Beginners Guide

[dirthurts]

With all of the confusion and the incredibly vague/non existent information provided from the developers, I thought I would share some tips that I had to learn the hard way.
Progression:
Progression is achieved by simply placing in the top 3 of any class after all of the stages are complete. (Open, Clubman, etc).
It's often easiest to stick with one car, and work towards upgrading that car, instead of restarting races over and over to try to place the top three. The AI times do not seem to change to account for these upgrades, so you only gain an advantage by upgrading. No make no progress towards upgrades or finances if you restart. Keep moving! Failure is ok, and expected.
Time loss:
Time loss happens if you repair your vehicle after a race, and extend into the "red zone" on the clock. This time will be added to your next rounds time, making it practically impossible to place well. Avoid repairing into the red, and focus on what you need for the next track. Often, brakes, wheels and radiator are high areas of concern.
Upgrades:
Upgrades are acquired by driving a certain amount of miles. Miles only count if you finish a race and move on to the next stage. Restarts do not count. Setting up driver perks under team management can reduce the amount of time it takes to upgrade a car.
Perks and Crew:
Crew members can be hired to take part in your team. More team members will allow you to make more repairs before a race, and many have specialties that allow them to do more work in the same amount of time. Choose the members who suit what you normally damage the most. More cheap crew members is better than a few expensive ones. Their contracts only last for a set amount of races, and you must reapply the contract manually. The number of stages left on the contract are listed at the top of the team management screen. Perks can be unlocked via obtaining enough miles driven with that member on your team, and perks stack as they're unlocked. Again, it's better to avoid restarting races and progress to unlock these perks.
Car adjustments
The only real adjustment that you must concern yourself with is the gear ratio. Simply watch your gears and RMP gauge. If you're never redlining your car on your highest gear on a track, you can afford to lower your gear ratio for more acceleration, as you're wasting your high end. This is especially helpful on turny, windy, and hilly tracks.
Assists:
Don't be afraid to use assists. New drivers find ABS, Traction Control, and Stability control the most helpful. You'll lose some money, but you'll like avoid a lot of unneeded frustration. Lower these as you progress, eventually turning them off. You'll gain more control, eventually.
Not knowing the tracks:
It's easiest if you stick with the third person camera on tracks you don't know.You'll see around corners and avoid flying off cliffs and into ruts that you cannot see. Driver calls help, (1 is a sharp turn, 6 is nearly straight) but they can only tell you so much, and they do not adapt to car speed. This is up to you to judge.
Game Performance:
Ground Cover, Ambient Occlusion, Trees, advanced blending and Crowds seem to have the largest affect on game performance.

Feel free to add to, clarify, or argue.

[76561198015375789]

Found really hard to drive with steering wheel, keyboard really easy tho when i drive with steering wheel its more fun but,,,, i wont get high speeds and really have bad times with it + more crashes

[doggystyle]

A beginners question: whats the fastest way to take a sharp corner/ turnaround? a drift? is there a technique to drift? i dont get it...

[eddskitz]

Originally posted by doggystyle:

A beginners question: whats the fastest way to take a sharp corner/ turnaround? a drift? is there a technique to drift? i dont get it...

If you ar playing with a wheel, there's lots of real rally "How to's" on youtube... They would help with a controller I suppose too...

[eddskitz]

Originally posted by jacktheblack:

Found really hard to drive with steering wheel, keyboard really easy tho when i drive with steering wheel its more fun but,,,, i wont get high speeds and really have bad times with it + more crashes

What degree of rotation are you using, the more the better 540+ is best.

[eddskitz]

Good writeup, I'd only disagree with two things, assists and camera....

I would personally suggest someone start with no assists in headcam and just get used to it that way instead of changing things constantly WHILE trying to learn still. Confidence in the co-driver calls is key, there's settings for early or later calls if you're too slow or fast, and I've noticed they only "Miss" calls when the graphics are being pushed and it cant process the call quickly enough. I typically play early and learn to stack the calls in my head so I don't miss them.

[dirthurts]

Originally posted by eddskitz:

Good writeup, I'd only disagree with two things, assists and camera....

I would personally suggest someone start with no assists in headcam and just get used to it that way instead of changing things constantly WHILE trying to learn still. Confidence in the co-driver calls is key, there's settings for early or later calls if you're too slow or fast, and I've noticed they only "Miss" calls when the graphics are being pushed and it cant process the call quickly enough. I typically play early and learn to stack the calls in my head so I don't miss them.

