Sim Discussion Monday - Assetto Corsa

[Paul Jeffrey]

In today’s edition of ‘Sim Discussion Monday’ we talk about all things Assetto Corsa!

Love it or loathe it Assetto Corsa has quickly become one of the most popular racing simulations of the modern sim racing landscape. Bathed in exotic licences the likes of Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini all pitched together on laserscanned tracks, with high quality graphics and physics and a vibrant modding scene, Assetto Corsa from Kunos Simulazioni has very quickly picked up the mantle once held so tightly by Image Space Incorporated and the venerable rFactor platform.

However despite the popularity of the software Assetto Corsa still lacks many of the features considered essential in a modern racing title (think day / night transition, weather and driver swops), leaving many to feel the sim is so close to the top of the mountain, yet just falling short as it scales the summit.

Now in its third year of development, let’s use this article as an opportunity to discuss the game, share tips on optimising the experience on screen and through the wheel, highlight some great content and basically just talk about anything and everything Assetto Corsa!

Mondays be like...

 

[garyjpaterson]

not really, until it's done and out I prefer to avoid giving details to avoid negative feelings in case things need to be pulled out for whatever reason.

No worries, thats the sensible thing to do

 

[Poloman]

there's no active development in that area at the moment.
Next update will focus on add some features requested by modders in oder to increase the "simulation value" .. but there will be no major changes in the game core.

There is nothing in the current software creating particular blocks other than raw manpower.

It is a shame thought,i really think MP needs some small improvement for club events and leagues,and also a more complete end race screen.

 

[Thiago Moya]

still needs:
- Flying start in multiplayer session.
- Hotlap mode with official rankings
- Improved anti-cut system and penalties
- Pit lane speed penalty
- Built-in SRS (or equivalent)
- Night
- Rain
- Dynamic weather
- Driver change (without leaving the server)
- Pit limiter button
- Steam Workshop integration
- Ability to show servers with friends on
- Spectator mode
- Broadcaster tools for streaming control
- Modifying session while the session is running
- Ability to save replay at any moment without the need to leave the server
- Improved netcode and collisions
- Track object collisions to be calculated server-side (when someone hits a bollard
- they are driving through it on other's screens)
- Own car reflections in the mirrors
- Ability to set the skins and setups for AI
- Ability to change steering options without going back to menu
- Tyre punctures (from contact or debris)

I think this is a good list of features that still missing at Assetto Corsa, but of course @kunos know.

I marked as bold what I think is basic for a game that called a simulator, it is not a criticism, just to collaborate to the thread.

 

[Manuel Darin]

not really, until it's done and out I prefer to avoid giving details to avoid negative feelings in case things need to be pulled out for whatever reason.

No worries. Do not use LUTs and everybody is happy.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

for broadcast the prunn display app is fantastic.
...................

is ferrari dlc coming end of year?

 

[David Dominguez]

No worries. Do not use LUTs and everybody is happy.

No please, I just finished re-doing my aero spreadsheet in Excel

 

[felippekiss]

Although I want Assetto to have rain and day/night cycle, I know this will not happen in this version, physics for me is not something I judge to be in game A or B because I never had the opportunity to sit inside a Race car to say "the version of x or y is more real", I generally like the behavior and handling of the cars in AC because playing and seeing real onboard the same cars the behavior seems very similar to me. What really bothers me in the AC is the lack of some options that I consider basic, even more in a game that a good part of the classes are GT, Tourism and Prototypes, that is the rolling start as well as a better penalty system and rules in general. Engine Stall, damage system (mechanic and cosmetic), better tools for multiplayer races would be welcome too. And has the other side of the coin, all of which is the one that has the most accurate interior modeling of the cars as well as the sound of the closest engine of the real cars, I'm talking about the sound of the engine does not sound in general, because in this AC does not have a General immersion as good as Raceroom for example. In general, I like AC very much. I think it is time for Kunos to start considering the plan / execution of its successor, since it is a fact that all "competitors" have a good part of the functions that are not present in the AC, we know that Kunos Is a small Studio and now somehow linked to 505, we don't know how the contract between them in the matter of planning and investment, who knows the Kunos could do as Reiza made a campaign of crowndfunding to finance the successor of the AC, I see this with good eyes because Reiza was successful in this engage and I do not see why Kunos also does not have it, I would certainly support it if they do that.

