Automobilista 2 Chit Chat (3 Viewers)

[Automobilista 2]

 

[CatchAGlimpse]

Where is the signup thread for Season 1?

 

[m4nu]

Where is the signup thread for Season 1?

Let's test it first But I hope it will be good

 

[Taorminator]

I heard pcars 3 is going to move towards simcade (well more than it is now) but automobilista will use the same engine and will be a real sim so maybe would it be the future for the RSR we know today? Otherwise I think I'll move to the other games we have leagues for (acc, rf2)

Post automatically merged: Oct 30, 2019

Where is the signup thread for Season 1?

Race trucks league NOW!

 

[Michael]

I heard pcars 3 is going to move towards simcade (well more than it is now) but automobilista will use the same engine and will be a real sim so maybe would it be the future for the RSR we know today? Otherwise I think I'll move to the other games we have leagues for (acc, rf2)

Post automatically merged: Oct 30, 2019

Race trucks league NOW!

Where did you get that simcade nonsense from? Source please! Seriously, we know nothing about Project CARS Revolution. Nothing but some tweets from Ian....

 

[Taorminator]

Where did you get that simcade nonsense from? Source please! Seriously, we know nothing about Project CARS Revolution. Nothing but some tweets from Ian....

I saw an article in the press that said something like "they want pcars 3 to be the successor of nfs shift" and the writer speculated (I guess he was since you re saying nothing is official yet) that they wanted to be concurrent with forza and gt. Must have been bad press and maybe I m mistaken because of that sorry

 

[m4nu]

Where did you get that simcade nonsense from? Source please! Seriously, we know nothing about Project CARS Revolution. Nothing but some tweets from Ian....

It is no nonsense. I could imagine AMS2 will be more our game than PC3. Just my loose thoughts

 

[kobusnell]

From what I understood PCars Rev would still be a proper sim with just a better single player mode. That is what I'm hoping for, if thyy make it arcade-y they can just as well kiss all sim racers goodbye.

Project CARS 3 to be officially announced soon, is 200% better than pCars 2, is "game changer"

Slightly Mad Studios CEO Ian Bell has shared some new interesting details about the next part in the Project CARS series. According to Bell, the game will be officially announced soon, and it’s going to be a “revolution” and a “game changer”...

www.dsogaming.com

 

[Jomba]

It's nice to see AMS2 topic here. Although Project cars (1 and 2) was what got me into sim racing (and got me several hundreds of hours of enjoyment), once you try other games, you see that the driving feel is a little below (tried several ffb settings). AI is also terrible, so single player in PC2 is unplayable.

But the madness engine is very good (physics, weather, vr), so i'm hoping reiza is gonna take the good and put their magic towards the not so good and deliver us what PC2 should have been all along.

 

[Jamesl91]

From what I understood PCars Rev would still be a proper sim with just a better single player mode. That is what I'm hoping for, if thyy make it arcade-y they can just as well kiss all sim racers goodbye.

Project CARS 3 to be officially announced soon, is 200% better than pCars 2, is "game changer"

Slightly Mad Studios CEO Ian Bell has shared some new interesting details about the next part in the Project CARS series. According to Bell, the game will be officially announced soon, and it’s going to be a “revolution” and a “game changer”...

www.dsogaming.com

hahaha 200% better, so only 75% a good game

 

[miagi]

Ah, the current last hope for simracing! I will test it in December and put my thumb up for overwhelming glory or down for a kick into the Spartan bottomless pit.

 

[Ricardo]

October has come and gone - another month of intense work for us as we enter the latter stage of Automobilista 2 development before its initial release.

After months grinding away producing, updating and exporting a large number of cars and tracks, figuring the ins and outs of the new game engine and developing the required additional resources, things are now beginning to take form and potential is starting to turn into reality as the focus shifts from assembling the meat and bones of the sim to fine tuning the game into a cohesive whole.

There´s a lot of work still to be done to achieve that, so let´s go over where we are

AMS2 Release Schedule Update

Beginning with what may not be so good news - although things have been progressing nicely and more or less within the planned schedule, with most major issues already cleared and a large content base already in place, we have decided to push release a bit from December 2019 to March 2020.

This is not a decision we have taken lightly - we understand many people are anxious for AMS2 to come out (not least ourselves), and even if we might have been able to just get to a releasable state by December, the content, features and polish we can add in these 3 extra months more than justifies the delay and will ultimately lead to a stronger launch for Automobilista 2.

