My thoughts about the forum and the community

[BhZ]

Lately i've been particularly active on this forum and i took part to many discussions. One in particular got my attention. It was about the fact that fast drivers don't help rookies during practice. I think it's true, but at the same time i think many rookies don't even ask. I raced a lot recently on RD and i think i remember just one question in something like 8 races: "what wings are you guys running?". That was the only question that someone asked during practice. This got me thinking about the community and the forum and i noticed that the majority of the posts here on RD are about peripheral issues, graphical issues, news, random stuff. Now, in a simracing forum i'd expect more questions about cars, tracks, driving tecnique...Asking question in a 30 minutes practice just before the race won't make you a better driver for the simple reason that if you are not already a great driver, 30 minutes are barely enough to stay on track and possibly find good braking points. What will make you a better driver is to ask question on the forum, get an answer to it and apply in an offline session what you just learned until it becomes natural.
Everyone is free to do whatever he wants and race every night with a different car in a different track, but my advice is to take at least half of the days you'd race to just choose a car and a track and practice. Push the car, be curious about where is the limit of it. That is the only way to actually improve. Racing every day doesn't give you the time to get confidence with a car or a track, so you will improve, but at a much slower speed and you won't have time to work on the setup, because it's useless to work on the setup if you still have to find the limit of the car.
So my request is as follows: Ask about anything related to a car or track here on the forum, even if it's a stupid question, there are people here ready to help.
I also have a suggestion for the RD staff: In order to improve the quality of racing on RD, it would be cool in my opinion to have nights where instead of racing, you guys set up a server with a car and a track (possibly a combo that will be used in the next RD event) where people can sign up (like in a normal race) and practice for a couple of hours. So you have some sort of "practice event" where people willing to improve can learn more and where hopefully some of the fast guys (which usually practice a lot) will come as well and help.
Just to be sure, since english is not my first language, i want to specify that this is just my opinion and advice to try to improve the quality of driving. Let me know what are your thoughts about it and if you have other ideas that could make this forum a better place.

 

[Brandon Wright]

Claiming a player to get better when he is 4-5 sec is obviously a setup issue.

Depends on what your criteria is. When I show up for a club race I usually have not driven the combo yet and it's no thing for me to shave of 3-5 seconds off my time after 15 laps or so, and that's without ever touching anything besides tire pressures. I agree with @BhZ, you're way more likely to find 4-5 seconds by adjusting your driving than by adjusting your setup.

The only thing i don't like about the rookie/friendly events is the car. An FWD with TC and ABS is not the best to improve once you reach a medium-low level. You will almost never have oversteer, you won't lock the wheels and you don't have to worry about traction because of TC. If i were an admin, i'd probably choose the tatuus because it's a more complete car and allow you to cover every necessity in terms of driving skills.

IMO it's a great car for these races because the goal is more about improving your racecraft, not necessarily improving your speed. Speed is useless if you can't race cleanly and a stable FWD car with TC and ABS is the ideal car to let new drivers focus on their racecraft without having to worry about taming the car. It's very easy to push hard in the TT and when you find yourself in a two-or-three-wide situation you don't have to worry about the car suddenly stepping out on you and causing a big crash. That builds confidence and gives experience which are two of the biggest things when it comes to improving your racecraft.

 

[PhilS13]

But...isn't a setup slightly personal? If they learn to drive a perfect car, how will they drive a car that is not perfect to work on the setup? I'm not going against you, i just want to see what's your answer cause the topic interest me.

It will all come together. Honestly once you are able to almost match the best when they send you a set, you'll have enough driving skills to be quite fast in a any car no matter how shitty they behave and you will also recognize in which ways that car is lacking. All that will be left to do is gather the technical knowledge to fix it yourself instead of downloading a setup.

I'm not saying it's a perfect path, but it's a pretty damn nice shortcut.

It's also worth mentioning that imo really fast setups in sim racing are more often than not much trickier to drive than a setup that I would call perfect. Sitting in a chair at home allows us to push the setups much closer to the edge of stability than anyone would do irl.

 

[RasmusP]

That's right!
My favorite gt3 at the Nordschleife is the Mclaren 650 gt3 and I tweaked it a bit and love it. Every few corners it looks like that: (never would take a seat in real life!)

