rFactor 2 April Development Roadmap Released, Monaco e-Prix Revealed!

Published May 2nd, 2019:

With the recently released Formula E Gen 2 vehicle, rFactor 2 has enjoyed a renewed attention in the past week. Studio 397 are determined to capitalize on that success, with the studio revealing an iconic new track set to arrive in the game.

Monaco will be joining rFactor 2's track lineup in the near future! One of the most recognizable events on the Formula One calendar, Monaco is a series staple that many players will be eager to try out within rFactor 2. There is one catch to this though, as the version of Monaco set to be added into the PC racing simulator is the same one that the Formula E series runs at. This is a predictable development, giving the aforementioned addition of the second generation Formula E vehicle around one week ago. However, this does mean that the version of Monaco that most Formula One fans are familiar with will not be coming to rFactor 2, at least not soon anyway. As for the layout of the course that will be coming to the game, the addition of the tighter and trickier version of Monaco brings the total number of Formula E tracks to a total of three. Winding through the beautiful streets of the seaside city that motorsport fans around the world revere, the Monaco E-Prix circuit promises to provide more stunning views and tight wheel-to-wheel racing action than anywhere else on the Formula E schedule. Of course, this makes the city course a distinct driving challenge that rFactor 2 players are sure to enjoy, even if the normal version of Monaco isn't coming to the game just yet. As for when this track will be available to those players, Studio 397 stated in their roadmap update that it is, "Scheduled to be released at the same time Formula E drives the real race". The official date for the 2019 Monaco E-Prix is set for Saturday, May 11th, expect the track to release sometime around then.

A new upcoming city course wasn't the announcement from the April Development Roadmap, as Stuido 397 also revealed that later this year they will transition to only releasing 64 bit builds of their game. In doing so, the company hopes to reallocate resources towards the continual improvement of rFactor 2 throughout its life cycle. Also announced was the return of the in-game matchmaker through the updated UI that the studio have been working on for awhile now. The game will also be receiving a new live trackmap that players will be able to access through the garage menu. Some new images of the re-worked version of the Nürburgring also make an appearance towards the end of this month's Roadmap. You can read more details regarding all of those upcoming additions for rFactor 2 now, as the whole developer's Roadmap is provided below for your convenience:

When you work hard, times just flies by, so it’s not a surprise that it feels like we just wrote our previous roadmap some days ago.

The roadmap this month takes us to the second-smallest, most densely-populated country in the world and home to many past and current racing drivers. But not just there. We basically travel everywhere and show you what´s happening in the big rFactor 2 world. No matter if you are looking for build updates, news about upcoming content or where to find the right competition for you, it’s all here and it’s called Roadmap!

Formula E Monaco e-Prix: If you had not already guessed from our introduction, the big news this month is the announcement of a new track, the Monaco e-Prix, which twists and turns through the beautiful city streets. Scheduled to be released at the same time Formula E drives the real race, this track is based on laserscan data and CAD from Formula E, ensuring an accurate layout. The track complements our existing Formula E portfolio, which features the recently released “Gen 2” car, as well as the Hong Kong and Lester tracks, and puts us in the lead in terms of Formula E content in any racing simulation.

Updates on work in progress: Later this year we are going to go 64 bit only with our rFactor 2 builds. This move was triggered by the fact that Steam hardware surveys show us that only 0.5% of our users are still on a 32 bit build, whilst within the global Steam community, this number is less than 2% too. All hardware you can buy for many years now is 64 bit, so it’s time to move forward. Doing so will save us time building and testing code, which we can then spend on improving the simulation as a whole.

There are several bits of documentation we’re currently adding. First of all, we have a guide on how to create your own car pack. For our modding community we have now documented the new IBL/PBR based car shader, detailing how to use it when creating your own car.

In our ongoing UI previews we share with you some of the things that are in right now and being actively tested. One important one is the matchmaker, which will make a triumphant return back in game! For now it’s the bare minimum to assure it’s working, but we intend to use the flexibility the new UI allows us, to add more features.

And just something gadgety-cool and nouveau to look forward to, a live trackmap/loading screen drawn from the actual track data – because what’s more useful than a track map before you blast out on track, and look it even has the pitlane (click on the image below to see it in motion)!

With the announcement of the second of three iconic tracks in progress, it’s time to take a look at the progress on the Nürburgring. Last month we reported we were pretty much on schedule, and that is still the case.

On the side of cars, now that the Formula E Gen 2 car has been released, we’re shifting our focus again to the Tatuus cars. They’re all drivable, the models and sounds are mostly done and we’re now tweaking and bugfixing them.

Verified on Discord! Last, but not least, on the community side we are proud to announce that we now have a formally verified Discord server. We would like to invite you to drop by for an informal chat. Most of the time, there are people from Studio 397 around and you will definitely always meet a few friendly community members willing to help and answer question, or just willing to hop in a race with you!

Sources: www.studio-397.com/2019/04/roadmap-update-april-2019/, www.racedepartment.com/threads/monaco-coming-to-rfactor-2-april-development-roadmap.168017/