meters, making it the longest racetrack in the country. Its smooth tarmac surface has invited multiple races to the region over the years, turning Botniaring into another Finnish motorsport center.

Mostly used for national championships, the track also became popular among northern European championships. With its 3 different layouts, the Botniaring offers thrilling racing action for all kinds of motorsport classes. It might not have seen a full European GT Championship yet, but you can change that in rFactor 2! Choose from the “Long”, “Long with Chicane”, and “Short” layouts to either be challenged by a high-speed track or to take on a breathtaking chicane that needs all your attention if you want to clock a fast lap time. Ah yes, we nearly forgot, the track is live now and servers are also running already, so what are you waiting for?!
​

Nürburgring
When we announced this track at SimRacing Expo, we already stated this is a monumental task. The 2018 scan data has now been fully processed, and in parallel we have been working on many of the track-side details. We don’t have a lot to show yet, as usually the phases of modeling a track involve a lot of work that is not immediately visible until quite late in the build. We did visit our artists and got some pictures from their workstations while they were working on the track. Planning-wise, we are on schedule, and in a couple of months we hope to be able to show you some in-game shots. Worth mentioning already is that this will be our first full track that is built using our new material system.
​

McLaren Shadow rFactor 2 Qualifier
After introducing three new free cars to the simulation, we headed into the harsh but exciting world of competitive racing, on the hunt for that one driver that would represent the rFactor 2 community in the McLaren Shadow final later on in Woking. But before anyone could claim this spot, three qualifier rounds broke down the list of participants to the last 30 that had a chance at winning this.

Road 1 at Silverstone
Round one saw our racers flying through Hangars straight at the iconic Silverstone Circuit in the McLaren MP4/8. With everyone ready to shine and willing to do everything to put their stamp on the first round of the new competition, our livestream saw plenty of action and great fights with everyone trying to get inside the top 10 to make their way to the Qualifier final. After 30 minutes we had our first podium of the rFactor 2 McLaren Shadow Competition with Jan von der Heyde winning in front of Michelle D Alessandro and Eros Masciulli.
​

Round 2 at Zandvoort
The first 10 had their ticket to the Qualifier final, another 20 tickets were still up for grabs. After everyone parked their McLaren MP4/8 in the garage again we went even further back in time with the McLaren M23, a pure drivers car. No electronics, just a steering wheel and pedals. And with these weapons, our best drivers out of the Hotlap Sessions had to go up against each other on Zandvoort. Long fast corners, a lot of banking, and the endless will to fight made up another great livestream during this competition, eventually seeing Georgo Baldi reaching for the top spot and sending Peyo Peev and Kuba Brzenzinski down to the other spots on the podium.
​

Round 3 at Indianapolis
The championship car of Mika Häkkinen, the McLaren MP4/13, was the car of choice for the last qualifier round, leading our drivers to Indianapolis for a last chance to earn their spot in the Qualifier final. With an aggressive rear end, this car meant serious business for our participants and Indianapolis GP wasn´t willing to make it any easier for them. As this was the last qualifier round, everything heated up quite quickly, with several fighting groups that had to be covered by our live broadcast. In the end it was too much pressure for some drivers which totally threw around the top 10 in the last laps of the qualifier. Managing to keep his MP4/13 under control, it was Mark Berends securing the first place with Kevin Ryan and Antonio Kolarec following closely.
​

Finals at Longford, NOLA and Sebring
All qualifier rounds had been done and it was time for the Top 30 drivers from around the world to face off in the Qualifier final. Due to it being the big finale with just one spot leading to the McLaren Shadow Event in Woking, we decided to send out drivers to 3 different tracks, using all the new McLaren cars to find out who will represent our beloved Sim.