For Early Backers the wait will be a little shorter as Automobilista 2 Beta should become available in February.

In the next two months we will be fleshing out our plans for Automobilista 2 in more detail, which hopefully will make the extra wait more understandable as well as more bearable

For now, here is what we have been up to this past month:

Progress, Progress Everywhere

On top of many cool cars and tracks continuing to make their way into the game (like this sweet new and revamped Super V8), we covered a lot of groundwork in various essential fronts of the sim. Some of the highlights:

Physics & FFB - We have made a couple of small but significant adjustments to the physics code, crucially fixing a bug in unsprung inertia calculation (which was already fixed in AMS1 but not yet in this version of the physics engine).

We are also working on a new FFB system which basically works very similarly to Realfeel system used in AMS1 (basically converting the forces coming through the steering arm into the FFB).

The combination of bridging these gaps with the ongoing development of the physics derived from AMS1 and a growing understanding of the SMS SETA Tyre Model is starting to net some very exciting results - Over the next two months I´ll try to expand a bit more on where these improvements are coming from, but for now I can say we´re growing more confident that the overall physics and resulting driving experience in AMS2 is going to deliver the step forward we hoped to achieve.

AI - A lot of attention was given to AI this month. One of the main differences vs AMS2 AI is that while the player physics run the SMS SETA Tyre Model, the AI still runs the old Pacejka Model similar to what we had in AMS1 which was by and large the same as the player´s.

This means both models need to be developed for each tyre type so that the AI has tyres that match the characteristics and performance of the player be that on straights, in and out of corners, running cold, hot, under or over pressure, come rain or sunshine and over a wide range of difficulty and aggression settings - a lot of variables to fine tune.

Luckily we do have quite a bit of experience with a similar AI code and this fine tuning process, and elsewhere in the code SMS has been very thorough in making AI functions fully parametrized, making it an easier (if still time consuming) process to experiment and fine tune the AI to get them to perform, behave and battle as one would like in all conditions.
There´s still some ways to go to make things work smoothly accross the board, but the good news hopefully demonstrated in the previews below is that we have the resources we need to get the AI as good if not better than AMS1 already for initial release, and then build on that with new features to try make AI racing more satisfying than ever before.


AMS2 Dedicated Tool - Another important milestone has been putting together the AMS2 Dedicated Tool so servers can host multiplayer sessions not necessarily through the game itself - this was one of the main requests we received from leagues and luckily here too we were able to rely on SMS providing us with something that was already over halfway there and we are now pushing accross to hopefully a releaseable state in v1.0

Weather & Climates - Similarly we´ve been doing some work on various weather and climate profiles to achieve more accurate rain volume, lighting and temperature ranges for the various locations we have in the sim - significant even within a country of continental proportions like Brazil where climate varies a lot from the southern tracks to the ones further north.

These weather and climate profiles also affect how much rain you may get in different places and the temperatures will affect how quickly or not it dries up.

It also helps recreating the kind of warm summer sunset you´d experience at a seaside italian kart track as can be seen here in intense VR glory:


3D Animations

One new front we have started tackling this month are 3d animations, as even though we have been able re-use some of the assets that came with the engine for things like driver animation, animated crowds and pit crews, there is a lot more that can be done elsewhere. For cars specifically, the suspension assembly is now fully articulated; then there are wipers, vibrating components, damage, switches and a bunch of different things we can add to make the environment both inside the cockpit and out more lively.

To help us out making quicker progress on this front we have partnered up with a South African Studio whose expertise is already proving invaluable getting us up to speed on this front. Below you can see a demo reel of various such animations being added to the Caterham:


Jerez coming for Automobilista 2!

We are thrilled to confirm another traditional circuit is coming for Automobilista 2: Jerez de la Frontera is a challenging Spanish track of rich heritage, having hosted several GPs in the 80s and 90s and continuing as popular testing venue well into recent years.

Jerez was stage to several historical moments in F1, from the classic 1986 photo-finish between Senna and Mansell, to Senna´s record-breaking 50th Pole Position in 1990 following Martin Donnely´s massive accident, to the infamous Villeneuve-Schumacher title deciding collision in 1997.

As with other recent tracks, Jerez has been modelled for Automobilista 2 with the aid of accurate LIDAR data, and will be included in the initial release of the sim. Also as per usual when going for circuits of such history, we plan to include the historical layout used through the 80s, although most likely after AMS2 release.

Jerez has been one of the tracks we have managed to fast-track licensing and production thanks to the influx from the AMS2 Early Backing Campaign, so thanks to everyone who has already opted in and helped us move this along!

If you also want to be a part of AMS2 there is still time - check out the AMS2 Early Backing Campaign!

That is all for October! Even though release may not be quite around the corner anymore we are confident there is still plenty to look forward to before the end of the year as we outline our 2020 roadmap for Automobilista 2 - plenty of exciting news on the way still so stay tuned

 

[m4nu]

Beginning with what may not be so good news - although things have been progressing nicely and more or less within the planned schedule, with most major issues already cleared and a large content base already in place, we have decided to push release a bit from December 2019 to March 2020.

AMS2 Dedicated Tool - Another important milestone has been putting together the AMS2 Dedicated Tool so servers can host multiplayer sessions not necessarily through the game itself - this was one of the main requests we received from leagues and luckily here too we were able to rely on SMS providing us with something that was already over halfway there and we are now pushing accross to hopefully a releaseable state in v1.0

That sounds really good!

Physics & FFB - We have made a couple of small but significant adjustments to the physics code, crucially fixing a bug in unsprung inertia calculation (which was already fixed in AMS1 but not yet in this version of the physics engine).

We are also working on a new FFB system which basically works very similarly to Realfeel system used in AMS1 (basically converting the forces coming through the steering arm into the FFB).

I like it!

 

[kobusnell]

AMS2 Release Schedule Update

Beginning with what may not be so good news - although things have been progressing nicely and more or less within the planned schedule, with most major issues already cleared and a large content base already in place, we have decided to push release a bit from December 2019 to March 2020.

This is not a decision we have taken lightly - we understand many people are anxious for AMS2 to come out (not least ourselves), and even if we might have been able to just get to a releasable state by December, the content, features and polish we can add in these 3 extra months more than justifies the delay and will ultimately lead to a stronger launch for Automobilista 2.

Any development team that would rather ship a polished product gets my vote. Unfortunate, but I'm somewhat excited by this as well.

 

[miagi]

Sounds good to me. Nothing is worse than throwing an unbaked, unfinished product on the market, talking about big improvements in the future, claiming a roadmap that will never happen and than quietly letting Anthem die. ... What? Never mind, looking forward to AMS2.

 

[m4nu]

Reiza November 2019 Development Update

Hello everyone, and welcome again for a new edition of our monthly Development Update!

It´s hard to believe it´s already November! It was afterall around this time last year that we had committed to switching to the Madness engine for Automobilista 2 after a couple of months of experimentation, and what an intense year it has been since

As we approach the end of the road for 2019, we can´t help but be proud of what´s been achieved this year. The whole team has been pushing like mad and even though we didn´t quite make our ambitious plan for an initial release in December and while there is still a lot of work to be done, I feel we can be happy with the progress that has been made and confident that AMS2 will reach its initial release time in the shape we had hoped it to be in 12 months ago.

That doesn´t mean slowing down any time soon - as was the case with AMS1, the initial release of AMS2 won´t be the end of development but rather the end of the beginning. We have an intensive development plan already mapped out through 2020 all they way into 2021, filled a bunch of very exciting things we´re really looking forward to share with you all, but that unfortunately can´t just yet

While we continue pushing, we are getting closer closer to AMS2 initial public release and with that in mind our goal is to wrap for the holidays in December with a solid Alpha build, leading into a solid Beta release in February closed to Reiza Backers, before finally reaching official release later in March.

To that end, here´s a recap of some of the work done over the last month.

Force Feedback Development

In last month´s Dev Update we touched upon the development of a new FFB system, which I´m happy to say has been wrapped to very satisfactory results. Here are some words from our man @Domagoj Lovric summing up his work on this front:

"What forms the torque we feel on steering wheel? The torque acting on a steering system is attributed to reacting forces and moments on the tyre contact patch such as tyre load, lateral force, longitudinal force. These forces generate moment around steering axis, known also as "kingpin axis".

