Took the plunge

vobler · October 05, 2008, 08:10:23 PM

Quote from: Gnomie;246572Yeah, it's weird that they didn't fix the SR system.. it seems to be badly broken, from what I can tell.

Please explain what wrong with it. Is it that it does not take "whos fault it was" in to account?

If somebody crashes in real life, either on track or on the road. Both cars get hurt. Its as simple as that.

Think of SR as your budget to buy parts for. If you have SR 4.99+ its no problem, you can afford it. If it is 2.5 you need to drive carefully, because you cant afford to crash.

Aquilifer · October 05, 2008, 09:47:36 PM

Quote from: vobler;246587Please explain what wrong with it. Is it that it does not take "whos fault it was" in to account?

If somebody crashes in real life, either on track or on the road. Both cars get hurt. Its as simple as that.

Think of SR as your budget to buy parts for. If you have SR 4.99+ its no problem, you can afford it. If it is 2.5 you need to drive carefully, because you cant afford to crash.

I don't know which way it is ment to be, but I don't like either. If I buy something I want to play it. I don't want that my reputation/bank balance/whatever to suffer because some a-hole hit my bumper. Automated detection who's fault a crash is never going to work, but the current system is a bad imho. It needs a human to check...something which seems to be hard even for FIA.

Gnomie · October 05, 2008, 10:20:57 PM

I'm with Mr. Cat ( ^_^) on this one. In 90% of all collisions where a guy crashes into someone's bum it's the guy behind's fault, the only exception being if the one in front blocks deliberately or strays wildly from the raceline or something like that. I'm used to driving in the CTRA, and they have this to say about overtaking:

QuoteOvertaking: Drivers must achieve significant overlap with the car on the outside, in order to gain rights to a corner. Significant overlap is defined as the bumper/wing of the inside car being level with or ahead of the driver's head on the outside. The measurement is taken at the corner's normal turn-in point.

So, the guy in front gets to choose his line through the corner, which means that it's the guy behind who has to be careful to avoid contact. If the guy in front gets punished for the overtaker's error, it's just silly IMO.

Romus · October 06, 2008, 06:21:34 AM

You really need to try iRacing to know how SR works for you. If someone touches you once in a race and if you drive out once or twice without crashing bad, it does not cost you almost anything. When you do clean races one after another, you will soon step to a higher SR level, and those who cannot race clean are left behind to race at their own level. When I was at level 2 I saw some fast guys who had done a lot of races, but had their Incidents per race ratio near to 10. I have it around 2 and could quickly get to higher level to race with cleaner racers.

I'd like to add also, that I think only those who cannot stay on track and whose awareness on track is poor need to worry about SR. Others can just enjoy racing like in any other sim.

vobler · October 06, 2008, 07:22:12 AM

Quote from: romus;246610I'd like to add also, that I think only those who cannot stay on track and whose awareness on track is poor need to worry about SR. Others can just enjoy racing like in any other sim.

I agree with Romus. The only ones that need to worry about the SR is the ones you don't want to race in the first place. (Plonkers) It is the same rating that Doorman wanted to add to dMr at one time, just that this is only on safety not speed. Maybe it's too difficult but it is a good system.

What people tend to do is that they overdrive their abilities and go off. And then complain about SR. My suggestion is to find a speed where you are safe and can race clean. Do a few races at that speed and your iRating will drop to that level, but your iRating will give you opponents of your skill in every race.

I am now at my max comfortable iRating (2100) so I will probably drop it slightly to have some breathing room. My SR is 4.9 give or take a tenth. I can now push very hard and if need be sacrifice some SR for a position. Lets say I can take a turn 2 tenths faster by taking 1x SR point. If I need that time I will use the SR to get it. Its no big deal. I touched a car yesterday going side by side through T1 at Summit Point. Who is to blame when nobody is first? We both lost 4x. It was no big deal to me nor to him. It was a race incident.

Doorman · October 06, 2008, 11:12:53 AM

And there we have it. This is one of those 'we beg to differ' arguments. All I'm saying is that those constant, it seemed to me, 'nags' for one infringement or another, irritated me and if you're doing something that irritates you---stop it!
Like they say in the iRacing forums to anyone who criticises, "If you don't like it, leave."
So I choose to leave.

If, at some time I did want to add the SR to LFS it was because I thought it was a good idea. I've already admitted I thought it was good, but I say again, it irritates me now.

Toddshooter · October 06, 2008, 09:21:28 PM

I don't think I would like it either to be honest. I would be counting up what points I'm gaining or loosing instead of having fun and concentrating on the race.

I have my own safety rating already It's called my conscience:D

I say sorry for rubbing up against Doorman and Oldy too many times and continue on my merry way:roflmao: It was the brake setting honest:devil:

Gnomie · January 25, 2009, 09:34:21 PM

So I've taken the plunge too now.

One month subscription.

