Hi noob. Grats on your first (frustration filled, I'm sure) races. Now that you had the good sense of coming here for tips, here are they:
Step 1: Garage:
Carsetup is Vital. The default ones are... well... criminal.
You need GOOD setups. But for the love of all that is holy, do NOT, and I repeat NOT get Team Inferno's "Setupfield".
Get some guy's (Ill add credit later) Easy Driving setups. (Just search the forum for it, Ill link it later).
Linky:Click Me 4 Speed
Why? The setupfield is basically made of very fast setups. For a normal person, that would be enough explanation, but since its for you, Ill explain further: Fast setups are HARD to drive. If you're a noob, you do NOT want a hard to drive car. You want an EASY car.
Basically, you're not fit to get a really fast setup until these three things happen:
1) You start squirming in your seat thinking you could do that last turn a lot faster with a slightly stiffer suspension.
2) You can do 10 laps all within the same second, with no offtrack incursions (excursion, actually).
3) You manage to do a small race without spinning off/crashing into anyone/Eating grass
THEN, you can start using setupfield, and you'll find the cars surprisingly fast and EASY to drive. Before that, you'll spin more often than not.
Step2: Car/server:
"What one shall I choose first.. they all seem so.. .delicious."
--Cookie to whoever nails that quote
No big difference there - just a small warning:
Slow cars -> Easy to learn, really REALLY hard to master. You'll be up and racing, really racing for midfield in notime. BUT you'll not win races for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time.
These slow cars require so much finesse and speed management (making sure you exit fast on all corners, making sure you don't bleed off too much speed by over or understeering, etc) That you WILL get stuck in a rut around 2secs behind the fast racers.
Fast Cars -> Hard to learn, easy to master. These cars have so much more power that you can recover from mistakes much easier. After you've managed to actually DO the turn, that is. If you go 10 kph too fast on a BF1(Formula One)... not much of a problem. Go 10kph too fast on a XRG (Front engine rear drive Mitsubishi starion lookalike).... disaster.
My advice: start in the slow cars, to get a "Feel" for the game, then try a bit of all cars.
Step3: Driving.
Actually driving:
I'm not gonna give you the usual "Slow in, fast out" and "Use the draft, Luke" stuff.
Instead, heres how to LEARN. Like Gentlefoot said, first recon the track. Gentlefoot said he goes around the track in 2nd gear, then starts doing the bends faster and faster. DO THIS.
Watch in-car footage of other drivers, but ONLY watch the racing line at first. Then on their lap 2, concentrate on where they brake/accelerate. Then try to emulate, BUT REMEMBER TO GO SLOWER. Do NOT brake where they do, and accelerate later. When you start not going offtrack, then start doing it gradually more like they do.
One of the reasons to remember WHY you should go slower is that due to lag, the driver you're watching will appear to brake a lot later (Other than the obvious reason you lack the skillzzz to negotiate the bend at that speed).
After your doing some quite regular times (even if they are not that fast at first), try some different lines. pretend you're overtaking someone, do the braking into the turn in the center of the track. To race, you need to know where to brake even if your not in the edge of the track. You'll need to brake to a slower speed to be able to take the corner, so you'll need to brake SOONER. (In a overtaking maneuvre, you'll want to place your car in front of your opponent, keep braking into the turn ,forcing him to brake more, into your speed so he doesn't hit you, and then accelerating with him, as then he will not be going faster than you.)
Try making chicanes like that and you'll figure out fairly fast why you don't often see overtaking on tight chicanes: it is either do it on the correct line, or take off towards Jupiter propelled by kerbs and tirewalls.
Learn where 2 cars dont fit. The infamous chicane(s) in south city are a prime example. Whoever tries to overtake THERE is gonna end up in flames: Either from his car, or from his angry opponents vociferations after you crash him. ( try to not be in a ventrillo/Teamspeak server when you test chicane overtaking, as it can be hazardous to your hearing).
Common noob-ish mistakes:
1)
Its VERY common to brake too late, and also very common to start turning way too late. If your car is going wide(if you dont *just* feel the inside kerb), your going doing it all wrong.
In the beginning brake EARLIER than you'd want. Start doing it at the 100m marker, and if your coming from a long straight, at the 125m marker.
Turning BEFORE you'd want. Do it like this: Imagine you want to completly cut the corner. Really TRY to get all four wheels on the grass on the inside of the track. Youll be amazed that you'll just hit the inside kerb very softly and exit the corner so fast you'll prolly crash in the next one.
Only start braking a tad later and turning in a tad later when you are hitting the inside kerb roughly and flipping the car, or flying off or something. Then you know where to start turning in.