How much of an "influence" each of these forces has depends on mentioned steering axis, mainly inclination against vertical wheel line in longitudinal direction and inclination from a side view - better known as caster.

Aside from just taking angles into account, we also have (as consequence of this inclination) - steering axis projection on ground offset: scrub radius in lateral plane and mechanical trail (caster trail) in longitudinal. This moment around kingpin axis will transfer a force into the steering rack, via steering arm and tie-rod.

In a very simplified summary, these are the forces that are factored in AMS2 FFB - we are basically using complete front geometry to calculate force at steering rack, which makes it a natural successor to the Realfeel system we used in AMS1.

In real life, important additional factors to consider are internal friction and damping of all steering components, as well as potential power steering assistance. These and other factors will eventually compose the system as we continue to develop it over AMS2 dev cycle".

The Formula V12 hits the Track

One of our most popular releases in SCE / AMS was the Formula V12. The car was based off 1995-spec F1 regulations which imposed drastic aerodynamics changes following the tragedies of 1994. This led to the first cars of its generation producing far less downforce than at any other point from the early 80s to today. Combining that with a power reduction from 800 HP to around 650 HP as engine displacement was reduced to 3L meant that cars were more skittish, but overall less lethal.

Compounding the downforce loss, the regulation changes also led to mid 90s F1 cars becoming notoriously pitch sensitive, meaning aero balance would tend to shift considerably from front to rear depending front wing height. So the way to drive them fast specially through quick corners was to keep speed as high up and constant as the driver dared so the car´s attitude wouldn´t change so much and with it its aero balance, making it harder for its not-so large slicks to keep the nimble 605kg machines adhering to the tarmac.

That is one of the things that made Michael Schumacher such a standout performer relative to his peers over the course of that decade, as even though his driving style could on the surface appear wild and erratic due to the sheer volume of micro steering corrections mid corner, he was actually managing to keep the car in that higher, thin threshold of optimal aero performance that ultimately resulted in him achieving laptimes that would regularly embarrass his teammates with absurd gaps of 1-2s, specially on faster tracks.

It was an interesting challenge to try reproduce in the sim, and we felt we did a fairly good job of it in SCE / AMS´s Formula V12. A car with such sensitivity to minor inputs was always going to benefit from physics and FFB upgrades, so unsuprisingly it´s become one of the distinct highlights in AMS2 when combined with the more dynamic SETA tyre model, the higher input rates and now with a more unfiltered FFB system, resulting in a notably enhanced experience even with a lower level Force Feedback wheel - with a higher fidelity DD wheel it becomes positively organic.

It´s something that can only be properly appreciated from experiencing it - video previews are a poor substitute but since that´s what we can offer for now, here are a few laps of the F-V12 having its tyres literally flexed for a few quick laps around Kansai:


Here also you can also check out some of the latest shader developments from the track art team - while there´s much still we plan to achieve with this engine over the ongoing development cycle of AMS2, this is closer representation of what the game will look like on release.

Stock Car V8 - 40 years of History

This year has been a landmark season for the Brazilian Stock Car series as it completed 40 years since its debut season back in 1979. The championship is still raging on, with the final race of year due to take place on December 15th, as usual at its spiritual home Interlagos.

The series of course is with which 10 years go it all began for us too as it was the subject our debut title Game Stock Car, released in 2011. The series remain one of our flagships and in Automobilista 2 we will celebrate its 40 years of History, not only keeping the original Opala Stock Cars and the current Cruze prototype from 2019, but expanding it with the Chevrolet Omega from 1999:

It´s all too fitting then that 2020 will see the series´ first major technical revamp in 10 years with the introduction of a new manufacturer Toyota, with more expected to join the party in coming seasons as the series shifts to become more true to its name and use more "Stock" versions of the street cars, albeit still powered by custom mighty V8s.

Below is a preview of what the new car is expected to look like - this and its GM Cruze counterparts are expected to debut at Goiania in March 2020, and you may look forward to making their debut in virtual tracks with Automobilista 2 around the same time

The exciting new cars along with some of the main cars that made up its history in the past 40 years are only a part of what´s in store for this new chapter of the Reiza - Stock Car relationship - more exciting things to come here, so watch this space

Automobilista 2 Community Skins

A reminder that hose who join AMS2 Early Backing Campaign have the opportunity to become part of Automobilista 2 by creating their own livery for any of the various fictional or semi-fictional series in the sim:

Automobilista 2 is scheduled for release in March 2020. You may pre-order Automobilista 2 through the AMS2 Early Backing Campaign - more information on this program and how to participate here.

