Automobilista 2 April 2022 Development Update
Greetings Everyone - we are happy to finally be back with our first Development Update of 2022!
To begin with I´d like to apologize for not providing these updates in the early months of the year - for a variety of reasons these have been challenging times during which I´ve been personally less involved with the development of AMS2 than usual, and by extension less engaged with the community to provide you all with the level of information you have been used to.
So let´s try make up for some of that and bring you up to date with what´s going with Reiza and the development of AMS2!
Housekeeping!
Just a couple of days ago on March 31st we completed two years since the initial Early Access release of Automobilista 2 on Steam - in this time we made some big strides with the game and while we are proud of the pace of development, the number of improvements and new content we´ve introduced to the sim over this time, we know there´s much still to do in order to fulfill its full potential - enough to probably keep us just as busy for another couple of years, and we very much intend to do so. Reiza is in a healthy place financially, which has allowed us to expand the team in recent months with further investments on new developers and also some new big licenses being negotiated - all in all the future for AMS2 is bright, and we´ll keep on pushing towards it.
There have been however some challenges in these early months of 2022, with the volatile times we live in causing some ripple effects within the company, some still persisting for a few key devs in the team due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict - one of our lead devs
@ilka actually had to pack up and move to Brazil from Russia as the sanctions made his permanence there pretty much unsustainable, and another lead
@Sandro Nabutovskiy who is based in Kyiv but has continued to work despite the stresses of being in the middle of a literal war zone - most admirably, his output has not dropped at all under these very stressful circumstances, in fact he has modelled the F-Ultimate Gen2 within the time the conflict is taking place.
The team as whole has continued to operate as usual despite these challenges, with two solid updates already deployed for Automobilista 2 this year and a third well on its way, but these circumstances combined with the fact we have been pushing extremely hard in recent years have led to some reflection as to how we should be conducting AMS2 development moving forward, and especially how we go about deploying updates and sharing our plans with the community so as to both preserve our team´s wellbeing as well avoid frustrating our users with the eventual changes of plans - something pretty inevitable in this activity at the best of times and even more so in our case where the freedom to be creative, change direction, explore new findings and take the time needed to do things to our liking are key to our continued passion for it.
In practical terms not much will change - AMS2 development will not be affected or slowed down in any significant way and we remain committed to deploying regular game updates, pretty much sustaining the ongoing rate of one major update per month for at least the remainder of 2022, but this will now be a more flexible target - things may and often take an extra week or two to come together, and when they do the schedule will be adjusted to suit. So if the end of the month has come and gone and an update has not yet been deployed, don´t despair!
We have also decided against publishing a detailed 2022 development plan, as even though we´d love to give our users a more complete foresight into the future for AMS2 we need to keep things a bit more fluid at the moment and would not want eventual changes in plans to be a source of frustration for you.
Partial nuggets of our development plans will of course continue to be a part of Dev Updates such as this one and they will continue to be posted regularly (if not necessarily every month); it´s worth noting that while the info we choose divulge in the Dev Updates are usually centered around things we are currently working on, these are not necessarily things that are due to arrive in the next update - some things may be longer term projects, some news we may want to share in advance, some we may just want to hint at so people have an idea where the sim is heading, and some others we may prefer to keep more as a last minute surprise - we have a couple of those for the next update as you´ll see further below...
Further minor tweaks you may expect to see in our M.O moving forward include:
Initial publishing of new updates as a Steam Beta Branch (not to be confused with AMS2 Beta which is a separate Steam app altogether) - from v1.3.5.X onwards, we will deploy every update as a Beta branch of the main game for a couple of days, allowing the user base at large the chance to chip in with feedback and bug reports during the final touches before the official release if they are interested in doing so. To access a Beta build, right-click Automobilista 2 on your Steam Library, go into Properties -> Beta tab, and select the “Beta” branch for the dropdown menu - this branch available for installation from the install menu. This branch will be disabled after the official public release and return you to the default AMS2 branch, if you then want to opt in for the beta in a next update you just need to repeat this process.