Normally you would expect a write up about what happened, right? Yeah, me too… not gonna happen XD! There was just too much action everywhere and the battles really showed that everyone was willing to give his best to get the Ticket to the UK. So better watch it yourself! (You fancy a link? It’s down there!). To cut a long story short, after 3 intense races it was Nuno Pinto who leading the standings and lifting himself up to the next level of the competition, the on-site final. Nuno Pinto:

It was really good, I wasn’t really expecting to win the competition. The first race was almost perfect, pole position and win. The second race started really bad with the crash on turn 1, recovered from P20 to P9 and got some good points. The last race was so good, started from pole, but when I switched to 2nd gear the rear end stepped out and to avoid hitting the wall I had to lift the throttle and lost 5 spots, recovered to P3 and that gave me overall win. Really happy and I am already working to be in the best shape possible for the final in January, I don’t really know what to expect but I will try and do my best and make all rFactor 2 players as proud as possible!
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rFactor 2 is available exclusively for PC from Steam now.

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Happy with the contents of the latest roadmap release? Looking forward to the future of rF2? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!​

 

[Oldzeb]

now in live!!

 

[T_rac3]

Why are so many people against UE4 in this community?

Due to bad experiences with ACC, lack of proper triple screen support and poor VR implementation (at least as of today). Neither of those things come native in UE4, so it's kind of pointless to move to a "ready made engine" when the engine is in fact not ready made for sim racing.

The best answer, thank you.

Triple screen support doesn't necessarily affect too many people (look at R3E)

R3E has a working triple screen support:
https://forum.sector3studios.com/index.php?threads/how-to-setup-triple-screens.9711/
"You should end up with something like this: -triScr 80 -10 60 35 2 60 35 2 45 60 35 2 45" and it is working good.
And yes, my biggest problem is triple screen support. It is a simracing game and for this to eliminate from start triple screen it is a very silly thing.
I know the VR is the future, but the present is here and is ... now.
I didn't say No Triple No Buy, I bought the game, and I will give my support to the devs in the future also, but I would like to enjoy a complete experience.

 

[St3fan]

R3E has a working triple screen support:

I am aware of that. I mean R3E has got away without triple screen support for a very long time while still being praised. So triple screen support is just one small aspect of many things that matter. Also looking at how long it took R3E to have some sort of triple screen support you will understand it will take some time and effort from the devs, UE4 or not.

 

[Emery]

Why are so many people against UE4 in this community?

Simple answer is that you give up physics rate to use UE4. Physics rate is important to properly model the stiffest suspensions at the highest speeds. This is what Kunos has traded off... remember the foo-fraw about their LMP cars crashing AC when given the real-life suspension rates?

This is not to say that ACC is wrong. It's working, more or less, for the speed & type of vehicle that the game is based on, but if they tried higher speed & stiffer vehicles, then they'd have to fudge something.

 

[Parkles]

roadmap? ok so wheres the g29/920 support?

 

[Marcel Offermans]

roadmap? ok so wheres the g29/920 support?

It is still in testing as we had some problems discovered by our testing team that needed to be addressed before release. This is one of the things that can happen at the last moment that will delay a release of such a fix.

 

[Anomalistics]

Whilst I do agree with some sentiments here, we have to lower our expectations ever so slightly and be more realistic. Yes, the graphical quality isn't as refreshing as other games, but RF2 makes up for this in other areas. We're yet to have a fully pledged simulator game that offers everything we're after. RF2 is slowly addressing issues, and I am sure it will be nothing more than spectacular in the coming years.

In other news though, I am looking forward to ACC. I really hope it delivers.

 

[mantasisg]

rF2 actually is very refreshing visually, you just have to use properly modeled content, performance is also pretty good already, very big improvement. I keep discovering where and when rF2 really looks great, for example drove zandvoort in the dusk and it was really epic with caterham, then drove Watkins Glen in the dawn + some rain, it was pretty epic.

 

[Parkles]

It is still in testing as we had some problems discovered by our testing team that needed to be addressed before release. This is one of the things that can happen at the last moment that will delay a release of such a fix.

YES

 

[patchedupdemon]

The actual argument was that the game looks bad and runs slow. Nothing what you just invented there. Just because physics is good does not justify everything else being bad. I don't want to write a list.

I think one of the really annoying problems with rf2 is its userbase. I think there is some serious survivorship bias going on. All the people have left who did not find rf2 to be much good. You are only left with the people who absolutely love anything and everything in rf2 and would not change anything until something is changed and then they praise the change. Physics is nice but with rf2 you need to give away so much that the one thing that it does just little better than the competition does not matter anymore (unless you really like it that way, the rf2 way).

