Greetings everyone!
We are once again approaching the release of a major update to Automobilista 2 – one that has grown bigger and taken longer than originally planned in large part due to some licensing hold-ups we are still in process of resolving.
Our developers haven´t been standing around while that has been taking place however - on the contrary, this has been one of our most productive development stints, the result of which being far more cool content, features and improvements stacked up with the next update than the version bump to v1.6.9.8 would suggest; better still, the update scheduled to follow V1.6.9.8 is also progressing within its original schedule so we could well end up with not just one but two big update releases before the end of June.
All things considered there are more development highlights than could possibly cover within the confines of this one article, so we are going to be doing this in parts - here is part one of what you can look forward to in the next AMS2 release!
By now most of you will probably have seen the exciting news about the Renault licensing agreement, with the arrival of the two World Championship-Winning 2005 R25 & 2006 R26 along with the 2008 race-winning R28 making for a great start; the deal goes a lot further and feature some very different cars from the iconic French brand.
The Renault F1 cars are supposed to get some formidable opponents in the sim just like they did in real life – this is what we are still pushing to work out in time for release.
The 2000´s Revival Tour Continues
The next couple of AMS2 updates are going to continue the 2000´s motorsports nostalgia tour we set off on late last year, with the very popular 2005 Endurance Pack – so popular in fact it will be getting a sequel in the very near future.
Focus for now remains on the formula cars, more specifically on four classes representing the elite of formula racing in the noughties – three of each brand-new additions for AMS2.
Formula V10 Gen2
Even though the class is already present in the current release of AMS2, it has received a big overhaul in order to bring it up to spec and to the context of the latter classes; this generation represents the season when driving aids were reintroduced to Grand Prix racing due to how difficult it had become for the FIA to properly police their usage by the teams; traction control, launch control, automatic gear shifts and other gizmos introduced a new level of optimization which combined with the increased grip from the competing tire manufacturers
Formula V10 Gen3
This class represents the season that brought Renault´s and Fernando Alonso´s first world championship in a fierce battle against the faster but unreliable combo of Kimi Raikkonen with his McLaren-Mercedes, it was the last season for the glorious v10 engines and the last one in which F1 ran single-lap qualifying shoot-outs; the season marked the end of Ferrari´s dominant run, thanks in large part to the banning of tire changes in pitstops which directly favored the more durable Michelin tires used by its rivals.
Formula V8 Gen1
This class represents the first year of the V8 era, when engines were still unrestricted and could rev up to 20k RPM; there was still a significant drop in power from the V10s, which allied with the increased grip from the raging tire war (now in its final season) and ever evolving aerodynamics meant cars now could take many high speed corners completely flat-out. The championship was once again a tight battle between the retiring great Michael Schumacher in his Ferrari against Fernando Alonso in the Renault R26, with the young Spaniard again coming out on top.
Formula V8 Gen2
This class represents one of the final seasons of the refueling era and the last one for the infamous grooved tires; it was also marked by the introduction of the standard ECU allowing for a fresh ban in electronic aids, a RPM limit of 19k in order to get V8 engines to last multiple race weekends and the absolute peak of aerodynamic development with cars now being populated with winglets and deflectors in every corner.
There is growing nostalgia from racing fans for this era of motorsports, which might seem odd given that things haven´t really changed all that much over the last couple of decades - certainly not compared to the transformative changes that took place from 1986 to 2006, and from 1966 to 1986; technical development of the cars has grown incremental over the last 20 years (when not totally constrained by regulations), and track design likewise, with circuits being mostly updated for safety tweaks and some swinging from gravel traps to paved-run-offs and back.
It is perhaps the relative aesthetic similarity contrasted with the change in attitude towards racing in this time particularly the higher echelons of motorsports that make these categories in the 2000´s appear so compelling in hindsight: twenty years ago, teams and manufacturers were still spending like there was no tomorrow in their race for technical superiority, race cars were still designed to be light and nimble, loud combustion engines still ruled the Earth, and regulations still fundamentally made winners out of those who were able to go faster, for longer, not making mistakes or breaking the machinery.
