Assetto Corsa thread

[Lionclaw]

Nice.

Yeah, hotlapping becomes a bit boring after a while.

[Skybird]

It now is Thursday, which means: update day tomorrow.

Rumours hold it that there will be the Lotus Evora and Exige Roadster, and the McLaren MP4 production.

Rumoured also is that the Silverstone International layout could be coming.

No word on AI or Nurnberg Ring, which would be my most wanted features now. I think AI is the most needed feature now, followed by MP for those interested in it.

In 30 hours we will know for sure!

And another rumour says Kunos plans to have completed the full release sometime during 1Q 2014.

[Skybird]

Kunos Simulazioni has given official confirmation of tomorrow's upgrade. There will be indeed the McLaren MP4-12C, the Lotus Evora S and the Lotus Exige S Roadster.

New tracks will be Silverstone GP and Vallelunga Club.

A third showroom theme will be "Hangar".
There also will be improved reflection shading. If that is what some screenshots earlier were about, then the cars will look EVEN BETTER.

Plus a whole big bag of fixes, improvements, fixes.

Official video:

[Skybird]

The update arrived here at 16:00 local time. The McLaren MP4 looks nice and drives beastly, its not easy to control it, and it has quite some muscles and no patience with the driver's inabilities. It really is kind of an angry car. A real challenge. Two new Lotusses, well, all I can say is that Lotus and me will not become close friends in this life, I accept their word that they drive and behave realistically, but I take from that that I would not like the real cars as well then. track-wise, it is not so spectacular for my taste, the full Silverstone track is well done, visually, but I just do not like Silverstone but think it is one of the most boring tracks used in racing. Vallelunga Club is a short version of the full track, well-suited for slower cars, maybe the Abarth 500 and the like.

Unfortunately, the announced new reflection shader imo is a mild disaster, it looks hopelessly overdone and artificial, way too much shine and glitter and brightness in the reflections. What were they thinking what they were doing...? I really hope they reverse it, tone it down, whatever. Right now it is two steps backwards, visually. The complaints did not take long to come in, and I think Kunos cannot avoid to take note of them - too many complaints in too short time. Let'S hope they listen. I saw no need to alter the reflection shaders at all, to me they were almost perfect before.

It's beyond me how they could get to that. "Totalaussetzer", we would call that decision in German.

Else, a regular update according to their planning. Cure the reflection frenzy, and we are friends again!

[Skybird]

I am considering to replace my Thrustmaster Ferrari 430 wheel with a Logitech G27. I feel guilty a bit, since my wheel is not broken at all and is excellent, really excellent manufacturing quality, it is well polished, all buttons and paddles have professional feeling, there are many options, and robust force feedback effects, the whole gear has a very heavy and worthy feeling and the stiffness of the pedals is better than in the G25, G27 or TS500. It's really quality for a fair price (140 Euros currently), I can recommend the 430 fullheartly and rate it as "A" for that price. But it has only that 240° rotation. I never felt that to be a limit , since years, before this wheel I had a Microsoft Sidewinder wheel, also with 240°. I'm used to it. But with this wonderful Assetto Corsa revelation, I feel for the first time ever the desire to get more wheel realism, AC just is too good. And this although I prefer the 430 to the G27 in all other regards.

Question: I could get the wheel at Amazon, and in my local stores as well, for 250 Euros. Is that a good price for German conditions? British Amazon currently has it listed as "unavailable". Logitech's business is struggling (therefore they declared earlier this year that they will no longer support console equipment). I do not expect that they will announce a new version of the wheel any time soon.

Or do I have too high hopes for the change from 240° to 900° ?

[Lionclaw]

Here they're priced from 1 990 - 2 999 SEK (€223.34 - €336.58), so that seems like a reasonable price.

One thing with the increased range that I've noticed is that you can drive with more precision. Instead of a smaller range where a smaller movement is required and easier to make mistakes.

And driving with a H-shifter is great, it takes time to learn heel-toe downshifting while braking though. But when you've learned the technique, it's great fun to drive right on the limit.

In Assetto Corsa, the cars with paddle shift, you use the paddles on the steering wheel.

[Skybird]

Or maybe I don't buy it. When I read that in a 250 Euro wheel the load-bearing rack wheels still are not formed of metal but plastic - then my mood drops immediately to freezing point.

But the steering wheel's front face, and the paddles, they form of full metal...?

What are they thinking?

I also read about quite some difficulties with the G25/27'S pedal potentiometers, they seem to fail not too rarely.

You take such risks for 100 or 150 Euro. But not for twice as much money. The metal in the wheel's center face is cosmetic only. Where metal really is needed instead of plastic, is the load-bearing internal parts. At least for 250 Euros.

