I started competing in multiplayer racers a few weeks ago and was surprised by how sloppily I was driving since I had previously raced only in single-player mode, where, so far as I can tell, incident points are not counted. Unfortunately, my circumstances are changing and I will be unable to race in multiplayer mode for a few months (because during this time, I will potentially need the ability to put a race on hold for a few minutes) and I don't want to fall back into my old habits as a result. If there's a way to do this, I haven't found it, so any input will be appreciated ... thanks!
Just treat the AI cars like they're human drivers, and show them the same respect. It's not easy and the temptation is always there to make a bump-pass just because you can do it without repercussions. However, if you've already gotten out of that habit by racing online then it should be easier for not to go back to it.
That's not the issue for me; it's clipping the corners. Maybe it's just me, but it seems the track limits are different between single- and multiplayer racing (and different yet again if I include Leaderboard Challenges) and what's an acceptable line for single-player racing will result in an incident point (or even a slow-down penalty!) with multiplayer racing or a lap DSQ with a Leaderboard Challenge. I raced single-player while I was learning how to race because I didn't want to be responsible for screwing up a race for someone else. Only to find the lines I learned this way (at least for the half-dozen tracks I race most often) didn't work at all with multiplayer races, as I initially racked up incident points left and right for "cutting the track" by driving what I thought were legal racing lines. To make the best of an unfortunate situation (I have to look after my disabled sister, hence I can't count on being able to complete every race I start and quitting in the middle of one results in a huge hit to my reputation rating), I was hoping to turn racing single-player mode into a training exercise, by racing with a fixed AI strength and slowly turning it up, the same as one increases weight when working out at a gym. (Speaking of which, it appears the performance difference resulting from increasing AI's strength by even a single point, going from, say, 109 to 110 at Laguna Seca, can be surprising large.) But the apparent difference in track limits between the two modes of racing (and perhaps a third, if I also include the Leaderboard Challenges) is complicating this approach, hence the reason for my question. Mind you, I understand there's not much point to counting incidents when there's no reputation rating involved, so this does make some sense, but for training purposes, as I've outlined above, it sure would be great if single-player racing could be configured to mimic multiplayer racing in every respect, except using AI drivers instead of human ones. On the positive side of the equation, it sure is nice to not end the first lap of a race with 20 incident points because I've been hit up the backside five times by overly -- even stupidly -- aggressive human drivers. I've actually raced at Laguna Seca in real cars and the chaos that occurs at the hairpin at the start of a race is unlike anything I've ever witnessed in the real world, and this includes even those races on the ranked servers, let alone the open servers, where this sort of behavior is more understandable...
So far I haven't noticed any difference in track limits between leaderboard challenges/competitions and single player, and I regularly used single player practice and races as training. Not as much recently, though. I still get lap time invalidated when I cut track/go wide in single player and if it's a race I also get a warning black/white flag. But I'm not sure how track cut penalties work in that case, do they trigger when your warnings accumulate or do they only trigger on massive cuts... I don't recall getting ones except with pit entry bugs.
It's indeed possible to get incident points for going off the track without having your lap invalidated, for example on the Hungaroring in turn 3 on the inside. I'd rather consider that a bug, though.