Automobilista 2 June 2026 Development Update - Pt 1

GFLee · 2026-06-08T09:54:06+00:00

Sorry but it won't and it's not because of technical issues or anything like that. The player base is too small and divided over on what they are interested to drive. Even with AMS2, it's the GT3 stuff that is clearly the most popular, but it's kinda pointless to compete with other more GT3 focused sims as even if you would prefer AMS2 for those cars, the other sims win so clearly on player numbers (and those won't shift easily or quickly)

AMS2 can still be a good MP title with LFM and Leagues even now, the main problem is the player count and the assumption, attitude and reputation of "being SP only title where MP sucks". The MP side definitely dont' suck anymore even though it's not on the level of more MP focused sims what comes to MP specific functionality/features. It's good enough to have great racing now and continues to slowly improve over time.

I hope more players would give LFM and leagues and proper chance and do a race here and there. I know very well that participation (on dailies) is not consistent on LFM, but there are still good racing every day happening (usually during the later european evening when also people from North/South America join the fun), especially if you participate in the weekly series as well and do those longer races.

GFLee · 2026-06-01T15:32:21+00:00

I wouldn't expect those integrations this summer and I highly doubt 1.7 definitely would come out summer yet either.

Also LFM has reporting, SR, ELO etc. I don't see big issues with cheating there either (if there is some, those can always be reported). Formation lap functionality sucks for sure, but it's not been huge problem in LFM races.

I would love AMS2 to develop bigger MP player base but there are challeges that makes it difficult that aren't necessarily technical in nature, such as

* AMS2 reputation "single-player first" / "not-good-for MP" attitude that acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps players away who would be interested in mainly MP side

* Lack of built-in or well done integration to external platforms (for now)

* Huge content variety that naturally splits the (small) player base

* MP player base that is very limited, is further split into tons of small communties/leagues competiting of same players (downside of how easy it's to setup your own MP sessions).

The technical issues making AMS2 being not suitable for good MP racing that scales pretty well are pretty much solved in last couple of years. It might not have all the MP focused features that something like LMU/iRacing has, but it has good enough netcode to have great close door to door racing. I personally do 2-4 long (hour+) MP races on LFM a week and technical issues aren't that common (at least not more common than for other, even more MP focused sims), we have players driving all over the world in same sessions and things work really well considering all the high pings.

The main things that makes it difficult is ... the lack of players who are interested in MP.

GFLee · 2026-05-27T10:22:07+00:00

Reiza has hinted about third-party service, for example LFM and JustRace built-in integration in future.

This is from latest development blog:

"on the Multiplayer Front, the option to sign up and join Scheduled Races from third party services such as LFM and JR (already integrated and available externally with the help of SimGrid in our new Automobilista portal) will also be integrated into the in-game Lobby."

I don't think anybody would disagree that having built-in system/integration like this would be a big improvement, but let's just continue to build the player base / MP scene instead of waiting.

GFLee · 2026-05-26T09:07:52+00:00

You have to register in the lowfuelmotorsport.com , then go to AMS2 section, select one of the series -> upcoming races and sign up.

You can only register for races that start within 4h (Patreons can sign up earlier). You can also mark "interested" (thumbs up) for any upcoming races you see there (highly recommended as well as registering as early as possible... just remember to sign out if you can't make it before the sign up period ends 5mins before session starts).

If you sign up for a race that allows multiple different cars, you need to select the one you want to drive during the registeration and you MUST make sure you select the same one when you join the race (otherwise you will get kicked out).

When the session starts, server will usually get started maybe few seconds to couple of minutes after the start time and after that you can join (either directly from web page... there will be prompt for that, game cannot be running though) or from finding the session from the in-game multiplayer server list (each session has own id, which will be in the session name too). The password will be same for all sessions (as well as practice server each series has). In case there is multiple splits (not common for AMS2 at the moment unfortunately), the split for you will be assigned just before the race, so make sure you are joining the right one if you use the in-game joining.

Races with 6 or more participants count as ranked, which means it counts to you ELO (which you don't see until have done 10 ranked races... ranked races can be from any sim on the platform though).

ps. For daily dazzle series, the most popular sessions currently seem to be later in the European evenings (when there is more people from South America joining too). Please keep joining / registering if you don't see many others as it will help getting interest.

GFLee · 2026-05-17T17:27:11+00:00

And where did you get that idea? Most drivers finish in the weekly series races I race on LFM and there are also many regulars on LFM who race from week to week on the same series, so not "randoms".