If you are looking forward to Automobilista 2 but would rather wait for release, you may opt instead to add the game to your Steam wishlist via the AMS2 Steam Store page. to receive email notifications upon release and other relevant news.

That´s it for November - now on to December! We look forward to catching up with you again next month for the final and exciting news of 2019.

 

[Ricardo]

 

[SlowBloke]

Looking forward to this

 

[Ricardo]

So here we are for the final Dev Update of the year!

Many of you will already be in 2020 by the time you see this - we however are still at it in what are the very last hours of 2019 in order to meet our final AMS2 milestones of the year!

It hasn´t been much of a Holiday Break so far - fittingly I get to switch off the figurative lights before I myself get some downtime to celebrate the beginning of what promises to be a great year. Then it will finally be time for some proper rest time before resuming on January 2nd

We aren´t complaining though - or at least no-one has yet to me

It is indeed an exciting time as AMS2 is finally coming together it just keeps drawing us back. I have been away from my sim rig for only a few days and I already can´t wait to get back on it

On to the mission at hand then, which is to share what we have been up to all the way to these final hours of 2019!

Endurance Brasil - What a Series!

For the third time this year we have visited an Endurance Brasil race for data research and collecting reference material. It´s always a productive visit and a good time as the Series is incredibly diverse and the participants are almost invariably an accessible, friendly bunch, many of which fans of sim racing as well.

This is a truly sui generis series that stand out relative to other Endurance and Sports Cars championships - part of it is due to the sheer diversity of machinery and the garagist spirit that permeates the pit boxes filled with a mix of state-of-the-art GT3 machinery, daring high-performance, custom build Prototypes and some others so unique they are hard to even describe

They all hit the track together for races usually ranging from 4 to 6 hours in duration with 2-3 drivers sharing the same car.

Most of you will already know that AMS2 will continue to feature complete seasons of pretty much all major brazilian racing series and we very much intend to include this one as well - we don´t yet have an official agreement with the series but conversations are ongoing and it should hopefully be a matter of time as we go into the off-season.

We do have agreements for several of the cars present in the series though, with many of them already in-game - and what a mix it is! The regulations (or relative lack thereof) are incredibly permissive and allow for some crazy experimenting - think of the 1970s autoracing with 21st century technology and you start to get the idea. The classes ranging from GT4 to P1 Prototypes are sorted on some fairly basic powertrain and weight specs, but within each class there´s a whole lot you can play with.

Want to develop a DRS-type system for your Prototype and use it with no restriction whatsoever, basically as long and wherever the driver dares? Go for it. Want to try your hand at creating your own concept prototype? This is the place to do it. Want to experiment with a variety of electronic systems to improve the performance of the car? There´s not much you can´t do!

You can even buy yourself an early 90s Ralt Formula 3 car, cover the wheels with some extra bodywork, bolt a Hayabusa turbo on the back and go racing - that´s exactly the concept of the Roco 001 - the crazy thing pictured below which competes in the P3 class.

Goes without saying this thing just screams (quite literally) to get into AMS2, so obviously we´re on it

The whole series in fact makes for an immensely compelling subject matter for a racing sim and we very much intend to go the distance with it. We won´t quite have the full 2020 field on release (not least because new cars are expected to make the grid) but we´ll have quite a few and gradually build on that over the initial months to hopefully feature the full series in all its glorious madness!

Audio Development

Endurance Brasil races are also always a good opportunity for some fresh audio recordings given the sheer variety of engines being used accross all classes. From small 4cyl Turbo engines to the V12 on the Aston Martin, with V8s, V10s and everything in between over the various GT and Prototype classes.

Over the course of 2019 we had a couple of new hi-fi recorders and mics doing the rounds on various events in Brazil and Europe to boost our audio database which we then use to sample and create sound sets for the various cars in the sim.

Most of our preview videos published so far feature samples ported from AMS1 - many of them also sampled from similar real recordings, but some admitedly in need of an upgrade. The new material will gradually make its way into AMS2 and up to release and beyond they will make sets for the new cars as well as updates to older sets in need of a refresh. Audio will indeed continue to be one of the core development focus of AMS2, not only on the sampling side but also to maximize the potential of the FMOD engine as well as we´re able.