 

[BhZ]

Actually it's both, but being 4~5sec is a setup issue. Race cars are so easy to drive that the disparity of time should be much lower.

Watching professional driver on TV make it look easy. I wouldn't use it as a reference.

Since I mainly focus my time on setup only, on some cars & track combos I actually shave off more than 3 sec by modifying the setup. My denial come from experience with the game.

You are either lying or you are 2 seconds faster than anyone i've ever seen (and i met people that race in the iracing f1 championship so...). 5 seconds just with the setup is in my opinion impossible. I'd like to see you in a race here on RD.

 

[El-ahrairah]

Just cut the corners to make up time if you're 5 seconds slower. Thats how I levelled up my sim racing skills.

 

[Mr Deap]

@BhZ I've written it's both. With the same setup the disparity shouldn't be large, especially with a good setup.

There's some combo(track/car/air temp) where the setup make me cut more than 3 sec. In general, it's around 2 sec in normal size tracks, but also the setup make the car vastly easier to drive in a race. Player with the default setup or a bad one are in massive disadvantage, especially if the tire overheat. The time lost is exponential & the one with the better setup is allowed to make many mistakes on track without much impact for the whole race. It really depend how much default is off. Because the car is much easier to drive with a good setup, the time cut is also exponential.

With the default PSI with default everything vs a very good setup, you get can be 4~5sec slower easily, regardless of your skill.

 

[BhZ]

@BhZ I've written it's both. With the same setup the disparity shouldn't be large, especially with a good setup.

There's some combo(track/car/air temp) where the setup make me cut more than 3 sec. In general, it's around 2 sec in normal size tracks, but also the setup make the car vastly easier to drive in a race. Player with the default setup or a bad one are in massive disadvantage, especially if the tire overheat. The time lost is exponential & the one with the better setup is allowed to make many mistakes on track without much impact for the whole race. It really depend how much default is off. Because the car is much easier to drive with a good setup, the time cut is also exponential.

With the default PSI with default everything vs a very good setup, you get can be 4~5sec slower easily, regardless of your skill.

I have to disagree again. In AC for some reason you can't control the tyre temperature enough to make a difference. Even the most aggressive toe value change the temp of around 2 degrees. On the other hand, psi are easy to control and everyone is able to notice that if the number is red=decrease psi. It's so easy to control the psi that i don't even consider it part of the setup.
I've never found myself 5 seconds slower than the WR on RSR when testing with the default setup. For some reason you are exagerating in terms of seconds, letting people think that basically most of our pace come from the setup, which is incredibly false. As i said before, I'd like to see you on track or at least on RSR so that i can know you are not one of those people that talks a lot but still has to buy the game. I'm sure that what i said is a shared opinion for those who have enough experience on AC.

 

[Mr Deap]

I have to disagree again. In AC for some reason you can't control the tyre temperature enough to make a difference. Even the most aggressive toe value change the temp of around 2 degrees. On the other hand, psi are easy to control and everyone is able to notice that if the number is red=decrease psi. It's so easy to control the psi that i don't even consider it part of the setup.

I've never found myself 5 seconds slower than the WR on RSR when testing with the default setup. For some reason you are exagerating in terms of seconds, letting people think that basically most of our pace come from the setup, which is incredibly false. As i said before, I'd like to see you on track or at least on RSR so that i can know you are not one of those people that talks a lot but still has to buy the game. I'm sure that what i said is a shared opinion for those who have enough experience on AC.

Setup is about balancing & yes the PSI is part of the setup, because it is dependent to the rest of the adjustment in the setup.

You'll be impressed to find the number of player running everything on default. The first thing they toy with is the suspension or aero trying to learn something while not event adjusting the PSI afterward. I know, because I'm being stupid & your level of elitism is sky high.

Instead of protecting your* setup, you should try the slower guy setup. Because in my opinion as a gamer, it's not possible to be 5sec slower with the same setup on race cars unless it is done on purpose.

Well about the pace is about common sense, It wasn't my intension, but that's pretty much what is happening.

I'm on RSR, but I'm not serious about my time & I'm mostly testing setup. Same usename as here.