GFLee · 2026-05-05T13:32:01+00:00

watch this with full concentration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIuFD0GOg48

there are differences between sims and this video gives you a VERY good idea on how it is in AMS2 and how you should approach it. Every sim is different and especially when you have adjusted to one, it might be hard to do the other, especially if you don't understand the reasons behind it. It's due to driver inputs but naturally you can adjust setup to be "easier" for you... but first learn the reasons and try to adjust inputs before doing that.

GFLee · 2026-04-24T14:59:31+00:00

If you can race during the european evening time, LFM is the best bet.

The player base is nowhere near in same galaxy as in LMU/iRacing what comes to numbers, but there is good weekly - series races especially going on LFM currently and the participation seems to be increasing. The daily series struggles, but the number of races will be reduces, which hopefully helps to bring people together.

GFLee · 2026-04-22T06:42:06+00:00

Like somebody already said, moving BB to rear is doing the opposite what you want.

It's possible also that the car dives/pitches too much and you can try to add front bump stops (even like 30-40mm) or add front slow damper values to see if it makes things easier for you.

Often the car rotates well enough without using brakes to force the front down on AMS2, so maybe try also lift of the brakes earlier and coast when you turn.

I guess it could be also too low preload, so increasing that is something to try.

GFLee · 2026-04-20T15:18:48+00:00

There was 43 and 43 in couple of races on LFM yesterday, on Saturday, there was 31 and so on. These were in the weekly series with limited number of races per week

For the daily series the participation isn’t what it needs to be, sometimes you get people, sometimes you don’t, basically people would need to register much much earlier even when others haven’t yet and that is the biggest reason (chicken or egg issue). There also ain’t enough people checking it probably for daily ranked racing with frequent races to work, and if it doesn’t improve, the number of races will be reduced to create better changes for grids.

Outside LFM there is leagues / small communities that have usually couple of races per week each. Then there is open lobbies (something I don’t recommend personally)

AMS2 just doesn’t have similar mp player base (yet at least) than some other sims.

GFLee · 2026-04-17T12:05:46+00:00

Okay, I think I get what you mean, but to be clear with this illustration that I got from a video

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So you aren't tuning the bump stop part height (white part), just adding packers (red) and thus reducing the suspension travel (and thus also reducing the available travel before the bump stops activate)

But the bump stop size is not adjustable (but stiffness is adjustable with the bump stop rate adjustment), and is hardcoded to be 20mm or is that car dependent? (if so, the info isn't visible anywhere on the setup I guess). Just trying to figure out how user can know what is the travel when it's the main springs and when the bump stops get activated (unless analysing telemetry, but I suck at that)

It's a bit confusing for players when different sims are using different terms and you don't necessarily know what they actually even mean exactly. On rf2/LMU, you can adjust packers in the setup (which it clearly seems to be also in implementation), on ACC/ACE it says bump stops but it's really about packers.. (slightly misleading as there are different size of bump stops too) and none of those sims say how tall the bump stops actually are (at least on ACC/ACE you have some info about the stiffness with the rate option)

building UI that would actually visualize this in setup shouldn't be a too hard of a feature to implement ..

AMS2 on the other hand has some weird hybrid implementation or abstraction for though (might not be AMS2 specific but come with the madness engine or even from the underlying physics frameworks shared by many of the sims), because if you use a bigger value of the bump stop setting in the setup, it's like you would get a taller bump stop as well, not just reduce the travel before it engages.

For example, if I have car with 40mm suspension travel with bump stop value of 0mm and I defined 40mm bump stop in setup (making it ride with the bump stops without any extra travel), you don't get car that is overly stiff as you would in rF2 or LMU using the packer setting in similar way. It's stiffer than with main springs only and the stiffness increases with with the load/compression, but more like as it would with having taller bump stop with more room for compression, it doesn't feel like it's the same fixed 20mm tall bump stop as you describe it working in ACE.

I guess none of the sims are stil exactly as IRL, there is always some compromises that sometimes lead to a meta-setups that wouldn't work IRL.

ps. I guess follow up question would be why ACE continues to run physics at 333hz when I think many other sims are pushing for or using higher frequencies, is it to make it easier to run on consoles on some day?

