What's one tip you would give fellow simracers?

Focus on consistency and speed will follow.

Spinelli said:

Sure, it's nice if your wife (or husband) puts on fancy clothes when you get together at night, but if you NEED her to do that for you to enjoy her then that means your enjoyment of her is not pure, it's shallow and not real. Apply that to sim racing (woman/man) and equipment (clothes).

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This ! This is THE best advice I've read in years.

If you think it's the setup, it usually is. Don't get used to bad habits you have to be doing with bad setups on cars.

Remember one 0,5L beer before the race makes you (me) faster. But be aware - already 2 beer are working contrary

Don't believe BS some people tell you about what's realistic and what's not. And never take part in discussions with fanatics of a game. People used to call call original RBR's physiscs just like the real thing. It took years and several NGP's to make it somehow close to realistic (still has issues). To anyone who has actually driven a rally car those original physics were junk and insane. And yet online warriors who've never driven competitively would still say that it's just like the real thing and bash anyone who said otherwise.

So another piece of advice - don't just concentrate on virtual racing - try to go to a trackday or at least do some go-karting to see for yourself how vehicles behave at speed. If you know it's limitations, sim racing can help you become a better driver and this works the other way around: real driving helps a lot in sim-racing and it also helps spot the inconsistencies of physics engines. So you will know when someone is talking GB like in RBR's case

Stay away from the Sim Racing sub on reddit.

Also the person who is adamantly trying to tell you what is and isn't realistic very probably has no real world driving experience other than what they gleaned from the plastic pedal car they had when they were 3.

markg88 said:

Why is it that Raceroom isn't used?

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We did host Raceroom for a while, but most of the time there were too few attendees which obviously makes a race less interesting. I may try to host some "free content raceroom event for everybody" some time in the nearer future, IF I find out how to use our raceroom server.

Altarir said:

Don't believe BS some people tell you about what's realistic and what's not. And never take part in discussions with fanatics of a game. People used to call call original RBR's physiscs just like the real thing. It took years and several NGP's to make it somehow close to realistic (still has issues). To anyone who has actually driven a rally car those original physics were junk and insane. And yet online warriors who've never driven competitively would still say that it's just like the real thing and bash anyone who said otherwise.

So another piece of advice - don't just concentrate on virtual racing - try to go to a trackday or at least do some go-karting to see for yourself how vehicles behave at speed. If you know it's limitations, sim racing can help you become a better driver and this works the other way around: real driving helps a lot in sim-racing and it also helps spot the inconsistencies of physics engines. So you will know when someone is talking GB like in RBR's case

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"Don't believe BS some people tell you about what's realistic and what's not. "

So you're stating not to read your own comment ; good piece of advice

Well, my first piece of advice : consistency is the key, don't rush, you have plenty of time, few years ago when I had time to race online, 70% of racers made at least one mistake and lose positions, with all the new comers I assume it is even more, just wait for them to fail, keep on being consistent and save your car.

Firstly, learn to make successive laps without crashing or making too much mistakes in practice sessions. Then racing with the AI helps a lot, even bad AI, you'll learn its patterns, as with human drivers, and you'll get consistent in getting advantage from its flaws or avoiding them. Racing is about being patient and knowing when taking or keeping a position can abruptly ruin your whole race (keep cool, all drivers make that mistake, whatever their levels are, don't blame yourself too much, there is no financial or vital stake at the end, it is just a game - blame yourself if you never make this mistake though). If the driver in front or behind is absolutely irrational, it is better to keep him in front and stay behind, he will make the mistake alone by losing patience. Keeping him behind or trying to overtake will end in a risky manoeuvre and you will probably both lose many positions or just end you race (and the most agressive drovers generally tend to blaim the others although they are 100% guilty).

Tweak the anti roll bars to make the car good for your driving style. Some default setups can really ruin your experience and make you hate sim racing, or a specific category, for ever ; these 2 parameters, front and rear anti roll bars, easily change how the car drives without drastically change its performance. In general, changing the front one by one or two clicks is enough to change your experience, going from "meh" or "awful" to "I like this car!".

It is a mandatory step to enjoy sim racing imo. It is easy to understand what this parameter changes as you can see the effect visually on a car (search pictures on the internet).

It is an effective way and a first step to set up the balance between oversteering and understeering (which is the first thing to adapt to your driving style and taste), an immediate game changer.

For sure, if you click more than one or two times, you'll need to counterbalance something by adjusting the rear anti roll bar, and then your tires may start to need some other parameters tweaking... so, at first, just be nice on the front anti roll bar, one or two clicks should be sufficient to iargely improve your experience.