Make flipping your car a sport: Try to flip you car over by hitting the inside kerb on all bends.
2)
Trying to overtake via late braking:
Coming to the corner with a rival, you get on the inside line, hoping to brake later than he does and scoring the pass.
WRONG. At least for now, DONT.
Chances are, he is as big a noob as you are, and you'll both try to brake as late as possible and BOTH will MISS the braking spot, and then the one that manages to overtake is the one that gets off the sandtrap the fastest
Instead, remain behind him, brake Earlier, then get on the throttle sooner than him and exit the turn a full 15kph faster than him. You'll fly past him so fast he'll think your cheating.
OR (more often than not), move to his inside line, just off his mirrors, brake early and watch him go down in a cloud of smoke
as he tries to desperatly defend his position via massive late braking (and ends up in the sand).
--Ironically, modern day Formula One degenerated into this: Drivers "Showing themselves" in the mirrors of the opponent ahead of them, hoping to force them into a mistake.
For a big while (until you can use Setupfield car setups and go really fast), be a Lamb, not a wolf. When you are lapping at the pace of the top 4, then you can be a wolf again. By NOT crashing, you'll land midfield spots from the very first tries, so DON'T crash.
The turn one mess:
Remember the accordion effect. IF the car in first place slows from 200kph to 50kph and there is nowhere to pass (remember south city chicanes?), the last car must nearly STOP to prevent hitting the one in front. Think of Spa-Francorchamps (or whatever hell way its spelled), when the starting line is behind the hairpin. Cars take space, and in turn one you must brake a LOT earlier than usual. Sometimes ridiculously early. Also, remember the turn one pileups and the not crashing rule. Brake a lot earlier (brake as soon as you see the dude thats 10 places in front of you brake), try to not be in front of another noob dude (who will problably try to sodomize you with his car) And watch the fireworks. Carefully tread around the flipped over and spinning cars, and then you can safely begin the race.
Later, MUCH later, you'll be aggressive in turn one, scoring a lot of places, but that is only when you know how to control your car even with people slamming into it.
Step 3.5: Tires Tires Tires:
All that keeps you in contact with the ground is are 4 patches of rubber roughly the size of your hand. So treat your tires right, and listen to them.
A low "roooooohhhhhhhhhh" of a sound is healthy (tires are just scrubbing, not sliding), a loud "screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech" is bad. really bad. Tires are sliding, overheating (or locked wheels) and a overheated tire has very little traction. its WAAAAY worse than a cold tire.
Hopefully though, you'll only notice the difference between cold and hot tires when you are able to start driving the setupfield cars.
The screech sound also means your bleeding off speed, and if you bleed too much, you die. Dont slide, this is not a rally. You should never be sliding.
Dont push as hard as you can on everylap (truer words have never been said - credit to Gentlefoot), just try to be consistent and not go offtrack at first. The time to really push it is later. You'll know when. Good luck!
The "in between" times.
After you've mastered the easy setup cars, you can try to make your own, and then pass on to the setupfield (hopefully modified to your liking).
For a good guide on making setups, check the LFS manual - but the "[url="Basic Driving Guide"]http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Basic_driving_guides[/url] section.
When you start fiddling with all, heres a couple of stuff to remember to tweak your car to perfection:
When braking, all the wheels should *just* lock, and all at the same time.
When cornering, you tires view (the one with the tire temps - F10 IIRC), should have the little gray bars (the amout of weight on each section of the tire) should be FLAT on the outside tires, indicating the tire is completely flat agaist the road, maximizing grip. If the middle has less weight than the edges, put more pressure (or the inverse if it has less weight). The edges are "fixed" via more or less camber.
Your tires should be a strong, healthy green. Red tires means massive loss of traction. If theres a red "blink" it means a section of tire is overheated, but the rest isnt. The result is that whenever that particular spot goes by the ground, you loose say 50% of grip on that tire. Can be hazardous in a turn, quiaff?
Sometimes, the more grippy tires are NOT the best. For example, a good way to gain a couple seconds on the XFG (the Clio, Saxo, Golf look-alike) is to fit HYBRID (rally and road) tires in the back. Why? Cause these tires have a lower optimal temp, so in a 5 lap race youll get them up to temp and maximum grip in 2 laps. With the normal road tires, it could take a loooooooooooong time to get those tires up to temp, resulting in a lot of oversteer. This way, you get a lot of oversteer for half of lap 1, then great handling, and when all the temps are perfect, just a tad of oversteer.
Study the Team inferno setups - see how they balance the car, and you can then do your own cars.
