What’s your preferred way to race offline?

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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!

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I do most of my racing offline on Raceroom. When I am doing online racing, I often find that I am just trying to keep the car on track without bumping any other real life drivers. I enjoy offline racing more because I do not fear hurting the AIs feelings if I make contact with them.
 
Racing against AI is less stressful? Not when the AI is retarded and way too aggressive. I'd rather race against half decent humans than dump AI. Much less stressful.
 
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.
Every games ai has room for improvement, but overall it's pretty good.

I did a quick race in the trucks at Daytona the other day and enjoyed it.

Flags, cautions, lucky dog are all implemented. You can quickly grab a RL roster with fully adjustable settings to suit your needs off trading paints.

The ai at Daytona are pretty Racey, they work in teams and bump draft to create faster lines, I found you can bump and rub without the physics spinning you out.

As mentioned, it currently has the Trucks, X Infinity and nascar AI implemented, along with some legacy but not all the oval to replicate a full RL season.
But enough to keep ya busy.

Check the available ai combos to see what you have before resubbing :)
 
Mostly race offline in custom champioships. Very relaxing and none of the craziness and stress of the online racing world.
 
I'm racing online one or two times a week in league, on RaceRoom and on AC.

In RR, I use leaderboards and offline practice / race sessions with AI to prepare myself for the online race, not spending more time than needed, because AI's behaviour, although with a good behaviour well developed, doesn't seem much fun to me.

If RR is great online, I still have the feeling it is a bit cold when driving with the AI.

In AC, when practicing offline, I spend quite a long time testing a track and/or a car, generally on cycles of short races (3 laps) with AI, but I can jump on another type of practice with pleasure.

I find AC's AI very enjoyable! Dependly on a mod, it can happen to behave a bit odd, but I learned how to tweak it if necessary, to get a better balance.

Lot of fun with grid presets through C.M: 1923 Tours GP, Euro-Nascar 2021, whether by class or era (20's, 30's, and so on...) or trackdays with old american street cars, 90 japanese cars, almost no limit, but my imagination!

Finally AC brings me a more vivid offline experience with AI, and I often don't see time going away!
 
Well I promised to return here with a more thorough answer as an primarily offline sim racer during +35 years.

But it's not an easy job, since the list of my different approaches and reasons through the years would be near endless. However I'll try to come up with a few.

  • Track hunter As a born geography nerd (from very early childhood) and from early teens habit of seeking motorsport tracks and as a young man in mid 90ies getting more interested in motorsports history, sim racing has helped me on more occations being at either deceased track locations, country side historic tracks or as preparation for track days. Using simracing just nursing around the tracks, noticing every details and trying to soak up the impressions and memorizing slope details before real world visits - simracing has been a great help here on plenty visits real world, which includes Targa Florio, the old Spa slopes, classic Charade, Rouen-Les-Essarts, Circuit de Pau, Sitges-Terramar, Nivelles (just when construction of industry area began), Watkins Glen, Reims-Gueux, Linas-Monthlély, preparation before my first time Nordschleife track experience as well as my local track Jyllandsringen, etc, etc. Big KUDOS to track modders! Later when Google Earth web version facilitated the Project opportunity I remember creating huge projects of existing and deceased tracks, highligting the ones I've visited and others on my to-do list (sadfully my projects were lost due to a Google Drive error, but my fun is just to glance and panning round the globe finding the locations without using a search button). The satisfaction to get there in no time by simracing them is though huge for me. And racing offline is most suitable where I can decide the one moment just to cruise around and then the next going full speed, setting up offline racing (and optimizing AIW's / AI's etc if I'm hooked an have the time, which I rarely have now)

  • Mixed car mod races I got a reminder of this of my habit by Jake's /GPLaps' teaser a couple of days ago, setting up a historic Le Mans event in GTR2 mixing up several quality mods. I've done this a lot earlier in rF1, AC but especially in GTR2 and a bit in GT Legends. This goes for both full racing seasons as well as single endurance- and 24 hour events. I remember trying to setup my first +60 car Le Mans and Spa events on a low spec PC but getting away with it. Then soon later upgraded PC hardware and what a relief racing +100 car mixed mod Le Mans event flawless with graphics maxed out in changing weather conditions round the 24 hour clock.

  • Quick Drop-in races With limited time suddenly experiening available short timeslots easy to grab simwheel or keyboard and just going out the sim track. Must say that I in other sims miss GTR2's Savegame opportunity here, very suitable when available short timeslots are spread out.
Preparation for online races I really only used offline sim time for during 2003-2004 when participating the Formula SimRacing Series. Today I just drop in online racing occasionally and look forward to what happens. In fact I think this approach helped me when I for a year rebooted my iRacing account going quickly from rookie to B-class, just by starting the races from the pit and using my consistent safe but maybe not so fast mode. But I think my last online race is near a month ago now (and don't even remember if it was in AMS2, ACC, rF2, R3E, AC.... my iRacing account i discontinued last year).

I'm a fan of offline simracing for many reasons.
 
Last edited:
Since I am German I always have the Autobahn for online racing. Simracing is when I relax offline. (just joking btw)
 

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Damian Reed
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