Assetto Corsa EVO: Beginners Guide

Assetto Corsa EVO Early Access programme introduces an exciting journey, giving the player the possibility to learn, drive, purchase or rent cars from road to racing categories. By obtaining licenses, you unlock access to different car classes and progress toward mastering the hardest race cars. Despite the possibility of learning with a progressive difficulty curve, the player is free to express themselves with the cars and game modes they prefer to drive.

In Assetto Corsa EVO, you earn experience points (XP) and virtual credits by participating in various activities, including Driving Academy, Practice sessions, Quick Races, and performing game actions such as obtaining a new driving license, purchase a new vehicle or simply accessing the game. Your rewards depend on both the type of activity and,your performance in that activity.

For example, winning a race will earn you significantly more XP and money than finishing in last place.

At the beginning of your journey, you can choose from six different starter cars. Each car may come with a selection of presets, which can include both cosmetic and mechanical variations.

Visual Presets: when you have multiple cars inside the same model, and they only differ by visuals, it means they are different visual presets. They can have different price tags derived from different trims (which may include some optional visual parts that affect pricing), but they are the same mechanically speaking when it regards performance.

Mechanical Presets: when you have multiple cars which also differ in Performance Index (the yellow value in the top right corner of the car thumbnail), then these versions also impact the car’s performance. You can identify these differences by checking the Performance Indicator on the car’s description. Higher numbers indicate better performance.

Below is an image from the dealership screen which has been labelled to explain what each of the different graphics mean on screen.
1. Manufacturer and Model: The car’s brand and model.
2. Preset Options: The number of preset configurations available.
3. Performance Indicator: A numerical value showing the car’s performance potential.
4. License Requirement: Indicates the license needed to purchase the vehicle.
5. Cost Range: Shows the minimum and maximum price of the car.

There are six starter cars to choose from with various presets options.

1. Abarth 695 Biposto
2. Alfa Romeo Junior
3. Ford Escort RS Cosworth
4. Honda S2000 AP1
5. Hyundai i30 N Hatchback
6. Volkswagen Golf 8 GTI Clubsport
When selecting your starter car you can choose to test drive the car before making the purchase. You may want to do this after you have customised the colouring and such.

For the game to be initialized, you need to finalize your first vehicle purchase. After that you will be inside the Main Menu, with your new car and the game ready to be played. From now on you can play how you prefer, with the only limits being:
• You need Driving Licenses for purchasing different levels of vehicles
• You need enough credits if you want to purchase and own vehicles, otherwise you can Rent them for very low amount of virtual credits

Once you have chosen your starter car you will be taken to the main menu of Assetto Corsa EVO. Here you have multiple options to choose from.
1. Drive – This is where you can start your racing experience, this is detailed further in this guide.
2. Vehicles – Here you can purchase, customise or manage your cars.
3. Academy – This is the proving grounds for Assetto Corsa EVO.
4. Driver – Make adjustments to your character profile (limited to this in EA1) Not available on day 1
5. Settings

Initially there are two game modes to choose from and each game mode will feature different variables you can set for your racing experience:

Practice Duration: Set how long you want your practice session to be from 1 – 90 minutes.
Practice Start Time: Set what time you want the in-game time to be set to.

Use Quick Race to hop on track with other AI cars very quickly.
Race Type: Choose whether you want the race to be limited by Laps or by Time. E.g. 5 lap race or a 10 minute race.
Race Start Time: Set the time you want the in-game time to be set to.
Time Multiplier: Set how fast you want the in-game time to move at. From 1x to 48x speed. 1x speed means 1 minute will take 1 minute. 48x means 1 minute will take 1.25 seconds to elapse.
Grid Starting Position: Set where you want to start this race.
Grid Type: Currently this is disabled, however this will be used to control the gridding methods, Normal gridding, reverse gridding etc.
Number of Opponents: Set how many AI opponents you want in the race.
Opponent Skill: Set the difficulty of your AI opponents. From 80% – 100%
Single Make: Set whether you want the race to contain one make of cars (matching your car) or allow a variety of cars to race.

Choose your preferred track and layout.

Select a vehicle from your Garage or rent one for specific races. When renting vehicles, you can only rent the cars you have the driving licenses for. The cost indicated for the rental will be applied when, inside the session, you hit the Drive button. The rental can be as long as you wish, depending on the game mode settings. When you return to the Single Player Menu, your car will be reset to the last activated owned car.

Customise the weather for the race using the presets on the left. Dynamic Weather enables a random weather transition inside the session. Further options will be made available further in development.

Adjust assist levels to match your skills.

Multiplayer is disabled at the moment and will be added as a future Early Access Update.

The Garage is your management tool for all the cars you own, whether you want to view or sell any of your cars.

The Dealership is the only method to buying cars, you will only be able to purchase cars in the ways that the dealers sell/sold their cars in real life. This means that customisation at the dealership is limited. You can customise your cars further once the vehicle is yours.
NOTE: The manufacturer list is not final and more will be introduced through Early Access and beyond.

Customisation system in Assetto Corsa EVO will be incredibly detailed, as of today, you can customise some of your cars all the way down to the very fine details, from body kits all the way down to handbrake stitching. To do this, once you’ve purchased a vehicle, head out of the dealership and into the customisation menu. This section offers more than the “Configure” option inside the dealership, where you are limited to Original Equipment options. The Customization menu is your personal area and allows for further vehicle customization. This feature and the customisation options on cars will be expanded during the Early Access and beyond.

The academy is where you prove yourself by completing challenges and earning medals to unlock better licenses which as a result will unlock faster racing classes.

Licenses are tiered, and some require you to earn lower-level licenses before progressing to advanced levels. By completing these challenges, you’ll steadily climb the ranks toward becoming a professional racer.

Here you can see an overview of your driver profile as well as some ratings for various categories in your driving.

Getting the right feel in a racing game is very important in order to feel all of the detail in the force feedback, customising the button layouts to match your wheel setups and getting the correct inputs for your pedals.

1. Go to Settings and then click Controls.

Along the top you will see the inputs that have been detected.
Depending on your setup, you may have two separate inputs for steering wheel and pedals.

Let’s start with your Steering Wheel.
2. Click the Steering wheel at the top and then click steering, then turn your wheel. You should now see an icon on the right hand side of the bar to show it has now been bound.

You can customise the rotation and other settings by clicking either:

Properties

Settings:

You can change these settings in the menu whilst in a session to make it easier to find the right settings for you.
3. After you have found the right wheel setup for you, next we need to bind the other key inputs. We recommend that you bind the following:

– Shift Up
– Shift Down
– Toggle Wipers*
– Pit Limiter*
*Depending on your assists settings you may not need to bind these as they can be set to automatically come on.

Next you need to bind your pedals.
Depending on whether your pedals connect directly to your PC or they connect to your wheel base will depend on how you bind the pedals. In this example the pedals are connected directly to the PC so they’re shown as a separate input.
4. Click on the relevant option at the top and then click “Throttle”, press your throttle pedal and then repeat this process for the “Brake”.