Sim Racing: The Big Mid Season Review - Part 1

[CCKaren]

Hit a lot of my issues with AC here. The idea that they have such a large GT3 selection and will be adding LMP1 cars yet have no planned support for rolling starts, night racing or timed races is incredible to me. That lack of options just makes actually racing in AC not something I ever want to do even with the recent improvements to AI and solid track list. The issues with tire wear have also driven my league away from it after a 90s DTM race ended with the soft tire users having less tire degradation than the hards which just ruined any attempts at strategy. It's still by far my favourite for just track day-ing though, the Nordschleife track day servers are great fun to go on when I'm bored.

I'd look at the cost of licensing those tracks. AMS has a ton of official licenses for tracks the gaming community in North America, Europe and Asia have probably never heard of, (with the exception of Interlagos of course).
They could probably have secured the licensing for a beer and burger or two down the local boozer for most of them.

Worth noting that many racetracks in Brazil are government owned, so it no doubt helps that Reiza are a (primarily) Brazilian based developer. With it's online I'm semi-hopeful. Stock Car Extreme always had solid if not huge grids on the official Reiza servers so hopefully that carries on to AMS. It should be much easier to get people to race once you can check servers and join sessions from the VX website as well. Reiza 17 though is something I don't think anyone should be thinking too hard about right now. If that stays on track for the date Reiza have said it's still over a year away from release. Mostly with that my thinking is less on the new graphics engine and more on whether they're going to have any new content for it.

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

looks like a hell of a race weekend setting to me...

That's not a race weekend Where's practice 2/3/4 etc? Warm up? Multi-part quali?

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

Yeah there's not autograph signing either and no champaign at the podium, it sucks

 

[Radu Oros]

The issues with tire wear have also driven my league away from it after a 90s DTM race ended with the soft tire users having less tire degradation than the hards which just ruined any attempts at strategy. It's still by far my favourite for just track day-ing though, the Nordschleife track day servers are great fun to go on when I'm bored.

That was corrected sometime in March.

If for now you can't race by time, as alternative you can put as many laps you want because pitstops in multiplayer let you do long races, especially since hour of day doesn't stay fixed.

 

[hitm4k3r]

First of all quite good review on both sims. I think it is quite difficult to compare the ratings as the developers have different intentions from my POV. I think AC caters more towards the driving itself where AMS really tries to catch the racing experience in all it's facettes. What I don't understand though are the ratings. As mentioned earilier, when AC gets a 8.5, then GTR2 is miles ahead. I drive both AC and AMS on a regular base, but to me the limited features and options is really what kills AC for me. The driving on the track is ok, but everything regarding the simulation of racing is very basic at best. Content in both sims is great, though AC has a tad higher pricing due to the DLCs. You can't really blame neither Kunos, Reiza, nor any other developer for not featuring complete racing series anymore. I think that is more something of the past, when licensing was easier. You could also take the Ferrari 312T or the Formula Retro, paint some basics skins to get more variety in the field. I think that is basciyl what the community is doing and it is quite good for the options we have today. Or you go the hard way and create new cars using those blueprints.

Will be intersting to see how both of them evolve, especialy the historic content as I have a sweet spot for that sutff.

 

[David Wright]

You can't really blame neither Kunos, Reiza, nor any other developer for not featuring complete racing series anymore. I think that is more something of the past, when licensing was easier. .

I don't think its to do with licensing being easier in the past, with the exception of issues around Porsche and Ferrari which are hopefully coming to an end now. Licensing racing series is certainly possible.today. S3S have licensed the WTCC, the DTM and ADAC series. Codies have licensed the F1 series, Dusenberry Martin Racing have licensed the NASCAR series, and Big Ben have licensed the WRC series.

Rather I think developers have moved towards the current breed of jack-of-all-trades, pick-and-mix sims as they perceive, probably correctly, that this is what most sim racers want, and fits today's DLC sales model, while the licensed race series fits the older "sell a new game every year or two" model.

 

[Emery]

If for now you can't race by time, as alternative you can put as many laps you want because pitstops in multiplayer let you do long races, especially since hour of day doesn't stay fixed.

