RaceRoom – May 2019 Developer notes

Sector3 Studios published the May 2019 Developer notes for their RaceRoom Racing Experience title bringing us up to date with the latest progress made on the racing simulator.

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Yes, I did miss the opportunity of writing one in April… Last month is a big blur for me while we were dedicated to the Volkswagen ID.R project and putting in long hours. I was mostly just focused on that while the team kept cracking on with more good stuff.

So let’s catch up together with what they’ve been doing. But first let’s recap the status of all the items discussed in the March 2019 thread:

Progress update on the March thread:

• Adjustable Tyre Pressure – Shipped! How are you all liking this? We’ll be adding this as planned to all new cars and reviewed cars in future updates.
• Flat spots, suspension damage and damage settings – Still being fine-tuned in beta testing, and the damage settings revision is probably going to be the most time consuming to make as it involves UI’s, backend, and some refactoring of the game code.
• New dedi features – Shipped! So, how many griefers have you banned?
• Shared Mem updates – Shipped! Check out the 3rd party apps section for all kinds of awesome.
• In-game web overlays – Shipped!
• Oschersleben new layouts – Shipped!
• Fanatec SDK update – We had some last minute modifications to allow toggling LED’s and Displays in various ways. Support for the DD2 is already added, so we’re looking good to include this in the next game update.

What we’re working on at the moment:

• Cars: Esports, esports, esports! We are currently busy on the 2019 season of the FIA WTCR.
  I can’t show you much as things still need to go through approvals and all, so here’s a blurry car. Which car can it possibly be?

We’re doing our best to complete this 2019 set and have them available towards the end of June, so expect the esports WTCR 2019 to start soon after that. Then, probably later due to BOP requirements and WTCR taking priority, we’ll be bringing you a BMW M1 Group 4, to fight alongside the Porsche 934 RSR.

Of course, let’s not forget the Volkswagen ID.R ! Our initial version of the car will receive several adjustments in physics. The real car has now been on two practice sessions around the Nordschleife and the telemetry and comments from Romain Dumas will allow us to bring the car closer to its real performance. We have several visual updates to the car that is ready to ship, such as adding the DRS box.

Once the ID.R physics are completed and published, a second round of the Volkswagen ID. R Challenge will open with the updated car, and it will likely be finally available in the store around that time.

• More Cars: Sadly can’t say much else than “more cars are being licensed for a release in 2019” at this point. Until papers are all in order, it’s all a bit hush-hush.
• Soon™ cars: The next update should see the release of the Formula RaceRoom X-90. Designed to bring you back to the visuals and sounds of the early 90’s formula series, this car will come in three engine flavors: V8, V10, and V12. Do I need to tell you they all sound awesome? After endlessly lapping the Nordschleife in the relative silence of the highly technological VW ID.R, this one will turn your ears back on.

• Tracks: 4 active projects at the moment, and not enough time. Sorry but still can’t disclose anything until we get closer to release.
• Force Feedback updates: Working on two separate areas of FFB improvements.
  • One started as a bug fix and quickly turned into a feature as we realized the static friction (the fact that turning the steering wheel should be more difficult when your car is standing still) wasn’t working at all. As a result, we not only now have working friction, but also a proper fully simulated power steering. Turning off your engine and power is even taken into account. Rumor has it that Anthony is even going to add a sound sample for turning wheels.
  • The other is about introducing pneumatic trail effects. ( wiki and some other source that requires aspirin) This will give some very welcome information about the amount of grip available on the front wheels.
• Moving/resizing HUD elements: Since the release of the in-game overlays feature and its ability to handle moving widgets around the screen, many asked why this wasn’t possible for the regular HUD. This will now be possible. (except for the top position bar, which occupies the full width of the screen and could only be moved down in a very impractical fashion to whoever wanted to see what’s happening outside of the car) You will finally be able to move and resize that big virtual rearview mirror!
• Small feature for LED/wheelbase displays: Some 3rd party tools offer the ability to push custom information to the steering wheel displays such as Fanatec’s rev LED’s. It was unfortunately cumbersome for the users of those apps to prevent RaceRoom from sending data to those rev LED’s and displays. We will offer new controls that will allow those users to cycle through different modes for rev LED’s and displays, allowing to just turn them off completely.
• Moaaaar dedi features: We’re currently testing a live penalty system allowing the league admins to hand out penalties during a race: Slowdown, drive-through, stop-n-go or just plain Disqualification. We’re also working on the ability to read and send chat messages directly from the dedicated server manager UI.
• Discord: Thought I’d just mention it here: You NEED to join the RaceRoom Discord channel. Link here –> https://discord.gg/Zz9Zymz

We’ve just restructured it a bit to bring it more in line with the current standards.

1. Feels like I should reach 10 to look as busy as in March.

Official Webpages – game.raceroom.com – sector3studios.com