What’s your preferred way to race offline?

Reiza Studios Automobilista 2.jpg
In today's article we are interested to hear from our community what your preferred way to race offline is.

As a sim racer myself, I probably spend around 90% of my time racing online in either ranked or open lobbies, for me there’s no AI in the world that can replicate the unpredictable nature of a fellow sim racer. If I’m racing for position, any position, I’ll get a rush of adrenaline - this is something that I don’t get racing against AI.

The time I do spend offline, this is normally spent within time trial modes or practice sessions; where I am either getting to grips with a new car or learning an unfamiliar track. Now I know they’ll be some of you who decide to do this in open lobbies, we all know this as we’ve seen you.

What are the benefits of racing offline?​

Racing against AI is less stressful, once you get used to the way AI races in certain sims, it is not very often they’ll take you out. Because they tend to be more predictable, you’re able to race closer to AI than you would dare to online against real drivers. If you are ever taken out by the AI, there’s no one to get angry at either. Or if you accidentally miss your braking spot and take out another driver, the AI isn’t going to hurl a load of abuse at you!

You can be king! I’ve done it and I’m sure many others have too. I've deliberately started from the pack of the grid, knowing that I have the AI turned down a little and knowing that I have a good chance of getting into the points and maybe even winning. It’s great fun diving into corners, out braking your opponents, making moves stick around the outside of corners - feeling like you’re the best driver in the world.

You also have the option to really test your ability by seeing how you compare to the AI when it’s turned all the way up. Depending on your skill, racing can be really tight and you can easily forget that you are racing against AI.

There’s also time-trials, where you see how you stack up to the rest of the world. I’ve spent many hours seeing if I can break into the top 500, 250, 100, or 10. By doing this, I have found extra pace at tracks and it has made me a faster sim racer.

Racing offline doesn’t need to be competitive. Blasting around your favorite tracks in various cars can be extremely fun. Or hoping into a historic racing car at a track from the past can feel very nostalgic. Even just getting into a virtual car and just driving, can help take the stresses of the real world away.

Do you race offline and if so which way do you prefer?

Image credit - Redvaliant
About author
Damian Reed
PC geek, gamer, content creator, and passionate sim racer.
I live life a 1/4 mile at a time, it takes me ages to get anywhere!

Comments

I do about 50% offline, and 50% online. I do this mainly because it's hard to find online races for a lot of the cars I like to drive. I miss the days when GTL lobbies had lots of people driving vintage stuff. Honestly the best racing I ever had was in leagues, unfortunately I am too busy these days for league racing.
 
I like karting with my son or just running solo hotlaps when music playing. From time to time I like to use time attack, bit its hard not to drift into red mist always trying to improve every lap.
 
I just hotlap/freeroam. I can't really do adrenaline-dump gaming anymore, it ruins me.
 
Premium
99 percent of the time running offline and doing anything and everything...Might be taking a MX5 on a solo casual thrash around the Nord at Sunset, Hotlapping a GT3 at Zolder for an hour before setting up a race in the rain, or a ridiculous mixed field around Laguna Seca with me in a Vintage F1.....Or perhaps a modern F1 race at Imola.

And then perhaps some rock crawling in Beamng

And sometimes I might go online, and do whatever happens to be available there. Unless its Monza....

and all of it at least 5 seconds off the pace....
 
Last edited:
either just doing some free driving / hotlap, or checking my new updates on my mods, or proper full on Carreer mode a-la F1 from Codemasters
don't do single races against AI , custom championships etc.
 
I'm almost 50 and started racing online in the infancy of league racing. It was a different era, most people where completely respectful of the time you put into your practice and it showed on track. I mainly race against ai or occasionally with mates now, the chivalry is almost gone in online races and alot of the camaraderie post race is also gone. I'll leave the competitive racing to the wipersnapers and just have fun with the AI
 
I often do races against AI in RaceRoom. In fact, it`s best AI in all sims and most of the time I have awesome races that I can`t have against humans online. I simply love that sim, great variety of content, amazing AI and lots of tracks. I just miss night races and rain but I can live with that.
 
Last edited:
I simrace for my personal fun, that's why I rarely drive online and if so mostly with friends. Too much negativity and drama.
 
Assetto Corsa, how I race offline. Vr, custom championship, 5 tracks, (1 a day 5 days a week) 40 laps, ai 98%, start in 17th place (last) with personally modded cars that are exactly even, full damage, fuel consumption ×1.3, tire wear ×1.3 when setting my championship for the week I roll dice to choose the group, ( btcc, stcc, cup, etc...) As well as the tracks, time of day, weather, etc... Although I am about ready to turn difficulty up to 100% and start qualifying for more of a challange.
 
Running online with Iracing is very expensive and you never get anywhere, too many steps to overcome and it is frustrating, too many exaggerated complications, subscription off. With Acc it would be nice but in free servers you always find some idiot who ruins everything. So I learned to edit the Rfactor2 .ini file as far as AI is concerned and I must say that I found an excellent solution for off Line, I have enough fun with the latest upgrade it works very well.
 
Running online with Iracing is very expensive and you never get anywhere, too many steps to overcome and it is frustrating, too many exaggerated complications, subscription off. With Acc it would be nice but in free servers you always find some idiot who ruins everything. So I learned to edit the Rfactor2 .ini file as far as AI is concerned and I must say that I found an excellent solution for off Line, I have enough fun with the latest upgrade it works very well.
 
