Recently, we highlighted the difficult standing karting has in sim racing. It may never become everyone's favorite discipline, but Yannik finds that VR might convert a few more of those who are skeptical.
Karting might be the closest to doing actual racing most of us will ever get. Simply find a rental kart track, hop in and you are good to go in most cases - no license or anything like that required. However, as @Connor Minniss recently argued, karting simply does not translate well to sim racing. And for the most part, I agree.
To quote myself from a comment I made on the article: It's so unique when it comes to seating position, the vibrations that you feel literally everywhere and the vision (because there is no bodywork around you) that it might just not work as the fun parts of experiencing it yourself are very hard to replicate.
However, I recently gave karting a go in sim racing again during a Friday night online session in Automobilista 2 with a friend. We were just running a few fun combinations and decided to race rental karts at one of Interlagos' karting layouts. The difference to all the other times I tried karting in sim racing: This time, I was running in VR.
Not exactly keen on driving with my virtual driver's head essentially on their lap, I usually ended up with short sessions that were not really that fun whenever I tried karting. But in VR, things started to click basically from the first time I drove out of the pits.
Suddenly, I could see exactly where to put my tiny tires to keep a clean line and keep up the momentum. At the same time, I noticed how well some things I noticed when driving a real rental kart for the first time in forever recently translated.
So it must have looked interesting, to say the least, when I turned around frequently in my sim rig to see where the other karts were. In a real kart, you can locate the other drivers much better just by listening to where they are - but maybe that can be improved via sound settings.
Meanwhile, with a wheel base that is powerful enough, you can even get close to the force you would need to turn the wheel in the real kart. Not only is this more immersive, but it also helps with not turning in too much and lose more momentum than necessary. Of course, the steering angle in a kart is already tiny compared to a car, but this was still surprisingly helpful.
Obviously, the G-forces you would experience when racing a kart are still missing and would probably be hard to replicate. Thinking back to how sore I was after that hour-long rental kart session I mentioned from a few weeks ago, that is probably for the best, though.
Have you ever tried karting in sim racing while in VR? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
Karting might be the closest to doing actual racing most of us will ever get. Simply find a rental kart track, hop in and you are good to go in most cases - no license or anything like that required. However, as @Connor Minniss recently argued, karting simply does not translate well to sim racing. And for the most part, I agree.
To quote myself from a comment I made on the article: It's so unique when it comes to seating position, the vibrations that you feel literally everywhere and the vision (because there is no bodywork around you) that it might just not work as the fun parts of experiencing it yourself are very hard to replicate.
However, I recently gave karting a go in sim racing again during a Friday night online session in Automobilista 2 with a friend. We were just running a few fun combinations and decided to race rental karts at one of Interlagos' karting layouts. The difference to all the other times I tried karting in sim racing: This time, I was running in VR.
VR To The Karting Rescue
Much like with basically everything else, specifically open-wheel cars, this factor improved the experience a lot. And I mean A LOT. One of the biggest problems I have when racing karts on a screen is that you can hardly see anything. Most of the relevant parts of a kart are very close to the ground (duh!), but with the upright seating position in these things, you hardly see them unless you move your camera POV to an unrealistic point.Not exactly keen on driving with my virtual driver's head essentially on their lap, I usually ended up with short sessions that were not really that fun whenever I tried karting. But in VR, things started to click basically from the first time I drove out of the pits.
Suddenly, I could see exactly where to put my tiny tires to keep a clean line and keep up the momentum. At the same time, I noticed how well some things I noticed when driving a real rental kart for the first time in forever recently translated.
Real-world Learnings Do Apply
Just like in the real kart, jumping on the accelerator again immediately after I was done with braking for a corner worked wonders for keeping up the momentum. Rental karts are not powerful enough to spin out when doing this, instead you can kind of reign in the acceleration using the steering angle. The only thing thatt was, in fact, a bit annoying was the absence of a rear view mirror, as I did not switch on the virtual mirror for VR.So it must have looked interesting, to say the least, when I turned around frequently in my sim rig to see where the other karts were. In a real kart, you can locate the other drivers much better just by listening to where they are - but maybe that can be improved via sound settings.
Meanwhile, with a wheel base that is powerful enough, you can even get close to the force you would need to turn the wheel in the real kart. Not only is this more immersive, but it also helps with not turning in too much and lose more momentum than necessary. Of course, the steering angle in a kart is already tiny compared to a car, but this was still surprisingly helpful.
Obviously, the G-forces you would experience when racing a kart are still missing and would probably be hard to replicate. Thinking back to how sore I was after that hour-long rental kart session I mentioned from a few weeks ago, that is probably for the best, though.
Have you ever tried karting in sim racing while in VR? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
