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.

 

[RainhamIron]

Before biting the bullet recently and having a crack at online racing, I'd enjoy a bit of hotlapping, occasionally but not always against AI. In things like the R3E competitions which are purely based on lap times, I was often baffled when I thought I'd nailed a lap only to realise I was still several seconds away from the fastest times. I found I ended up focusing more on chasing setups and looking for that magic bullet, than I did improving my driving / lines etc.

The 'friendly' sessions here with default setups have been a big help in that they force you to go back to basics and focus almost entirely on the actual driving. Likewise practising with fewer cars recently, and just being able to alter the PSI has been useful in helping to understand the subtleties of one important parameter, rather than getting lost amongs endless combinations of tweaks here, there and everywhere.

I'm hoping this will help give me a better foundation when I try again to properly learn the art of the setup. In the meantime though it's become pretty clear that just straightforward practice and a focus on lines and consistency will be way more beneficial to me at the moment than fiddling with a million and one settings (and in turn should also be a big help in learning to share the track with others! )

 

[acrox999]

Good read here.

As for me, I don't really ask questions about driving in the forums and more about the game and technical stuff (hence my very little post count here) instead I know some very serious simracers on Facebook and I mean very serious that they even started their own simracing organization, joining leagues and even selling their own design cockpits and stuff.

My point is that, I'm usually more comfortable asking about driving techniques and issues on Facebook than in the forums as in the group, although they're mostly iRacing players, the group is still doesn't feel specialized to a certain kind of games. It just give you that feeling of freedom to ask about anything about racing in general.

Meanwhile, in a game specific forum we're most likely to have less feeling of that freedom and is also more likely to think this is a game specific forum, so it should be about the game and not your driving.

I mean, I get it. A lot of people seem to care only about setups. As for me, not yet. I'm still getting by and I spent 99.99% in Practice mode trying to improve my techniques and understand my own limits. I'm constantly trying to improve my limits and it's what I asked them when I needed advice.

From Day 1 I understood that I'm severely lacking during corners, both entering and exit. I'm prone to make grave mistakes during corners. I asked around to people through Facebook and I improved a lot since. I can take corners faster but still inconsistent and very slow compared to anyone else in the leaderboards. At least I saw myself getting Top 20 or Top 10 for some cars for some tracks in AMS. I haven't tried Time Trial events yet on the AC since I just started playing it for real this time.

I think yesterday also another newbie told me, he wanted to learn from the pros but he's scared to. Probably because he felt like they'd undermine him, but I think that's because he's fairly new in the group. The guys there I know they're really down to earth and giving advices even without anyone asking.

I think there needs to be a change in the structure of the game specific forums. Perhaps a dedicated section for guides and driving questions to exploit the game's physic model. If the fast and knowledgeable drivers start first the newbies like me will probably feel like it's safer to talk about our own skills without having to feel any shame as well. Maybe I just didn't noticed it since I don't frequent here, I don't know.

Just a thought. I'm fairly new and I myself don't know what I'm talking about here but it's what I felt as a slow and newbie driver.

 

[Brandon Wright]

In the meantime though it's become pretty clear that just straightforward practice and a focus on lines and consistency will be way more beneficial to me at the moment than fiddling with a million and one settings (and in turn should also be a big help in learning to share the track with others! )

Nailed it.

 

[RainhamIron]

Realise I strayed slightly off topic there with my last post so...

My fairly brief experience so far with the community has been very positive. Everyone is different of course so during a race event some prefer to quietly get on with their driving and others are more vocal. This is perfectly normal. Seems in any case as if there's always someone willing to help if questions are asked.

Similar story so far on the forums. I've not yet tried probing for top secret setup info, but otherwise again there seems to usually be someone willing to jump in and answer questions.

I think as BhZ pointed out in the original post, if you have a question, just ask. Probably worth searching the forums first though as many questions are likely to have been asked / answered previously.

 

[RainhamIron]

Talk about timing...

Here's a great thread started yesterday which ties in nicely with this one:
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/learning-to-become-a-better-driver.138531/#post-2531022

Seems the Racedepartment community is well on the case and willing to help

 

[Kenny Paton]

Seems the Racedepartment community is well on the case and willing to help

I think it always was

 

[Slalom823]

So later than I originally planned, but I finally finished up and posted a thread with some of my favorite learning resources. I hope this is helpful for some fellow RD members.
http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...ning-and-educational-resources-thread.138587/