 

[MustangSVT]

I hardly play AC for one reason and one reason alone. The Multiplayer UI !
It is the worst ever, It is so difficult to join a server.Confusing,messy,ugly,clunky,annoying and slow.

Have a look at Assetto Content Manager, it's a modded launcher for the game that makes everything much better, especially multiplayer as you can save bookmarks, friends list, so on. Myself and all of my friends that play AC use this. More importantly, it's extremely fast, you can go from launching CM to joining a server in like 5-10 seconds (don't need to deal with launching the game, intro video, refresh browser which takes a while, so on and so on).

 

[Epistolarius]

we know that Kunos Is a small Studio and now somehow linked to 505, we don't know how the contract between them in the matter of planning and investment, who knows the Kunos could do as Reiza made a campaign of crowndfunding to finance the successor of the AC, I see this with good eyes because Reiza was successful in this engage and I do not see why Kunos also does not have it, I would certainly support it if they do that.

We know the connection - Kunos Simulazioni was acquired by Digital Bros., which is the parent company of 505 Games. Considering they opened a new studio this year and appear to have been a sustainable, profitable business before the acquisition I don't think Kunos necessarily has to worry about money. It also makes a Kickstarter campaign unlikely. But of course we don't know what the future plans are. I'm guessing the biggest "blocker" for Kunos is simply time and manpower.

 

[Tim Meuris]

Still think it's really cool: you ask a dev an answer and you get a no-nonsense answer. Nice kunos!

 

[HypoToad]

To me you know things are right when you change something in the setup and it actually changes something when you drive the car, I don't care if it's using LUT's, algorithm's or swiss cheese, it works and it allows you to change the handling of the car in a predictable way, that's all that matters to me.

 

[garyjpaterson]

To me you know things are right when you change something in the setup and it actually changes something when you drive the car, I don't care if it's using LUT's, algorithm's or swiss cheese, it works and it allows you to change the handling of the car in a predictable way, that's all that matters to me.

The secret's out! No one was supposed to know that AC2.0 was to be using swiss cheese physics. PRC are going to have a field day once they find out.

 

[hitm4k3r]

that's where you need have it done properly - pCARS2, - you will love that!
and then still race in dry most of the time

The thing with PCars and PCars 2 aswell is, that the rain isn't simulated in a good way when it comes to how it affects vehicle handling. When I see that people get faster and faster the worse and worse the conditions get it tells me that there is something not quite right. The viuals are unmatched though when we look at PC sims in general. With rF2 it's the other way around. It is done pretty well from a physics standpoint and how it affects your vehicle and driving, but the visual cues are just not on an acceptable level. I would like to see a sim nailing both sides of things and making weather not just something to look at or a halfbaken tech feature. And this is a shot at all sim devs pretty much. Weather is essential for racing and anybody who denies this needs to visit a racetrack. They aren't driving in vacuum cambers.

Regarding AC and my experience with it: I don't know what it is and I can't really point my finger at it but I don't get stunned by it for some reason. It can have it's moments (Porsche RSR 1974 at Blackcat County, Lotus 25 at Brands Hatch or the Lotus 72 at Zandvoort) and it for sure has come a long way from where it started, but overall it lacks depth for me. I drop into MP races here and there, especialy as a buddy of mine enjoys AC greatly, but the driving standards in most online sessions are unacceptable and the AI is ok-ish but not spectecular. This leads to the same problem as with rF2, that you pretty much need to join a leagure right now for online racing. On the other hand it lacks so many features that make especialy offline racing very immersive for me, that I don't touch it very often. In that regard I even still enjoy going back to GTR2 or rF1. HistorX or P&G at VLM tracks with time scaled races is just something else. Anyway, I hope they keep building on the strong base they have now and extend the product before shifting development to AC2. There are still so many areas that I would like to see touched up so that I can fully enjoy it.

 

[Patrik Marek]

The thing with PCars and PCars 2 aswell is, that the rain isn't simulated in a good way when it comes to how it affects vehicle handling. When I see that people get faster and faster the worse and worse the conditions get it tells me that there is something not quite right. .

this was perhaps case in early pCARS1, but definitely not few patches down the road, driving in wet is much much more tricky and slower, sometimes things take time to balance and propagate all changes through , it's much more difficult when you are dealing with 80 cars, then if you are dealing with 20 and constant weather

for pCARS2, this would improve futher, where you have localized weather ,so that on one part of the track you get rain, while the other can be sunny

 

[Porsche1]

