Our December update is here, and we're very excited to be sharing this one with you.
The first of our 3 Porsche releases of this winter: Porsche 934 Turbo RSR
The introduction of multiclass in single player modes through the AI Selector Every patch, we have had the same question in the comments: "When will the AI Selector come?". Well this time we're glad to finally bring it to you! You are now able to select of your opponents down to the livery they use. We've also worked on the AI behavior to allow them to manage the slower traffic in multiclass conditions.
Added AI Selector to Single Player event menus. Allows to pick and choose what AI's will drive, down to the livery. You can save and load AI selections.
AI - Various improvements to AI behavior when navigating through slower traffic in a multiclass event.
Test Drive from the store now allow free choice of driving assists, and also allow access to the car setup.
Default driving assist preset is now Amateur instead of Novice.
Improved the Challenge Ghost download procedure to reduce download failure errors.
Fixed a mis-alignement of the text in the position bar after cycling through the position bar styles.
Fixed the multiplayer server list that wasn't always updating even though new server information was available.
Fixed a Driving Asssist issue where disabling the factory traction control in car setup had the result of enabling the artificial traction control.
Fixed the wear / fuel multiplier 'X4' icon in the MP server list that was showing greyed out.
Fixed a motion blur issue with triple screen when vehicle was moving backwards.
Fixed a crash on startup when the servers were in maintenance mode
Fixed a crash occuring while browsing through trackside cameras
Fixed a crash occuring upon multiple track loading sequences
Physics / Sounds / AI / Cameras
Porsche Cayman CS and MR : default car setup modified for better stability. Reduced the drop of downforce occuring when airflow isn't directed straight on the rearwing (ie: when going sideways, rearwings are less efficient). / Smoothed out the upshifts to closer replicate the PDK gearbox. / Improved AI behavior all around.
Callaway C7 R : Car was bottoming out a lot at turns like Eau Rouge, so moved the splitter feeler up a bit, increased high speed bumping, allowed another 5mm of ride height adjustment on the front.
Modified tyre change times for GT1, GT2, GT3 and GT4 classes
Added specific pitstop timers for GTO, Touring Classics, Group 4 and Group 5.
Formula RaceRoom X-17 : Added track specific gear ratios
GT2 : Improved AI behavior all around
Ruf RT12R GT2 : BOP adjustment (leaderboard entries were cleared for this car)
GT4 : added functional handbrake (because sometimes it's useful)
Mercedes DTM 1995, 2003 and 2005 : Improved AI behavior all around
BMW M235i Racing : Fixed AI sometimes struggling to leave the pitbox
Group 5 cars : Fixed AI sometimes struggling to leave the pitbox
GTO : Fixed AI sometimes struggling to leave the pitbox
We are thrilled to introduce GT4 race cars to the RaceRoom platform in this update. Not only that, we've also been busy bringing numerous features and improvements to the simulator, and we're very excited to share the fruit of the work of these past months with you all.
Update details: Download size = circa 2.8 GB Client version = 0.3.0.6514 Client BuildID = 3346300 Dedi version = 47.0.764 Dedi BuildID = 3346554
Note : All leaderboard entries were reset for this update.
Content
Added GTR4 car class with KTM GT4, Lotus Evora GT4 and Porsche Cayman MR
Added the full grid of the Cayman Trophy by Manthey Racing for the Porsche Cayman Clubsport GT4
Added a GT2 version of the P4/5 Competizione
Game
Reworked our approach towards driving assists. In Single Player events, the player can now fully customize which assists are enabled and at what level. The assists available in multiplayer sessions will depend on the settings defined by the host. Competitions and leaderboards will still offer the familiar “novice”, “amateur” and “get real” options, enforcing equality in such competitive environments.
Dedicated server : Interface reworked for easier server management. Added settings for the driving assist, either enforcing specified assists levels or allowing connected players to freely pick and choose.
Dedicated server : Qualifying session timer is now frozen while the server is empty if there is no practice session and the “freeze session if empty” option is enabled.
Reworked the Multiplayer lobby page to better present servers overall. More filters are now available to narrow down a search we also added the required information regarding which assists are allowed or enforced for each server.
Introducing additional assists : ESP and Countersteer assistance.
Reworked the Assisted Braking to become more targeted towards not missing the braking points. Useful when learning a new track.
Implemented a weight ballast system for assists that do not naturally make the car slower.
Further tweaks to Slowdown penalties
Added Look to Apex, Pitch camera lag and Roll camera lag sliders to options menu.
Reorganized the option menus for easier navigation.
