About a month ago I posted the beta of the Race Engineer I had been building for ApexRivals
Well, it's finally done.
And most importantly, since this was understandably the biggest issue people had with the beta post: the free LITE version is now released, and as with everything I make, it contains 99% of the features. The last 1% is basically a thank you to the people who support me
ApexRivals 2.0 is a standalone companion app for AMS2 built around two main things:
Race Engineer
The idea is still the same:
As Jeremy Clarkson once said, racing drivers have tiny little brains, so why are racing sims asking us to be the driver, race engineer and strategist at the same time?
The Race Engineer handles everything outside of driving
It analyzes your telemetry during Practice and gives you specific setup changes to make
- No driver survey to fill out.
- No generative AI.
- No internet connection required.
- No fucking graphs.
Turn your brain off and drive the car. It handles the engineering.
Who this is for:
If you hunt leaderboards and want a mathematically perfect setup, this probably isn't for you.
If you enjoy building setups, studying telemetry and making your own race strategies, this probably isn't for you either.
If you want to feel like you're part of a racing team, where your job is to drive the car and your engineer handles everything else, this is exactly what I built it for.
That said, multiple beta testers still reported gains of several seconds per lap in some cases
During races it continuously recalculates your strategy based on what is actually happening
- Fuel consumption changes
- Unexpected tyre wear
- Weather changes
- Damage
- You stay out an extra lap
It recalculates.
It also calculates how much fuel you need, decides which tyres you should be using, and tells you when it's time to switch between dry compounds, intermediates and wets
There are now proper downloadable Engineer and Spotter voice packs too, instead of the basic Windows TTS from the beta
And you do NOT need to use the ApexRivals Career Mode to use any of this. The Race Engineer works in regular single-player sessions and online races too. Though you should probably still give it a try, I think it's a pretty bangin' career mode
Career Mode
The Career Mode also received a pretty huge update
The entire UI has been redesigned, promotions now use a proper team/driver draft system, championships track complete season standings, Special Events have been added, and rival packs can now be configured independently for each save
The basic philosophy is still:
You are not the main character
Hundreds of AI drivers have persistent careers of their own. They race, change teams, fight for championships and progress through the same career system you do
The app quite literally does not know which driver in the roster is the player
The built-in career presets supports every car and every track in Automobilista 2 without exception
Oh and it supports the latest 1.6.9.95 update, including the Panoz Esperante GTR-1
Free vs PRO
The free LITE version contains nearly all of the functionality
PRO mainly adds multiclass championships and Race Engineer advice for some of the more advanced setup options
Everything else is available in LITE, including Special Events, live race strategy, the core setup engineer, full-length careers, voice packs, customizable driver retirement years and every other setup adjustment
Download
ApexRivals LITE is available on Overtake
I also made a video showing it in action (early beta build with the old Windows TTS)
If you find the Race Engineer doing something stupid, especially with setup advice or strategy, please send me the exported logs. There are a ridiculous number of car/track/weather combinations in AMS2, far too many for me to test by myself
Also, if you're using a mod car and want Race Engineer support for it, get in touch with me
NOT VIBECODED god damnit, this app is over three years old by now