by "Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
Published 03/22/2017 at 08:14
by "Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
Published 03/22/2017 at 08:14
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STARS: 0
Honda CR-Z touring car for your time.
Do any oppos have experience with iRacing? Is it something that I can do casually? I say casually but I have a logitech DFGT set up with a wheelstand. I mean to put in a few hours a week racing/practicing. I’m mainly interested in the MX-5 cup car that comes with subscription and I’d just like to be able to have some clean races.
Any anecdotes, experiences or opinions are appreciated.
"Clemsie McKenzie" (thestirringcolumn)
03/22/2017 at 08:36, STARS: 0
Not on iRacing myself, but there is an Oppo iRacing team! You should probably ask for advice there:
http://oppositelock.kinja.com/team-oppo-is-looking-for-team-members-1792051464
"E92M3" (E46M3)
03/22/2017 at 08:45, STARS: 1
I’m not a user, mainly because I don’t have the time. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have the time to enjoy it. You can race as casually as you want, but it is addictive. There are a lot of leagues that take it VERY serious. They have home built and professional seat/steering/pedal/TV setups. Some leagues even mimic real racing series schedules. Nascar, Rolex, F1. They race the same tracks each race weekend, and even the same distance or time. Then others mimic the series, but do 10%, 20%, etc of the number of laps. Of course there are just random races too all the time.
"Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
03/22/2017 at 08:51, STARS: 0
That looks like a great place to ask for advice. It’s a shame I likely won’t have the time to join the team/endurance race. Thanks!
"Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
03/22/2017 at 08:54, STARS: 0
Thanks! I’m mainly looking for random races, though if there’s a flexible series that’s always cool. I have some content in R3E (raceroom racing experience) I have project cars and I have a PS3 with GT6, there are plenty of great singleplayer experiences there but outside of GT6 nurburgring cruise rooms there’s not really any way to race without acceptable levels of contact/driving.
As long as I can race an MX-5 on laguna seca where the most threat is someone trading paint with me I’m fine. It gets irritating dealing with people who try to PIT you or force you off track.
"TheTurbochargedSquirrel" (thatsquirrel)
03/22/2017 at 09:18, STARS: 2
You can totally iRace in a casual manner. No need for a massive commitment to have fun.
"Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
03/22/2017 at 09:25, STARS: 0
Thanks! I was really hoping that was the case. Anything important I need to know?
"TheTurbochargedSquirrel" (thatsquirrel)
03/22/2017 at 09:28, STARS: 0
You can game the hell out of the licensing system. Reach an SR of 4.0 and you are automatically bumped to the next license. You can get all the way to A (the highest outside of being offered a professional spot) in under 1 season if you try hard enough. I would recommend using Time Trials to bump yourself out of Rookie so you don’t have to deal with the carnage that sometimes happens in Rookie races.
"Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
03/22/2017 at 09:45, STARS: 0
Awesome, I like hotlapping so that works for me. Any cars you would suggest in popular classes? I’ll likely be pretty satisfied with MX-5 racing, however I do enjoy touring car racing. In that respect the Kia Optima looks good to me but I don’t know if anyone actually hosts any races for that.
Generally I’m not all that interested in the GT3 cars as they’re a bit above my level (though I’m willing to learn, I understand it’s a popular class) Is there a car in that class that’s relatively forgiving?
"Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney" (braddelaparker)
03/22/2017 at 09:55, STARS: 1
Absolutely it is. I started with (and am still using) a DFGT 3 years down the road (will be replacing with a full Fanatec setup when I decide to stop being a cheapass) and probably only dedicate an hour a week to it when you average it out across the year. I’m just coming off a period where I raced every night of the week, but haven’t touched it in about a week. All done on a Surface Pro 4 with a Core i5 (not exactly a powerhouse; almost all settings on low, but I don’t generally have problems actually running races).
My best tip is that you need to grind it out a bit at first to get out of the Rookie safety license. You won’t have many clean races down there and it will be very frustrating, but if you’re even a reasonably decent racer then you should be able to get to the front of the pack pretty easily and avoid the carnage, if you can make it through the first corner. By my memory I think it only takes 6-10 clean races (and this includes not dropping too many wheels off the circuit or spinning out) to get out of Rookie league, but that will be a touch harder than it sounds at first.
Don’t be afraid to venture to the Skip Barber car or Spec Racer Ford, they provide very good racing in the vein of the MX-5. Sometimes the series you’ll want to run will be at a track you don’t own and don’t want to buy (buy the good ones, though, it’s worth it), so don’t be afraid to venture out to other series for cars you own when that’s the case.
Lastly, you may like me not be a NASCAR guy, but do yourself a favor and check out the oval stuff. There are four oval series (NASCAR entry level, IndyCar oval, NASCAR Truck, and Street Stock) that you start off owning the cars and a lot of the tracks for, and as a hardcore road racing guy I’ve been blown away by the amount of fun I’ve had doing the ovals. The biggest benefit is that the races in those entry level classes fill out more often than the road races, are relatively short, and pack a lot more action than most of the road race series see at the low-to-mid tier levels.
Above all, just do it. If you’re thinking about it then I can almost guarantee you’ll love it.
