After, what seems like a long time of promises and delays, iRacing finally has rain!
The Tempest weather system has landed on the service and brings with it, what the developers are calling at least, the most realistic rain and weather available in a sim title.
Think of it as a weather system rather than just rain as there won’t just be a switch to the rain on and off.
When you’re on track there is a weather radar system which gives the likelihood of rain during the race. But it is only a forecast, and forecasts can be wrong. It might look like rain is imminent and it stays dry, or a sudden storm develops and down comes the rain.
The system is built using real weather patterns for that area so it is likely that certain circuits will have a higher chance of the wet stuff than others.
Rain, or rather as iRacing put it, weather, has long been anticipated among racers, mostly positive. But whether, or not it will prove to be as popular with members after it’s been on the service for a while, so we’ll have to see.
There are plenty of iRacers who seem to find it difficult enough to stay on the track in perfectly dry conditions, let alone when it’s wet. No doubt, wet conditions will be challenging and add an extra dimension of difficulty for us drivers. Especially if it is implemented as realistically as promised.
Not just puddles of water here and there on the track but rather the proper effect of it raining on the circuit, on what is normally the correct racing line, and the effect the wet stuff will have on other parts of the track, off the normal dry racing line.
The more the normal racing line is used the more it becomes ‘polished’. Where as, other parts of the track surface will be a little rougher and attract more standing water. Because of the ‘polishing’ effect the normal faster dry line may not be the fastest line in the wet. In fact, the normal dry line may be more slippery than other parts of the track.
So, we’ll have to wait and see for a little while to see how accurately the weather is actually implemented, and how iRacing members cope with it.
Whichever way it goes, this is an enormous update for iRacing and, I for one, wish them well with it. They haven’t rushed it, far from it. But hopefully the wait will be worth it.
A simulator tries to reflect the real world as accurately as possible, and the real world has weather and rain.