[Roelof van der Zee]

Hi,

After two nights of agonizing myself a few observations:
- cars behave differently offline than online

Yesterday I tried the Fiesta and it was close to undrivable, but after the race it turned offline pretty good (with no different settings on the same track, strange). 
Since offline training is the only option it proves difficult to prepare.
Today I started with the Porsche on Monza and I thought I was prepared being driving offline.
It was as if I was driving another car, so slipery (after seeing tyre wear on 200, I get the point where this came from, but why).
- If miss a corner the time penalty is way too high, it costed me more than a minute as a result of restarting counters when moving a millimeter (normally you have to slow down, this time a complete stand still was required). 20 seconds is long, but if they keep restarting it's agonizing.

What kind of a rookie must I be with almost two years of simracing experience in AC and also having some hours in iracing.
So my experience is very mixed, the system is tempting, but it takes way more preparation than in iracing, as a result of the differences online and offline. It looks hardly impossibe to prepare.
Maybe too steep for the starter and that may hold people of more than you want as a hoster of this platform (pity because this is a good idea and platform).
So I'm not sure, two frustrating nights are not inviting to continue.
Maybe I had two wrong cars as an example, did I?

Nevertheless thanks for letting me in, who knows, maybe I will continue and find my way in driving on this platform.

[Alexander Persil]

Shouldn't be a difference, unless you are practicing with different track conditions (temp & road condition). Usually, in free practice and qualifying before the race, track is quite green (usually starts at 94-95%), and it's quite slippery. Race is then usually 99-100%.
Fiesta is definitely not the easiest car to drive, as it's a rally car and is very nervous.
In the Porsche, check that you're not overheating your tires, that will make it very slippery and hard to handle.
I would start with fixed series cars, don't need to worry about setup, just the driving.
Also, focus on finishing clean races, even if you finish at the back. No reason to push too hard if you're making mistakes.
And most importantly, have a good time. Don't get frustrated after 2 days here on SRS. It's a great community, and the racing is clean and competitive.

[Handy Hanafiah]

hiya

• try to adjust your offline track condition and assist to match with online condition and allowed assist.
  assist:
  ABS: factory
  TC : factory
  just in case, factory assist mean if the real car had one of thoose assist you can enable it in game, but if not then you cant.
  so for porsche you cant use ABS and for fiesta you cant use TC and ABS.
  track condition:
  ambient temp: 21C to 22C
  road temp: 27C to 28C
  grip level: P&Q 95 (improve to 99 or 100 with time) R 100
  
• 200 tyre wear and 170 fuel consumption is to emulate endurance racing (1hour) where mandatory pit stop is enabled, so with high tyre wear and fuel consumption you have reason to enter the pit. 
  in the past it only apply to daily 1hour race (now only on the weekend). so i kinda understand if you ask "why" it still applied for 20 min race , but for some people it could be a good warmup for an actual 1 hour race.
  
  
• yeah, brands hatch penalty is kinda BS   and for monza brake early is best way to avoid penalty.
  

im still slow now but looking back when i first joining 1 year ago the difference between now and then is huge.
racing with aliens like Alexander Persil, Riley Gallardo, Walter Toro, Matteo Venuti <<[list of aliens that i really respect btw] made me improve from being backmarker to become midfield. i dont set my target too high, so finish inside top 10 already felt like a win for me, and most importantly i had fun.

[Roelof van der Zee]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies.

I must have missed TC and ABS settings, that makes a big difference, thanks for the tips.
Clean driving, I did notice that, no unnecessary collisions and that is great!
Monza was with the penalties and yes, breaking early will help avoiding (but still BS to get layed back for a minute, being forced to stop completely).

I will look into the off track settings as wel (thanks again) and no, I'm not that fast a quitter (than I wouldn't have posted this  ).
Lastly, I recognize the ambition in the middle. I'm not fast enough for the top 5 but top 10 is possible with my skills.

Thanks again!

Roelof

[Ilmari Ylitalo]

Like said above, you need to match track conditions to race server. Handy already said the grip improvement, practice and quali start at 94-95% and is improved over time. Do note that grip improvement is not a function of time but the amount of laps driven by all the cars combined, so if you have only a few drivers and/or a long track, the progress is very slow, sometimes not reaching 100% at all by the end of quali. You want some kind of reading on your screen that tells you the current grip level. I'm using the Realtime app.

For practice I run my own server with SRS race conditions settings, grip 100%, 1,5hr session of practice mode and damage set to just 1% so I can see if I take damage from something like over-revving but makes the car virtually indestructible so I don't have to restart after every crash and just continue. Could as well practice in single player session with same settings but I often practice with buddies (usually Mikko E.) so I just put the server up and join that onlline by default. When quali session starts, I just try to adapt and go a bit slower when the grip is bad, pushing harder in the end as the grip evolves.

Also like said above, tire temp and pressure are very important. If you overheat your tires all the way to "red", they are gonna be incredibly slippy and you must take this into consideration. On open setups you can adjust the pressures, and this is something very important to do and observe over several laps to get the most out of the grip over the race.

[Ilmari Ylitalo]

Note that track limits and penalties are crazy harsh on some tracks, mostly custom tracks. Also, on many tracks, going a bit wide on many tracks will disqualify your lap in quali session but same line will not give penalty in race. In advance, only way to find these out is try both race and quali- or practice modes when practicing. Anyway, in most cases, fastest way around the track is sticking to the track and cutting corners and going wide very conservatively (also because off track is often quite bumpy and slippery).