One of the major upcoming updates for rFactor 2 is the release of stock car related content. We saw a first taste of the content in the form of an updated Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and now we have a shiny new build update for ISI’s sim.

One of the major changes in this update is the start of moving the racing rules from the base game into plugins. I think this is a very smart rule for ISI, considering that so many different series have different rules. It would be very difficult to have ISI put in all the rules for all the series, so to make it a plugin, allows for two things:

Updates to racing rules can be implemented without requiring a full build update

The community can make their own plugins for game rules to inject into the sim, which would be great for league racing.

Another minor addition that will make quite a few racers happy is that FOV will be saved per vehicle, instead of a global setting. One thing rFactor 2 is notorious for is having FOV issues and having to tweak it on a per-car basis, so now you won’t have to worry about adjusting it per vehicle.

Check out the full list of fixes and additions in the changelog below. What is your favorite change in the new update? Let us know in the comments!

rFactor 2 Build 982 Changelog

Build Notes:

FEATURES:

– This build represents the first major step in migrating our game rules out of the base game and into plugins. This system is intended to allow easy adjustment of rules for your races without waiting for ISI to add or develop them. We’re still working on this, so feedback is very welcome. NEW PLUGIN SYSTEM RELEASED.

– Max vehicles for the All Cars & Tracks default mod was increased to 45.

– Added a configurable control for “Skip Formation” (but if none is configured, the Space key will be used).

– Added AI self-preservation reaction to preventing tipping.

– Increased effect AIW parameter AISpec has on AI acceleration and max speed.

– Added cockpit readouts “BESTLAP” and “LASTLAP” for modders to use.

– Clean up of AI multiline pack driving. More tolerance of nearby cars when slowingly moving towards grid or pit spots.

– Assume any future Thrustmaster wheel will need its FFB direction reversed and do so automatically. If for some reason that is not desired, open up the Controller.JSON file and set “Steering Effects Strength” to 9999 instead of 10000.

– FOV now stored per (exact) vehicle.

– Added steering wheel ranges to plugin telemetry.

– Now recognizing GDB track type of “Oval” in addition to the original types “Superspeedway”, “Superspeedway Oval”, “Speedway”, “Speedway Oval”, “Short Track” and “Short Track Oval”. Despite all these choices, the app code doesn’t actually differentiate them, other than to identify these track types as not being a “Road Course”. The main differences in behaviors between ovals and road courses are 1) whether the spotter works (oval only), 2) whether formation/caution lines are called “inside/outside” (ovals) or “left/right” (road courses), 3) auto-shifting and AI shifting behavior, and 4) some scoring things that will soon be obsolete because they will be controlled by plugins rather than the app code

– Added a plugin interface to view some pit menu data. Currently, you can only change the pitstop choices by using this in conjunction with CheckHWControl().

– Expanded the virtual vehicle creation to optionally include vehicle description and vehicle number.

– Adjustment parameters for multiview are now available in config.ini. You must manually edit the values in this file until the in-game tool is available. You can revert to the original multiview method by setting UseSubViewParams to 0. Setting UseSubViewParams to 1 assumes a symmetric setup and will use the ViewParams for all viewports. Exit the sim, edit config.ini and restart for settings to take effect.

– Forcing vehicle body collision model to be below a certain limit now (automatically LOD’ing if necessary). This is done for performance reasons.

FIXES:

– Fix for the “WCCLOUD.GMT” multiplayer loading error.

– Fixed mod sig missing when server publishes to matchmaker.

– Fixed some controller detection and rearrangement issues.

– Addressed issue where a matrix in AI physics drifted away from being orthogonal.

– Some improvements/fixes to replay and resume-from-replay for non-race sessions.

– Hopeful fix for skin transfer icon mistakingly showing successful completion of a skin that didn’t.

– Gold playerfile now stores Mod name instead of RFM file name for “Game Description”, since we can’t guarantee that each mod will have a unique rfm name. (potentially resulting in multiplayer issues when a client loads the wrong rfm file and joins).

– Fixed AI tendency to sometimes decelerate needlessly while transitioning from main path to pit path.

– Fixed issue when a client loses their connection during a race and rejoins, and then subsequently the race is restarted, the client didn’t know their correct grid location.

MODDING / PUBLIC DEV:

– Fix for driver editor so you can go back to main menu from track specific parameters menu.

– Added camera editor ablity to change trackside carema names. Created AI limiter slider gizmo.

– Look for digital flags up to the number of corner workers so that track builders don’t need to name digital flags consecutively.

– Fixed potential bug with custom rFm file when creating mod with wizard.

MULTIPLAYER

– In multiplayer cars will now reload if using the car switcher only to change upgrades.

– Fixed remembering of column sort state for matchmaker list.

– Fix for number of pitstops being reported as zero in multiplayer.

– Added admin command “/forwardseconds X” in order to fast forward time by X seconds, where X is from 0-65535.

– Added admin commands “/pitbydriver” and “/pitbyteam”.

GRAPHICS:

– Fixed rear view tonemapping

– Adjust post-gamma

– Fix for dirty sideviews in multiview

– Fixed extra slashes at end of Shader dir in viewer

– More HDR process optimizations

– Improved spotlight priority sorting

– Added multiview adjustments. Values in Config.ini, as well as parameter to disable new functionality (to retain use of older FOV options).

– Fixed for FXAA not working since last release.

– Additional SLI optimizations when using reflections.

UI / HUD / OPTIONS:

– Made the UI consistent with in-game with regards to the names of the Steering Help levels.

– Added indication when upgrades are required on track to the upgrade tree list on the tuning page.

– Changed password failure page to be more informative

– Added a “remove forced upgrade” button to the tuning page to easily undo user created “force upgrade” actions.

– Shrink button text to fit inside bounds