And it is no wonder so many people left rf2. Back when rf2 was still new and people were reporting issues and providing feedback the standard response from the fanatical crowd was always "this is not for you. Go away". And people did.

I used to think the best thing you can do with rf2 as a developer is to kill it and make rf3. If the game and the code is so broken, so outdated and so spaghetti that even ui rewrite takes years or you need to go through two graphics rewrites to make it look better then obviously continuous development while fixing that ui is a development suicide. But I think the main reason I'd want that rf3 restart is to have a better rf community. There are too many blind fanboys, people who look down at other sims and too much toxicity, elitism and brand loyalty to get valuable feedback from that crowd. Best thing about rf3 would not be that it would most likely be the best sim but that it had a good community as well.

I’ve only been a member since jan 2017 and I’ve seen nothing like what you speak of on the s397 forums, quite the opposite actually, and very refreshing coming from iracing where you have childish kids and immature oaps battling it out for who can ridicule others the most.

Rf2 community from my standpoint had been a wealth of knowledge and grown up conversations about the prospects and issues within rf2.

Maybe it was different , but I haven’t seen anything like that in the two years I’ve nearly been a member.

 

[MetalMania]

Wow. Every time there's an RF2 update, the "what do you think" thread is like a political debate: there's some truth on both sides but it can get ugly.

So it's not cutting edge graphically. I don't find that it bothers me. I think the biggest issue is consistency - there's a wide gap sometimes, even with 1st party and "3PA" content, but to be fair some of it is pretty old and from multiple sources. The cars look like what they're supposed to represent, and so do the tracks. I could find things to complain about I guess, but most of the time I just drive and be happy. Really, a major graphics overhaul is not high on my wish list. To some that may be a deal breaker, for me it isn't. Maybe my standards aren't high, but for the most part I'm fine with how it looks. Improvements are always welcome.

Performance wise, honestly I have no idea what my FPS is. I've never checked. My rig is an i5 6600k running 4.1 Ghz, 16GB RAM, and a GTX 1060 slightly OC'd with 6GB VRAM. My graphics settings are probably mid range, I haven't looked at them in probably a year. Monitor is 144Hz 2560x1440 - not extreme, but it is G-Sync. I think that's the key - whatever my FPS is, it's synced with the monitor so it's almost always smooth. I never think about it, and I've never felt like "this runs like crap". If I was trying to max out every gfx setting on a 4K monitor, triple screens, or VR, I suppose my experience would be different. I think PC gamers sometimes get too caught up in the numbers. Sure, higher FPS is good, but really I think smoothness is the key. Regular movies are just 24 FPS I think? I don't watch movies thinking it's unbearably slow. As long as it isn't tearing and stuttering, a solid 30 FPS is playable, 60 is ideal, and over that is bonus and bragging rights. Lower than 30 (or 24 I suppose) does feel sluggish. Just my opinion.

AI. Oh, AI. I've seen a lot of people say the AI in RF2 is the best out there, and maybe it is... but I have been the victim of the stupidest !@#%** AI driving in RF2 on so many occasions I finally signed up for iRacing. And then found real people to be just as bad, if not worse in some cases (granted - rookie classes). Seriously, it's hard to have a convincing race with the AI where half the field can't keep up with the safety car for the start, and the ones that do jump the start EVERY TIME - if you're the pole sitter you will hardly ever take the green flag first. The AI will always move into the blocking line in the braking zone, even if you're already fully along side them (yes, meaning they drive right into the side of you), every single lap. You better get used to passing on the outside, because you will hardly ever be able to get the inside line on a corner unless you get inside way before the braking zone and anticipate the side swipe that's sure to come. One time in a Skip Barber race, literally ALL of them piled up into a crash in the pit lane entrance during practice on one of the "stock" RF2 tracks. They also seem unable to manage turn 2 on the Indianapolis oval - ridiculous amount of crashes.

