Assetto Corsa Rally's V0.4 update is out now, featuring the Group A Subaru Impreza and Peugeot 306 II Maxi Kit Car, plus a few other titbits. Find out Traxion's verdict on the new content here.
Assetto Corsa Rally’s V0.4 build is here, and although it’s a small one in terms of new features, its two star cars make it perhaps the game’s most intriguing update yet.
Some things should be left in the ‘90s (Ace of Base being one example, sorry, not sorry). But the Peugeot 306 II Maxi Kit Car and Group A Subaru Impreza feel as fresh as the day they were manufactured, such is their appeal to a generation of rallyists.
Both are fan favourite cars for very different reasons, but it’s the latter that steals the show in V0.4, primarily thanks to its inextricable link to the legendary Colin McRae.
In 1995, McRae arrived at the 51st RAC Rally fired up. The laconic Scot felt aggrieved by a team orders dispute in the previous round in Catalunya, which forced him to slow down and allow teammate Carlos Sainz to win.
For the final round in the muddy, frosty and wet forests of Great Britain, the WRC title would be decided by a straight shootout between McRae and Sainz.
And now you can replicate this scenario in AC Rally.
Subaru Impreza S3 Group A
Not only have Supernova Games Studios and Kunos Simulazioni added the iconic Impreza, but they’ve also added the ability to drive in wintry conditions on the incumbent Welsh and French stages (Rally Wales and Rally Alsace).
For keen rally fans, this means you can evoke the incredible 1993-1995 period of the RAC Rally, which, for a certain generation of bobble-hatter (ie, old), lined the forest roads of England, Scotland and Wales to watch home heroes like McRae and Richard Burns, who both drove the boxer-engined Subaru in period.
The Group A Subaru Impreza is undoubtedly the most recognisable car of the era. From its simple dark blue and yellow livery to its distinctive exhaust bark, the Impreza GC8 remains a legendary rally machine.
But the drivers behind the wheel were even more special.
With his brave and flamboyant driving style, Colin McRae captured the imagination of the British public thanks to his dominant RAC and world championship victory in ‘95, becoming a household name in the process. His response to adversity was a very British ‘keep calm and carry on’ attitude, belying the aggressive attitude of his Subaru.
Witness his suspension-shredding run through Kielder Forest. Top Gear Rally Report’s Tony Mason was on-site at the end of the stage, witnessing McRae and co-driver Derek Ringer’s attempts to fix a broken front-right strut with a fence post. Ringer, clearly perturbed, was not keen on answering Mason’s questions.
However, through a combination of mechanical knowledge and determination, McRae bodged a fix. “See you in Penrith?” asked Mason, tentatively.
The Impreza was shorter and nimbler than its Legacy RS Turbo predecessor, allowing it to dance around Donington and sing through Sweet Lamb, its deep bass growl reverberating through the Welsh forests.
This sound has been replicated well in AC Rally, with Supernova promising further tweaks in future (the studio’s audio designer owns an Impreza road car, so has all the motivation required to perfect it).
The interior sounds are less convincing than the exterior, however, with an overwrought transmission whine that doesn’t quite tally with onboards from the era.
However, the handling feels suitably responsive, and you can rotate it quickly with some pendulous load shifting. It’s perhaps the most intuitive car to drive in the game thus far, with its body language in replays looking scarily accurate. It’s only a five-speed, though, and feels particularly long-legged in third and fourth with default ratios.
Driving through the newly snow-capped forests of Wales adds intrigue, with braking distances increasing and more caution required through the twisties. Take a look at the accompanying screenshots: you can practically feel the crisp winter air permeating your virtual puffer jacket.
There are no gravel-spec snow tyres, however, as the developer has simply made its off-road rubber compatible with the white stuff. Crucially, tyre wear and heating mechanics are still not active in V0.4, which is probably just as well given how much drifting I’ve been doing. Apologies to Pirelli.
Peugeot 306 II Maxi Kit Car
The Peugeot 306 II Maxi Kit Car is another undoubted rally icon, forming part of the WRC’s raucous F2 Kit Car period, 1993-99.
These lightweight, front-wheel-drive flying machines could beat full-blown WRC and Group A machinery on asphalt. Their screaming, normally aspirated engines were permitted to have more power than their four-wheel-drive counterparts, and they held a significant weight advantage, too, giving them the inertia of a bluebottle.
As expected, AC Rally nails this aspect of the car, as it feels lightweight and powerful, something that becomes abundantly clear when flooring the throttle with any kind of steering lock required: it will wheelspin.
With a soft right foot, though, the Peugeot elicits typical front-wheel-drive behaviour: it’s quick to turn in and raises its unloaded rear wheel at the same time. Audio-wise, Supernova has captured the high-pitched revving of the car, but there’s a lingering buzzy tone at the top end when viewing TV-style replays. I did enjoy its intake noise, though, and look forward to further updates on this front in future.