EDIT: Oh, and last but certainly not least, you are probably going to find the physics very frustrating at first if you’re coming from a Gran Turismo background (like me). GT does a great job for a console, but the tire model in iRacing is miles above that and it can be rather brutal. Bad wiggles/slips can be a lot tougher to save than you’re probably used to in GT.
"Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
03/22/2017 at 10:23, STARS: 1
Thanks I really appreciate the input, that’s a lot! As for the GT background, I also have experience with GTR evo, Race 07, Dirt Rally, RaceRoom Experience, Grand Prix Legends and Project Cars. But I appreciate the warning.
I’m planning on buying a years sub as soon as I have the money. Should run fine on my rig, my CPU is slow but my GTX 1070 makes up for it a bit. I’ll have to try out the Skip Barber and Formula Ford, I also hear what you’re saying with oval races. I always poo-pood them until I actually tried, it’s far more fun than it looks.
"Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney" (braddelaparker)
03/22/2017 at 10:29, STARS: 0
If you’ve got experience with GPL then you’ll be just fine with iRacing, haha. I don’t think I’ve ever been more frustrated than playing GPL back in the day. iRacing came out of the same team and physics engine as GPL (no idea how much is in tact at this point) if I remember correctly.
"Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
03/22/2017 at 10:54, STARS: 0
I’m surprised I hadn’t made that connection! To be fair my experience with GPL was when I was much younger with a logitech momo wheel. I was never any good, ridiculously difficult sim. I know those cars aren’t easy to drive IRL but I’m pretty sure they were much harder in GPL.
Is oversteer manageable in iRacing or do you get too easily lost in snap oversteer? I’ve found that most sims can be less forgiving than the real thing in the case of oversteer.
"Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney" (braddelaparker)
03/22/2017 at 11:07, STARS: 0
I’d say that it exists on a continuum. If you induce true snap oversteer then you’re going to have a tough time saving it, but there’s plenty of progressive oversteer to be had which you can control but it takes some getting used to. It’s still a bit more unforgivable than I would expect in real life, but I think a lot of that is the fact that almost all of these cars are on a slick tire model which would be far less forgiving to slip angle in real life.
I think I’d have even fewer issues with snap oversteer if I had a better wheel; the DFGT just doesn’t have the sensitivity or force feedback quality to give you any non-visual cues that you’re about to experience it and isn’t as precise in controlling it.
My very last complaint is also DFGT specific which is the brake pedal. I think i’d easily be 5-10% quicker if I had a proper set of pedals at the moment; threshold braking is nigh-on impossible with a DFGT in iRacing which is an issue for almost any car that isn’t one of the GT cars with TC/ABS. It’s not unusable, but at the end of almost every straight in non-ABS cars I find myself locking up momentarily and it seems almost unavoidable.
"Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
03/22/2017 at 11:19, STARS: 1
That’s actually the big complaint I have with the DFGT pedals. I’m planning on modifying them soon, I just need to engineer a solution. I’m not willing to stuff a stress ball under the pedals and reduce the amount of travel I have or calibrate it that way, the whole setup is low resolution enough as is.
I was thinking about something along the lines of this : RC Shocks (without oil) mounted to the pedal for progressive resistance.
As for the wheel woes, have you tuned your DFGT FFB settings? The DFGT is capable of really strong force feedback which is all well and good but I’ve noticed (as a former G27 owner) it clips pretty fast at higher levels I get a lot more feedback out of mine after turning it down to eliminate most clipping.
"Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney" (braddelaparker)
03/22/2017 at 11:25, STARS: 0
Man, that’s a pretty nice solution on the brakes. I’ve done the sponge/foam in the pedal recess thing and was not a fan either. I may have to try that out.
I used to mess with the FFB settings a lot on mine, but ran into the same clipping issues at any kind of decent amount of FFB. I’m running it very, very low these days because I feel that it’s a lot more manageable when set low, but I still feel like I’m missing out on a certain amount of feel.
That said, the wheel isn’t slowing me down, probably just affecting consistency at worst. The brakes I think present a constant pace issue for me.
"E92M3" (E46M3)
03/22/2017 at 11:25, STARS: 0
I feel the same way. For the most part it’s a more serious crowd. Asshole driving will quickly get someone removed from a league. I’m sure you could find and join a MX-5 Cup league. If you can’t make every race, well then you just won’t do well in the points. But that’s not your main objective anyway it sounds like.
"TheTurbochargedSquirrel" (thatsquirrel)
03/22/2017 at 11:29, STARS: 0
As you gain licenses I would look at which series you would like to run and pick your cars based on that. The MX-5 makes a great starting point and iRacing has begun to give out the older cars (like the 2009 Indycar, the CTS-V and the old stock cars) to new members which allows you to get a good taste of the different types of racing.
In general the GT3s are rather forgiving as the GT3 spec is designed to be friendly to amature drivers. If you are going to try GT3 and you have any interest whatsoever of running with team Oppo I would recommend the R8 as that is what team Oppo runs.
"Illegitimus Prime" (illprime)
03/22/2017 at 12:28, STARS: 0
Yeah, I’m not concerned about being the next rising star of sim racing. I’m in a position in life where I don’t have the car I want and it’s smarter to save for something really nice, so I am. On top of that, motorsports events are relatively expensive anyways and I don’t have the time to invest into it, I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now (learning a new language and learning the history and basics of the country/society in order to integrate.)