Help me understand Iracing

[mbecks]

hi, I'm a big fan of racing sims like everyone else here. Right now I play Assetto Corsa which I love except for the online experience. It can be great if you get lucky and have the right people in a server but a lot of the times someone intentionally hits you on the first lap ruining your race.

Here are my questions about Iracing:

1) Once I start my subscription what am I really able to use? by this i mean I see you get 7 cars and 10 tracks. The website says you subscription includes "access to" several things. By "access to" do they mean once you buy them?
examples: -7 cars and 10 tracks for free & access to over 100 laser scanned cars and tracks
-Access to full racing licensing and rating system.

2) How does the racing system work in terms of joining races. on the sign up page it says "24/7 live online racing, centralized service & community, always find a race" but in other places it talks about scheduling races. I have a hectic schedule and cant always commit to a certain race at a certain time. What i am able to do is come online at random times and join a race is this something i can do and will it allow me to advance in my class?

3) Is there an active flag system? In Assetto Corsa there is a flag system but its not governed. So if there is an accident a yellow flag shows up on your screen but no penalty for passing someone while the flag is present.

thanks for whoever takes the time to answer my questions. If you have any other good info let me here it.

[zcar80_]

1) Once you get the subscription you can race the 7 cars on the 10 tracks they include. You can then buy additional cars at $11.95 each and additional tracks at $14.95 (a few are less). If you get 4 pieces at once, you get a 10% discount, 6 or more at once, 20% discount.

When you start you will have a rookie license and a safety rating of 2.5. In order to advance to the next license you need to have a safety rating of 3.0 at the end of the season and meet minimum participation requirements (generally 4 races at your current license level or 4 time trial) If you get a safety rating of 4.0 you get promoted immediately if you have the minimum participation requirements.

2) Races are scheduled 24/7. In the rookie class you can have races every hour, and many times there are several splits. In the other classes, races are every hour or every 2 hours. Races usually start on the hour, :15, :30 or :45 minutes after the hour depending on the series, so you can join a race every 15 minutes.

3) I don't know about yellow flags since I never passed somebody under yellow. I have been black flagged for cutting corners, and if you don't slow down to give up the time you will be DQ'd. You will also get a stop-n-go for jumping the start. The are also penalty points for going off-track, collisions and loosing control. These penalty points affect your safety rating. If you acquire enough penalty points in a single race you will be DQ'd.

And make sure you subscribe on the iRacing web site. You will be able to take advantage of additional savings, and you can still link your iRacing account to Steam. If you want to try it, use promo code PR-BLANCPAIN2015 to get iRacing for free for three months.

[K Steinwand]

There's access to more things than just the cars and tracks. You also get access to ATLAS, which is a telemetry program from McLaren, a lot of documentation to help you out getting started, and access to the forums there. Which in everybody's opinion damn near... You're leaving a lot of time, effort, and money on the table if you don't visit those forums.

Also, I'm going to correct stef here on something he did get wrong:

10% Bulk Purchase Discount: Purchase/License any three to five pieces of content (cars/tracks) at once and receive 10% off the total.

20% Bulk Purchase Discount: Purchase/License any six or more pieces of content (cars/tracks) at once and receive 20% off the total.

25% Loyalty Discount: Purchase/License any 40 pieces of paid content (cars or tracks) and receive a 25% discount from that point forward on future content purchases. In other words, once you own any 40 pieces of paid content, every content purchase after that is automatically discounted by 25%.

30% Loyalty Discount: Purchase/License all content or all remaining content and receive 30% off the total. Affectionately known as the 100% club by our members.

[C₈H₁₈]

The free cars and tracks is all you need to participate in the rookie series. Once you get to class D you might need to purchase some tracks but some of the rookie cars can still be used.

There are scheduled races every 2 hours for a given series but the different series start in different times so you might be able to find a race every 15 minutes. However this is not advisable as you will need to spend time practicing if you don't want to be a danger for yours and others' safety ratings and races.

Black flags are automatic - they give drive through, stop and go and even DQ penalties. There are also yellow and blue flags but they don't automatically penalize you if you don't follow them. However you can still protest other drivers to the racing steward who can give penalties ranging from coaching to permanent bans.

[[AoS]Bullett]

The online is what makes this game. You will nearly always get a good clean race with people of a similar standard. That's not to say you won't get hit, you almost certainly will especially in the rookies but it won't be intentional and in some cars any collision is fatal for both of you so people try and avoid contact.

Racing is hourly in most official series. You will always have access to public practice sessions and you will need the practice. A race is a commitment of 30 minutes to 45 minutes or more depending on the series. Dropping out will effect your ratings.