So why do you have to run multiplayer in AC before you can do any pitstops? 100 laps maximum is inadequate, too... that lets you run the "Indy 250", LOL! Formation lap? Rolling start? Safety car? Arrgh, too limited!

AMS, by comparison, lets you run 24 hours or 1500 laps. With pitstops. In multiplayer or single player. Even pCARS lets you run 24 hours or 250 laps.

 

[CCKaren]

I don't think its to do with licensing being easier in the past, with the exception of issues around Porsche and Ferrari which are hopefully coming to an end now. Licensing racing series is certainly possible.today. S3S have licensed the WTCC, the DTM and ADAC series. Codies have licensed the F1 series, Dusenberry Martin Racing have licensed the NASCAR series, and Big Ben have licensed the WRC series.

And Reiza have Stock Car Brasil, Brasiliero de Marcas, Mitsubishi Lancer Cup and Formula 3 Brasil. All Brazilian series' admittedly but they still have every car and track used by those series' in 2015. While Sector 3 have the WTCC licence it's still hamstrung by not having all that series' tracks, an issue the ADAC GT and DTM licences don't have. The track issue is the main thing when it comes to licencing a whole series, and I'd wager F1 is the only current series where the track licences come in the package with the series licence. Possibly Nascar works like that too given the owners of Nascar also own most of the tracks the series runs on. You can certainly licence a whole series, but you might have to focus more on a lesser known series to get a full championship in place unless you want to spend a long time chasing a lot of different track licences.

That was corrected sometime in March.

If for now you can't race by time, as alternative you can put as many laps you want because pitstops in multiplayer let you do long races, especially since hour of day doesn't stay fixed.

The league race I mentioned we did last month, so it's certainly not fixed. Likewise the lap count is limited to 100, which is massively inadequate for any kind of proper endurance racing (for reference, 100 laps of Spa is about 4 hours, way short of even a short 6 hour enduro). Pitstops as well are very badly implemented since you can't setup what work you want done until you actually get into the pit box, so fast pitstops become more about who can click the relevant boxes quicker rather than any kind of strategy. I was hoping the 1.7 update would've added some way to set pit options in advance but nothing came, and it doesn't look like any of that is being worked on for 1.8 either.

 

[Rany]

AMS still had bugs, it has the racing features but its not perfect.
ex 1 The rolling start.
At Interlagos ,if you start from the back the ai wont go 3 or 4 wide after the flag,
the ai will stay 2 way train and suddenly slowing before the flag..is the same bug since GSCE.
Ex2 The pit stop chaos.
Since AMS pit stop is not like iRacing invisible pit, i had to pit early before the ai
cuz if i pit the same lap with them it will be chaotic..the ai just ram me from behind.

 

[Radu Oros]

the lap count is limited to 100, which is massively inadequate for any kind of proper endurance racing (for reference, 100 laps of Spa is about 4 hours, way short of even a short 6 hour enduro). Pitstops as well are very badly implemented since you can't setup what work you want done until you actually get into the pit box, so fast pitstops become more about who can click the relevant boxes quicker rather than any kind of strategy. I was hoping the 1.7 update would've added some way to set pit options in advance but nothing came, and it doesn't look like any of that is being worked on for 1.8 either.

I was talking about multiplayer, since you were talking about league racing. And there the laps go between 1 and 999.
You are part of a small group that wants to do long races. AC doesn't have the functionalities for that, but other sims have. So you should choose the best product for you. But is cool to present what features you're looking for in a sim, so that developers know in what direction they could expand the game.

ps. I haven't seen any recent thread in AC's physics forum about tyre wear of 90s DTM compounds, so as the older thread is inactive for several months, thought that part was corrected.
But in a way, soft compound at Nordschleife won't really overheat the tyres, especially with moderate temperatures. So if the Hard tyres keep cold you could get more tyre damage, like graining.

 

[A. Baker]

my 2 cents:

Assetto Corsa:

Automobilista:

I enjoy both, but for me AMS is nº1 pound 4 pound sim.