Added a menu option to toggle the saving of replay files
Lowered default volume values for Roadfeel and Suspension Squeak sound effects
Cockpit camera now has some movement from G-forces by default.
Car selection menu no longer shows cars in order of their release dates but alphabetically.
Further improvements to serving of Slowdown penalties after all the great feedback from the last update.
In a Multiplayer session with “Wrecker Prevention” option enabled, a player sitting idle on the track without accelerating will be presented with a message asking “Are you still there?” and to press Throttle to confirm. Failure to comply will result in being brought back to the garage.
Reduced the distance at which the green flag is presented after passing a yellow flag incident.
DRS in a multiclass race will no longer become available from following a car having a different performance index.
AI no longer defends its position in the first turn of an s-curve
AI now makes better defensive decisions based on the type of corner ahead.
AI no longer goes defensive on the first lap of a race if there is a car in front.
AI should now respect a bit more distance to opponent cars
Physics / Sounds / AI / Cameras
All non sequential cars: Reworked the entire H-pattern gearbox and clutch management.
Introducing downshift blip on gearshifts when clutch is set to automatic
Turbo spooling now drops more accurately on gearshifts
Tyre and brake disk temperatures are now pre-heated to their optimal temperatures when performing a rolling start (time attack, rolling start qualifying, race rolling starts)
Damage sensitivity tweaks for all cars
Added stone chips samples to replays
Added specific pitstop timers for GTR1 and GTR2 car classes
Changing a damaged front nose of the Formula RaceRoom X-17 no longer takes 30 seconds.
Audi R8 LMS - Improved behaviour when biting curbs
BMW M6 GT3 - Improved corner entry behaviour
Formula RaceRoom 3 - Improved base setup. Improved AI standing starts. Fuel tank now lasts 15 laps around Macau.
Formula RaceRoom U.S. - Prevented AI from performing a pitstop on a short race around Road America.
Formula RaceRoom X-17 - Improved AI standing starts
GTR2 - Complete rework on the physics, 2 tyre compounds
GTR2 - New sounds for the BMW M3 GT2
GTR3 - Adjustments to the balance of performance (power, downforce, fuel consumption, etc)
GTR4 - Introducing this class with 3 new cars.
Hillclimb Icons - Complete rework of the physics.
Mercedes C-Klasse DTM 2005 - Improved AI behaviour
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup - Overall improvements of the handling and of the AI behaviour
Porsche Cayman Clubsport - Overall improvements of the handling and of the AI behaviour
WTCR - Adjustments to the balance of performance (power, weight, gear ratios) and to the estimation of fuel consumption (affects AI decisions and car setup menu estimations)
New Static TV cameras brought to various tracks with focus on atmospheric scenes and listenning to sounds of cars passing. Those cameras can be accessed with Page Down, then using End key to cycle through camera sets.
Bug fixes
Reduced vibration of opponent cars in multiplayer (mostly noticeable when standing still)
Fixed a case where the game would not validate the serving of a drivethrough penalty if the player stopped at the spot. Also removed the pit area markers if “serve drivethrough” is selected in the pit menu to stop luring players into stopping.
Fixed some rendering issue occuring after altering visual settings in the menus and letting the game revert the changes by not confirming.
Fixed a case where the game would stop the car at the spot if serving a drivethrough with AI assistance in pitlane.
Fixed an issue where, in certain cases, some incident points would be missing from the results file generated by the dedicated server.
Fixed the lap time not being invalidated from driving in the wrong direction.
Fixed a Triple Screen rendering issue where smoke or dirt clouds would not appear properly.
Fixed a replay issue where sounds from cars could fail to play properly after switching quickly between cars.
Fixed an issue with the cockpit perspective shift feature that would make the cockpit camera act up in replays.
Fixed the cockpit perspective shift going the other way when looking back.
Fixed cockpit perspective shift affecting onboard cameras (accessible through Home key)
Fixed an issue where a spectator client started from a rrre:// link would fail to show the broadcast overlays.
Fixed some wrong live diff timing values on the first race lap around Nordschleife VLN and 24H layouts
Fixed an exploit where a player could serve a drivethrough penalty by entering and leaving the pitlane from the same side.
Fixed tyre changes in GTR3 car class that played a very long loop of sounds.
Fixed “Time Left” being wrong when broadcasting a multiplayer event with 2 race sessions.
Fixed an issue where player would lose control of the car upon entering a pitlane in the wrong direction if AI assistance in pitlane was enabled
Fixed spectator overlays showing wrong time left when joining an event with more than 1 race session.
Fixed a HUD timing overlay that would sometimes not go away after a practice run on a hillclimb.
