Assetto Corsa Rally adds ice circuit, Alpine and a host of fixes

Another car and location have been added to the early access version of Assetto Corsa Rally.

Following an overwhelmingly positive response to the initial launch last month, it is clear the simulation rally title has a solid platform to build upon.

So now, here’s the building in action.

Livigno Ice Circuit “Ghiacciodromo Livigno”

No, not a stage, which you may have been expecting. Instead, this is a real-world ice driving school, situated in the Alps, northern Italy.

It’s a diminutive test area, which does at least track your lap times, where you can hone your cold-driving skills, using studded tyres – another new addition to the title.

But it also seems like this is a testbed for the snow system, too, such as the aforementioned rubber and the malleable snowbanks. The surrounding scenery is spectacular, and at least it isn’t just a circle – there are tight hairpins and switchbacks to master.

Alpine A110 Group 4 1973

Speaking of things to master, the rear-wheel-drive and rear-engined Alpine A110 from 1973 takes some practice.

Its relatively unique drivetrain layout means big swings of weight. The small French sports car is important in the history of rallying, being the first car to ever claim the World Rally Championship.

The example stored in the Fondazione Gino Macaluso collection was laser-scanned for this virtual recreation.

Expanded wheel and shifter support, tweaked force feedback

As ever, during early access, notable quality-of-life changes have been implemented. Wheel support is claimed to have been expanded – although which specifically have been added this time isn’t clear yet – and the FFB systems are said to have been “improved under braking” and be more consistent.

Double gear change input support has been added, allowing you to have a sequential or H-pattern device connected, but then switch to wheel-mounted paddles depending on the car you are driving.

Changes to Time Attack, AI and more

The full patch notes are listed below, but 25 more challenges have been added, the AI should now feature more accurate tyre wear and you can now select a referenced time to compete against in Time Attack mode.

Skys are now rendered differently, some road signs and pacenote calls have been changed and the sound of skids on asphalt is said to be more “responsive”.

Assetto Corsa Rally is set for monthly updates, so hopefully, there will be more additions soon, while at least one of them will be the Skoda Fabia Rally2. 

Assetto Corsa Rally 0.2 update patch notes

NEW CONTENT

·        Added Alpine A110 Group 4 1973

·        Added “Ghiacciodromo Livigno” Ice Circuit

·        Added 2 new ACR Events groups, and a total of 25 new ACR Events

·        Added snow physics and snow studded tyres

STAGES AND CIRCUITS

·        Added Ghiacciodromo Livigno Ice Circuit

·        Added missing trees to backdrop areas throughout Saverne

·        Improved collisions on some log piles in Saverne and Wales

·        Fixed “that” traffic sign pole in the town of Saverne

CARS

·        Added Alpine A110 Group 4 1973

·        Added studded tires

·        Fixed issues related to wheel offsets

·        Fixed missing textures on some rims

·        Mitigated pixelated glows on car lights

·        Added support for all country flags on air intakes

·        Fixed suspension issues

·        Fixed tire flex direction

INPUT

·        Improved overall steering wheels support. We will keep improving the codebase until all steering wheel and sim-racing peripherals are fully supported and working

·        Added Hat Switch (e.g. directional buttons) support for steering wheels

·        Added double gear up/down inputs

·        Added possibility to bind Neutral gear on steering wheels

·        Added wipers input

PHYSICS

·        Fixed FFB inconsistency with some cars

·        Improved FFB under braking

·        Fixed some FFB effects that were pushing the steering wheel on the wrong side

·        Improved throttle to make it more linear with gas pedal

·        Improved brake power for some discs and calipers

·        Improved Gravel and Tarmac physics and tyre models based on new data that we acquired. Rally drivers validated the new handling. The tyre model will keep evolving during the Early Access based on new field research, data and feedback from players and rally drivers.

·        Introduced Snow physics and Snow studded tires

·        Improved the behavior of tyre model at extreme drift angles

·        Retuned some differentials and some setup presets

AUDIO

·        Added engine/exhaust sounds for Alpine A110 Group 4 1973

·        Added first implementation of Snow tyres surface audio

·        Livigno Ice Circuit environmental audio setup

·        Improved responsiveness of asphalt skid audio

·        Improved vehicle scraping responsiveness

·        Removed slowdown UI sounds in replay.

·        Fixed issue with wall reverb being louder in cabin than external views.

·        Moved rear engine emitters further forwards in surround mix.

·        Many small audio mix tweaks across the game.

GAMEPLAY AND UI

·        Added 2 new ACR Events groups and a total of 25 new ACR Events

·        Fixed frequent crash after exiting the leaderboards page

·        Fixes for Chinese language

·        Increased ranges for camera customization settings

·        Reduced allocated memory in race

·        Added AI tires management to make AI times more accurate depending on race conditions

·        Fixed start sequence cheat found by users

·        Improved helmet camera movements

·        Fix French Codriver issue with some calls having Left and Right inverted

·        Fix Multiple text errors and typo

·        Improved description for Differentials setup and Gear sets

·        Fix UI not hidden correctly during replay and main menu

·        Fixed Lithuanian Flag

·        Improved time of day for each location to better reflect the period of the year

·        New opening splash screen

·        Fixed some road signs on Wales Hafren North and Saverne not reacting to physics

·        Pace notes revision to Wales Hafren North and Saverne Reverse stages.

·        Added missing dressing to some junctions of Wales Hafren North

·        Fixed race start marshals not working properly on Hafren North Reverse Cut 1

·        Fixed intersecting barriers at Munster

·        Fixed some missing characters for player profile name

·        Fixed “Service Park” time not resetting after the first service park in a rally weekend

·        Added Hide/Show HUD option 

ONLINE

·        Time attack, “Recommended Time” feature: now players can choose reference times from the leaderboards and compete against them

·        Faster leaderboards download

·        Faster download of “best player time”

·        Faster time upload

·        Improved login recovery mechanism

·        Fixed an authentication error that prevented the game from coming back online

·        Fixed an issue with Profiles API that prevented some requests from completing in a certain scenario

·        Fixed an issue that prevented the Leaderboard upload/download from completing in a certain scenario

·        Migrated to a different hosting service

·        Improved clustering settings

·        Reduced the amount of technical telemetry recorded

·        Display name is now synchronized with the Steam’s one

VFX, LIGHTING AND ART DIRECTION

• New vehicle particles for snow surfaces
• New, more persistent particle emitters for dusty materials
• New particle systems for collisions against snow
• Support for subsurface scattering on environment and props shaders
• Base track shader improvements to better support snow materials, different road conditions and track flows
• Overall shaders optimization to slightly reduce GPU and memory load
• Fixed a bug where track materials could sometimes use dynamic parameters (dynamic track) for tarmac on all other surface types
• Improved particle lighting coming from headlights and backlights
• Added support to blend some of the ground scatter meshes with the ground materials
• Added new Sky setup with Livigno Ice Circuit geographic coordinates
• Added weather presets for snowy conditions
• Updated sky system to improve the visual rendering of the atmosphere
• Added custom lighting setup for Livigno Ice Circuit