Okey, I know there is already a "training school" or how you can say it, but it doesn't really teach you that much.

What I really think would bring much more knownledge to new drivers (and old slow ones) is a real racing school. A proper one.

The basic idea is to just have a passenger beside you in the car, which is the racing school teacher or how you can call it. What he does is that you will drive around the track lap by lap and he will say, or scream, what do to basicly.

For example, when you are entering a corner he will scream "Brake, brake! Hard on the brakes!" when the braking point is and then "Turn right and hit apex" and then tell you when or how much to accelerate at the right point in or out of the corner.

This way you get alot of help learning the proper braking points, proper racing line and "correct" speed in the corners. Basic knowledge that is.
As it is today it is just "Go around the track and learn the brake points."
That ain't so easy when you are new to driving a sim and will take ALOT of time since you get barely any help at all.

The idea is also that you get a picture in the beginning of the school of the track you are currently at and you see a marked line on it, which is the racing line, and some numbers written on it which is the basic speeds you can master the corner at if you are new. This way you also get an overview of the track and a basic idea of which speeds and which line you should take.

I for one don't have that much experience in racing online or offline for that matter and would really think this would help me alot and will push me towards better laptimes and better lines around the track.

The racinglines, accelerationpoints, brakingpoints and those sort of things that the "teacher" is yelling ain't World record-breaking but it gives you a basic knowledge about these sort of things and would really help the new ones. Maybe even make them to survive T1 without crashing everyones rearend because they missed the proper brakepoint.


/Dalarna

Yes, I am aware that I am just a demodriver. Don't smash me for that, read my suggestion and base your oppinion of that. Not my not-existing-license.

Demo user! (KIDDING!)

Seriously though, this could be accomplished by having a real person spec you and comment on your driving... so I don't know if it would be really necessary/useful.

If you guys played Richard Burns Rally, you'd know what a good 'Driving School' is.

At first they start with basic stuff like "Drive this track at around 50kmh without getting off the road". Then they teach you how to take turns with different techniques, how to brake, how to control throttle, etc. It's actually useful and near impossible to play without.

I own and play RBR, but you can't get live person-to-person feedback in RBR like you can in LFS.

Quote from XenoWolf :

I own and play RBR, but you can't get live person-to-person feedback in RBR like you can in LFS.

With this you don't have to have a live person-to-person feedback, this way you learn the basics without asking alot of people to spec them.
This way new racers like me can learn the basics offline and then go online and just race and not crash all the time since we miss both the brake points and the proper line.
(That makes it sound like I am a wrecker, which I'm not. Don't missunderstand me know.)


I can only see this as an improvment, it is very usefull help and you get the help without having to go around server by server or forum by forum to find someone that will spec and give feedback.

I agree with both sides. A guide on the most basic racing techniques would be good, because we all know that while this stuff is readily available on the net, many people won't search for it, so making this knowledge available ingame is a definite plus. This guide should prevent things like not knowing what the ideal line is (driving through every corner starting from the inside is not a good idea - and yes, I've seen people do this), but it wouldn't necessarily teach how to be fast. For this problem a live instructor is still by far the best.

I like the idea of a driving instructor giving you advice. I also think that a few simple commands would be enough to get it working well.

"Slow down" - gentle braking
"Full brakes" - hard braking
"Full power" - mash the throttle
"Gentle power" - accelerate gently
"Touch right" - move slightly right
"Touch left" - move slightly left
"Hard right" - full lock right
"Hard left" - full lock left
"Move to outside" to the outside of the track
"Move to inside" to the inside of the track

Does that cover everything? Not including gear changes or anything specific to a setup or track.

Could an InSim app do it? I've no idea. It could be done using your rough position on the track, so (for example) if you were too close to the inside on a corner, it'd tell you to move to the outside, then brake. If you were approaching too fast, it'd slow you down, too slow it'd speed you up.