Having said that, I have also had some of the BEST races vs AI I can recall in all the years of racing sims I've played. The problem again is consistency. When you happen to hit the right AI cars, at the right track, with the right settings - it can be intense and totally convincing. But I now have spreadsheets with results of way too many test sessions with different cars/tracks/AI settings trying to find the right combinations to have good races with. I'm talking hundreds of hours folks. That gets to be a drag. But I absolutely do not want to see AI completely dropped in favor of a multiplayer only environment. Sometimes schedules, available time, whatever means that racing with AI is the answer, and I don't want to lose that. Full disclosure I have never raced multiplayer in RF2. Sometime, someday, I don't know when, I will hopefully change that.

I lost my train of thought. So, for me it looks fine, drives great, I wish AI was more consistent, and would like an easier way to make custom championships, races, import skins, etc. within the UI whenever it's finished. Otherwise I'm happy with what S397 has done and is continuing to do.

 

[Ace King]

I been making AIW (AI fastlines), block lines for many years and i can state with high accuracy that the majority of your AI issues result from either the AIW not optimized best for a particular car mod and/or the car mod's AI settings.

Also, making a proper blocking line is sort of an art and if not done properly you can get adverse results like unrealistic AI behavior. The track aiw's that i optimize for personal use show very few or no issues you mentioned. I raced the majority of sims against their AI and in my opinion and experience i find rF2 AI are second to none the best there is on this planet.

 

[MarcG]

Like above I've been editing AIW for years and when needed have adjusted/created new for personal use, unfortunately the problem lies in the fact that different Cars react differently to the AIW, where one AI Car/Mod is very good another may have troubles and appear to be poor. So finding that right balance to accommodate the vast number of cars is of course very tricky, then the cars themselves have AI parameters that affect their performance....simply put there's a thousand variables you need to work with if you're patient enough.

Having said that the AIW of Official tracks do have that balance most (not all) of the time, community made tracks less so as some Track modders just look for Online races and leave the AIW as a last resort, this results in general poor AI across the track which is where people like Ace King and myself come in to tweak and improve to our hearts content.

Of course there are AI Learning Methods as well if you have the time, they can work very well depending on the initial state of the AIW, they can take little bit of time but they are worth a shot. Then there is the ability to set specific Lines for the AI, this of course requires much more work and I would never expect S397/Modder to do this for every track release as it would take an Age!

Personally I was hoping a Learning Method that takes into account the Collision Corridors which would then allow the selected AI car to better learn the track would be a better default option, that way you simply run a Practice session and the AI for whatever car you've chosen takes a few laps and over time (just like a real driver) they perfect their lines. That way you negate the need for a Path as the individual Car/Mod learns for themselves, but to code this in would probably be too much work, in fact IIRC there is something in DevMode that allows the AI to learn the track...perhaps I'll investigate that more but my memories faded so maybe wrong.

In closing; the RF2 AI is Good out of the box, better than other Sims and perhaps not as good as others in certain situations, but for me if you have time to tweak and improve then the AI is the best currently.

 

[MPortnoy]

+1
As someone who spends his time 100% offline, learning to create/modify AI fast paths/block paths/pit paths was a "must do" for me and has completely transformed my experience. This isn't anything new with moddable games. I've nothing else to add to what MarcG and Ace King have already said.

My only pet peeve atm and something I wish S397 looks into someday is faster cars staying behind slower cars during the pit-in lap.

 

[PieterN]

ACE King, MarcG and Mportnoy could you give some examples of tracks where you’ve improved the AIW ? Maybe in a separate thread ? I’ve juist startend racing against the A.I. in rFactor2 after buying a proper videocard.

 

[MPortnoy]

ACE King, MarcG and Mportnoy could you give some examples of tracks where you’ve improved the AIW ? Maybe in a separate thread ? I’ve juist startend racing against the A.I. in rFactor2 after buying a proper videocard.

A few that come to mind from my side are Mugello, Okayama, Zolder, Sachsenring for complete AI fast paths and others like Hockenheim, Spa, Sao Paulo in which I've only modified a specific section of the track.

Keep in mind that these are all modifications we've separately made on our end for personal use only (not made public), as we are not the creators of the tracks.

The point we were just trying to make is that when well done, rF2 has one of the best AI out there.

 

[MetalMania]

Thanks for bringing that up - the only modding I've done is a couple of car repaints for personal use. I don't know how to modify AI lines/behavior but maybe I'll look into it.