I race offline, the last time I raced online was with GPL back in the day. I only run AC and simply enjoy the amazing variety of cars and tracks. The AI works...sometimes...and using the strength and aggression setting in CM, I can usually have a decent race against them.
 
The beauty of racing with a good single-player mode and AI is to participate in the championship with the real series drivers, sharing the virtual grid with recreations of the racers of that period.
 
Last edited:
AI is such a pain in all games I've tried, that the only offline thing I do is hotlapping.
AC and ACC is probably the worst AI ive ever seen. Cant follow them through corners because they always brake super hard mid turn for no reason
 
I love AC, ACC, RaceRoom, AMS2, DiRT Rally 2.0 - the usual stuff (I may post about those later), but lately I've been trying to enjoy Forza Motorsport 6. Yes, that game. It may have very little to do with sim racing but it's still an interesting experience. I use gamepad in that game as my wheel doesn't support Xbox.

AI in this game are maniacs, they crash a lot, they also do stupid mistakes that look like are done intentionally.. Back when I didn't have a PC that could run all the good sim racing games (except for Race 07 and GTR2 - those were running great) I used to get frustrated with them. I tried to play FM6 like I would play a proper sim racing game, it was bad.

However now that I have a PC to play proper sims I can enjoy FM6 for what it actually is. It's a very polished game (more so than FM7 which I also have) and it has so many cars in it that you can't really get bored,

The AI is still bad though and drives very dirty (depends on the drivatar though, some are at least attempting to drive clean). So what do you do? There are two options - hotlapping (pretty fun with your own ghost or in rivals mode) or trying to deal with the AI. I actually found a way to enjoy racing with AI in FM6. Here are my tips:

- Start from a last place if you can. FM6 has a "mods" system. If you have a mod that makes you start from 24 place then by all means use it! I use "Long Shot" which also disables rewinds.

- Starting last is key to survive the beginning of the race without contact. Few first corners is where the most carnage occurs. It's a lot like playing online.

- Avoid contact by all means, apparently this makes the AI adapt and drive less dirty but I'm not sure. I still try to drive as clean as I possibly can. If you play in Free Play, make your races last around 15 to 20 minutes so you can take your time with overtakes. If you play Career or don't want to play long races - don't feel bad about lowering the difficulty. I personally restart every time I have a bigger crash. I use car front and rear lights and mirrors as indicator. If I damage one of the lights or lose a mirror, I restart.

- NEVER trust the AI. Don't stick behind them for too long, they may brake at weirdest moment, don't get too close. ALWAYS leave some space for those morons. Stay aware to avoid sudden crashes of the AI. FM7 has an indicator to tell you there's danger near but FM6 doesn't.

- Avoiding crazy AIs can be part of fun. Keep track of the arrows around and if AI divebombs you, let them pass. You'll catch them later. This stuff may legit train your reflexes for online lobbies.

- Just enjoy the race even if you don't win! I sometimes moved only few places from the start to the finish but I wasn't mad because the racing was actually... fun. In a weird way but somehow, someway I was having fun. Taking LMP cars around Alps with those crazy AIs around you can really get your adrenaline pumping. You feel like some kind of racing superhero as you avoid the crashes and get those clean overtakes.

That game may never ever replace sim racing titles I enjoy on PC but it can honestly be interesting to enjoy every once in a while. :laugh:
 
Last edited:
I use the AI in iracing and recreate series like IMSA, GT4, Gander truck, Nascar series.

I hope dirt series will eventually make it in a future build and I'll be set :)

I also like the TT trials....and while it's still consider online, I spend alot of my time practicing for races in the open online practice servers to get a feel of my pace against other drivers and pick up tips.
How is the AI in iracing for Nascar ovals? Really considering resubbing. I just discovered they added AI and I need my solo oval fix. Rfactor 2 oval is pointless.
 
My sim racing availability doesn't lend itself to league racing so I race the AI quite often. I wish more games put effort into the offline racing experience. iRacing in my opinion is the only one that offers decent AI to race against right now. ACC's AI aren't bad necessarily, but they seem to just drive in a train and are really boring to race against. rf2 at one point had really good AI but they broke it years ago and have never bothered to fix them sadly. I don't even need fancy offline championships or anything like that, just give me AI that are capable of running a simulation style race, with pit stops etc. and I'm happy. Sadly getting that experience isn't nearly as easy as it should be anymore.
 
I
Offline is very entertaining when you are in your favorite simulator and it lends itself to many things like 24h races, races in the rain, night races, use a very good mod of your favorite category in case it does not come by default.

-I usually look for circuit mods to get to know them better than when I was a child, like the Istanbul circuit.
-The one I most often do is do a lap against the clock on the Nordschleife Tourist with any car and record the times.
-And another of my favorite activities is doing a random race and adjusting the difficulty of the AI to learn how to overtake or try to improve my pace.

Regards
 
"If you are ever taken out by the AI, there’s no one to get angry at either"
Clearly hasn't played AC offline
 

Latest News

Article information

Author
Damian Reed
Article read time
2 min read
Views
15,732
Comments
87
Last update

Are you buying car setups?

  • Yes

  • No


Results are only viewable after voting.
Back
Top