Previous version will be retained as an option as a Beta branch - this should allow users to revert back to a previous version in case they encounter any issues with a new update, or want to compare changes if they are interested in doing so. To access a previous version, right-click Automobilista 2 on your Steam Library, go into Properties -> Beta tab, and select “PreviousBuild” branch from the dropdown menu. To revert to the current build, just repeat the process and select “None” from the dropdown menu.
Please note these two options will only be available upon the release of the new V1.3.5.X update which should happen soon. When a beta for a new version is available, we will publish the usual release thread with the changelog in our forum, with BETA marking on the title.
Final bit of housekeeping: since we do have an ongoing commitment with people who bought DLC packages including items to be released in the future, we´ll continue to strive to keep you posted as well as we can as to what you may expect when - to that end, we can confirm the following:
- Our track team is currently working on Nürburgring 1971 along with a reform of the modern track mesh to add some of the recent modifications and smooth out some excessive bumps in the mesh - these updates will be free to all who already own the Nürburgring Pack or any of the packages that include it.
- The production of the Spa-Francorchamps 1970 has been shifted to the second semester to accommodate further work on the Spa pack and the inclusion of the revamped 2022 layout (with the 2020 layout obviously being retained), likewise at no additional cost.
- The third part of Racin´ USA will be focused on oval racing and is planned for release before the end of July - its contents will be announced shortly before release.
- A 4th bonus part of Racin´ USA is also in the works and it will be free to all owners of the full Racin´ USA pack as well as packs that include it, however its release will most likely take until the first few months of 2023.
- All other DLC packs in the 2020-2022 Season Pass are still planned to arrive before the end of this year.
With all this housekeeping finally out of the way, we´d like to express our sincere gratitude to our users for their patience in recent times - we´ll be pushing hard to repay your continued confidence.
Now let´s move on into the meat of this dev update and the stuff you are looking for - and some you probably weren´t!
The Formula Ultimate Gen2 Arrives!
A completely new aero package with emphasis on shifting downforce to the undertray in order to minimize issues with dirty air for the following cars, an extra 46kg in minimum weight, bigger wheels with lower profile tires - some of the main changes in the 2022 regulations which have proved to deliver very exciting races so far!
We couldn´t resist the chance to do give it our own interpretation in AMS2, and thus arrives the Formula Ultimate Generation 2!
The new F-Ultimate not only brings our representation of the new rules to AMS2, but have also led to a thorough revision of every component of the car including more advanced ERS modelling with adjustable options for deployment modes, revised turbo model for the V6 engine along with a complete new sound set, and finally revisions to how drafting affects the following car(s) - several of these also apply to the old F-Ultimate Gen1 model, indeed in the case of the drafting affects most of the cars in the game.
Stock Car Pro Series 2022
2022 marks the thirteenth year of our ongoing partnership with the Brazilian Stock Car series, over which time we have had eleven seasons of the premiere Brazilian auto racing series represented in our sims, including the historical 1979, 1986 and 1999 seasons as well as the recent 2019, 2020 & 2021 seasons which remain present in AMS2.
It´s only suitable then that the continued partnership would see the arrival of the 2022 Stock Car Pro Series to AMS2 as another highlight of our upcoming release, complete with a brand-new track - the Galeão Airport Temporary track providing the venue for Stock Car´s return to Rio for the first time in ten years,
Galeão will be available in the sim before the real event itself on April 10th, giving fans and drivers alike the opportunity to sample the track in advance!
While the 2022 season does not see substantial changes made to the two models that made their debuts in the series in 2020, the physics of these cars have received a thorough revision, with tires especially receiving a major update, and like the F-Ultimate with extensive developments to the carcass - revisions which provide another significant step forward in the physics and that should extend to other cars in the coming months.
Last but not least - the F-Ultimate Gen2, the Stock Car Pro Series 2022 and Galeão will all be free additions to the base game.
And on that bombshell, it´s time to wrap up this article and get back to working on the final touches for update release - we hope you enjoy it!