Might get annoying after a few laps, but it would teach people new to a track where they should be braking and stuff. Hmmm...

Quote from Dajmin :

I like the idea of a driving instructor giving you advice. I also think that a few simple commands would be enough to get it working well.

"Slow down" - gentle braking
"Full brakes" - hard braking
"Full power" - mash the throttle
"Gentle power" - accelerate gently
"Touch right" - move slightly right
"Touch left" - move slightly left
"Hard right" - full lock right
"Hard left" - full lock left
"Move to outside" to the outside of the track
"Move to inside" to the inside of the track

Does that cover everything? Not including gear changes or anything specific to a setup or track.

Could an InSim app do it? I've no idea. It could be done using your rough position on the track, so (for example) if you were too close to the inside on a corner, it'd tell you to move to the outside, then brake. If you were approaching too fast, it'd slow you down, too slow it'd speed you up.

Might get annoying after a few laps, but it would teach people new to a track where they should be braking and stuff. Hmmm...

That's exactly how I had it in mind.

hmm... a version of pitsotter perhaps?

That's what I started thinking about halfway through typing that lot. The biggest problem would be that it'd relate to your position on the track rather than other cars in relation to you, and I don't know if InSim can get that complex (the number of sectors you'd need to define on some tracks would be crazy).

Maybe I should try to learn how to use it

A proper racing school would have to be a whole sim of its own, IMO. I think a simple one like you suggested wouldn't really teach you racing, it would just help you learn the specific track you're on. You mention braking points, apex speed, etc, but you can already learn these by spectating a fast racer online or watching a hotlap replay.

Alternatively you can also learn to figure these out yourself, like it is done IRL. All you need to know is that an early turn-in leads to an early apex, which in turn leads to running wide at track-out. So start with a bit early braking points and late turn-ins, so you have plenty of tarmac left at track-out, and progressively bring your braking points deeper and your turn-in points earlier, until you find the right combination for each corner.

You may think it's a waste of time to do this when you could be told what to do, but you'd miss an important thing such a simplistic racing school wouldn't teach you: these braking/turn-in/apex/track-out points are only valid when you're alone on track. In a race they'll often vary because of the cars around you. For example if you wait for your optimal braking point at T1 in the first lap, you'll wreck half the cars ahead of you because you should have started braking when the leader reached the braking point. Similarly, if you experienced by yourself the results of early apexing, you'll know what to expect and how to react. But if you've only learned to always brake and turn-in at the same point, when a car spinning ahead of you will force you to turn-in earlier, you'll crash.

Quote from BullHorn :

If you guys played Richard Burns Rally, you'd know what a good 'Driving School' is.

At first they start with basic stuff like "Drive this track at around 50kmh without getting off the road". Then they teach you how to take turns with different techniques, how to brake, how to control throttle, etc. It's actually useful and near impossible to play without.

agreed

@FL!IP
You can learn where the braking points and apexes are from watching, but you can't necessarily work out how to get to them or how to "feel" the right places to do things. You could work them out solo so that you at least know what you're aiming for.

I do agree that trying to recreate this on a full grid will cause disaster. In fact, I assume that's the primary cause of T1 carnage right now. But I do think that once you had the basic idea down, it could possibly be modified to include other drivers too (if you could assign a "zone" to each car).

There's no perfect solution to teach people, other than just getting out there and trying stuff. But the problem is people don't want to practice offline, they just want to get online and race. Whether they know the car/track or not. And a lot of the time that will cause serious problems, both for them and the drivers around them.
But this kind of mod might help.

Hey... turn right!!!! NO... RIGHT!!! WTF.. NOT LEFT.... RIIIIIGHT!!!!!

Someone suggested it already but i think there should be server dedicated to teaching newbies. It would rotate tracks OCCASIONALLY and there would be about 4 or 5 experts. Then each expert would spec a newbie in need of help as they drove the track, trying as best they can to type fast =]