A picture of the AMG Merc GT3 taking one of our hairy hifi recorders out for a few laps

By next month we hope to have a couple of real x sim comparisons to share so you all can hear how things are coming along and get a better sense of the audio experience we aim to deliver with AMS2.

Art Development

This month we have pretty much wrapped the environment art standards we will be aiming to retain for initial release - these include developments to the various shaders, callibration of climate settings and various predominant textures which serve not only improve the visual quality of the sim but also optimize resources and performance.

These standards will now be propagated to all tracks currently in the sim so that they remain consistent accross the board.

The climate settings are particularly relevant so the various locations look their actual part - from the typically british green of Donington Park or the relatively arid equatorian look of Ibarra.

The track art passes also include plugging all the extra temporary objects - crowds, tents, fast-food stands, portaloos, rescue vehicles, cars, vans, flags, and all other elements that typically compose the environment of an active venue during a race weekend - not forgetting to observe reasonably accurate placement and design styles according to the track´s location and era:

Naturally these standards are ever-shifting as the team continues to find further room for improvement through code tweaks, new techniques and ideas - once enough of these accumulate it will be time for new art passes in order to bring all tracks to this same upgraded standard - the point of this wholesale approach being to retain as well as possible a level of consistency accross all tracks in the game so that they continue to belong to the same virtual World.

Car Livery Updates

One of the fronts that users have pointed out we should dedicate more attention are towards the design of fictional liveries for the various fictional Reiza Series in the Sim, something we intended to address when we announced we were looking for a designer to fill the position.

Following applications from several talented designers, we are happy to confirm the team has recently been boosted in this particular dept. and the results are already beginning to show.

These include the development of various fictional sponsor logos which will be used accross the various Reiza series - they will also vary to match the era of the cars they´re being plugged in.

Below is a preview of the results in action with a couple of sexy-looking F-Classics:

The work is concentrated on the newer models for now but there will eventually also be a revision of older models which fields may be in need of some fresh paintjobs.

Timely reminder that you can also join AMS2 Early Backing Campaign and get the opportunity to become part of Automobilista 2 by creating your own livery for any of the various fictional or semi-fictional series in the sim.

Mount Panorama Coming For Automobilista 2!

We are thrilled to announce that the unique Mount Panorama Circuit at Bathurst is another World-class race track confirmed for AMS2!

The announcement follows one of the polls we have launched in the Reiza51 forum for Backers to influence our choices with regards to the tracks, cars and game features we should prioritize for AMS2 - the polls are still open for backers to vote but Bathurst is already the runaway leader on the Track Poll, so we were more than happy to follow that lead to get the agreement signed before the end of the year.

The track should enter production soon but it´s unlikely to make the initial release in March - it should not be long until it´s added for all AMS2 users to enjoy

Once again Early Backers have played an essential role in granting us the means to secure the license before initial release. We have some other tracks and cars lined up so if you wish to see some more major licenses there is still a few more weeks left to join the Campaign!

We are Hiring!

We are looking for developers to join the team in both full or part time positions - more details about the positions and requirements here. If you fit the bill and wish to start 2020 in full throttle mode alongside a team of passionate people we´d love to hear from you!

Automobilista 2 is scheduled for release in March 2020. You may pre-order Automobilista 2 through the AMS2 Early Backing Campaign - more information on this program and how to participate here.

If you are looking forward to Automobilista 2 but would rather wait for release, you may opt instead to add the game to your Steam wishlist via the AMS2 Steam Store page. to receive email notifications upon release and other relevant news.

That´s all for December and 2019 - AMS2 is now on the final stretch with only two more Dev Updates before the game is due for official release. We are very much look forward to it!

In the meantime we wish you all a great 2020, may it be another great year for sim racing!

 

[Ricardo]

Hello again folks, here we are again for the first development update of 2020!

The year has started for us just like the last one ended - working flatout, with long night after long night testing everyone´s sanity

It has been another incredibly productive month, with further developments made in all fronts from vehicle to track art, Audio, Physics, AI, User Interface - all had one major development or another which is at once very exciting and but also stressful as every time there is a breakthrough it demands some amount of rework to re-assemble related parts around it, and there´s so much the schedule will allow until we get to a stable build for release..