Fixed pitstop menu being locked after entering the pitlane with no action selected.
After the conclusion of the Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Eracing Competition 2018 won by Kevin Siggy Rebernak, both the AMG-Mercedes CLK DTM 2003 and the AMG-Mercedes C-Klasse DTM 2005 are now available in store. Read more about the competition finale here
Game
Player can now serve a slowdown penalty anywhere and will not be forcefully slowed down. The time illegally gained has to be given back within 60 seconds. Failing to comply will result in a drive-through penalty.
Cars serving a slowdown penalty are no longer ghosted.
Slowdown penalties are now displayed as part of the flag HUD element.
Adaptive AI logic now ignores laps that are clearly slower than player's known pace. Any lap slower by at least 3% compared to player's average laptime in a given race session is now ignored.
Sorted the controller assignments by categories in Controls settings menu.
Removed "Clutch Biting Point" from Advanced Controller settings, as it is no longer used.
Improved network communications in cases of extreme saturation. Should solve some timing issues spotted by players who are hosting a multiplayer race, racing themselves and also streaming in HD on the same computer.
Some performance improvements for situations where many cars are leaving skidmarks on the track.
Added key bindings allowing to move the cockpit camera perspective horizontally. This allows for setups with very large screens where the player isn't sitting exactly in the center of the display. This setting is remembered per car.
VR - Improved readability of the various HUD elements
VR - Mirror to screen option is now remembered between two game startups.
Fixed HUD messages not dealing with UTF-8 (accentuated characters will no longer be missing).
Chat font color is now a tiny bit darker yellow for better readability.
Fixed a HUD overlay showing up when switching between cars in a replay.
Fixed an exploit where players would leave the pitlane in the opposite direction and be allowed to cut corners after completing 2 laps.
Fixed the centering of the mouse cursor when driving with the mouse as a controller.
Fixed success ballasts not being properly transferred or applied between two championship races.
Fixed a live timing issue during a race start on the VLN and 24H layouts.
Fixed input meter being visible while flying around in free camera
Fixed a failure to start the executable if installed inside a folder structure that has a \Game\ folder inside it.
Fixed various reported game crashes
Content
Audi RS 3 LMS - Updated the steering wheel to the 2018 version.
The Esports WTCR OSCARO will see its first multiplayer race event take place this weekend on RaceRoom. The very first of 7 scheduled events will bring us to the famous Hungaroring.
Thanks to the local hero race driver Norbert Michelisz, this round always provides a special atmosphere at the real track and it was no surprise to see so many of his fellow Hungarian gamers qualifying with great success for one of the 96 spots on the grid, split over 4 divisions.
Livestream for this first round will take place on Sunday, 26th August at 17:00 GMT (19:00 EU). You can watch the live stream with live commentary either on the Facebook Page of the FIA WTCR or on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheFIAWTCCworldtouringcarcup/live
Do you want to qualify and enter for Round 2?
Do not hesitate or think you're coming too late, you can still enter and qualify for round 2! Over the 7 rounds of the series, there will be one score drop, allowing for an absence, so it's still possible to enter with a chance to win!
You can also enter for the Time Attack championship. The top 100 players will win tickets to use at the final LAN event of the Esports WTCR OSCARO (date and location are to be announced).
Let's have a look at the Round 1 Qualifying Time Attack: At the very top of the virtual grid, none other than our 2017 champion. Alexander Dornieden topped the timing sheets for Veloce Esports in the #68 Honda, the same car that Yann Ehrlacher took to victory in the FIA WTCR race earlier this year. Slovakian Bence Bánki was 2nd for ACR Zakspeed ahead of Turn1’s Tim Heinemann, while Wisniewski and Leaune rounded out the top 5 ahead of the strongest newcomer, Andika Rama Maulana from Indonesia. The fastest local hero was Adam Pinczes in 10th, while Gergo Baldi, who won the Hungaroring race at the Esports WTCR Prologue Event earlier this year, only managed a still honorable P13.
The field is tougher than ever before, with Márk Nándori, 4th in the championship last year being the last driver to even qualify for the first grid, and with strong regular contenders like Fredriksson, Delsaux, Moisescu, Stempurszki or Knatz starting the season in the second grid.
Emulating the real FIA WTCR OSCARO as closely as possible, there were discussions about the Balance of Performance amongst the cars after the strong showing of the Hondas. As a result, the race direction decided to give a weight reduction to several cars, to make sure that all cars will be represented. This puts the drivers in front of an interesting choice, as they have to pick a car and stick to it for the entire duration of the season.
