The demo has been updated to 0.32.0, bringing an all new weather system to the game! This system adds essential depth to finding the optimal pit strategy that gives you an advantage over your competition.
Every session will now have air and track temperatures, track wetness, and current/forecasted precipitation levels.
Track wetness impacts grip. Just how much grip is lost depends on your tire selection (more on that later). Track wetness changes during the course of the race, depending on the amount of rain that's falling.
Track and air temperatures directly impact tire temps (which in turn impact performance and degradation rates), and will eventually impact engine and brake temps once those are implemented.
The weather is dynamic, meaning both the player and the AI will have to react to changing conditions throughout a race. The system generates all kinds of weather conditions, from near-flooding downpours to mixed wet and dry sessions. A race that starts sunny could end in a mighty tempest, and vice versa.
The AI cars will make mistakes more frequently in low-grip conditions
The potential for interesting tire strategies means little if the AI doesn't execute them. This updates adds a strategy builder that will compute all the (reasonable) strategies for a race given the race distance, track-specific degradation rates, weather conditions etc. Each AI car will select from a weighted distribution of the top 3-4 strategies, ensuring that each race has a satisfying and dynamic mix of strategies on offer. For the player, this system is used to create your race engineer's recommended tire selections.
The updated tire selection UI now displays useful information about each compound and the compound recommended by your race engineer.
Of course, just like real life, best laid plans can go out the window in an instant. Changing weather, safety cars, incidents and damage, all of these events will trigger the system to reevaluate the chosen strategy, and to update it when needed.
Each track has its own climate variables for average temperature, likelihood of precipitation, and how heavy any rain that does arrive is likely to be. The Helios Polar Crest Circuit has a cold climate, which means it's nearly impossible to keep your tires from getting cold, even when pushing as hard as you can. Whereas the Melfice Seaside Circuit's tropical climate will require being mindful of how much you push the tires to avoid overheating, while also keeping a close eye on the weather forecast as a heavy storm can roll in at any time.
Rain and spray particles, dynamic cloud coverage, and lighting all contribute to create a distinct environments across all weather conditions. There is more work to do here (flashing rear lights, visually wet track surfaces, etc).
While it's been a few weeks since 0.31.0, there were several patch version released since, including a number of fixes and QOL improvements
Time Attack quick resets
Time Attack ghost mode options (Personal Best, Session Best, and Disabled)
Lap UI now shows delta between player's fastest lap and overall fastest lap
Fixed issue where the lap timing system was not interpolating frames properly, resulting in lap times getting grouped to the nearest frame time
Added individual SFX sliders for engine/shift/collision/tire squeal
A number of small fixes to multiplayer
0.33.0 is one I'm incredibly excited about, the track editor!
This is going to a big project, one that may not land for several weeks or more. I will be organizing playtests in the discord. If that sounds interesting, we'd love for you to join up!