The details of what´s going on in all these fronts would be enough to fill two articles and bore many of you to death - the important thing is that we have managed to reach the end of the month just inside our planned milestones so things continue to move decisively towards release at some point late in March.

So let´s look into some of the most exciting stuff to come together this past month:

User Interface Preview

It has been a long time coming but we are finally able to share a glimpse of the AMS2 User Interface - click on the thumbs to preview some of the main game screens:



Like all other areas, the UI is being developed with conservative short term goals in mind considering the relatively tight 16 month schedule since we started working with the Madness engine - further & more in-depth developments are planned for post-release, in any case we believe this to be a solid baseline for what is to follow .

Please keep in mind that while the design is fairly definitive, some of what you see in these previews are still to be considered WIP - background images, panel artwork and texts specially are still mostly placeholders, and elements may still move around a bit.

Initial DLC Packs Confirmed - Hockenheim & Silverstone

I´m very glad to confirm the classic Hockenheimring - host of the German GP 34 times will again feature in Automobilista 2 as the very first DLC Pack.

Just as in AMS1, the Hockenheimring Pack will feature the 1977, 1988, 2001 and modern versions of the track along with the most relevant layout variants.

This is the only AMS1 DLC that will be re-released again in AMS2 as a DLC - all other AMS1 DLCs will feature as AMS2 base game content on release.

Another World Class venue that we are thrilled to confirm for Automobilista 2 is none other than the spiritual home of British motorsports - the historical Silverstone Circuit is inarguably one of the tracks of richest heritage in motorsports, being the host of the very first World Championship GP in 1950 and having hosted 50 of them since and continuing to be one of the major venues for the most important series today.

Silverstone has received many reforms over the decades with major changes to the original layout - all of them managed to keep the track´s trademark high speed nature and each featured their own unique charm one of the many reasons it´s such a great subject for this line of AMS2 DLCs. The Silverstone Pack will feature the 1975, 1988, 2001 and modern versions of the track.

On top of these two packages - both to be released within the first 6 months of AMS2´s initial release - three more tracks are already confirmed as subjects of similar DLC packages over the following year. We won´t spoil all surprises just yet so feel free to speculate what these may be

Some may understandably find odd that DLCs are being announced before the game is even released - the reason being that we want to give a better idea of how base game content may differ from the DLCs and why they´ll (hopefully) be worth the asking price. Mainly this is something we owe to the Backers who already commited to the full AMS2 pack before they even knew what they were getting with it - it´s in large part thanks to them that some of these major licenses are already materializing at this stage.

This should also be a hint there are some major, not yet announced plans fo AMS2 in terms of content you can look forward to - a lot more of this iceberg than what has appeared over the surface so far

Rest assured however we don´t plan to hold the suspense for much longer - by next month we will confirm the full content list to feature on initial AMS2 release. Similarly to AMS1 we will again have a large content roster ranging from historical tracks and cars to complete modern series, karts, trucks and a whole lot in between - altogether adding to up just under 40 unique venues and classes and over 60 car models - most official, some fictional - with more to come still in time for release and a lot more beyond it. We also hope to outline to some of the main gameplay features (for single and multiplayer) we are working on.

Final weeks to join the AMS2 Early Backing Campaign

Automobilista 2 is scheduled for launch in March 2020, and for a few more weeks you can still pre-purchase through the Early Support Campaign. - as mentioned above the revenue we raise from the Campaign sales contribute to securing new licenses as well as to the development of the game itself.

In addition to a good discount over the complete game package including the various DLCs and Expansion Packs that will be launched in the coming years, Backers also get access to our private forum to influence various development decisions, the opportunity to create their own car paintings and enter in the game as official drivers, and soon also Early Access to the game itself during the final weeks of Beta Testing!

You can find more information about the Campaign and how to participate here.

By this time next month Backers will already be able to hit the track as Automobilista 2 Beta is scheduled to become available to them on Steam in February 28th. We are pushing hard to deliver a solid and functional build for this Open Beta period, although naturally it shouldn´t be expected to be quite the finished article yet.

In many ways V1.0 will also be a long way from final but rather just a baseline for what will follow - Automobilista 2 is a long-term project with a development plan that already goes well into 2022. Day 1 is just the opening lap of a very long race, and we are eager to get going!