Today we're bringing some performance balancing to the 7 cars within the WTCR 2018 class. After careful analysis of the performance of the cars since their release, we have tested and applied the below modifications.
These will come right on time for the opening round of the Esports WTCR OSCARO, you can watch the live stream on Sunday, 26th August, at 17:00 GMT (19:00 EU) with live commentary either on the Facebook Page of the FIA WTCR or on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheFIAWTCCworldtouringcarcup/live
Apart from the balance of performance, we're also patching in a few art fixes that we didn't have time to include on release day. More will come in a later patch.
Update details: Download size = ca 235 MB Client version = 0.3.0.6417 Client BuildID = 3056970
The WTCR class contains all 7 brands of the championship, including all official teams and drivers. The cars from Alfa Romeo, Audi, Cupra, Honda, Hyundai, Peugeot & Volkswagen are built to the highly popular TCR specifications, which are a great recipe for exciting touring car action!
Today we're pushing a client fix for a false positive detection of clock-cheating. At the same time we are pushing some art fixes for various tracks.
Update details: Download size = around 1,5 GB Client version = 0.3.0.6414 Client BuildID = 2954930
Game:
Fixed a false positive detection of a clock-hack on Nordschleife (with the Nordschleife layout) that was resulting in the first lap started right after loading would always be invalidated.
Art
Brands Hatch - Fixed some extreme bumps, swapped old 2D spectators, small AO tweaks.
Sonoma - Fixed an issue where "Long" layout would trigger an off-track incident point event in turn 7 when running a bit wide but still on-track.
Falkenberg - Fixed an issue where player could be considered as having entered the pitlane by driving too close to the pit entry. Pitlane entrance has been moved further back.
Motegi - Fixed a tyrewall that had no collision and could be driven through on the start/finish straight.
A new track is now available! Joining the list of WTCC venues comes Twin-Ring Motegi. This track, located in Japan, was on the calendar of the final three seasons of the FIA WTCC series: 2015, 2016 and 2017.
This is not all, we're also bringing a complete overhaul of various cars. The biggest change being a big merger between GTR 1 and GTR X car classes. They're now upgraded to our highest physics quality level and closely balanced together.
For those of you who were around in 2012 when RaceRoom was in open beta, you'll remember the Nissan GTR GT1. After all these years sitting in a dark virtual garage, this car has now been unleashed and added to the GTR 1 class as well.
The Pagani Zonda R was also upgraded and now lives in its own single-make cup class with many liveries available.
Another car received some physics upgrades: the Formula RaceRoom Junior. Alex, our physics designer, has treated you with his own version of what this car should handle like, all based on the data and experience collected when he was racing such cars a few years ago.
On the sound side, we're improving as well! Anthony, our sound engineer, has been busy delivering many new reasons for our ears to rejoice! Read about it all in detail below!
Added a Volume slider in Sound Options for Brake Squeal volume.
Skidmarks left on the track are no longer a fixed width but instead match the size of the tyre that suffered for it.
Reduced the floating above ground of the skidmark decals when seen from a low angle camera.
Underbody scraping sounds are now played in replay sessions. Also adjusted volume and fade for them.
FFB Multiplier in Car Setup menu now allows to go up to 10.0 (was 5.0)
Autoclutch assist is now forced ON when H-Pattern option is enabled but no direct gear buttons are mapped.
Modifications to Clutch and H-pattern cars logic, making it required to lift throttle in order to upshift.
Fixed mini data display in HUD that was using a slightly different logic for rev warnings.
Fixed a game crash reported upon exiting certain replay sessions
Fixed Input Meter HUD tool that would wrongly appear at the beginning of a race session.
Fixed a lack of shift backfires when watching replays and on remote cars in multiplayer
Fixed so skidmarks left on tarmac are now properly erased when restarting a session or rewinding a replay.
Fixed an issue reported with replays or ghosts failing to save if a folder did not exist.
Sounds
350 new gearshift / backfire / shift backfire samples were added.
Various modifications to the backfire patterns and speed.
Adjusted the hearing distance for gearshifts, backfires and shift backfires
All cars - Brake squeal sounds improved. Better pressure versus volume fading, hearing distance adjusted for external cameras. Pitch adjusted to match recent recordings.
BMW M1 Procar - Coast transmission volume adjusted in cockpit
BMW M3 DTM 2013 - Transmission volume adjusted in cockpit
BMW M4 DTM 2014/2015- Transmission volume adjusted in cockpit
Chevrolet Camaro GT3 - Main volume increased in cockpit. Transmission volume adjusted. Transmission pitch adjusted for both cockpit and external sounds.
Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3 - Coast and Throttle volume balance adjusted