"Use the draft, Luke!"
Step 1: Garage:
Carsetup is Vital. The default ones are... well... criminal.
You need GOOD setups. But for the love of all that is holy, do NOT, and I repeat NOT get Team Inferno's "Setupfield".
Get some guy's (Ill add credit later) Easy Driving setups. (Just search the forum for it, Ill link it later).
Linky:Click Me 4 Speed
Why? The setupfield is basically made of very fast setups. For a normal person, that would be enough explanation, but since its for you, Ill explain further: Fast setups are HARD to drive. If you're a noob, you do NOT want a hard to drive car. You want an EASY car.
Basically, you're not fit to get a really fast setup until these three things happen:
1) You start squirming in your seat thinking you could do that last turn a lot faster with a slightly stiffer suspension.
2) You can do 10 laps all within the same second, with no offtrack incursions (excursion, actually).
3) You manage to do a small race without spinning off/crashing into anyone/Eating grass
THEN, you can start using setupfield, and you'll find the cars surprisingly fast and EASY to drive. Before that, you'll spin more often than not.
Step2: Car/server:
"What one shall I choose first.. they all seem so.. .delicious."
--Cookie to whoever nails that quote
No big difference there - just a small warning:
Slow cars -> Easy to learn, really REALLY hard to master. You'll be up and racing, really racing for midfield in notime. BUT you'll not win races for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time.
These slow cars require so much finesse and speed management (making sure you exit fast on all corners, making sure you don't bleed off too much speed by over or understeering, etc) That you WILL get stuck in a rut around 2secs behind the fast racers.
Fast Cars -> Hard to learn, easy to master. These cars have so much more power that you can recover from mistakes much easier. After you've managed to actually DO the turn, that is. If you go 10 kph too fast on a BF1(Formula One)... not much of a problem. Go 10kph too fast on a XRG (Front engine rear drive Mitsubishi starion lookalike).... disaster.
My advice: start in the slow cars, to get a "Feel" for the game, then try a bit of all cars.
Step3: Driving.
Actually driving:
I'm not gonna give you the usual "Slow in, fast out" and "Use the draft, Luke" stuff.
Instead, heres how to LEARN. Like Gentlefoot said, first recon the track. Gentlefoot said he goes around the track in 2nd gear, then starts doing the bends faster and faster. DO THIS.
Watch in-car footage of other drivers, but ONLY watch the racing line at first. Then on their lap 2, concentrate on where they brake/accelerate. Then try to emulate, BUT REMEMBER TO GO SLOWER. Do NOT brake where they do, and accelerate later. When you start not going offtrack, then start doing it gradually more like they do.
One of the reasons to remember WHY you should go slower is that due to lag, the driver you're watching will appear to brake a lot later (Other than the obvious reason you lack the skillzzz to negotiate the bend at that speed).
After your doing some quite regular times (even if they are not that fast at first), try some different lines. pretend you're overtaking someone, do the braking into the turn in the center of the track. To race, you need to know where to brake even if your not in the edge of the track. You'll need to brake to a slower speed to be able to take the corner, so you'll need to brake SOONER. (In a overtaking maneuvre, you'll want to place your car in front of your opponent, keep braking into the turn ,forcing him to brake more, into your speed so he doesn't hit you, and then accelerating with him, as then he will not be going faster than you.)
Try making chicanes like that and you'll figure out fairly fast why you don't often see overtaking on tight chicanes: it is either do it on the correct line, or take off towards Jupiter propelled by kerbs and tirewalls.
Learn where 2 cars dont fit. The infamous chicane(s) in south city are a prime example. Whoever tries to overtake THERE is gonna end up in flames: Either from his car, or from his angry opponents vociferations after you crash him. ( try to not be in a ventrillo/Teamspeak server when you test chicane overtaking, as it can be hazardous to your hearing).
Common noob-ish mistakes:
1)
Its VERY common to brake too late, and also very common to start turning way too late. If your car is going wide(if you dont *just* feel the inside kerb), your going doing it all wrong.
In the beginning brake EARLIER than you'd want. Start doing it at the 100m marker, and if your coming from a long straight, at the 125m marker.
Turning BEFORE you'd want. Do it like this: Imagine you want to completly cut the corner. Really TRY to get all four wheels on the grass on the inside of the track. Youll be amazed that you'll just hit the inside kerb very softly and exit the corner so fast you'll prolly crash in the next one.
Only start braking a tad later and turning in a tad later when you are hitting the inside kerb roughly and flipping the car, or flying off or something. Then you know where to start turning in.
