iRacing

[retsmah]

This may be a thing most people knew, but I recently learned that in official sessions your car number is assigned based in iRating, #1 has the highest iRating.

I've found this kind of helpful, if I'm in a session where I'm like #20 and I'm running like 10th I don't feel as much need to either try to push hard to catch the car in front of me, or worry about one or two cars passing me during the race.

[Rare White Ape]

Yeah iRating is like an ELO system, which has been used in countless competitive games such as Rainbow Six, Gran Turismo, Overwatch, etc...

Put simply if you beat people who aren't as experienced as you, you'll only gain a few points. If you beat people more experienced than you, then you will gain a lot of points. Vice-versa if you lose to people less experienced than you, you'll lose a lot of points.

It's a great way to really quickly sort people into their 'true' ranking... assuming all goes well without incidents. For example if an experienced sim racer is starting out in iRacing for the first time, they can very quickly climb the ladder and see themselves placed against racers with similar ranking points. From then its a matter of the driver being consistent and trying to improve which pushes them further up.

The trouble comes when the curve starts to flatten out and the gains come more slowly, or not at all. The driver will be used to winning or finishing up the front with relative ease, but suddenly they'll find themselves mid-pack or lower, and it will be very frustrating. This is not because they're slow, it's because everyone else is faster. They have reached their ceiling for now, and won't go any higher unless they put in a lot of effort.

Safety rating is different. I don't know how it works in iRacing but in Gran Turismo (a game that has taken a lot of inspiration from iRacing's rankings) your SR gauges how safe you are - not cutting corners, or hitting other cars, etc. In GT you will actually lose a lot of your driver rating if your SR drops below a certain level as a way to punish bad behaviour. You'll have the ability to gain it back, but that takes a long time, plus you'll be put in splits against other drivers with poor safety ratings as well. Not fun!

[Yobbo NZ]

I'm almost over the MX5, thing is bloody hard to drive consistently fast.
One lap is good, next lap it's sliding all over the place.
Also doesn't help with dipshit drivers who can't use mirrors or their spotter instructions.
On another note, I like the Cadillac.
I've only been running TT and practice sessions so far to work myself into it, slowly getting faster, but Spa is pretty brutal on track limits.

[Cam]

Don't go off-track?

I bought a few more cars last night. There is a group I want to race with who use the 911 GT3 in a weekly meet. They also do endurance races regularly. Today, they are doing a 12 hour race in the 718 GT4. I was doing some fun practice with them last night. I turned off TCS/ABS/ECM, but could not keep the car on the road. I had to turn it back on. I also bought the Lotus 79, Nissan GTP-ZX, and Ford GT 2017.

[retsmah]

Check out this guys first lap. I'm the red car that he knocks off the course in the first corner, but he's got another one up his sleeve. I went back to see how this even happened, I started like third from last, didn't have anyone right behind me and wasn't even having to check up much on the first corner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiJg...ature=youtu.be

On a related note, is there a way even after a race to figure out if your car had any damage? It seemed like my car was handling not so great this race after getting hit on the first lap, I was having a lot more oversteer than usual. I came into the pits after the race and they didn't try to make any repairs though. Maybe I was just driving poorly.

edit: I always forget to save replays, including this one This would have probably been funnier to edit from the point of view of the cars that got hit.

[Cam]

Yes, it is possible that your car was damaged and the crew declined to fix it. It has happened to me in the Formula Mazda. I do not know if there are any damage indicators that you can look at in-game.

[Cam]

FFS, I joined an hour race in my new Ford GT. I am way off-pace, but I expected that. The very first car to lap me wrecks me. I intentionally went wide in a corner to let him take the inside and he just drove straight into me. 25 minute stop for repairs.

[retsmah]

Had a similar situation, we'll see if I can file a protest, I tried to on a race a few days ago and haven't been able to. Left the inside wide open for a dude behind me and he just drove into the back of me. Watched the full replay and he did the same thing to another car, and side swiped a third.

I've had so many crashes but I don't drive aggressively at all, I think I've probably caused 1-2 of them in my entire iRacing career, and had another maybe 3-5 that were just racing incidents. Most are some idiot deciding that because he has a draft he's now some superhuman that doesn't have to brake for the next corner

[retsmah]

Figured out what my problem was with protesting, there is a 30MB limit on attachment size, however if you exceed that the error message it gives you is that there is an error with the system, try again in a few minutes. Anyway I protested my last race, and then protested an incident I just witnessed a few days ago of intentional blocking.

[Yobbo NZ]

Does it confirm you've sent the protest? Two I've done, hit done/submit and it doesn't seem to do anything, no error or confirmation.