Isn't the point of the assists to help you learn though? If you don't enable them while you're new to the game, why would you ever turn them on later?
I get what you're saying though. I guess that depends on your level of skill going in. Myself, I've played through every dirt game so far, and needed little help, although I still found the game challenging. I would imagine a rookie would have some real trouble.

[eddskitz]

To each their own absolutely, But if you are starting off with a wheel and pedals, there's no need to use assists for sure. This game isn't really any harder than most, more so it isn't as forgiving.

[Sierain]

Assists ruin the feel of the car in my opinion. You won't learn the physics or get familiar with the cars with them on. I tried them once, and it was like driving on rails. You don't even have full control. It's best to just drive slower and brake more.

About the camera I'd say it's just best to start and stick with what suits you the best.

[Luzzifus]

Pro tips:
- Don't cut.
- If you crash often, drive slower.
- Learn the meaning of the pace notes.
- Disable UI distractions (time, track progress bar, visual pace notes).
- Don't drive in 3rd person view. Use bonnet, dash, or cockpit camera.
- Watch rally driving technique tutorial videos and/or play the rally school in Richard Burns Rally.
- Seriously, don't cut.

[eddskitz]

Originally posted by Luzzifus:

Pro tips:
- Don't cut.
- If you crash often, drive slower.
- Learn the meaning of the pace notes.
- Disable UI distractions (time, track progress bar, visual pace notes).
- Don't drive in 3rd person view. Use bonnet, dash, or cockpit camera.
- Watch rally driving technique tutorial videos and/or play the rally school in Richard Burns Rally.
- Seriously, don't cut.

But learning WHERE to cut is how you make the leaderboards

[Mr. Frank]

i agree with all of this except the assists. i only use abs, with the reasoning that hey, cars have those. other than that, they change the physics way too much. but i do have one tip: i don't care how good you are at the other DIRT games, on this one you WILL suck at first. you will flip, you will miss the braking zone, you will get confused by the co driver calls. as long as you focus first on having fun, and after some time on being in first place, then you'll do fine. i played just 2 hours and yet the difference on my skills is huge. Of course i still have problems, mostly on how to do a good hairpin, but eventually you will get better at it. just give it time and you'll see

[eddskitz]

Originally posted by javier of death:

i agree with all of this except the assists. i only use abs, with the reasoning that hey, cars have those. other than that, they change the physics way too much. but i do have one tip: i don't care how good you are at the other DIRT games, on this one you WILL suck at first. you will flip, you will miss the braking zone, you will get confused by the co driver calls. as long as you focus first on having fun, and after some time on being in first place, then you'll do fine. i played just 2 hours and yet the difference on my skills is huge. Of course i still have problems, mostly on how to do a good hairpin, but eventually you will get better at it. just give it time and you'll see

real rally cars don't use ABS currently...

[Mr. Frank]

do they have it on a new beetle? then good enough. i didn't say it was a GOOD reason, you know?

[Raigavin]

I think its better if people didn't use assists when the are new to the game, only to enable ABS later when they are driving Group A cars and above.

That way it adds some kind of progression to your timings.

*But I strongly suggest not to use automatic gears, control one aspect your traction/grip with your engine->wheel speeds yourself via manual gear shifting and changing gear ratios when required.

Note: I play with a controller and do not use any assists (including not enabling the HUD), not so much fun with assists and the HUD clutters my screen with that split timer notifications.

[eddskitz]

Originally posted by Raigavin:

I think its better if people didn't use assists when the are new to the game, only to enable ABS later when they are driving Group A cars and above.

That way it adds some kind of progression to your timings.

*But I strongly suggest not to use automatic gears, control one aspect your traction/grip with your engine->wheel speeds yourself via manual gear shifting and changing gear ratios when required.

If you're using a wheel and pedals, a rubber cone mod of some sort would be better than ABS, ABS in the game will mess up e-brake slides and really just slow you down... Use the brake less and set your rear diff to have plenty of braking lock without making you fishtail by just letting off the gas. That will allow the engine to slow your back end down and help load the car evenly when you DO apply the brakes.

Also, left foot braking with gas, and front biased brakes will stop uncontrolled braking.