It wasn´t all perfect and not always thrilling to watch, but the fortunate few inside the cockpits sure seemed to be having a great time - F1 surely was at its absolute peak of cornering performance, with small, light cars filled with aerodynamic devices that like super-sized slot machines, able to change direction with a flick of the wheel and brake later than was ever possible before or since; with refueling pitstops still being a thing, drivers not only were able but were expected to drive at full tilt the whole race so the era put a premium on raw consistent pace above everything else, with cars that could produce it like nothing else - there was a purity to that which the drivers seemed to enjoy, and fans have grown to increasingly appreciate it in the years since.
AMS2 players will now be able to revisit the era from that privileged cockpit position, and we have pulled all the stops to recreate the experience in as much detail as possible.
This includes the introduction of Limited Setup options, adding support for Parc Ferme rules which lock various setup options from the first qualifying run to the race; we have also added support for new qualifying rules, covering both the 12-lap limit that was in practice from 1993 to 2002, and the single hotlap shootout as ran from 2003 to 2005.
One major rule from the era that will NOT be in V1.6.9.8 is the one from 2005 mandating drivers to complete qualifying & race with the same set of tires; that will come later this year with the introduction of limited sets - that is planned for V1.7.
Few things were more evocative about Grand Prix racing in the 2000s than the sound of a wailing V10; the V8 engines that first replaced them making quite a sonic impression in their own right as well.
Getting the aural experience right thus was fundamental part of reviving the era in the sim; our audio team truly sunk their teeth into the challenge to reproduce that unique atmosphere - and as you hopefully will be able to gather from the previews shared here, they have succeeded.
Besides in-depth research into all the best quality onboard recordings of engines from this time in order to recreate various V10 & V8 engines from different manufacturers, some push also in the code side of things in order to better deliver the chest-thumping brutality of traction control / launch control sounds both from the cockpit as well as from trackside view.
The atmosphere is not all set at racetrack level: grandstands also used to sound different back in the day, with air horns at the peak of their popularity before their general ban from sporting events in 2010; they can be heard again coming from the grandstands in most 2001 & 2005 tracks and will even rise up in volume in reacton to something happening on the race track – the first step towards more dynamic crowd interactions with on-track action, which we will be incrementally building on over the remainder of the year.
We have the cars the sounds and the features, but it is the tracks that can truly bring a bygone era back to life. The layouts and surroundings might not be so different then to how they are now, but simulating historical eras is all about getting these details right.
The tracks included in the pack:
Barcelona 1999 & 2001
Imola 2005
Indianapolis 2001 (Road course & Speedway)
Spielberg 2001
Monza 2005 will also be available in v1.6.9.8, for licensing reasons however this is included with the Premium Track Pack (or the Monza DLC included in it); if you already own that or anything that includes the Monza DLC you are all set for Monza 2005.
V1.6.9.8 once again brings a range of new AI improvements to further boost AMS2´s Single Player gameplay experience; some of these will require further updates to fully mature, bu they already considerably broaden the range of competitive races that can be had against the AI in AMS2
One of these developments is a big push towards more sophisticated AI pitstop strategies, with the goal of delivering more competitive AI in longer distance races; the first stage covered for this update naturally centers around refueling pitstop strategies, given how critical these were in Grand Prix racing from the mid 90´s all the way to the late 2000´s.
Up until the current V1.6.9.5, the AI is only making sure it has enough fuel to make the distance - it won´t try to optimize its pitstop strategy for better performance in the race; in V1.6.98 the AI will factor how long the race is, the fuel demand to cover that distance, the lap time cost for each extra 10 liters of fuel in the tank and what the time penalty for a pitstop is expected to be with that car on that track, and based on those figures it will calculate what the optimal pitstop strategy might be for that race (give or take a few laps).
That doesn´t mean all AI drivers will always follow that theorical optimal as especially those outside the top positions might try something creative in order to gain track position.
There is more the AI still needs to factor and more to come in this particular area in order to make the AI strategical thinking truly work for longer distance races with all kinds of scenarios and racing classes that can be found in AMS2 - but for the content included in this update this will represent a substantial improvement for 40% distance races or longer.
That covers the topics we had for this first part of the Dev Update; look foward to part two within the next few days with further information about what you may expect in the next AMS2 update!