[Skybird]

Since last fridays 0.3 update, two more hotfixes has been released. Think about early access what you want - they deliver. Every two weeks, and in between.

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A member of the Kunos development team commented on the Nordschleife yesterday. It is out of the question in the release order until v 1.0 . He said they are aware of the great public demand for it, and the team itself would also absolutely love to have it included, but the preventing factor currently is money. Apparently that is the only one. He did not mention at all legal problems due to the unclear ownership situation with the Ring.

[ In this latter context it is interesting to know that the German automobile club ADAC - quite influential and powerful an opinion-former in Germany - has offered to buy the Nordschleife. Politicians so far block the idea because they want the loss-making fancy entertainment parks and small businesses along the track's sidelines being sold with the core racing business together. Of course - which is only reasonable - the ADAC refuses to buy that crap that was introduced just by politicians' interference with the track's management company, said politicians made the tracks management to establish this misled business sideline, and sinking plenty of public money in this folly as well. ]

I understood him as that they would absolutely love to do it, and when after the release of v1.0 there is a realistic chance to realise that project, they probably would do it, as payware DLC of course. It's just that they cannot assess those chances currently not practically and not financially.

I do not give up the hope, I even think that in the long run chances to get the Green Hell from them are greater than chances that they will not do it.

Just imagine - the laserscanned Nordschleife and the physics of Assetto Corsa... But we will have to wait for it quite some time, I think.

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On another note, another team member confirmed earlier that the next update in ten days will include mouse steering - for whatever that is worth...

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I have started to experiment with not subtle but bigger changes in the setups of the Lotus cars. It seems that the characteristics of theirs that I do not like that much can be tamed and turned into something more suitable for my driving style (if one can call that style when you desperately try to just stay between those two white lines...). Since I am still learnign to gte used to the differences in my new wheel, speed and laptimes currently are nothing I worry about, and so I aim at increasing downforce and balancing it between front and rear so that it fits my needs. The Evora and 2-11 indeed already feel better for me.

With shifter and clutch it is all new ballgame for me. My times are horrible. The fun nevertheless is twice as big as before now. But people should be thankful that I do not race online. Praise my kindness!

And then this comment I snapped up somewhere about the McLaren MP4, or "the beauty-beast", as I call it. Somebody commented on its rear flap that moves upwards when braking somehow like this: the McLaren has that fancy flap that moves up and blocks the driver's vision to the rear when he brakes, so that he must not watch the car behind him slamming right into his rear.

[Lionclaw]

Here's a setup guide I used to use with rFactor.

http://www.christianracing.com/crgar...SetupChart.png

[Skybird]

What does that sheet do more than listing by name the items you find in a setup menu?

I already thought about trying to draw some schemes myself that help to to link increasing/decreasing of values with respective effect on understeer/oversteer. I have read and learned these things often enough, but I always forget them again, and when setting up a car it is hard trying again to remember which way it was.

I need to recheck, but it is possible that the German translations in AC translating some of the setup options, in parts at least are wrong. I found the German text on camber (Sturz) not making sense the way they explained the plus and minus values. Need to switch the program back to English and check it out.

[Lionclaw]

There are coloured arrows that shows what happens when you increase or decrease a parameter, and a description at the bottom what the colours of the arrows represent.


For example: Spring rate front

Decrease:

Decrease tire wear
Increase grip
More oversteer


Increase:

Increase tire wear
Decrease grip
More understeer


If the car has a tendency to oversteer you can either stiffen up the front springs or soften the rear springs.

Or you could also add negative camber to the rear wheels, helps a bit in cornering stability.


Here's site I have bookmarked. http://www.rapid-racer.com/suspension-tuning.php

[Skybird]

Ah, thanks.

[Skybird]

Oh miracles happen. The new wheel makes a bigger difference than expected - and the Lotus cars - cursed they have been before - all of a sudden start to make fun... Actually I spend more time with the Exige Roadster and the 2-11 today than the forecast told me. I am also able to appreciate the many subtle nuances in physics much more now. The sim has been upgraded by a whole version number for me by getting another wheel.

Very nice!

[Skybird]

It seems that - the next dawn is breaking for a freshly polished Ferrari F40...

[Skybird]

Slow news currently, so a good time to throw in some appetizer.

The Nordschleife will not be included in the v1.0 release, as is confirmed by now. But confirmed is that they will include a stage almost as good - a hillclimb race, from Italian Trento to Bondone. The track is a challenge.

That they can simulate such tracks nicely, they have shown before, in netKart Pro. This video shows that stage in full length (12 minutes, 17 km!).

Keep in mind, visually it represents netKart Pro, not Assetto Corsa. The graphics is several years old. I am certain the new one for AC, to be released probably over the course of 1st quarter next year, will be en par with the other great looking tracks we have seen in AC so far.



If you want to compare to reality: