Ascend from Open to Master

Overview

Beginner-friendly guide from a guy just like you: crashed in the first turn of my first race, and then some. 40 hours in, and I’m into Master league. Hopefully you’ll be there in less time, using my advice.This is basically what I wish I would have known when I started playing. The stuff here is very basic and aimed at total beginners. With this guide, you’ll go from crashing to racing, but no further: I’m no specialist! I was the complete noob not one month ago, and you’ll notice this guide is a little light in certain areas. Purists will cringe at my attempt. I only wish to help the beginners smoothing out the initial learning curve.

Guide’s Goal: the Ascension

Let’s focus on the essential here: making you a better Dirt Rally player.

This is the most basic of stuff but it took me quite a while to figure it all out. Hopefully it helps newcomers and people stuck on the plateau of their learning curve get the grips of the game and stay on the road a while longer.

I do not claim to know much about rallying. I’m average at this game, but I did ascend to Master using a controller and having driving assists off. It doesn’t make me a god, but given that I crashed at every turn not one month ago, I believe this guide may be worthwile to aspiring drivers.

I’ll be delighted to hear suggestions and critics so please, fire away.

Disclaimer: non-native English speaker, but I do play the game in English.

Setting up to better days – Inputs

I strongly recommend you get a controller (or pedals if you can afford them). I haven’t tried with a keyboard, but I really wouldn’t.
I played the whole game with XBox controller and it’s fine mostly.

Please, oh please, dear oh dear! Set up “Throttle” to Right Trigger and “Brakes” to Left Trigger. If you don’t, I’ll smash your face back through the windshield after your next in-game accident.

I’m very upset about this because I initially very stupidly input them to X and A buttons -buttons! How could I! The heresy! I’m still ashamed. Me past noob will never forget.

The reason for this is: you absolutely need progressive input for both throttle and brakes. You want to be able to control the amount of throttle and brakes you apply, just like real life pedals. This is essential.

My personal layout with X-Box Controller:

• RT and LT for Throttle and Brakes (duh)
• A for Gear up
• X for Gear down
• B for Hanbrake
• Left Stick for direction
• You won’t need the rest.

How hard can this game get – Assists

You like simulation, right? So you’re gonna go ahead and disable every assist, right? Wrong.

Your taste, as long as it’s manual sequential. It gives you control while not having to worry about clutching.

You don’t need:

• ABS
• Traction Control
• Stability Control

I have never used them and still got to Master. You can add them if you want -I don’t know the first thing about them. I’m afraid they make the game feel inconsistent and slow your learning, but don’t quote me on that.

You need to let the game help you at least a little bit. Don’t be ashamed: the goal is to learn as fast as possible and to stop crashing.

• Forced Camera: I started with Driver Head Cam, but truly it makes the game a lot harder. You don’t need the credit bonus it incurs.
  “Sitting on the hood” is the best camera: it’s closest to the feel of cabin camera but gives you the best vision of the road.
  Don’t be ashamed to let go of the cabin view. It’s fun, but it’s really harder and doesn’t teach you as much.

• Manual Launch Control: Whatever. Off, if you can’t hold your horses.
• Entire HUD: please let this on. In order to learn, you need to know what gear you’re in. More importantly you need the little signs representing your co-driver calls. The reason for this is: your co-driver sucks. Some calls he won’t make, even though the little sign shows up.

  If you wanna know why, here’s my theory: they implemented a sort of “co-driver is scared” mechanic that makes him slow his words and cut off and repeat, when you go fast or during jumps. It’s fun and immersive but there are specifically two corners which he never calls due to this (one in Finland, the other in Germany).

• Co-driver calls: for “sliding” settings (Sweden, Greece, Wales), Normal. For “fast-track” settings (Germany, Finland), a bit earlier. More on this in the “Tracks” section.

General tips on getting better

If you only got your driver’s license, chances are you’ll be crap at this game. Here are some very basic tips you need to keep in mind:

• Take it slow! Primary focus is to stay on the road. Going fast will be second. This is purely logical: going very fast will allow you small gains on straight lines, but will impede you in curves, and crashes will demolish your performance. So, if you want to win Clubman, don’t be fast: be slow.

  My first win on Master was a “slow” run. My curves were perfect (they still are, sweetheart) and my slow-going allowed me to properly control the car. “Perfect runs” will get you wins, and make you a better lover.

• Don’t always Full Throttle. This is the single most important thing from this guide. Throttle is assigned to Right Trigger for a reason: to keep it under control. Try pushing it only three quarters down (not all the way!), relieving it every time you feel you’re losing control. Applying moderate Throttle is the key to not crashing. With time and practice you’ll learn how to properly dose Throttle, for now refrain from full-throttling.

  Besides, full-throttling after a sharp turn can make you go spinning round.

• Practice! You need to get accustomed to the buttons. Muscle memory and all that. The more you play, the more you’re in control of your inputs, even under stress. For this reason, I don’t recommend messing up with the input settings too often -try to keep it consistent.
• About turn angle: 6 is a very open turn and 1 a very sharp one. It’s not an indication of the gear you want to be in. It just signals the angle of the bend.
  Now, “a 6 is always a 6”, but remember:
  – when labeled “sharp” or “long” by your co-driver, the turns are very different from their “regular” version. You can go as fast on a long 4 than on a regular 6, for example.
  – a 6 is still a turn. On the faster tracks (Germany especially) you will need to stop throttling or even brake a little before some 6s. You’ll notice that coming in very fast, the 6s turns will seem a lot sharper than usual.

• Don’t lose hope! “Here I go, crashing again.” At times, after losing control of the car mid-turn, I would thinks “this is it” and give up and let the car go out of the track. This is a big mistake: if you aren’t going too fast, driving mistakes are recoverable. Keep hoping, keep pushing your buttons, keep turning! If you go straight where there’s a turn, try avoiding the trees and get back on track (avoiding the 15 seconds penalty for car recovery).

  Confession time: after screwing up the beginning of a turn, every time the tail of my car flirts with trees and rocks, my butts tighten.

• About Restarting: it’s helpful to get the hang of your car. But restarting too much will make you memorize the track which you don’t want. It takes away some of the fun: rallying is partly about not knowing what’s coming up next.
• Bumps: they will mess up with your braking and throttling timings before curves. Anticipate them as much as possible, because braking while in the air doesn’t do a thing.
• Tuning: it’s very tricky. You can mess up completely. Please see the tuning guides here on Steam. The first thing you want to tune is the gear ratio, shorter for slow tracks and longer for fast tracks. If you want to tune, please use Shakedowns until you really understand how you changed your car’s behaviour.

  I fear you might mess up rather than makes things better. At the start, I’d keep the tuning to a minimal amount: gearing.

• Upgrades will make a huge difference. Power, most notably. Fully upgrade your car if possible.

Sliding or not sliding -Tracks and driving style

Slippy or solid, the experience is very different. It’s almost two different games.

Wales, Sweden and Greece are very slippy. They are different in their own right, but basics are the same.

I wouldn’t worry too much about surface difference over the course of one track -heavy gravel, medium gravel? It doesn’t matter much for now. I can’t even tell the difference while on track (yeah I’m a noob).

Slippy is about sliding. You will need both Braking and Throttling at the same time. Go ahead and try!
Coming in too fast will make prevent you from effectively slowing and you’ll slide out of the track.

You won’t go very fast, at least not at the beginning, so you can have co-driver calls set to “Normal”.

Germany (Monaco when not under ice or snow).

Germany is more like racing. You shouldn’t slide (much).
There are some very nasty fast straight lines going into square corners, so a co-driver call for “Caution” or “Double-Caution” means you really need to slow down.

• Straight lines require you to go fast, but never go over the top. Relieve Throttle before losing control. Beware of curves: a 6-curve is still a curve, and a very sharp one if you’re going fast. Proper Throttle management is the key for straight lines. Pay attention to your co-driver: “long” curves don’t need as much slowing as regular ones.
• Curves and corners require the “oustide/inside/outside” approach. Approching the curve, get on the outside of it, slow by both braking and gearing down (using engine brake), then go around the curve by steering, then apply some Throttle to regain speed while opening. Be careful not to apply too much throttling, or you’ll go spinning.

  You should try to brake early. Braking at the last moment may result in wheel lock and you going straight. You really need to slow a lot before getting into the inside of a curve. You’re better off anticipating.

  About Co-driver calls: you’ll be going fast, and I found them very late to my taste. Turns are very few in Germany, so it’s easy to remember: I recommend you set Co-driver calls to Early or Earlier.

Understanding your cars -FWD, RWD, 4WD

Career starts with 60s cars. Then you probably go to 70s or 80s.

This is both a blessing and a curse. These cars are actually very hard to drive if you don’t have the proper approach. At the same time it’s a blessing, because going into WRC cars will make you feel like the drivers of old: “WRC are not a man’s car. WRC easy. I want my big engine back”.

I don’t know much about engines, but I’ve understood this: FWD, RWD and 4WD (or AWD) are very different.

The engine transfers power to the front wheels.
These cars are best used with the infamous “left-foot braking”. On slippy surface, this is the proper way to go into a curve:

• A little bit before the curve, steer briefly in the direction of the curve
• Brake once. Your car will slide.
• Then steering is mostly controlled through weight transfer. It’s all about balancing Throttle and Brakes. Apply more brakes will make your car steer more. Relieving Brakes and Throttling a bit more will straighten the car.

  By braking, you transfer weight to the front of the car, allowing for more steering and more traction. If you overdo it, throttle a bit more: that will transfer weight to the rear of the car. Weight transfer gets you through curves. Balancing Brakes and Throlling is the key here.

Apparently, only real men drive these cars. I personally still can’t get a proper hold of them. They are very heavy, so weight transfer is very tight. I will put tips when I get better. In the meanwhile, I recommend going straight into 4WD.

Beware going into spinning with RWD cars. Re-apply throttle very gently while getting out of a curve/corner.

After driving a bit on the other two, these cars will feel very easy to drive. Because all four wheels have traction, slippy surfaces won’t feel as slippy.

The older cars (Group B 4WD) have amazing acceleration, which makes them beasts. Faster but harder to control.
The newer cars (WRC: 90s, 2000s…) have limited power. My first time on the Ford Focus 2001, I was put off by its sluggishness. These cars are very stable, bumps won’t have much effect on your car. Throttle away!