rFactor 2 Roadmap Update October 2018

[VELOCIPEDE]

Nuovo Roadmap update pubblicato dal team Studio 397 per aggiornare gli appassionati sullo sviluppo di rFactor 2. Fra le novità più interessanti, gli sviluppatori ci parlano dei due nuovi tracciati di Botniaring e del Nurburgring!

It´s getting colder outside, and most of us probably have either switched to winter tyres already or are planning to right now. Brace yourself, winter is here! But as simracers, we’re lucky, our season never ends, so let´s get into this month’s roadmap. It was once again a busy time for us. Let’s be honest here, that probably never ends either: we are pushing rFactor 2 further every single day, but it’s always great to head out to the community with good news like releases or announcements!

Botniaring

In 1989, the gates in Jurva opened to what now is known as the longest and most versatile racetrack in Finland, the Botniaring. It also features different layouts, thanks to the extension of the track in the past from a length of 2618 meter to 4014 meters, making it the longest racetrack in the country. Its smooth tarmac surface has invited multiple races to the region over the years, turning Botniaring into another Finnish motorsport center.

Mostly used for national championships, the track also became popular among northern European championships. With its 3 different layouts, the Botniaring offers thrilling racing action for all kinds of motorsport classes. It might not have seen a full European GT Championship yet, but you can change that in rFactor 2! Choose from the “Long”, “Long with Chicane”, and “Short” layouts to either be challenged by a high-speed track or to take on a breathtaking chicane that needs all your attention if you want to clock a fast lap time. Ah yes, we nearly forgot, the track is live now and servers are also running already, so what are you waiting for?!

Nürburgring

When we announced this track at SimRacing Expo, we already stated this is a monumental task. The 2018 scan data has now been fully processed, and in parallel we have been working on many of the track-side details. We don’t have a lot to show yet, as usually the phases of modeling a track involve a lot of work that is not immediately visible until quite late in the build. We did visit our artists and got some pictures from their workstations while they were working on the track. Planning-wise, we are on schedule, and in a couple of months we hope to be able to show you some in-game shots. Worth mentioning already is that this will be our first full track that is built using our new material system.

Developer Tooling

Developer (modder) tooling is an area we have been quiet on for the last couple of years. Internally, and when supporting our community, we have been building on the rather old 3D Studio Max 2012.  Although we released updates that allowed you to work with the 64-bit version of that tool, the fact is that we needed to upgrade to the latest tooling. We are now doing just that, and we expect to release updated plugins for the latest versions of 3D Studio Max soon (they are currently going through internal beta testing). We are also making sure that these tools will continue to work with our new material system, and as always we encourage people to tell us what else they need!

Community Night #3

Our month was once again very busy, but we like to drop some hints here and there. So believe us when we say that we are working on way more than what we can list in this roadmap. Yet with all those sleepless nights coding, writing contracts and grabbing licenses left and right, there still needs to be some time left for us to also enjoy our favorite sim!  Right?….RIGHT! Finally that time has come again, and you know its name from previous adventures: the Community Night is back for its 3rd event! Let’s dive into some racing action together on Sunday (4th of November) 7pm CET, to be broadcast on https://www.twitch.tv/rfactorlive

We wanted to celebrate the release of Botniaring and we thought it would be fun to put on our winter jackets and lap the Finnish track with you guys. Deciding on a car class gets harder with every new piece of content we add, so why not just race 2 different layouts with different classes? We will hit the short version with the USF2000, while the roaring GT3’s will conquer the longest ribbon. You can now go for your first laps on our Botniaring servers that are live with the launch, so get ready!

That’s all folks, and don’t forget we are still in the middle of the Halloween Sale, so check out our special offers!!!