Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Studio 397 have revealed their very first official Development Roadmap for rFactor 2, bringing news of a couple of new pieces of content, a brand new licence and insight into the ongoing development surrounding rFactor 2.
Following the recent Sim Racing Expo announcement that a new company, Studio 397, will be taking over development of rFactor 2 going forwards, Marcel Offermans of Studio 397 promised the community a greater level of interaction regarding plans for the simulation. Offermans has today made good on that promise, with the release of Studio 397's first public roadmap for the month of October.
The full October Development Roadmap post can be seen below:
"A car we’ve teased before is the USF2000 and we are happy to report that it is almost ready for release. We are particularly proud of this car as we were able to build it with a lot of support from the series and teams so we’ve ended up with a car that is extremely accurate in terms of both physics and car model. On top of that it is also a lot of fun to drive and has become a favourite of many people on the test team.
Our next track release is going to be NOLA Motorsports Park. Both the race and kart track will be available in different configurations. We’ve been working on it for the past couple of months. Most of the 3D objects are done and we’re currently assembling everything in preparation for further testing.
On the development side a lot has happened. In the background we have moved everything over to new infrastructure that allows us to work on new features in parallel, ensuring that they are only added to the next release when done and tested. We have also spent time automating our processes and intend to use those improvements to deliver updates more quickly.
Over the last year we have been working hard in close cooperation with the Stock Car community to improve the rules for oval racing. That work is still ongoing, and we feel we’re on the final stretch now!
Announced a month ago, the development of the DX11 engine with VR support is still ongoing. This is obviously a big project and apart from building and integrating the new engine we also need to make sure that we stay compatible with our existing content. Our current timeline for getting this integrated is by the end of Q1 2017.
We are also moving closer to the first public release that will be Steam only. It will definitely be released this year and is scheduled to contain a whole list of bugfixes and improvements to the codebase. I would like to take this opportunity to invite everybody that is still using the non-Steam version to take advantage of the free option to migrate to Steam. Future updates will start leveraging more Steam features so the only way to take advantage of those is to move to Steam.
Finally, we have an announcement to make. We have secured a license with Radical sportscars and will be bringing those into rFactor 2. With full access to CAD drawings and performance data we can deliver these cars with a very high amount of accuracy. Work on this has just started, but we are very excited as these are great cars to drive and race!"
The October Development Roadmap contains some pretty interesting content, not least of which is the announcement that Studio 397 have secured a licence to bring the rather tasty Radical brand to the simulation. As many of you will already know, Radical are a sportscar manufacturer based in the United Kingdom and are renowned for developing a wide variety of low weight, high power prototype race cars that are a favourite on the national club racing scene. As well as such classics as the SR1, in recent years the manufacturer has designed and developed ten different models that take part in a variety of one-make and multi-class championships throughout the world.
Further news indicates that the recently revealed USF2000 car is close to release, hopefully coming before the Christmas holiday period. As mentioned in our recent exclusive interview with Tim Wheatley, the USF2000 has been built with unprecedented access to the teams and drivers of the championship and could very well prove to be one of the most concentrated and realistic first party cars seen in rFactor 2 to date.
All in all, it looks like the future of rFactor 2 is very bright indeed. I for one can't wait to see how it all develops.
The rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment is the place to go for all the latest news and discussions regarding the simulation. We have a great modding archive, some excellent user created setups (more of these would be nice please folks
and of course of great racing club events! Head over today and join in the fun.Are you happy with the news in the October Development Roadmap? What are you looking forward to the most? Happy to see the community engagement from Studio 397? Let us know in the comments section below!
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