Sim racing

The TLCM pedals have been great, had them over a year with the option of plug into USB direct means I'll keep them when I get a Fanatec DD.

Ah yeah, my pedals are zip-tied to the base. But the pedals sit on a tubular frame which telescopes out from the rest of the PlaySeat and is held in place by friction clamps which you tighten up. You can't tighten them enough to stop the braking forces moving the pedal frame away from you (and to the other side of the room!)

Ordered the Alcantara wheel and also a racemat.

www.box.co.uk/simulator-cockpits/refine/47295~47672$m~next+level+racing

oooo more things to buy? I have no idea when it comes to driving gloves.

Been faffing with simhub on a spare tablet I have. It's great. Just need to find a bracket/holder of sorts that will attach to either the wheel plate or the arm.

Aye got that installed, but not had a proper play yet.

EDIT: This ended up much longer than I intended... TLDR try the USF2000 in Iracing.

I abandoned Iracing last June, only a few weeks after leaving rookies as I was getting annoyed by a combination of constant config faff, some suspect physics, and was feeling a bit ripped off by how many tracks they expected newbies to buy just to complete a series.

Anyway, after missing readily available online competition in AMS2 and getting a bit bored of the Raceroom ranked server content I saw some positive YouTube reviews about iracings tyre model updates. I had a bit of time this weekend and figured I'd have another go. Fired it up to be met with a ton of mandatory updates, plus it turns out I'd been promoted to C class whilst away!

First off I spent time properly going through settings and massively improved the performance (don't use cubemaps!) and refined my triple screen setup at the same time and much happier with the FOV. Also binned off irFFB as the vjoy stuff was too annoying when hopping between sims. I did a couple of MX5 races at Oulton Park in the D series to get back into it (always enjoyed this car) and it felt much as I remembered.

I then took the plunge and bought the USF2000. It handles well, pleasingly you can actually feel the grip, catch slides and drive reactively by the feedback through the wheel (like you do in real life) rather than having to find the limit through trial and error and commit everything to muscle memory, which was the case with the Vee and Speccy.

The fact that the USF2000 series it's a fixed setup and 15min races really suit me as well as realistically I don't want to spend my limited racing time tweaking my own setups nor can I commit to regular long races. Another bonus is the series uses a good number of the 'free' tracks so I don't have to buy 10 tracks at £10 a pop to do a season. All in all, would recommend.

I agree with the USF, terrific hidden gem. Problem is, participation is low, and races can be wreckfests.

Ran it for a few seasons all but dropped it now.

My series this season are Skippy (always) Ferrari fixed and F3 (the ultimate wreckfest) Earn all my IR in Skips and run one race a week in the other two usually losing IR. That way I manage my iRating at around 2100 which is the happy medium for me. Anything higher I end up running in a top split for cars I am shit in.

Open wheel racer myself generally, but decided to get out of my comfort zone this season.

Hence trying the Ferrari and the Porsche Cayman in the IMSA Pilot series which has had a boost with the new Touring cars. They are a bit more robust, but not a big fan of mixed class racing myself, so doubt I will run the full 8 races.

Is that the one at the Nurburgring in the old BMW? That's where I binned off ACs single-player in favour of trying other sims.

I have found it hard to find compelling single-player 'career' type activities in any sim. Tried AC first but like you, I found the difficulty very uneven and if I'm constantly changing AI level it takes away any sense of achievement. On a side note, I get why most sims now do AI level as a percentage but I find it a bit demotivating. Whether you succeed is just down to what number you pick. I know it doesn't make much sense but if I am racing AI, I prefer to try and 'beat' developers arbitrary preset levels like Medium/Hard/Expert than overcome equally arbitrary values like 87%/95%/100%.

F1 2021 has a great single-player structure but I just don't find the driving fun as the physics and force feedback kill the immersion for me. ACC has a fairly simple initial career mode but I still quite enjoyed completing that as a way to learn the game. I've also run some of the Brazilian Championships in AMS2 and they were fun and the AI was fairly decent but once they don't link together to form something greater at present. Reiza has said they plan to add a single-player ladder-type career at some point which should be good whenever it happens. I know PC2 supposedly has a good career mode but I'm not sure I want to go backwards from AMS2 (same engine but Reiza have found and fixed a load of inherited bugs).

In the end, I just decided that racing real people is more fun and rewarding. I found Raceroom ranked servers and they are great for more casual boot up and go online racing but still getting a sense of progression.

I would really like to find a sim where I can do a realistic single player multiclass Le Mans-esque endurance race, albeit with saves so I can split it across a few sessions. I tried a Spa 24hrs in ACC (time accelerated to 6hrs) but the AIs bad pit strategy gave me a massive advantage despite similar pace on track, plus you only run 30 or so cars.

Finally caved and picked up the Ferrari wheel and challenge seat thanks to the recommendations in this thread. Going to be a long month waiting for GT7.

I'm going to have to go for some cycling gloves now too. Not to protect the wheel, just as a permanent reminder to the other half: "Yeah, you agreed to marry this".

No gloves still and I got a pair of summer motorbike ones here I could use but never tempted, maybe if I upgrade.

What I do have is lots of holes in my socks from the new pedals I had in 2020, never feels right in my slippers.

I use neoprene beach shoes, found my feet were cramping up in just socks. Am old