It was an especially good result considering Delecour beat his equally fiery and French teammate Gilles Panizzi…
As a neat addition, the livery used in V0.4 is the same one Delecour is campaigning in this year’s FIA European Historic Rally Championship, with the car’s clever onboard proportioning valve braking system also simulated in-game.
Without going into too much nerdy detail, it simply allows the driver to adjust the car’s rear brake pressure independently of the front, which is handy when negotiating the tight and twisty confines of a WRC asphalt event.
To stop the notoriously flighty car from oversteering too much into corners, you can lower the proportioning valve’s preload setting.
Raising it allows a little more brake-induced rotation. Happily, it made a difference to the car’s stopping behaviour. Also, the proportioning valve preload is controlled by the brake bias mapping; there’s currently no way to change both settings concurrently.
Jon Armstrong
In something of a coup for Kunos and Supernova, current WRC driver Jon Armstrong is officially collaborating with the development team.
Beginning in March, Armstrong’s driving feedback is helping to shape the game’s future direction, with physics and handling as his top priorities.
Not only does the Irishman bring years of top-level rally experience, but he was also previously a Game Designer at Codemasters, bringing a wealth of practical development know-how to the table.
Coincidentally, he is also in a relationship with rally media specialist Hollie McRae, yes, Colin McRae’s daughter, even co-driving on her rally debut last year.
Should rally game fans be excited by this appointment? In my opinion, yes, as Armstrong’s performances in a Rally1 Ford Puma have shown that he has the potential to fight at the front of the WRC. And which sim wouldn’t want that kind of feedback?
Supernova has added support for Logitech and Fanatec’s proprietary TrueForce and Full Force systems, with a slider available in the controller settings to tweak its in-game prevalence. General peripheral compatibility has also been improved, which has been something of a bugbear among the sim racing community.
It would be remiss of me not to mention, however, that I noticed a significant drop in AC Rally’s performance in my testing of V0.4.
Before, I felt like the game generally ran quite smoothly on my PC at 3440 x 1440 (AMD Ryzen 7 3800X, RTX 4070, 16 GB RAM), but I experienced choppy frame-rates and ghosting throughout my testing (you may see this in two of the videos I’ve added to this article).
Despite playing around with various visual settings, I couldn’t find a way to maintain a smooth 60 fps, and frame generation seemed to make the problem worse, which was confusing. Even changing some settings to medium failed to achieve the desired effect.
Hopefully, this will be addressed in further patches, or, at the very least, in June’s V0.5 build (I also have to point out that it’s still not possible to select ‘Scotland’ as a nationality, which seems like a huge oversight given the inclusion of L555 BAT into the game. Not that I’m biased in any way, of course!
New rally-specific number plates have also been added, so cars will now be stickered up with ‘Rally Wales’ and ‘Rally Alsace’ decals, for example, with more presumably to follow in future.
The full changelog, including a list of minor bug fixes and improvements, is at the bottom of this article.
Appetiser
Fans shouldn’t get themselves overhyped about AC Rally’s V0.4 build. Sure, the Subaru and Peugeot are beautifully modelled and appeal to the game’s target audience, but the update itself offers a fairly limited set of improvements.
Wintry gravel is a bonus, of course, and it looks the part, but the performance issues (which are largely new to me) are a slight concern.
Still, many players will be happy to see improved controller support and the addition of Logitech’s TrueForce and Fanatec’s FullForce, with the next update in a few weeks expected to include more substantial game improvements. The community really wants to see more stages – the current crop feels more repetitive than the chorus of Cotton Eye Joe.
And thanks to the recently announced esports tie-in with the FIA, the pressure is on for AC Rally to become a more polished experience come Shanghai in December.
I hope they adjust their proportioning valve correctly…
Assetto Corsa Rally V0.4 update changelog
NEW CONTENT:
Added 2 new cars: Peugeot 306 Maxi Kit Car and Subaru Impreza S3 Gr.A 1993
Added snowy weather conditions in Rally Alsace and Rally Wales
Added 2 new Assetto Corsa Rally Events groups for the 2 new cars, for a total of 12 new events
Added 1 event each (3 total) in the FWD, RWD and 4WD Traction groups with mixed weather conditions
Add 3 new partners in the Rally Encyclopedia
CARS:
Fixed go-pro cameras in replays clipping with bodywork on ultra-wide resolutions in Hyundai i20
Fixed gameplay cameras clipping with damaged bodywork in Citroen Xsara WRC
Fixed exposure of “Between Heads” and Driver/Co-Driver go-pro cameras in replays for all cars
Reduced direction-based ambient occlusion on cars
Updated LCD on Lancia Delta
Updated license plates on Skoda Fabia
Added competition logos on all cars
Made the back face of window stickers less saturated (simulated the paper backing)
Many minor bug fixes across all cars
INPUT:
Implemented Fanatec FullForce and Logitech TrueForce, with new in-game FFB parameter to be tuned by users
Improved generic devices compatibility. This enables more devices to work as expected.