When I started sim racing years ago, I didn't know that and firstly balanced cars with the rear and front wings, and that was really wrong as touching the wings require counterbalance adjustments. Which themselves require other adjustments. This is how you lose yourself in setting up cars, making them often worse because you don't know what you are doing, instead of driving and racing, which often leads to frustration.

For further and much better explanation :

To sum up my point : anti roll bars adjustments (one or two clicks) for immediate driving enjoyment and consistency for long term racing enjoyment (better in that order).

Kevin Troschinski said:

Remember one 0,5L beer before the race makes you (me) faster. But be aware - already 2 beer are working contrary

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I confirm that driving while drinking isn't the good way to race. Drinking is only before the race! And, for sure, also after the race to celebrate your victory or,,, to forget the bad race!

My single tip would be: don't mess with setups until you fully understand them and leave them untouched until you are an absolute master of the car and track you are racing with/on.

Use a base setup and drive at least 50 laps. These 50 laps will make you familiar with the car's handling and you are slowly learning the track bit by bit.

After this first initial batch of testing laps try to drive at your maximum ability and try to be extremely consistent. When you notice you have squeezed every millisecond out of your car and your lap-times are within a few tenths of a second lap after lap you can consider this phase to be over. You have now mastered the car and track, congrats!

At this point you can start thinking about making changes to your setup as at this point you are so consistent that only now you can actually measure and feel the effect of your changes.

Remember that setups will not magically speed you up seconds a lap. A good personally tweaked setup will maybe give you a tenth a lap here and there but this often comes with a more twitchier handling resulting in more risk of losing control and crashing. A single crash during a race renders all your setup advantages useless. Better be 100% consistent and in control and a tenth a lap slower than running your car over the edge into a gravel trap losing 20 seconds at once.

My advice is to really figure out how to not crash into people from behind. That's the most frustrating and common thing based on my experience. And it's also very avoidable if you understand the basics, like how to brake if you are following another car closely. Basically you can't brake like you were driving alone, which is surprisingly something a lot of people struggle with.

There are other kinds of crashes understandably when racing other people but I find them usually less frustrating than getting hit from behind.

Enjoy what you do - if you're not enjoying it, mix it up and try something else (sim related!).

Looking at you ACC and toxic public lobbies.

If you drive behind somebody and you gain speed much faster than him, for example you drive behind somebody and he took bad apex and leaves corner slower than he should and you tok perfect apex and now its long straight and you gain speed and closing to him, theres next corner soon and you will both must slow down (perfect example will be last corner at monza, then starting line long straight and first slow corner).
If you driving behind and gain speed dont do it till he start braking, simulators simulate braking distances perfectly and that "braking distance increases as speed increases" that means if you following somebody and you still gain speed and you like 3 m behind him but he drive now 240 km/h and you drive 260 km/h and you both start braking at same time thats impossible to not hit him as you brake distance to full stop will be lik 10-20 or more meters longer.
My advise will be you follow him, you take foot of gas pedal and try maintain distance and reduce closing in to him. You descreasing speed difference between then . and if he start braking it even means if he braking at 100% you can then brake like for 70% and still gain to him, and overtake him after corner. The thing is you can even enter corner slower than him but brake later than him and you still can gain to him. Thats better than going in faster than him and making brake distance longer and crash into his rear.

Also similar advice will be its better to ruin yours lap/race than yours and somebody innocent.
That advice will be as above plus thing is I'am focused when during braking I see I still closing in to him and I know for 99% I rear end him I dont just hold brake and watch as we crash, I than let off brake and make sharp turn into grass, better to lose couple of seconds from a single lap than drive damaged vehicle for rest of laps.

So shorter speaking:
1. Dont close distance to oppenent too fast before corner, try match speed to same or even slower than him, you can still brake later and make faster exit, overtake him after
2. be prepared to let off brake and make sharp turn into grass if you know you'll hit him

Don't dive/lunge in someone's apex cause you think you can make it. It's annoying.

Stop braking very early and inconsistently and then complain about divebombs

Also, watch your mirrors

Dont cook bacon without a shirt on.. Oh wait you want simracing tips..

It's possible to overtake after T1 too.

Do PROPER seat and FoV adjustment instead of arguing with "I just started playing" and thus playing wrong, making everything more difficult for yourself.

FeltHat said:

use more handbrake

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..And cowbell




Sry ill go now.

Enjoy the experience and don't sweat the details.