 

[David Dominguez]

It means what it means, through the ffb you can feel the body roll and weight transfer right the moment the car starts to slide, and not like iracing where is not the case in most logitech wheels, and you loose the car and there's almost no input on the ffb

You are majorly confusing weight transfer and tyres.

 

[Helmut Skrdla]

That's not a race weekend Where's practice 2/3/4 etc? Warm up? Multi-part quali?

Yep, I'd also like if (as in RF2) sessions can be on specific time of day. Right now Qualy starts at whatever time you finished Practice, and the race starts after qualy (or whenever you skip).

Multi-Part Qualy would make a ton of sense given that they two officially licensed F1 cars in there that actually use this format. They can't do night racing for reasons of the core engine (as I understood), to me that's a reason to go even further with sprint racing formats like F1 or GT Sprints.

 

[Helmut Skrdla]

Pitstops as well are very badly implemented since you can't setup what work you want done until you actually get into the pit box, so fast pitstops become more about who can click the relevant boxes quicker rather than any kind of strategy. I was hoping the 1.7 update would've added some way to set pit options in advance but nothing came, and it doesn't look like any of that is being worked on for 1.8 either.

Pit Config app is available and updated by the creator for the current version - it does exactly what you want it to do.
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/pitconfig.8032/

I wouldn't mind an official attempt at such a thing either, but right now that part is really covered with the mod. I'd also like to bloody explain to the AI to pit for new tires (or mandatory pit for other compound) instead of running on worn-out rubber when tire wear is set faster than they use up their fuel...

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

You are majorly confusing weight transfer and tyres.

Any weight transfer at the end is the tyre that suffer the effect, or am I wrong?
I think he's idea about weight transfer and ffb is what you feel on the suspension. Weight transfer is not about the tires, it means you can feel the weight of the car through the wheel or at least is what i understood he meant.

 

[David Dominguez]

Any weight transfer at the end is the tyre that suffer the effect, or am I wrong?
I think he's idea about weight transfer and ffb is what you feel on the suspension. Weight transfer is not about the tires, it means you can feel the weight of the car through the wheel or at least is what i understood he meant.

And all sims have this effect well present in the FFB. Run any car, turn into a corner and your FFB will get stronger (assuming no clipping), right? There you have weight transfer effect on your FFB.

 

[St3fan]

I used to be very optimistic about SimRacingSystem, and I thought it would help the (pub) online community of AMS/rFactor2 grow nice and strong, but now I highly doubt its effect. AC seems probably a little bit too popular at the moment. I have been experiencing the infamous sim racing sheep all the time with AMS/rFactor2 on SRS.

 

[Radu Oros]

Pit Config app is available and updated by the creator for the current version - it does exactly what you want it to do.
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/pitconfig.8032/

And this is exactly why AC can be called Your Racing Simulator. You can tailor the game to the needs you don't find originally in the game.
But that tag line isn't exclusive, other sims like iracing, rfx, ams and older titles could have it, be it for modding or that it already offers by design.

 

[Helmut Skrdla]

And this is exactly why AC can be called Your Racing Simulator. You can tailor the game to the needs you don't find originally in the game.

Well, mods can only get you so far. I can't for example (as mentioned above) get the AI to reliable pit for tires. Even in titles that support long races I usually race short sprints (for lack of real life time and concentration), but 30min with 3x tirewear in AC will have the AI waste theirs instead of grabbing a new set about two thirds into the race. Pitstops are a "Racing Feature" that just isn't working for the AI at the moment.

6h of something (or more historically 1000km of Monza for example) could be done without the need for night time lighting, but require rolling starts.

Plenty of other examples already mentioned in the article. Simply put, F1 2016 may be more "racing simulation" than AC when it comes out. But AC will likely always be more "driving simulation". Other titles like RF2 or AMS sit somewhere between these two extremes.

 

[Stan Johnson]

I truly like both sims but I am still having issues with the modded cars losing sound in AC after an update. Is there a recent fix for this ? I tried some of the old fixes (Asseto corsa soundfix.rar) and mod cars had sound and Kunos cars didn't and vice versa. I can't seem to find a definitive fix if there is one. I know it has been talked about for a long time but is there a sticky somewhere or good workaround ?