GeneRally 2 News

A couple of weeks ago, we launched the August Update, which included some significant improvements to different parts of the game, including the car physics, general game performance and some aspects of the AI.

As many of you have noticed, the monthly updates so far have been quite a mixture of fixes, general improvements and new features - general updates, so to speak. Going forward, we'll be shifting focus to making these updates more specific to certain areas of the game and certain features.




Fundamentally, we're going to be giving each of the upcoming updates between now and GeneRally 2's v1.0 release a particular theme or main feature focus.

In addition to this, we want to make sure that we deliver smaller fixes and features more often than once per month. As a result, you can expect smaller patches, hotfixes and updates as-and-when they're ready to be launched, and the bigger features on a monthly basis.

Today's update improving the AI and physics, is once such example of these smaller patches!


At the moment, we have four or five major feature updates planned (and many more thoughts about updates for the future). In this blog post, we'll briefly cover just a few of them...

[h3]September's Update - Objects, UI & Miscellaneous Features[/h3]
September will be the last of the "a bit of everything" updates that we've had so far. It will be a little smaller and more concentrated than the July and August updates - but it will still contain some significant upgrades and improvements.

You can expect to see:

• The first round of the updated menu UI, making the game nicer to interact with, and fixing a bunch of small bugs that have crept up over time.
  
• A bunch of new objects, to round out our "first batch" of additions.
  
• Keyboard key rebinding.
  
• Other small features, fixes and updates.
  

The September update will likely arrive towards the end of September.

[h3]Online Multiplayer Update[/h3]
This is a big feature, and one that lots of people have been waiting for! We've been hard at work on this feature for months now. After the release of the August update, we've now moved more team members to focussing on this, so that we can bring it to the state where it's ready for you to play.

We'll have more information about online multiplayer, and what the update will contain, closer to the time.

[h3]AI Update[/h3]
Another big focus for us are the AI drivers. As many of you know, the AI are not yet as competitive as we'd want them to be - and we are planning to have a significant update to them in the coming months.

This update will include improvements to their basic functions and skills, and will also see the introduction of the additional parameters and "profiles", which will allow you to customise their behaviour to suit you.

[h3]New Cars and Tracks[/h3]
Of course, along with future updates will have new cars and tracks at regular intervals! Stay tuned for more information about these.


We haven't yet set an exact date for leaving Early Access and launching GeneRally 2 v1.0 - but we do have a set of features and updates in mind that we want to finish before we get there. Stay tuned for more information on this in the coming months!


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If you want to support us and the game's ongoing development, and purchase GeneRally 2 in Early Access, you can buy it here on Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2104920/GeneRally_2/

If you've already purchased and would like to help us out, please consider leaving a review for GeneRally 2 on Steam!

This update fixes a few issues with the AI. It also includes various optimisations for and improvements to game systems.

• Improved AI's ability to handle slides and hairpins.
  
• Adjusted how fuel consumption and tyre wear are calculated to make the system more equal between keyboard, controller and AI players.
  
• AI now knows not to wait for a full tank at the pits if it's not needed to finish the race.
  
• Various improvements and optimizations for faster and more stable car physics.
  
• Various other optimizations.
  
• Smoother car movement by extrapolating approximate car position at render time.
  
• Small updates to French, Russian and English translations.
  
• General now has a brake light.
  
• Optimised the in-game UI's performance a bit.
  
• FIXED: Heightmap no longer gets distorted when importing a GR1 track.
  
• FIXED: Wheels no longer clip through the car body.
  
• FIXED: In-game UI no longer has update delays under some circumstances.
  

This update fixes a few small issues relating to the Formula and the frame rate
in the menus.

• Formula's torque has been adjusted.
  
• FIXED: Menu frame rate is no longer degraded.
  

This update fixes a few small issues relating to car damage and GR1 imported tracks.

• Car damage values have been adjusted slightly.
  
• FIXED: Car damage is now applied correctly again.
  
• FIXED: Invisible walls on GR1 tracks now import correctly again.
  

This is our major Early Access update for August. It includes a variety of new game features and fixes.

• Implemented shadow caching, which hopefully improves performance. The dynamic shadow mode will return later as a toggleable option.
  
• Added a new car, "Truck".
  
• Added two new tracks, "Rampster" and "Tachren".
  
• Made changes to how the cars respond to steering inputs to improve their stability.
  
• Adjusted the braking torque across all cars.
  
• Adjusted the grip of cars on mud.
  
• Lowered the General's centre of gravity.
  
• Various small improvements have been made to the AI, particularly improving their ability to handle tight turns.
  
• Driving through a bush now has a slowing effect.
  
• Improved the way the AI handle pit-lanes and the AI pit line.
  
• Improved the performance of the AI and car physics code.
  
• Improved the feel of car collisions in a variety of situations.
  
• Implemented some basic Steam Achievements.
  
• Pit-crew will now start working on the car's tyres slightly more quickly.
  
• The method of applying wheel damage has been updated to be more consistent.
  
• Moderna has been updated slightly to improve the height map in Turn 2.
  
• FIXED: Cars now have grip calculated correctly on steep slopes.
  
• FIXED: Players who are "timed out" at the race end, now are correctly awarded points.
  
• FIXED: Skidmarks now clear correctly when the end-of-race replay loops.
  
• FIXED: The jack-man of the pit-crew no longer has a death wish.
  
• FIXED: The game will no longer crash when leaving a skidmark against the top wall of the terrain.
  

• Implemented some prospective fixes for the default Steam Deck controller config.
  
• Improved the functionality of the follow camera, including improving its "elasticity".
  
• Added Russian language localisation (thanks to Paul Kozlovitch).
  
• Added French language localisation (thanks to Aurélien Folley).
  
• Adjusted the tyre wear and fuel usage scaling to range from 0-200%.
  
• Re-enabled driver blocks showing for AI drivers. A toggle for this option will be coming in future.
  
• FIXED: Characters in the Turkish translation should now all be rendered in the correct font.
  
• FIXED: Driver block flags are now correct in all circumstances.
  

• Added a new object, "Flagpole".
  
• Added a new object, "Logs".
  
• Added a new object, "Dead Tree".
  
• Added a new object, "Container".
  
• Added a new object, "Round Booth".
  
• Added a new object, "House 2".
  
• Added "tree stump" variants for all tree types.
  
• Added the ability to force a Workshop upload to be made as a new track.
• *Please Note:** this will overwrite the Workshop ID stored in the track file, so you will not be able to update the previous track, unless you have saved a copy of the track beforehand.
  
• FIXED: Object placement tool in "line" mode, no longer has variable spacing depending on drag speed.
  
• FIXED: Multiple GR1-imported objects now import at their correct rotations.
  
• FIXED: Blue cones in GR1 tracks, are now correctly imported as blue cones.
  
• FIXED: AI line edge flags are now correctly generated on GR1 imports.
  
• FIXED: The height maps of GR1 tracks now import more accurately.
  
• FIXED: The rope parameter no longer applies to the single object rotation.
  
• FIXED: An armco barrier no longer gets placed in the bottom-left corner of the track.
  
• FIXED: The height map overlay no longer shows in screenshots if it was active when saving a track.
  

• The main menu sometimes experiences distortions or other rendering issues - changing resolution, or restarting the game may rectify the issue.
  
• Occasionally, when in Windowed mode, changing the language multiple times in quick succession can shrink the game window.