You can run the rookies with std content. Don't get suckered into buying loads of additional cars and tracks on day one. You won't use them. I have raced nothing but the Skippy for over a year now only purchasing tracks when needed. Outside of rookies a season is 12 weeks and you need 8 results from those 12 (up to 4 drop weeks) so as many series run some core content using the discount scheme means you don't need to buy more than 2-3 tracks per season.

[Henker]

If you are undecisive, just sign up for one month. It´s plenty of time to find out what iRacing is all about. Don´t hassle too much on their forums as there is lots of uninteresting stuff posted, especially in the General Discussion forum. All other forum sections are valuable and mostly informative.

I´m a contineous member since June 2008 and I am still having fun. Do step by step. Don´t do a mistake to buy cars and tracks you cannot officially race with a Rookie status, except you have joined a third party racing league that does unofficial hosted racing. Then you need to buy content to participate in that particular league. Else, just stay with the rookies.

Once you get out of Rookie you can consider whether to buy more content or not. Depends if you like the quality sim or not.

Just a tip:

Once you´ve signed up there, the subscription gets automatically renewed. If you want to prevent that, you must visit your account profile and cancel the subscription manually. It´s just a click.

Another tip:

If you choose to extend your membership and you want to get out of the Rookie License, be sure when joining official races to stay out of trouble. The focus in Rookie should be to be safe on track while racing. Don´t focus on a win but only Safety Rating. A win is not a must have except you really got a chance.

Enjoy :)

[Diko]

Just try it for 3 months. That's what I did and I've been a member for almost 5 years now.

[Octavian Giaus]

I have A in oval and a B license in road.
Only buy cars you can use with your current license.

Wrecks hurt you, they are no fault. everyone involved gets a penalty.
You can cause it, someone else can same result in the end.

After your initial membership, you can earn iracing bucks by competing in series.
I just checked my account, I have enough iracing bucks to start up a month sub for free.

It is a select community. If you act like a tard it will stick with you.
People do not forget in iracing. If you wreck someone, own it be responsible.

If you do not own a wheel and peddles, your waisting everyones time.

I played from 2010 till the end of 2014.
All in all a great racing game.

[mbecks]

i bit the bullet and got the game. im loving every minute of it except this week 13 stuff because i cant drive my favorite set up.

[dj_smurph_uk]

week 13 is a 'let your hair down' week. you only get 4 weeks a year like this so enjoy, the lineup has been the best since i joined last year

[mbecks]

i dont get it though. Im just going to lose Irating and SR by driving a bunch of set ups I have no experience in.

[Randy Darsh]

Only when it says 'Official week 13' is when you will lose or gain iR and SR, the rest are just fun special event series that do not count against your ratings. Now we're back to normal with S3 starting, it's a great sim glad to hear you got it - good luck on the track.

[Targs35]

OK So I just found this thread, I've been a sim racer for most of my life I have been away for a the last 3 - 4 years I have resisted getting into Iracing cause I didn't like the idea of never really owning the game I Play. and the idea of subscribing and needing the internet to play.. its was just something I didn't like..

But like the OP..
I have bitten the bullet Finally..

Now that things are well Technically better, I still had my racing POD. and Wheel etc.
I had long gotten rid of the multi screen setup I owned .. and was down to 1 4K screen and a pretty smart system.
My son bought a Oculus Rift CV a while ago and on top of that my work had me at home more than not.. so working local was a great change for me.. the main reason I stopped racing..
Well I had to try the Oculus Rift out in a racing sim.. Iracing was on special for the month so I thought what the hell if its crap its only 6 bucks..

Well I was hooked the minute I set it all up.. my pd came back in the PC room.
and I was a mad VR Iracer.

I have a question that I have not been able to find the answer too! even in the forums and google ..
I'm only a rookie.. and have the GT3 SETs a few extra tracks cause well I"m also a V8 Supercar nutter.. so I have them too! and Aussie tracks.. ( lacking there)
So I see in the popular events list a heap of racers that I don't have the licence for .. but it still says I meet all the requirements??

I can join them cause I did just to see what happens.. I never actually took part but I was in there and able to get in my car? the race in question was V8's at Phillip Island, and a D class requirement,

Why could join and enter the race/practice?

[Foe]

Almost clean races? unless u start in the gt3 blancpain series

[Targs35]

I still don't understand what you mean ... does that mean I'm OK to race these events?

[Targs35]

I have only raced the global cup.. at Lime rock so far its my 4th day today! and done the time trails there! I have doen a few test days at a number of tracks using a number of the cars available to me..