onRails runs as a transparent overlay on top of your sim, so setup advice is available without alt-tabbing, pausing, or opening a browser. Its In-Race Engineer specifically works via hotkeys during an active session, so you never have to take your hands off the wheel setup to ask for it.
How the overlay works
onRails sits over your sim as a transparent window rather than a separate application you switch to. The Lap Wizard and Corner Wizard are for between-session work, but the In-Race Engineer is built for live use: a short keyboard-driven questionnaire that answers with setup direction in seconds.
Getting advice mid-session
- Toggle the In-Race Engineer with a hotkey. No alt-tabbing, no losing your place on track.
- Answer with number keys. Condition, severity, direction, and phase are each a single keypress.
- Get ranked results immediately. Up to three prioritized setup changes appear without leaving the sim.
- Skip any question you don’t need. If you only know it’s generally loose all lap, skip direction and phase and get the top whole-lap recommendations instead.
The bigger picture
The point isn’t just convenience, it’s that setup diagnosis works better right after you feel the problem, not ten minutes later when you’re back in the pits trying to remember exactly what the car did. See How Do I Tune My Car Lap by Lap? for the same principle applied to iterative testing.
Related questions
Does this work in every sim?
onRails supports a range of major sim titles as an overlay. Coverage depends on which sim exposes the data the overlay needs to detect your session state.
Will the overlay interfere with my controls or inputs?
No. It’s a display and hotkey layer on top of the sim, it doesn’t intercept your driving inputs.
Can I get advice without answering every question?
Yes. Skipping direction or phase still returns results, just less targeted, based on the broader condition and severity you did answer.