Development News (Oct-2023)

ORIGINAL SOURCE: https://www.speed-dreams.net/en/development-news-2023-09/

6 months after our last official release, v2.3.0, we are with you again to bring you a summary of the development progress of Speed Dreams since then.

Just after that date, Xavier Bertaux has been very busy with very noticeable changes in the project code, such as something as important as the new Tire Model, which allows a much more realistic degradation and temperatures than with the previous model (this new code is based on the work of Bernhard Wymann from TORCS) , and also the possibility to choose 5 different types of tire compounds (1-Soft, 2-Medium, 3-Hard, 4-Wet and 5-Extreme wet). As you know, this is a critical aspect of any car simulator, hence its importance. Other important changes are the following:

• Added the new Kurpfalzring circuit track, based on the old Hockenheimring circuit. (Xavier Bertaux)
• Added the new Jarama circuit track, based on the well-known Spanish circuit (leillo)
• Added the new Atlanta road track, a fictional urban circuit in this USA city. (Xavier Bertaux)
• Updated the Braga and Dijon-Prenois tracks with many corrections, new objects, cameras and various improvements. (leillo)
• Removed recorded time, and added seasons that take data from servers with real information. (Xavier Bertaux)
• OSG Hud completely renewed, with new widgets and the possibility of customizing it using Ctrl+8 (Madbad)
• Lots of changes in trackeditor, including the ability to add and edit individual objects, or clean up adjacent objects, perform automatic interactive corrections on segments, plus lots of changes to trackgen and accc. (IOByte)
• Experimental Simu V4.1 in MPA12 (only for long ovals and road courses) and LSGT1 cars. Added lateral and longitudinal force heat multipliers (June Ravenmoon)

More complete changelog here: https://www.speed-dreams.net/en/development-news-2023-09/2/

IMPORTANT: The new Tire Model only works for now at the Semi-Pro and Pro skill levels (on "Player & Controls"). At other levels the car will not even move. We continue working to implement this feature in all skills. It should be noted that the car categories optimized for this new model are MPA11, MPA12 and SuperCars. We also want to inform you that to test the experimental version 4.1 of Simu (in Options->Simulation: Physics Engine), you must try it with the "TEST" versions of the MPA11 and LS-GT1 category.

We want you try and enjoy these new features, and for this we have created packages for Windows and GNU/Linux (Installer and AppImage) that include all the official and WIP content of Speed Dreams. Remember that these builds are totally experimental and contain new features that are still in development, so they may contain bugs and need a lot of polishing and optimization, but we would love that you give us your feedback in our forums or chat, or report any errors you find in our tickets system.

(About GNU/Linux AppImage, certain distributions (such as Arch and derivatives) may require installing "libxcrypt-compat" to run it.)

To illustrate many of these changes we have created a video where you can see how the temperature and degradation behaves with the MPA12 (Indycar 2012) on the new tire model , the new appearance and all the new features of the new HUD, and the new Kurpfalzring track. We hope you like it: