[Ilya Krivokhizhin]

It feels like this season was a stepdown in terms of speed and driving skill in general from the guys across SRS. There are a lot of superfast guys but there are also those who don't practice at all or don't even know current track or car.
I know it's probably never going to be implemented but I still would like to suggest a way that might make racing more competitive. It all comes down to setting a time that every driver has to beat in order to participate in races during next week. Something like a 107% rule in F1 and other series. You have to do it once and you're good to go for the whole week for that car/track combo.
This suggestion is just from the top of the head and I realize it will probably lead to less people racing. But it may actually be better for SRS in the long run, increasing it's reputation and therefore luring faster guys in. Anyway you guys at SRS are doing a great job and I'm sure you can figure out something better but it feels like SRS needs something to boost racing quality. The only alternative is iRacing and it's not worth the money. I'm even willing to pay to race at SRS if it's not so expensive as iRacing, just to have better racing.

[Michal Ringes]

Its problematic especially with some cars, in this seasson with 98 it would mean that in some races there would be like 8 people allowed to start on server 1 in some races

[Simon Meisinger]

There needs to be a practice server for certain series where people have to do 5-10 consecutive clean laps in order to be able to register for a race. Would enhance race quality so much and would make SRS stand out in the whole sim racing community.

A 107% rule would help as well, but not as much. A race with a couple of slow but decent people is much better than a race with only fast guys where many don't know the difference between hot lapping and racing.

[Filip Stoyanovich]

Obviously all good ideas, but how do you record and then transfer/deploy this practice laptimes data in a way that it could be automated? There's a lot of drivers and series, and that's a lot of work to do each week or even each season.

[Dario Bucalo]

I understand that for those who go fast it can be a problem but I think that in this period many new people are joining the world of sim racing for the first time. More than cutting those who go slow, I think we should put the rookies in a position to improve in order to compete with the more experienced pilots. AC is a very complex game and having a good setup is essential, in terms of speed and safety on the track. Also because there are races in which 20 participants run with a maximum of 2 seconds difference. I therefore think that the aspect of growing the community should be preferred rather than selecting only the best. In a long term perspective, it is more advantageous to have a solid community that grows and does not abandon rather than to risk that people, who cannot compete and have fun, abandon after a while.

[Simon Meisinger]

Obviously all good ideas, but how do you record and then transfer/deploy this practice laptimes data in a way that it could be automated? There's a lot of drivers and series, and that's a lot of work to do each week or even each season.

This should have to work automatically of course, a certain amount of clean laps should definitely be possible; consecutive laps might be a bit trickier, yes.

And not for every series of course. Only for two or three of the most demanding one of a season. It wouldn't make much sense for daily series and SRS would need 14 additions servers for that, which obviously would be stupid.

[Dominic ORourke]

I understand that for those who go fast it can be a problem but I think that in this period many new people are joining the world of sim racing for the first time. More than cutting those who go slow, I think we should put the rookies in a position to improve in order to compete with the more experienced pilots. AC is a very complex game and having a good setup is essential, in terms of speed and safety on the track. Also because there are races in which 20 participants run with a maximum of 2 seconds difference. I therefore think that the aspect of growing the community should be preferred rather than selecting only the best. In a long term perspective, it is more advantageous to have a solid community that grows and does not abandon rather than to risk that people, who cannot compete and have fun, abandon after a while.

I completely agree with this. We need to educate people and help get them up to speed to improve racing instead of getting rid of people who are not up to speed.

I think the frustration last season was that for the F1 cars Ted made great video guides and multiple fast drivers shared setups,  but it seemed to make absolutely no difference. The information was there, but for whatever reason people did not get to it.

If you look at real life, by the time drivers have got to difficult cars they have a had far more education than drivers do in any sim. Years in junior formulae working with engineers to understand how to drive and mostly likely getting shouted at for causing a crash a few times.  Not only is it easier to learn with the help but every crash has consequences which makes the mistake stick in the mind. I have not raced online for long enough to know if the standard has dropped, but if it has I expect it is just that there are more inexperienced drivers.

For open setup races I think we need to direct people to something better than the default setup and in general have better signposting to help.

[Dario Bucalo]

I completely agree with this. We need to educate people and help get them up to speed to improve racing instead of getting rid of people who are not up to speed.


I think the frustration last season was that for the F1 cars Ted made great video guides and multiple fast drivers shared setups,  but it seemed to make absolutely no difference. The information was there, but for whatever reason people did not get to it.

If you look at real life, by the time drivers have got to difficult cars they have a had far more education than drivers do in any sim. Years in junior formulae working with engineers to understand how to drive and mostly likely getting shouted at for causing a crash a few times.  Not only is it easier to learn with the help but every crash has consequences which makes the mistake stick in the mind. I have not raced online for long enough to know if the standard has dropped, but if it has I expect it is just that there are more inexperienced drivers.

For open setup races I think we need to direct people to something better than the default setup and in general have better signposting to help.

I am new to the world of simracing, I registered on SRS only 2 months ago and I can tell my experience up to here and maybe find something together to improve the community, I will explain point to point.

1. I found SRS a little by chance, on a twitch chat, despite looking for a similar service for a long time. In this regard, I think it is useful to do a little more advertising and make the homepage more user-friendly, because those who are not registered do not see anything of the contents and everything is sent back to the forum.
   
2. I find it really professional to have to register with name and surname, in order to make people responsible. My impression, however, was that after registration I was abandoned, without knowing what to do and how. 
   
3. At that point I decided to try to compete. I chose a couple of races randomly, realizing only after how the seasons work, the ranking, the level of preparation you need. So I understood that to have fun it is, first of all, necessary to study how to stay on the track. So I started watching videos on youtube about beginners' mistakes, how to overtake and run in a clean and fair way and how to approach curves. Unfortunately, on the forum I saw random, unorganized and existing tips thanks to the good users who dedicate time to those in difficulty. I have seen that there are a lot of trained and helpful people here on the forum helping newcomers. My proposal is to create "ad hoc" content for beginners. As a guide, a vademecum, to be offered immediately to those who register, to be proposed in an almost mandatory way to start playing. Maybe structured as lessons, I found some useful on other communities.
   
4. After this first phase of acclimatization, I understood that it was necessary to choose one of the proposed competitions and dedicate oneself to practicing. I had difficulty finding the right setup in the "open" races, so I decided to try the "fixed" tatuus. I was finally able to have some fun but unfortunately I noticed that in open wheel races people are crazier and unruly than in other competitions and I have seen the rating of accidents grow, despite my commitment, making the experience frustrating.
   
5. With the start of last season, I decided to devote myself to Fiat Tipo, practicing and looking for a good setup. Unfortunately having no experience I started studying on youtube and other forums how to approach the setup, although it did not have great results. I was always slower than several seconds and the feeling with the car was not good enough. I have to thank the good people I met and who helped me with simple but useful advice, especially Daniel Rondon and Andrea Mombelli whom I thank publicly, because it is thanks to them if I have not succumbed to frustration and abandon. at last I have finally fun with races and good fights (and decreased my incidents rating!).
   

I think that like me there are other users who had the same initial difficulties, I hope we can improve in this sense. I think it would be great to create content such as tutorials and guides in the foreground on the homepage, a bit like news, thus making the content more accessible.
I think that by making some improvements, the active community will be much more, so there will be more people on the servers and thus the problem reported by Ilya Krivokhizhin is solved, because we would have 4 full servers, where the slowest ones run in 3-4 and the fastest in 1-2, thus taking advantage of the current selection via ranking without excluding anyone.
thanks for reading everything and sorry my english 

Dominic, where are these videos and setup?

[Gianluca Roncaglia]

Hi Dario,
I just read your interesting post, since I've been sharing most of the experiencies you had here on SRS.

I'm relatively new to simracing too and registered to SRS only a couple of months ago. I could say that I'm still a Forza Motorsport-like driver and I had my hard times here in the beginning (and so far).

SRS may be considered a platform for skilled and experienced drivers - and in its structure, as you notice, probably is, but if you take your time for reading carefully all the instructions and rules you'll have most of your questions answered, and searching in the forum you'll probably find all others clarifications you may need. Also, as you had, I got a lot of support from other SRS members when I asked for.

Up to now, my experience here is getting better day by day. Take your time and it will be the same for you, I guess.

If you want to share more on the SRS experience, feel free to contact me privately - getting further here would be a little off-topic, I guess -, we could talk easily in our native language :-)

Gianluca

[Dario Bucalo]

Hi Gianluca, thanks for the reply. What I meant was that in the forum there is a bit of everything, but not in an orderly and easily usable way, you always end up asking someone, as I did with other users hahaha There was some dedicated section, curated by someone would be excellent, just to give a starting point, then the rest comes with experience. Unfortunately I don't have the skills otherwise I would do it willingly, but I make myself available if you need help in something else.