Are we going to race Assetto Corsa here???

[goldtop]

It's looking likely that the full v1.0 version of AC will be released during the next 2 or 3 months. This will include half a dozen or so tracks (plus variations) and around 30 cars covering road, trackday, GT, TC and formula both modern and classic with more to follow as DLC in September. There is already a good potential for a variety of racing.

At the current early access version of 0.7.8 the sim drives and looks amazing, however there are no pitstops, no rain and no night racing planned for v1.0. Multiplayer will arrive soon which will be the big test for just how great or good AC will be.

AC costs 34.99 Euros if bought before v1.0 or 44.99 Euros upon full release (there are various deals offered on Steam from time to time). The cost of September's DLC has not yet been announced. You will need a decent rig to run full grids with eye candy.

So back to my original question and bearing in mind the above. Are we going to race it here?

[Mark J]

The key question is:- is it any good? Maybe I haven't looked hard enough but it seems very low key  I haven't seen an avalanche of praise for it tbh

[Wiltshire Tony]

Have to admit that I haven't paid much attention to this sim since it's first announcements, years ago. Just been to the site and I was struck by the limited amount of tracks/cars available. Also it's a large cost for a sim that may fade and die if not taken up by the sim-racing community. Perhaps a poll to establish the amount of interest here may be the best way to proceed?

[Mark J]

I watched some youtube vids this morning and it looks and sounds pretty good, though I get the same sense of it as I-Racing, lots of individual non-related cars on a handful of tracks, might be wrong. 

The E30 BMWs looked pretty cool for racing, the F40 looked an undriveable monster and not much interest in using cars like the zondas etc for racing, more for doing some single player hotlapping.

Shows promise, as does several other 'in-development' race sims like pro-car, Rf2, I-r... I really don't understand why there hasn't been another hit racing sim since GTR2 rather than all these half-arsed long time attempts to get one off the ground. They all show great promise but its not enough to entice a wider audience into buying it and getting fuller online grids.  They also appear to try to be something for everyone rather than focussing on a proper race format with similar competitive cars :'(

[goldtop]

I wouldn't say AC is short of cars to race with each other. For example....

Currently in the GT3 class there is the McLaren MP4/12C and the BMW Z4 with the Mercedes SLS to follow when ready and all included in v1.0. There will also be the new GT3 C7 Corvette available as (I think) part of the September 10 car DLC pack. I believe at least one further GT3 (Aston and maybe others, can't remember) is also destined for this pack which features a laser scanned Nords.

In GT2 class there is a BMW and the P4/5 Competitione (basically a specially prepared F430) plus the F458 (yet to be released) all included in v1.0.

GT2 and GT3 are actually very close to each other on laptimes depending on which track and they are all a doddle to drive. Extracting fast times from them is where the challenge lies. They are great to race as AI (some of the best AI racing I've experienced) so I can imagine them being brilliant in multiplayer.

I don't think there will ever be another GTR2 because of licencing and such and the fact that the series it was based on just doesn't exist anymore. There are already modders working on a United Sports Car Series and lots of other projects gong on even before the official mod tools are released.

 

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Does it write results files somewhere in a form for which it would be straightforward to construct an importer?

[goldtop]

Does it write results files somewhere in a form for which it would be straightforward to construct an importer?

No idea Dave, but I'll ask over at the AC forum and post back.

[goldtop]

Does it write results files somewhere in a form for which it would be straightforward to construct an importer?

No idea Dave, but I'll ask over at the AC forum and post back.

Had a reply from one of the admins....

Documents\Assetto Corsa\out\race_out.json

[Mark J]

Had a closer look at the car choices and as GT mentions, looks like they are at least attempting to create similar spec car groups, gt3 & gt2 at least, so some promise in a future race series. May well take the plunge and buy it on steam whilst it has 22% off.
I keep returning to rf2 every few months and although they are always adding to the content it just never entices me to spend more than an hour trying bits out then I lose interest. 

Do the cars feel good physics wise GT? Don't know if you have experience of fast road cars or track to compare against? Is the ffb good?

[goldtop]

Do the cars feel good physics wise GT? Don't know if you have experience of fast road cars or track to compare against? Is the ffb good?

Physics and ffb are the best I've experienced by a long way. You know MJ that it's difficult to compare sims with RL as there is so much missing and you have to rely on other senses to understand what's going on. I've only driven an F360 for a few laps on track so I've little experience to help me. The best I can say is that the cars are believable.

From what I've read, modern GT cars are setup to be easier to drive than you might imagine. They only demand lots of skill when you try to drive them very quickly. The AC GT cars are like this with loads of grip and feel on the edge but will catch you out if you don't treat them with respect. I've had some moments like this which have brought a huge smile to my face when I've overdone it. Bad driving techniques or simply overdriving will lose you lap time and hurt your tyres which again seems very realistic.

Some of the road cars are more fun than I thought they would be at first. Most cars have a choice of road or semislick tyres and sme have different levels of tuning based loosely on real world but I guess designed to group them for racing. The supercars and hypercars aren't my cup of tea at all tbh but as you mentioned it earlier, the F40 is fantastic to drive.

As with any sim the settings take a bit of dialing in but the UI is pretty slick and there is plenty of support at AC forum (or here) if you take the plunge.

[Mark J]

Nice one GT, looks like I may have to buy into it 

[Truetom]

How is the driving compared to GTR2? Why the question? On some forums I saw people comparing AC with iRacing and it was said that iR is better.
I stopped playing iR 'cause of several reasons:
- while the driving seemed ok if a bit understeary, for my taste the cars were too fragile, smalest touch anywhere made the car uncompetitive for the remainder of the race. While this may be real, I feel it unsatisfactory for online racing
- don't know how it is now, but nonexistent private championship made racing for me the same as single player game. I don't buy single player driving sims
- not getting what I wanted (read above) but still forced to pay monthly is a no-no for me.

So: if AC is going the same way as iR I'd like to know what I get. Even before I buy early access.
On the other hand, playing GTR(2) for 10 years made me ready for something else.

[Mark J]

watch some youtube videos on AC TT, the general consensus was the cars feel very good to drive with realistic feedback to changes in surface, car physics etc. The makers of AC are actually based at Vallelunga race track! so its in their genes to get it right.

As for the multiplayer, valid point, what is their proposal on the multiplayer side of things? Like TT, I don't want a single player sim nor a detached cold MP aspect like IRacing.

[Clive Loynes]

We really don't need anything else to further dilute the community.  If this come along and kills PnG I will probably just go back to GPL!

[Wiltshire Tony]

We really don't need anything else to further dilute the community.  If this come along and kills PnG I will probably just go back to GPL!

I don't think P&G has anything to worry about from AC. But GTR2 could be in trouble IMO. AC looks to have cars more like GTR2 stylee than historics.