 

[Glaurung]

In a normal 5-6 km track a tweaked setup can give you from 1 to 2.5 seconds difference depending on tack, car and driver.
It's up to everyone to decide how much time spend training and preparing for a race. No surprise if there is 5 sec difference between a driver that meticolously prepare himself for a week and a driver that put his hands on that combo 30 mins before qually start. This is a situation pretty common in club races, faster guys need to realize that not all give the same importance and commitment or have that ammount of spare time to dedicate practicing.
Eventually there are no magic bullets or holy gifts but a simple rule of thumb: the more you practice the more you're fast.

 

[Brandon Wright]

I have to disagree again. In AC for some reason you can't control the tyre temperature enough to make a difference. Even the most aggressive toe value change the temp of around 2 degrees. On the other hand, psi are easy to control and everyone is able to notice that if the number is red=decrease psi. It's so easy to control the psi that i don't even consider it part of the setup.
I've never found myself 5 seconds slower than the WR on RSR when testing with the default setup. For some reason you are exagerating in terms of seconds, letting people think that basically most of our pace come from the setup, which is incredibly false. As i said before, I'd like to see you on track or at least on RSR so that i can know you are not one of those people that talks a lot but still has to buy the game. I'm sure that what i said is a shared opinion for those who have enough experience on AC.

Agreed. I usually use the default setup (other than tire pressures) and in the club races I'm usually at the front or within about 1-1.5 seconds of the fastest guys, so if a setup would make me 4-5 seconds faster I'd probably be the fastest driver on RD and I know that's certainly not the case. Going out and practicing the combo for 15-20 laps can certainly find me a good 4 seconds but not a setup.

 

[El-ahrairah]

Best way to gain 5 seconds a lap

 

[Kenny Paton]

Best way to gain 5 seconds a lap

Damn I've no chance

 

[Mr Deap]

There's actually another method with walls.

 

[Kek700]

Trying to get a good setup that suits ;-

Track.
Car.
Track Conditions.
Knowing how the software compliments some parameter and virtually ignores others
Knowing which parameter to concentrate on.
How sim racing complements a particular type of driving style, the fastest sim racer cannot always apply simulators to the real world.

I would rather just enjoy the club racing with the minimum effort; i am quite impressed by those who chose to dedicate many hours in achieving near perfection.

And a perfect setup does require a lot of dedication.

 

[Lorenzo Bonder]

There's actually another method with walls.

If you bash GRID 2 then we'll have a talk.

Best game ever. Good times during my top 40 global run.

GRID 2 is love, GRID 2 is life

 

[Kek700]

Oh! Fogot to mention, some people are just exceptionaly clever at some things in life.
It would be like me training to beat Usain Bolt at the 100 meters , it is never going to happen
"Even with the perfect setup"

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Misleading thread title is misleading.

 

[Mr Deap]

I learned the wallbash method by kids while playing PGR3 at release. They were quite consistent at pulling it off with a perfect apex which is quite difficult to do. Even shortcut were difficult to pull off perfectly(jumping over the corner without destabilizing the car) which was part of the raceline.

I grow tired of it & I now play casually while learning to make setup.

 

[RustyDriver00]

I was actually thinking about finding a team for the next year. The only problem is that i have no experience on Rf2 at all. I'd need some sort of coach for a week or so to get started and know everything i need to know to race in that category, then it's all about practice and that's not a problem.

Hi Matteo

For some reason I didn't receive any notifications from this thread after posting so apologies for the slow reply. You're more then welcome to send me a pm anytime and I'll happily help you out getting setup in RF2. Its a great game (like all modern Sims) so you definitely shouldn't be disappointed, endurance racing is extremely rewarding (and frustrating and depressing and infuriating but still rewarding lol).

So yeah let me know if there's anything I can do to help you out!

Cheers

Shawn

 

[BhZ]

Hi Matteo

For some reason I didn't receive any notifications from this thread after posting so apologies for the slow reply. You're more then welcome to send me a pm anytime and I'll happily help you out getting setup in RF2. Its a great game (like all modern Sims) so you definitely shouldn't be disappointed, endurance racing is extremely rewarding (and frustrating and depressing and infuriating but still rewarding lol).

So yeah let me know if there's anything I can do to help you out!

Cheers

Shawn

Thank you, i definitely will.
I'm more preoccupied for the tyre and fuel management than the setup itself. I've always raced in 1 long races and never on rF2.