EDIT: What a long post.. :blink:I'll try to break it into pieces. Paragraphs FTW! :flirty:

Tech stuff
I was curious to see whether it would run on my PC or not. Bottom line so far is that it does indeed work, but I have to disable FreeTrack. It's the same thing as with LFS and Ventrilo -- since my computer is so weak I have to put the sim on "high priority" in Windows for it to work properly without any stuttering. In LFS I can still use FreeTrack even with LFS on high priority. iRacing however seems to be even harder on the CPU, so I can't even run FreeTrack.

It's not too big of an issue -- I mean, most people don't have headtracking -- but as Doorz put it some time ago, driving without it feels like someone clamped my head in a vise. I'll get used to it I'm sure, but it's annoying to drive without. I've gotten so used to looking "through" the corner and see the apex and such that it feels very weird to race without it. I keep yawing my head from side to side and nothing happens.. :lmfao:

What I think of iRacing so far
Short version: it feels really really great! This week's track (with the Rookie Solstice) is Summit Point Short. A quite twisty little course with plenty of challenges (well, for me at least :narnar:) Some high speed corners, and some slow corners. I joined a few practice settings around noon today and picked up a few tips and tricks. People were more than happy to help a new guy out!

Then when my level of confidence had increased somewhat I jumped in a quali session and did a few laps. I had no clue whether the times I achieved were good or bad, but they must have been decent, 'cause when I joined my first race I was given position #4 or 5 on the grid! It was a very fun race indeed with lots of action. Some guys pulled away at the start, but some of them spun off. I was able to pull off a podium finish in my first race!

That boosted my confidence a lot, and soon after I joined my second race, where I finished 4th after a great battle that lasted nearly the whole race through. I think we passed each other at least a couple of times.

I've heard people saying the level of racing on the rookie servers can be pretty bad. However I was actually pretty impressed. Of course some people drive off sometimes, but there was no ramming or anything like that from what I could see. It seemed as if people tried to be respectful and play nice.

I'm not going to care at all about safety ratings and irating and all that stuff. I'm going to try to ignore the messages flashing on the screen whenever something happens. Fun, clean racing is all I care about!

Finding time for it all..
Lately I've had a hard time finding out which sim to focus on. And this certainly hasn't made things any easier! It's going to be hard to keep doing both LFS, nKP and iRacing. For the time being I think I'll put LFS on the shelf and concentrate on the latter two. Probably I'll do iRacing primarily in the weekends, 'cause judging by today's experience there's a lot of people on in the morning. I'll definitely do the Wednesday races in nKP, so expect to see me on the server on weekday evenings as per usual!

vobler · January 25, 2009, 11:40:37 PM

Quote from: Gnomie;260337So I've taken the plunge too now. One month subscription.

Well done Gnomie! :yahoo:

As this is a week between seasons, there are only a couple official series. The Solstice probably the only road series you can do. (You can do the Laguna seca part of the unofficial Targa Transamerica in the Radical if you buy the car) But if you get your SR over 3.00 and you do two races as you probably have, I think you will be promoted to class D by the end of the week. Then you have the possibility to do a complete season of Skippy racing witch you would love....

This week we also will get a new build with quite a few new things, One being open practise servers. We also get the new class A cars. The Nascar COT (car of tomorrow) and the DP (daytona prototype) Pontiac Riley.

Anyway, good luck with iRacing and hope to see you on track. I will promptly add you to my friends list.

Gnomie · January 26, 2009, 08:34:12 AM

Thanks!

Yeah, I've read about the new stuff that's coming. Looks like there's a lot of development going on at the moment!

What does open practice servers mean? What's the difference between a practice server and a practice session?

vobler · January 26, 2009, 10:26:24 AM

Quote from: Gnomie;260370What does open practice servers mean? What's the difference between a practice server and a practice session?

I'm not sure there is a difference. But after what I have read it allows people so see who is in a session and then join after it started.
It should make it much easier for friends to practice together.

Gnomie · January 26, 2009, 10:27:51 PM

Cool!

Today's track was Lowe's Infield. Kinda reminded me of a hilly version of Kyoto National, with the oval section and all. Anyway, it seems that this track is a LOT less taxing on my PC! I was able to run a 19 car grid with 2xAA and 4xAF with no significant framerate drops! :yahoo: Seems like the trees were the culprits on Summit Point.

I'm really starting to like the Solstice. I hear people say it's not a good representation of the FFB in iRacing, but if that's the case then the other cars must be bleemin' amazing, because the FFB in the Solstice is definitely among the best I've felt in any sim. I also love how you can "toss" the car around a little bit. It's heavy, but you can use the inertia to your advantage. I find that giving it a little jerk just before the turn can induce a very nice, controllable oversteery slip through the corner. Feels terrific!

Gnomie · February 04, 2009, 08:19:28 AM

Well, would you look at that! I got an e-mail from iRacing today. Here's what it said:

:yahoo:

vobler · February 04, 2009, 08:38:48 AM

Quote from: Gnomie;261789Well, would you look at that! I got an e-mail from iRacing today. Here's what it said:
:yahoo:

Gratulerer!

Print it and frame it, Soon you will have a whole wall.

I think you can request a first win award too. Just mail the rewards section (Tim) and tell him the session number fro your first win and he will make one for you.

Seany · February 04, 2009, 04:31:34 PM

Nice one Gnomie