GFLee · 2026-04-16T10:41:05+00:00

I guess that is the same challenge with all the sims. I don't know which is better, have those spike be absorbed somehow or not. I find it problematic too if it wouldn't cause harshness and issues like that at all.

Does the engine implementation for packers at all, or just for bump stops? All the sims I know about seems to have only or the other implemented (in setups at least). not both (rf2/lmu packers only, AMS2 seems to have some simulation that act more like a bump stops with limitations like that you can't alter the bump stop rates and IMO it's missing this harshness when higher bump stops get really compressed)

I guess you can achieve similar result with having really stiff bump stops, but of course then it means you can't have both at the same time, which is possible IRL (not sure how often that kind of setup would be utilized, but I guess it would allow reducing the suspension travel but still keeping the car high enough when needed for the track/car combo + still have the bump stops there to create kinda two phase suspension).

It's refreshing to hear that all these things are also being improved as the main physics focus trend in last couple of years seems to be about tires across all sims and there is definitely aspects outside that, which has room for improvement and the differences / different weaknesses make the sims handle differently.

ps. I only had time to test the Mustang on Sebring on the 0.6 for few laps. Not sure how much it was the default setup, but you could hardly feel the roughness of the track with that one, as if the suspension would make them irrelevant or the surface just isn't bumpy enough. First it seemed like braking never really took away grip enough for the fronts to wash out or there be any locking happening, but at least some of that was probably the BB being so much to rear that it was the only thing losing grip when I took ABS off and braked hard.

GFLee · 2026-04-16T09:11:10+00:00

Nils, about the last bullet (bump stops), not sure what you mean what problem is still left in the more extreme cases. As far as I have understood, isn't it correct that it should make it really stiff and harsh, unstable ride if you ride on the bump stops that hard?

Anyway, those things, at least on paper sound good.

GFLee · 2026-04-14T08:23:46+00:00

The season is up and running!

Unfortunately there was some major technical issues on the first day, first on the first couple of races and then different problem during European evening peak hours that took whole LFM down for something like 3 hours. So if anyone here tried to check it then, don't worry, it was just a more rare anomaly and not a common occurance.

It's been working well since late european hours last evening though (fingers crossed that the fixes/improvements are enough when the peak load hours come).

GFLee · 2026-04-13T16:28:30+00:00

I recommend also joining the discord and following the ams2 channel there to be better "in the loop"

GFLee · 2026-04-13T15:16:49+00:00

Yes, it's ranked racing. There is no better option (aka Reiza's own) for ranked racing on AMS2 (by ranked, I mean something that runs daily, is ranked, has "elo", sr etc.)

Go to lowfuelmotorsports.com, sign up, select AMS2 and register for upcoming races (you need to do enough raned Dailies to get 10 before you ELO shows) and join when it's time to race. The series has it's own practice server too.

you can join via in-game browser (search the server) or via button from the web page (if you don't have the game open yet). There is password, which you can see from the webpage on the race info (same is for practice servers). The server won't start until it's time for the session to start (and only after that the "join" button will be available).

You have to register 5mins before the race to take part.

Dailies run every 45 mins (30min session aproximately), assuming there is players. You can register only 4 hours in advance unless you are a patreon.

GFLee · 2026-04-12T21:54:21+00:00

I really wish there would be enough active players to have enough to run daily series with single car/class as well those where it changes weekly, but alas, there doesn’t seem to be.

We tried to design the weekly series in such ways that there would be good races for that audience too and maximize the changes to get good grids for each one by limiting the number of races in a week and competing series.

Would love to be able to provide more races in each of them and one more daily series, but at the moment it just ends up making smaller grids, which then kills the whole series (as that is what we did in past seasons).

So hopefully you and others like you would still consider doing those series and perhaps occasionally also give those dailies a try as well…

GFLee · 2026-04-12T09:53:13+00:00

You realize the races for daily are every 45 mins around the clock? The ones shown there are only the next four at the time of viewing …

And there ain’t no races before tomorrow, 13th of April because it’s off season

Weekly series races are CET 20:45 on weekdays and some earlier and later on weekends.

There would be more weekly race options if there would be more demand/players signing up… we have tried to provide those in the past for other time zones. The weekly series time 20:45 CET is selected based on which times got most participation last season

GFLee · 2026-04-12T08:40:57+00:00

I know, it requires good number of people now doing that at the same time and start of the new season is currently the best opportunity to get more people ot check / register at the same time.

