AMS (Automobilista)

I'm on single laptop screen with cheap Logitech wheel with no clutch and no shifter and I would never go back to playing on gamepad. So I understand those with VR not willing to go back.
And even more after trying Oculus for 5 mins (some demo, not racing sim - it was mind blowing). Its the biggest revolution in gaming imo since invention of internet.

 

Btw, passing away the lack of vr (which will be addressed on their next title) have you guys read the September roadmap?
That new Metalmoro will be something fantastic to drive, they are going to model and to add turbo to it and cars which doesn't have it and some other nice stuff like update to Spielberg (Red Bull Ring)

 

MetalMoro one of my faves in AMS. Planted, but when it bites you it bites hard. The sound is just killer. Can't wait for the new one

 

this one .. with new Turbo model

 

Here for a better look...reminds Praga...

 

Patrick Giranthon released Ultimate Trackpack:

http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/automobilista-ultimate-trackpack-28-tracks-41-layouts.11779/

Collection of his work, with latest updates and corrected AI lines, that he says aren't necessarily in standalone versions. Seems these are final versions.

 

Yep last version of it, I will be happier if 30 but I can accept 28, lol, those tracks are damn good (for AMS standards of course we can't compare them with AC ones).

 

I used to be a big fan of Stock Car Extreme, and I could lap like forever in that sim, but have become an AMS skeptic and critic later on. My opinion is the opposite to the mainstream "AMS is the most underrated sim" idea. I think AMS is one of the most overrated by critics. You simply don't see any criticism about the game at all (obviously, apart from the lack of VR). Because not many people actually spend quality time with the game to come up with complaints. If the game is half popular as AC and PCars, you will see **** ton of complaints on Reiza forum. These are my thoughts:

• In the very beginning the game differed way too less from SCE, but with fewer available mods and no easy conversion tool, which was not encouraging for people to make the switch, even though people who owned a copy of SCE got AMS for free. I don't know why but SCE used to be quite popular in US timezone in RD club races, but after the switch the AMS, there simply is not anyone any more. The SimRacingSystem also had terrible participation rate with AMS and they eventually dropped AMS;
• The normal and beta version segregated the player base. There are currently 170 players in AMS as I type, which is a pathetic number, but there might be a lot more who are in the beta version, which cannot be found on sites like Steamchart. If any new comer checks out these sites to see if AMS is worth buying, they will go to the conclusion that AMS is a dead game already;
• The sim drives good. Good selection of cars and tracks. Even though some contents are often regarded as "obscure", they are objectively really really good selections. But that is pretty much it;
• It took them a while to actually make good AI. In for example Formula 3 the AI has been ridiculously ignoring the existence of the player for a very long time. Plus back then the online game play is almost none existent, it simply couldn't keep players. The multi-class AI has also been really bad for a very long time, but there were so few people trying out multi-class in AMS so there was not much complaint about it - in the meanwhile AC got all the whining;
• The accuracy of the tracks are just so so. You can easily feel where the track is off in for example Imola. Comparing the Imola in AMS, AC, and PCars, I would say PCars does a better job than AMS than recreating the track without laserscanning. Also with all the praises Patrick Giranthon has got (no offense or anything), many of the mods he has released are also pretty off - for example modern Spa. Track accuracy/laserscan is often thought to be "overrated" in sim racing world (Check out this thread on RD a long time ago and see people's discussion about whether AC would get laserscanned Nords. Very fun read actually), but it is very important. Putnam Park Road Course is my local track, and I have been there quite a few times. It is a good beginner's track for, well, a beginner like me. There was an RF version of the track, and that model has been converted to all sims SCE, AMS, RF2, AC, etc., and they are all off by quite a bit. If you just drive the sim on your PC, you will just get a wrong idea of how the track actually is. At least half of the corners feel very wrong compared to real life experience IMO, and sim racing IMHO is meant to capture the excitement and experience you should get if you go do motorsports in real life;
• The menu UI is outdated. For example I have a very simple complaint: why does FFB still goes from -100% to +100%? The option of inverted FFB should be something that is hidden from the players in a game that is actively being developed. Most of the menus just put as much text as possible on a single page, which is very unfriendly to new players. It is really hard to see the logic of the controller key binding menu (which comes first which comes next), and it is really hard to find the one you want (you need to scroll all the way down to find the camera change key bind, which for console players, it usually is one of the main control buttons). On the car set up screen, although it is kind of convenient that you can adjust almost everything on the same page, it would be a lot more polished experience if there is some basic organization and thoughts and love. Things like this will not attract more people and make new players stay;
• Many basic things that come with the game don't work. For example the DynHUD. It has been an issue since day one all the way to this day. It has been buggy one way or another. Yes you can find mods to solve that problem, but things as basic as the stock HUD should work great out of the box without issues;
• Even though people complain that in other sims there is only GT3 at Monza, even though there are many good contents in AMS, people still like GT cars and GT races at famous tracks - because those are the most popular things in real life at the moment, and a racing sim is supposed to capture what is happening in the real world. So the EEC mods are still popular (btw are we really allowed to talk about the EEC mod and post links here on AC forum, considering that the origin of the models in the mod is not entirely verified?), and probably those GT mods are the most popular things in AMS multiplayer at the moment (because many leagues use them), regardless of people saying GT cars are boring. A few of the mods I have tried also have meh physics. I am not saying AMS will fail or anything because of the lack of official GTE/GT3 contents. I am just stating the fact that at the moment if a sim wants to be popular and have more active players, decent amount of GT contents IMO is a must-have;
• Although AMS is highly moddable, the amount of mods on AMS is underwhelming. This might be a reason or a result of the AMS's lack of popularity though. I have a few skin mods which allow me to recreate previous Formula One seasons, and after an update earlier this year, the skin mods were broken and I couldn't load the game. Many of those skin mods have never been looked at by their authors, let alone updated so that they work. This is just sad;
• With all the community's work put in post-processing tweaks and so on, AMS can look good in some regards, but the car models are not impressive. For example the latest VW car, if you look at the suface of the car, especially the reflection and dispersion of light, it just looks bad and far from realistic. The default skins of most official cars are plain and boring, and they usually have large areas of solid color, which makes the reflection problem even more noticeable. Of course, there are times when I present an AMS screenshot to a friend and they will think it is a real life photo, but usually I present the screenshot at a distance from them, or with lower resolution, or cropped so that low-res track side modeling can't be seen - which brings me to my next point;
• Maybe the team lacks the knowledge of VR, but the decision that VR will be dropped is a big mistake IMO. AMS will benefit a lot more than you think with the inclusion of VR support. The game runs good by itself already, the graphics are good enough for current gen of VR, the game drives good, the interior of the cars are actually quite nice (there are nice details such as the sun visor warning on the mini car), and including VR will make VR headset owners who don't have AMS now buy and try the game - and this will bind them so that they will continue to buy the next product of Reiza WhateverYear. I understand that for many AMS lovers in this thread VR is not essential for you, but it is very important for the popularity of the sim. If I had 5 hours every day to spend on racing sims, I would happily put my Oculus Rift away and play AMS on a single monitor just for fun. But the reality is that I probably only have 5 hours every week to spend on racing sims, so I will spend my very limited spare time wisely. Why should I not want spend those time in VR in AC? I can easily know what to prepare for an online race, get prepared for a certain combo, join an online race, race competitively, and get great immersion of racing in VR. IMHO sim racing is a niche market with very few players, so if you start with very few players, you will just get a decreasing number of active players every day, while competitors have an increase in active player base. For AMS, IMHO, the support of VR could have been a chance to start gaining more people - of course if having more people play AMS is not what you want, then forget about the idea.

