For someone who has always enjoy racing games/sims, I've always used automatic gears. Well now I'm transitioning to manual gears and have a question on using the clutch. Now I have a rather unorthodox non-steering wheel setup and as such cannot bind the clutch to an axis very easily. In rFactor2 what is the downsides I would see if I just use a button for the clutch? As far as I have read there isn't any real simulated damage from clutch misuse is there?
No, there's no damage, some mods are set up so that you can't drop the clutch too fast and still make it into gear but most don't care. Your main issue would probably be controlling the car. You can change how quickly the (button) clutch engages, and perhaps disengages, through the control settings and you may find more options in your controller.JSON. But obviously for upshifts you can generally release the clutch as quickly as you like once you put the car in gear; on downshifts you often want to wait or do it more gently, or the back end will come around. Using a button won't give you an option, though of course you can wait to release it. But you'll never get the same control as with a pedal. How much this matters will depend on the car, but these days most cars have sequential anyway so anything you want to drive manually will likely be older and more likely to misbehave with clunky downshifts. You may get away with just shifting down late all the time.
Thanks for the explanation Lazza, I guess its just something I have to fiddle around with and work out what works best for me.
I did find that with the official ISI Nissan GTR GT1 mod that you needed to be able to slip the clutch to get a quick getaway. If I dropped the clutch expecting wheel-spin the engine would bog (especially if running a long 1st gear). So I had to slip the clutch quite cruelly lacking any mechanical sympathy to keep rpm.