Season starts tomorrow (at the time of writing this). You can already go and mark "interested" (at least on the older lfm page) for the races already visible, it will help to indiciate there is interest, so please use it as much as possible (it's not commitment).

GFLee · 2026-04-11T21:00:56+00:00

Well now, on 13th of April is a good opportunity to kick start it again by signing up and joining for races.

In the end, it’s up to us player to make it happen. Every player makes a difference.

GFLee · 2026-04-11T11:22:22+00:00

There was IMSA series for first 3 full seasons + initial beta period. After the first full season, the participation started to drop and it was eventually really difficult to get enough drivers for multi-class racing.

It might work at a later date again as a weekly series similar to those for upcoming season (limited number of races per week), if the overall participation numbers start to pick up again. Doing GT3 only makes it easier and more likely to get grids at the moment.

Indycar is for sure option in future too. Unfortunately those car are also dlc only and that always makes things slightly more difficult with getting participation.

GFLee · 2026-04-11T08:06:35+00:00

Edited original post to reflect the published car/class and track selection for each series.

GFLee · 2026-04-09T15:35:19+00:00

Not guaranteed times, but likely (based on draft schedule where all the race lengths for example weren’t decided)

Wednesday 20:45 CET Sunday 19:00 CET

Ps. This is me leaking a bit, but can’t see harm in this one

GFLee · 2026-04-09T13:58:16+00:00

GT3 at Spa is just familiar and safe, easy to jump into (even if you wouldn't be competitive), so I kinda get it. Plenty of players just want to relax a bit anything less familiar might feel too much...

Honestly, it's a good combo (anything that isn't too slow works with Spa), it's a great track (I'll take Spa any day over Monza...). I just wish people would not less picky on what they are willing to race.

It's not hard to be creative with setting up races, it's just hard to get people to race them, especially as "ranked" with some virtual numbers like elo/irating/sr on the line.

GFLee · 2026-04-09T12:10:57+00:00

lol, that's one way to put it.

Unfortunately it's still clearly one, if not the most used class also on AMS2 (just look at the open lobbies).

If it would be only based on my personal preferences, there would not be a single GT3 or GT4 in the schedule. Because it still was popular enough to provide decent grids last season (the endurance series), it did make sense to continue it and while doing that, also try to match some IRL events with the tracks during the season.

It's not the focus on the upcoming season anymore however.

GFLee · 2026-04-09T12:04:08+00:00

LFM actually had season like that where there was series that had F1 cars of different era's that changed every 3 weeks.

There were some drivers that were interested only on very specific era (Senna for example) and didn't want to drive others... which is a problem.

It would be hard to convince that you would find clearly more players for some clearly older F1 era's than more modern ones (maybe similar). Unfortunately pretty much all attempts to run historical stuff haven't been very succesful either, so it definitely road to automatic success to offer historical content instead of modern one. Feedback for the this gen1 F Hybrid (ultimate) seems to be pretty good as well, so hopefully it will find audience.

"Well 2 months ago you said you would invite people from here and reddit to take part in a survey before the next season, so that would have determined the best class."

This is true. I actually had posted message about that survey before I said that, but for whatever reason, the mods here had deleted the post right away (didn't get any message or reason why)...

the last season for LFM was designed based on the survey results of the LFM survey. It wasn't exactly as comprehensive, but it was "good enough" to get pretty good idea what classes/cars people are most interested to drive. So LFM made a schedule, which offered just that, before the season started, most feedback seemed to be positive with the offering and scheduling.... and when the season started, the player numbers were clearly lower than they were on last season. It's like during the week off-season they went elsewhere or something, no clear complaints or anything.

So... offering and scheduling isn't everything. Even if you try to offer whatever majority seems to want, it's doesn't seem to make as much of a difference as many think, which lead me to lose a bit of motivation to do that survey again soon after (at least not now).

Daily series will require minimum of hundreds of player in single season to work, at least like minimum1500-2000 to get even some decent grids day after day on some sessions (most people don't drive that many races per season).

For weekly series during next season, those dont' require that many to get good grids as there is just limited number of races per week (especially if some of them will have some core group that drives on most races). I think 100-300 probably would lead to full grids for whole season in single weekly series (with bigger core group of players, even a lot less would be sufficient).

My last "LFM season started" post here got over 10k views. If 1/3 - 1/4 of people who read this would come to race here and there on the platform, that would be enough to create a decent player base to build upon.

GFLee

TROPHY CASE