PHYSICS:
Added angular damping to small movable objects to prevent unrealistic spinning
Added Peugeot 306 Maxi Kit Car and Subaru Impreza S3 Group A
With the Peugeot 306, it was made available for the first time the adjustment of brake bias through a pressure limiter valve (similarly to tandem master cylinders cars) instead of a balance bar. This, despite the car having a dual master cylinder setup. This allows the driver to reduce rear brake pressure without increasing the front one.
Further tires tuning for all surfaces, in particular:
The way wet conditions and snow affect tire forces has been modified; they no longer reduce cornering stiffness, and the S-shaped curve is effectively cut off when grip is saturated.
In the case of snow, an additional experimental deformation component has been added to the slip angle, which increases the more suitable a tire is for snow. This simulates the tire actually gripping the underlying surface.
These changes make the transition between grip and no grip more immediate and noticeable on both wet and snowy surfaces, improving the car’s responsiveness in the wet and its controllability on snow.
The parameters related to the tire’s dynamic masses and damping have been fine-tuned for more consistent force delivery.
The ability to grip on snow has been added to gravel tires, making them suitable for driving on snowy gravel roads.
The parameters of the tire’s S-shaped curve have been adjusted based on test data.
The load sensitivity parameters of some tires have been refined based on results from field tests.
Revised aerodynamic tuning for both drag and lift forces
Revised some vehicles setups and presets to improve handling or to make it more adequate to latest tires changes.
AUDIO:
Impreza Engine/Exhaust implemented. The sound will improve further in the future – our audio designer is an Impreza owner and wants to make it perfect!
306 Maxi Engine/Exhaust implemented.
Skoda exhaust after-fire implemented.
Rally2 turbo added to Skoda
Improved gravel skid feedback.
Improved 3rd person spatialization for replays especially approaching from a distance.
Improved 3rd person spatialization for forced induction.
Improved 3rd person spatialization for rear engine vehicles.
Fix for turbo BOV sounds cutting off too early based on the drop in turbo pressure.
Fix for too much “hill” reverberation coming through the cabin view.
Fix for various sounds cutting out randomly.
The usual “variety of tiny tweaks all over the place” statement 😉
GAMEPLAY AND UI:
Updated pacenotes for Monte Carlo Bollene
Updated pacenotes for Monte Carlo Sisteron
Fixed incorrect pacenote call on Wales Hafren North 3/6
Fixed stop marshals at Monte-Carlo Bollene 7/8 and Monte-Carlo Sisteron 6/6 not guiding player to stop point
Fixed some incorrect respawn collisions around crowd on Monte-Carlo Bollene walls
Fix an issue resulting in the automatic tire allocation on rally weekends to give an odd number of total tires and single compounds.
Fix an issue preventing the automatic tire allocation to give the correct number of multiple compounds tires. This allows for more tire choices during rally weekends, even while using the automatic selection.
Added Apply button in Video options
Fixed minor text and translations issues
ONLINE:
Player session now correctly sets the client version
Added the Partners functionality
Leaderboards: added a dedicated endpoint for fetching leaderboards as Partner
Leaderboards: store client version with the Leaderboard entries
Leaderboards: FetchLeaderboard procedure now checks for the minimum allowed client version
Leaderboards: removed the results collection from the Store operation, which was causing tons of false errors, ending up in a Time Upload Failure dialog
VFX, LIGHTING AND ART DIRECTION
Added snow support for Alsace and Wales
Added support for the snow on the offroad track materials
Improved road and trajectory readability in snowy conditions on all tracks
Improved the transition between clear and fully snowy ground
Improved the transition between dry and melting snow
Improved the consistency of the snow effect between different surfaces
Improved the snow on asphalt particle effects
Improved vehicles ambient occlusion
Adjusted the red box at stage start and end of all stages for better visibility in daylight conditions
ENVIRONMENTS
Improvements to rally/event dressing at Monte Carlo Sisteron
Improvements to rally/event dressing at Alsace Munster
Improvements to rally/event dressing at Alsace Saverne
Improvements to rally/event dressing at Wales Hafren South
Improvements to rally/event dressing at Wales Hafren North
Added new parked vehicles
Improved parked vehicles visuals by adding shadows under the chassis
Discussion
0 Comments
Join the discussion
Join Traxion.gg to start discussing with members.
Already a member? Sign in