Cannot get into Rookie rooms

[Mr Dee]

Hi all, I am pretty new to Race Room but enjoying it with my new wheel, The first night I played I could enter the Rookie Rooms (Mid Ohio) fine but since then I can not, the 3 Rookie rooms tell me the server refused connection, I can get into the Mid Ohio 1am rooms and others ok but I am left at the back as the other players are more experienced, any idea why I cannot enter the Rookie rooms anymore ? Thanks all

[Ron]

Apparently, if you have reached a certain rank, you can only race in amateurs. At least that's been my experience. I get the same error message when I tried to join rookies because of the car / track combo that I really like.

Originally posted by Mr Dee:

I am left at the back as the other players are more experienced

Sure, you won't be winning races at first but if you practice that particular track enough, and learn where you can gain time, you will at least be in the middle of the pack soon enough.

If you're semi new to sim racing, with enough practice, and even YouTube tutorials (braking, trail braking, acceleration control, pedal steering, brake balance, etcetera etcetera), you will slowly creep up the grid

[Mr Dee]

Ahhh thanks for that Ron, I am just a little surprised that I could only get into the Rookie rooms for one evening, even then I wasn't winning hehe, but yeah I am just concentrating on the one track and car at the moment and is coming together (most of the time) but yes in the 1am rooms I am definitely left at the back so I rely on others screwing up ahead of me and me keeping a clean race which is all experience but I definitely need to investigate how to speed up so thanks for the info, but I am loving the game and the way it is centered around the cleanness of races and is a great experience with wheel and pedals :-)

[Ron]

Originally posted by Mr Dee:

I am just a little surprised that I could only get into the Rookie rooms for one evening, even then I wasn't winning hehe,

Took me quite a few rookie races before I reached the 78 points I needed for amateur ranking. Admittedly I kept getting track limit incidents because I was trying too hard.

Originally posted by Mr Dee:

I am definitely left at the back so I rely on others screwing up ahead of me and me keeping a clean race

This was my experience too. It's actually a good method of racing while you gather experience.

As long as you stay clean and focused you will almost always catch other drivers that might be faster in qualifying but not necessarily consistent in a 15-20 minute race. Not to mention drivers battling and knocking each other off the track.

Have fun simming ;)

[Bruno Bæ]

Originally posted by Mr Dee:

yeah I am just concentrating on the one track and car at the moment and is coming together (most of the time) but yes in the 1am rooms I am definitely left at the back so I rely on others screwing up ahead of me and me keeping a clean race which is all experience but I definitely need to investigate how to speed up

Maybe a good way to up your speed while at the same time learn faster driving lines is to practice in TT mode with a ghost a little faster than yourself.
Hehe using TT mode you also by garantee dont spoil others racing

[Mr Dee]

Ahhhh yeah brilliant that sounds a great idea thankyou :-)

[dbond1]

Go to any leaderboard and click "Challenge" to setup up a session with that driver's ghost. RR has an odd quirk though, as it doesn't allow you to choose difficulty level when using challenge, and will match that of the driver you chose to challenge. So only choose "Get Real" laps for challenges, or at least be aware of this

Chasing ghosts is a great way to get faster, as it will show you which corners, or sectors, you are struggling with, in comparison to the faster driver. It can show you new lines you weren't thinking of. Pick a ghost a half second or a second ahead of you and then race him until you get ahead, then pick a faster one.

You can have your own ghost as well, but in RR I believe it is off by default, so be sure to enable that in settings if you have not already.

[Bruno Bæ]

Originally posted by dbond1:

Go to any leaderboard and click "Challenge" to setup up a session with that driver's ghost.

Yeah sorry I didnt describe that exactly.
Probably because I use AMS2 too much where you dont have to launch TT in a special Challenge mode

[dbond1]

AMS2 has the best ghost system. Multiple ghosts. Can choose your own lap, fastest friend, fastest chassis, fastest in class, best own lap in session, and any driver on the board.

RaceRoom however allows you to see the leaderbaord without leaving the track.

[Bruno Bæ]

Originally posted by dbond1:

RaceRoom however allows you to see the leaderbaord without leaving the track.

Yeah this part is great. And does highly up the imersion factor. Its pretty silly that in AMS2 you have to exit the whole TT session to check your relative position.
In Raceroom you can use the live LB competition on top of the screen to just push your driving a lil faster

[dbond1]

Yep, and RaceRoom also has the leaderboards on the net, so I can check my standing in comps without needing to fire up the sim.

For instance I did the Group C at Suzuka this round. But my laptime was right on the bubble for top 10%. I kept checking it and then yesterday morning I saw I slipped out. Some faster drivers had posted laps overnight.

So I jumped back in the Nissan 900 to see if I could hunt down some more time, and found it, improving by nearly seven tenths and solving the issue. Being able to see this stuff on the interweb is nice.

For those who are new, in RaceRoom competitions you receive a 'time attack rating'. This is displayed as a letter, A through D. To get A rating, you need to be in the top 10% in the bi-weekly competitions. B rating is top 30%, C is top 70%? and D for the rest.

I've been stuck on B now for a year, but I got a new wheel and it has made me faster and this round I did 3/3 comps in the top 10% so fingers crossed that this will be the week I get promoted.

[Bruno Bæ]

In this area or rather in this area too Raceroom is a much more refined game. And to the contrary of AMS2 you are garanteed that the timing are correct. In AMS2 the menu does say that your own live ghost in the session are your (until now) fastest. But the joke is that its just your latest. It has something to do with the Raceroom devs does take TT mode serious.
The other one does not