News Formula RaceRoom US available now for RaceRoom

RaceRoom Racing Experience's car count just went up one notch thanks to the release of the much-anticipated Formula RaceRoom US car.

The car is available on the RaceRoom Store for £2.97 (yes that's real money rather than RaceRoom's vRP system which was admittedly confusing) and Sector3 Studios have given players the chance to purchase any of 20 additional liveries for 25 pence a pop.

The open-wheeled Formula car is very much based on an Indycar and boasts a 2.2 litre turbocharged V6 engine which produces 675 bhp. Players also have access to an additional 60bhp thanks to the “Push to Pass” button (which is good for 20 seconds with 10 applications available).

The Formula Raceroom US car has 408Nm of torque, weighs just 785Kg, has a 44/56% weight distribution and has a maximum theoretical downforce of 3000Kg @ 322 km/h. The car transmits its power to the road via a 6-speed paddle shifter and redlines at 12,200 rpm.

To accompany the new DLC a usual update has been appplied to RaceRoom (including a VR update) , the details of which can be seen in the changelog below.

Game: 

Shared Memory: Added information on upcoming flag system, updated minor version number. Flag system is currently awaiting UI implementation and made unavailable to players.

Shared Memory: Changed how tire wear is reported so it matches the tire wear text in data displays (1.0-0.0 range when tire wear was between 1.0-0.94).

Added support for starting the game on any detected screen. The option resides in General Video Settings. Fullscreen changes are only applying after a game restart.

Fixed an issue with updating a profile avatar with the game in fullscreen where the dialogue box would appear behind the game

Added a possible fix for a rare case where only the car shadow of a car would be rendered after switching focus from car to car or from camera set to another

Implemented Reputation System that will run and track player incidents. This is in alpha stage and we’re gathering data in the background. Nothing will be visible for players just yet.

Fixed bug where opponents session data sometimes caused championship files to be broken due to conflicting ids.

Fixed so the game doesn't crash when trying to load championships affected by the bug above.

Fixed issue with game window using the wrong style when going from fullscreen to windowed in a resolution that's lower than the default resolution.

Fixed a menu issue with percentage stepper buttons not being enabled when switching from minimum<->maximum allowed values.

Broadcast : Fixed a case where camera selection requests were resulting in the game cycling through cameras instead.

Added an upper deadzone setting for the throttle axis in advanced controller settings.

Fixed an issue with DRS getting disabled before the race ends in timed based race sessions.

Fixed an issue where the race was starting without the player if Race Monitor was clicked instead of “Drive” at race start.

Fixed an issue where the DRS wing animation would remain deployed after the race.

Fixed an issue where on certain tracks the result timing was showing A.I. cars doing an extra lap.

Made lap times go invalid if player is speeding in the pitlane, so you can’t get fastest lap that way. New HUD overlay to signal it. (Stowe Long is a good example of where pitlane could be exploited to shortcut the first chicane)

Fixed a crash that happened in Single Player championships if the player clicked the pit preset button and then the continue to next race button before game entered the pit preset menu.

Multiplayer: 

Fixed the issue where a player's contact shadow was being left on the track after disconnecting from the server.

Fixed an issue where a time penalty for a non performed drivethrough had no effect on results.

Various fixes to some inconsistencies that was occurring on certain IPv4 to IPv6 mappings.

Fixed issue with MP results taking a long time to arrive when running a dedi locally where backend communication fails.

Fixed issue with DRS animation not working in race sessions for opponent cars.

Fixed so multiplayer replays are now marked as such in the Media Hub.

VR:

Rendering through coupled draw calls to improve performance while also taking care of the issue reported that objects and cars would appear 2D from time to time.

Multi-threaded some of the rendering to improve performance

Added three bindable keys to modify the user’s headset translations multiplier, which alters in-game head movement and eye-to-eye distance. Default value is 0.9.

Fixed an issue where the Startup Argument that was set for RaceRoom in the Steam client wasn’t being used when launching game from an external link. (ie a competition webpage)

Shortened the distance at which lower poly car models are used.

Temporarily disabled the rendering of particle clouds. They’re bugged at the moment in VR.

Sounds, Cameras, Physics & AI:

Fixed a bug where H-pattern gearbox cars would receive delays for both up and downshifts.

Fixed TV cameras at the bridge and gantry areas for Nordschleife Tourist layout

Cars no longer hover a few cm above the track

Formula RaceRoom 2 and Formula RaceRoom US have a special pitting system allowing them to perform fast pitstops.

Reduced bigly the probability of stress induced mistakes by AI’s

Fixed an issue where AI’s were accumulating stress by being followed by an opponent in the pitlane.

AI’s now ignore cars in the pitlane entrance lane if they’re not on it themselves.

Improved AI navigation in the pitlane.

Fixed an issue where AI would never start a qualifying lap around Nordschleife 24H when fuel multipliers were enabled.

Fixed so only damaged AI or AI’s on their inlap will use the Nordschleife VLN / 24H pitlane entrance by the start/finish straight

Fixed an issue where an AI going back to garage during a practice or qualifying session would never go out on track again

Fixed AI using up their P2P in the beginning of a race without saving them

Many more AI code tweaks to improve awareness

Formula Raceroom 3 : Improved the blending of the sound samples

Turbo cars : unloaded turbo pressure increased to deliver a better boost from a standing start.

Laguna Seca : Tweaks to AI lines

Mid Ohio GP and Chicane : Tweaks to AI lines

Moscow : added TV camera sets

Suzuka GP : Tweaks to AI lines

Art:

Bentley Continental GT3 : added data display

DTM cars : added data display

Formula RaceRoom 2 : added data display

McLaren MP4 12 C : added data display

Tatuus F4 : added data display

WTCC TC1 cars : added data display (except Lada Granta)

Hockenheim : Smoothed out bumps

Laguna Seca : Smoothed out bumps, audience update, updates and tweaks

Lausitzring : Smoothed out bumps, audience update, fix to vegetation

Monza : Smoothed out bumps, updated the track to match 2016 season

Norisring : Smoothed out bumps

Nuerburgring : Smoothed out bumps

Sachsenring : Smoothed out bumps

Sonoma : Smoothed out bumps

Zandvoort : Smoothed out bumps

Portal & Backend:

Made optimizations to code handling content in portal.

Implemented individual car packs system which includes all liveries of a car. Livery packs will roll in very soon. For testing purposes we will start with just one in this case the FR US.

Changed so the livery clusters show how many liveries there are in total and how many you own in parenthesis.

Added so the essential packs that are purchased show date of purchase when hovering over them.

Added so we show prices in real currency based on player currency preference.

Changed so cars in which there are still liveries to purchase, the car does not appear as fully owned in store.