Like most old timers like me we've played them all. AC survived through modding capablities. The visuals are still very good considering the age of the game with the help of updates. We'd like to see rain, snow etc but i cant see these pc's handling that extra detail without sacrifice for other areas. Console Choke up even most pc users without top end vcards. I've always thought sound sfx's carry a strong suit for sim racing. If the engine sounds exactly to real scale that will make players zone into the car its limits etc.
They need to hire more sound engineers and even sell sound packs. Open a new menu to customize the sound of your car. Similar to a fruity loop app thats user friendly. Fmod is retarted everyone complains about it. AC players mostly use it to hobby and play later. Players like to dowload new mods keeps it fresh. Everone likes a perk like new effect/sfx/skins This is the reason why AC lasted this long.

 

[tnoller]

I never play online, because I have only limited and quite infrequent times on my computer, most of the sessions no longer than one hour, so my comments are strictly single player (using, on top of it, a game pad rather than a 'serious' wheel for the same reasons).

First of all, please, please, please implement a progress save feature, at best one that lets you save your game's state at any time, at the very least one that allows you to save after a session (practice 1, practice 2, qualifying). Especially when you are short on time it is absolutely annoying to have to practice, qualify and race all in one session as otherwise you will lose you progress and have to start over again.

Secondly, it would be nice to be able to edit persistently all camera angles, not only the in-cockpit view. Again, using a gamepad and not being as 'hardcore' as most others around here, I usually pick the TV-cam but I am often not happy with the pre-canned perspectives and would like to move them a bit or change the FOV. I know you can do this with the camera editor app but you'll lose your adjustments once you leave the game and have to redo them every time you launch the game again.

In general I keep constanly switching (somewhat unhealthily perhaps) between AC, AMS and RF2, sometimes AC being an on top, sometimes one of the others. They are all great in their own way, AC being the most accessible among them perhaps and of course with the truckload of mods also the 'freshest' though I love how you get several (including historic) versions of a track when you buy an AMS DLC. This is something I would also like to see in AC.

 

[Leynad777]

I felt in love with the Oreca FLM09 in the USCC Mod recently and this car feels a lot more like AMS/rF2 in AC probably due to the different slicks on the cars. It´s TM10, but different approach.

The modern slick-tyres like on the GT3-cars all behave about the same even with a nice difference between soft, medium and hard compounds, but looking to the real world there are significant handling-differences just by switching tyre brands. Car-handling, FFB and tyre wear could vary more by putting different tyres/brands with different characteristics on different cars. If by default or having two three choices more in the setup is up to Kunos, but i want more cars like the Oreca

 

[Terry Rock]

We'd like to see rain, snow etc but i cant see these pc's handling that extra detail without sacrifice for other areas. Console Choke up even most pc users without top end vcards.

This statement says it all.
I think as much as the community is constantly railing for rain effects, most would use them very little.
That's not to say I wouldn't like to see them, but I can certainly see the limitations.
It'd be almost impossible... given even the most high-end PC's resources, to accurately model wet and dry weather physics without using multiple computers.
I work for the largest simulator manufacturer in the world.
It takes a minimum of nine servers...(each consisting of multiple CPUs) plus a whole host of other computers...and that's before you even get to the visual cabinets with their respective servers...just to run one flight simulator.
There is the System Computational Server, System File Server, Development Server, SRS Server, Input/Output Server, SIO server, Weather Server, Sound server and eCLMnt server just to name a few.
To do everything guys want in any of the current racing simulators....and to do so properly, it'd take massive resources.
Let's ask for the best of what's absolutely necessary.
Rain isn't.

 

[Monstro]

my favorite sim game so far.
i would like to talk about the sound, wich is AC weakness.
some great improve have been made with 1.09 v, but when u use Audioloids sound for GT3 or sound like MrMike does, u see that AC is still far from what we can call Immersive, realistic, brutal sound.
I still need some improvements with AI , still not at Automobilista level for exemple imo.
and the onboard sound in general as i explained before
by the way ,the penalty system need some improvement, i mean... really

 

[Jempy]

One point which is rarely mentioned, I feel .... AC is one the best optimized sim I'm using for now ... even with rather high graphic settings .... and even with a middle range PC ... you may run AC with a rather good quality ( but not at the max of course ).
At least ... for single screen use ( the only one I can afford in fact ).

Rain, changeable weather, day-night transition .... ( not foreseen for AC1 ) surely should make AC more difficult to optimize for medium end PCs.