Just my 2 cents.

 

So pretty much a lot of little ( no issue type complaints )
And one Big bitc h about no VR.

 

and one little name on my ignore list.

 

I can agree with you for a reason or another but you should also compare how much they did with little devs number, how much money they have compared to other devs team, etc etc
I think they did a great job to be a so small team with little wallet...their attention for details and community is outstanding, I look at them like an indie studio more than a big one.

 

As an AC player and supporter since EA, I can guarantee that you I never overlook the size of the dev team when such argument arises.
I am not in any means accusing Reiza for not having this or not having that (I may not have expressed my feelings clearly, but the part of my AMS missing VR statements are mainly about what AMS could have taken advantage of to make it much better, not "AMS is missing VR so it's doomed"). I am just listing my thoughts to help improve the number of active AMS players - believe me I used to do a lot to help my friends get aware of AMS for quite a while. With barely 3 digit active players, it will be really challenging to have lots of people buying into the next product - also if I am not misunderstanding, the next product will also be an evolving project, and I doubt those people will have the patience to wait.
If the lack of man power is constantly used as a reason for many features that are badly put in the game, how is Reiza gonna convince many more people that their next project with new engine, new features and everything, is gonna be a fast developing product, improving AMS in all aspects?
I am genuinely wishing to have more active players in AMS.

 

Yes few tracks of Patrick are kind of bad, like indeed Spa. But he has said the older tracks aren't up to same standard. Most of them are very nice, considering it's free. Reiza allowed him to use some official textures and assets. The UI is indeed quite bad but in AC I would say it is bad too. Both have clunky, badly organized and dated looking UI. For me doesn't matter how dead the game is because I play AMS only offline. But Beta dividing the already small userbase is good point

 

@St3fan Sorry mate I didn't write against your opinions, I was trying to explain why people feel AMS a good title overall...as I said, even if I agree with you on some points people will still look at it like a good title due the great work Reiza did even if composed by a small team...this is why I said they look like an indie studio, they are devs with the soul of modders, they try everything and share all they can, ask people interested in their game to be part of it (as coder or as names for AI drivers etc)...what I like about Reiza is the feeling to be part of it, like when young I used to visit my friend garage to pimp our bikes, we know the big upgrades were done by his dad but we were part of it too...

 

Their non-LS tracks are very good and way way way way better than PC non-LS tracks. Just compare tracks like Montreal, Interlagos, Suzuka etc to the abominations from PC1/2 like Silverstone, Barcelona and such.

Patrick's tracks are tracks from rFactor/GTR2/GP4 etc, he "simply" updates them to use AMS tech plus much better textures. But then these are mod tracks, not official content.

 

Ams has the best Adelaide version on any sim

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

Montreal, Spielberg, Interlagos, Juanesbourg and Suzuka are great!
The historic variants are a great addition too...
Btw, I hope with their new title they will do the jump between the bigs...

 

I cant say ive felt the need for mod tracks yet in AMS. I cant stop playing since they added the new touring cars to the game and after a few weeks I still have tracks to try that Ive never raced before

 

Brazilian tracks in AMS are mostly boring piece of tarmac so it's no surprise those are new to us. I personally can't see much value. Just wasting my HDD space.

Thank god tracks outside Brazil (+ Interlagos) are usually pretty solid quality. But there's also some bad apples.

 

can`t really aggree with that .. not all but most are fine tracks .... certainly not boring ..