Make flipping your car a sport: Try to flip you car over by hitting the inside kerb on all bends.
2)
Trying to overtake via late braking:
Coming to the corner with a rival, you get on the inside line, hoping to brake later than he does and scoring the pass.
WRONG. At least for now, DONT.
Chances are, he is as big a noob as you are, and you'll both try to brake as late as possible and BOTH will MISS the braking spot, and then the one that manages to overtake is the one that gets off the sandtrap the fastest
Instead, remain behind him, brake Earlier, then get on the throttle sooner than him and exit the turn a full 15kph faster than him. You'll fly past him so fast he'll think your cheating.
OR (more often than not), move to his inside line, just off his mirrors, brake early and watch him go down in a cloud of smoke
as he tries to desperatly defend his position via massive late braking (and ends up in the sand).
--Ironically, modern day Formula One degenerated into this: Drivers "Showing themselves" in the mirrors of the opponent ahead of them, hoping to force them into a mistake.
For a big while (until you can use Setupfield car setups and go really fast), be a Lamb, not a wolf. When you are lapping at the pace of the top 4, then you can be a wolf again. By NOT crashing, you'll land midfield spots from the very first tries, so DON'T crash.
The turn one mess:
Remember the accordion effect. IF the car in first place slows from 200kph to 50kph and there is nowhere to pass (remember south city chicanes?), the last car must nearly STOP to prevent hitting the one in front. Think of Spa-Francorchamps (or whatever hell way its spelled), when the starting line is behind the hairpin. Cars take space, and in turn one you must brake a LOT earlier than usual. Sometimes ridiculously early. Also, remember the turn one pileups and the not crashing rule. Brake a lot earlier (brake as soon as you see the dude thats 10 places in front of you brake), try to not be in front of another noob dude (who will problably try to sodomize you with his car) And watch the fireworks. Carefully tread around the flipped over and spinning cars, and then you can safely begin the race.
Later, MUCH later, you'll be aggressive in turn one, scoring a lot of places, but that is only when you know how to control your car even with people slamming into it.
Step 3.5: Tires Tires Tires:
All that keeps you in contact with the ground is are 4 patches of rubber roughly the size of your hand. So treat your tires right, and listen to them.
A low "roooooohhhhhhhhhh" of a sound is healthy (tires are just scrubbing, not sliding), a loud "screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech" is bad. really bad. Tires are sliding, overheating (or locked wheels) and a overheated tire has very little traction. its WAAAAY worse than a cold tire.
Hopefully though, you'll only notice the difference between cold and hot tires when you are able to start driving the setupfield cars.
The screech sound also means your bleeding off speed, and if you bleed too much, you die. Dont slide, this is not a rally. You should never be sliding.
Dont push as hard as you can on everylap (truer words have never been said - credit to Gentlefoot), just try to be consistent and not go offtrack at first. The time to really push it is later. You'll know when. Good luck!
The "in between" times.
After you've mastered the easy setup cars, you can try to make your own, and then pass on to the setupfield (hopefully modified to your liking).
For a good guide on making setups, check the LFS manual - but the "[url="Basic Driving Guide"]http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Basic_driving_guides[/url] section.
When you start fiddling with all, heres a couple of stuff to remember to tweak your car to perfection:
When braking, all the wheels should *just* lock, and all at the same time.
When cornering, you tires view (the one with the tire temps - F10 IIRC), should have the little gray bars (the amout of weight on each section of the tire) should be FLAT on the outside tires, indicating the tire is completely flat agaist the road, maximizing grip. If the middle has less weight than the edges, put more pressure (or the inverse if it has less weight). The edges are "fixed" via more or less camber.
Your tires should be a strong, healthy green. Red tires means massive loss of traction. If theres a red "blink" it means a section of tire is overheated, but the rest isnt. The result is that whenever that particular spot goes by the ground, you loose say 50% of grip on that tire. Can be hazardous in a turn, quiaff?
Sometimes, the more grippy tires are NOT the best. For example, a good way to gain a couple seconds on the XFG (the Clio, Saxo, Golf look-alike) is to fit HYBRID (rally and road) tires in the back. Why? Cause these tires have a lower optimal temp, so in a 5 lap race youll get them up to temp and maximum grip in 2 laps. With the normal road tires, it could take a loooooooooooong time to get those tires up to temp, resulting in a lot of oversteer. This way, you get a lot of oversteer for half of lap 1, then great handling, and when all the temps are perfect, just a tad of oversteer.
Study the Team inferno setups - see how they balance the car, and you can then do your own cars.
"Use the draft, Luke!"
