Automobilista 2 V1.2.0.0 & Racin´ USA Pt1 RELEASED - Now Updated to V1.2.1.4

I gave Nurburgring GP (veedol) my usual go after this update. Honestly, the AI just have some fundamental flaws that never seem to go away. The urgent swerving even on the straight. The incessant pushing you off track from behind when you are cornering behind another AI car that is slower. They just make contact and keep pushing. They still will take you out if you are on the inside line of a corner if thats where they want to be. It doesnt matter how many times this nervous urgent swerving is adjusted, it forever remains.

We live in a world where AI can do amazing things, even drive cars on the open road, but they cannot for the life of them ever race a car in a racing game around a track with any degree of competence or craft.

for those who think the AI is great.. try Nurburgring GP veedol with GTE/GT3, start mid pack.. Tell me how you go when actually racing and not just tip toeing around the AI trying to avoid them. I would put aggressing at minus a billion if I could. for gods sake, stop ramming me from behind and the side!!!!

 

Agreed. The AI still does weird things unfortunately. Despite the offline speed reduced I still get cars going side by side for half a lap without seemingly losing much speed. Not only is this unrealistic, it’s also annoying because you can’t overtake them. When you go side by side through a corner in real life, both cars should lose a lot of speed as neither car can take the ideal racing line, but that’s not what happens in my admittedly short experience with the latest changes.

 

It is some kind of Need for Speed -AI. Simplified physics, can go fast on any surface/line.
Must be changed fundamentally. This tinkering a little bit here and there does not help.
Did a few short races this morning and they still tried to pass me by cutting corners and going over the grass/gravel when I had to brake for the blocking guys in front. They obviously have no eye for situation on track when human player is around, they then just go crazy as it always was.

Edit: After a few more races, I found out (or better: I have the feeling) that the AI gives you slightly more space when going side by side with player, they do not move over that exaggerated way like it was before before. That's an improvement.

 

I don't like how they go for gaps that don't exist or stay beside even as a wall approaches.

 

Unfair comparison. Billions of dollars have been invested into this and we are not there yet. Also the computing requirements are huge. Admittedly this is for any possible roads, unlike sims with fixed tracks and no random traffic. Still, I do not expect to have a sim developer to have AI implemented with deep learning or similar anytime soon. On a similar note we are able to send autonomous robots on Mars, yet have less than ideal AI in sims, so...

 

Groan.... You missed the point completely. What a surprise. The point is AI development in racing games has stagnated to the point of being outrageously pathetic. I would say GP4 had miles better AI than any modern title. Its basically gone backwards.

 

I don't think I've ever seen very complete AI in any sim. It is always missing something. I'm pretty sure GP4 had AI trains so bad that you can't really call it compelling in the same way as for example F1 2020 AI is.

The simplified AI physics in AMS2 does sometimes look uncanny and cause worry that it's forever unfair. At the same time AI that's based on the same physics as the player may do very stupid things as well such as on/off throttle in corners.

What works in AMS2

• The AI truly wants to race you and each other. They're not just decorations lapping and giving you free space. This is what AI should be in my opinion.
• AI can race very close as well. I'm not sure if we exist in two different spacetime continuums, but they do not ram me unless I move into them - in which case it's what would happen with human opponents as well.
• They're now built to support very different driving classes. This is easy to overlook.
• AI is personalised and we probably have only seen the beginning with this.
• Not as taxing for the CPU as it could be in my experience. A grid of 29 cars is still taxing though.
• Multiclass AI while obviously not perfect is there to begin with. We've seen examples of this in some sims where they do not go for overtakes against a much slower class.

What doesn't work

• Going for gaps that do not exist. This is the annoying part about very close racing. It can be too close with their behavior.
• Running side by side for too long with each other.
• Rough movement in some cars. Some like modern Stock Cars are very immersive IMO.
• Lack of calibration with some cars - takes time and AI issue reports from players to speed things up. Frustrating, but we will get there in the end.
• Wet track AI seems too slow for me across the board.

Mind you I haven't tested the latest update yet.

I'm personally not worried about the AI system as a whole. When it works in a car, it works really well. This needs to happen with all combos and I believe it's possible with the per class behavior and personalisation that's now in Reiza's toolbox. But time is our enemy with this one... and it can be frustrating indeed.

 

We can agree it is stagnating. To bring it to the next level, we'd need AI trained with deep learning, but I do not see that happening anytime soon with the current state of sims (too niche). Now if NVIDIA put some of their engineering resources and expertise into that, we might have something!

 

The Moto GP series of games already has neural network AI. Unclear how well it works in practice. Neural networks in general are not the panacea people think they are, especially when they are expected to interact with the human player.

 

He didn't miss your point. You have changed your point.

 

I don't think deep learning is necessary. I think Rieza inherited a fundamentally flawed AI model unfortunately and they are struggling to tune it. Sometimes, simpler is better, which is what my later GP4 reference is about.

I thought my point was simple enough but obviously not for some. The AI still sucks.. Is that better for you? Here's a big fat eye roll for you too !

 

Funny thing is that yesterday I had a GT3 race on Bathurst 6 laps and the AI did an outstanding job. No collisions and a very exciting close combat racing. It was really a joy. Strange because I do have similar experience with the AI as I read in the posts above. Perhaps I payed them enough and they behaved themselves

 

I do tend to race at Nurburgring GP Veedol a lot and being as Nurburgring GP was mentioned in the patch notes related to AI, I thought I would give it another shot, but didn't notice any improvement at Veedol version at least.

 

Yes thats a big one. As an example at Oulton Park if they are alongside going into the chicanes (a standard and good overtaking point irl so its going to be the case that they will be alongside during the braking phase) they will hit the bales on the apex and bounce back onto the circuit causing all kinds of issues, instead of conceding the corner. Conceding is something that the ai just do not do, and its an important aspect thats missing.

 

hi BazzaLB what is your average time when driving against AI (min is between 1.55.7-1.58.5 GT3 porsche), you mention Ai aggression, out of curiosity, what are your settings (min is 100/50)

 

I have skill at 95 and I put aggression to 50 (I don't notice any differences in the aggression settings though as I tried all sorts of ranges from 0-90). I usually start at either the back of the pack (sometimes middle for testing) and just try to work my way to the front in any GTE/GT3 (VR) over 10 laps. Not sure of my lap times but I steadily work my way up the field trying to get clean passes without the off-road ramming, speed boost shenanigans of the AI in the process.

Strangely, sometimes they behave quite ok, as in they give up a corner, slot in behind etc. But then, out of the blue you get every now and then some crazy AI that takes great offense to you trying to overtake that then races you flat out off the road or rams you on the inside line of the bend or comes up behind and starts pushing you off track.

I have tried to work out what the commonality of this is exactly, but have failed to find a common thread. I can have some decent clean and good racing individual laps, but hardly ever a complete clean race with GTE. The darting left/right of the AI is pretty off putting as well. I don't like this speed boost once over taken that seems to be built into the game either.. like some sort of temporary rubber banding.

Do you get clean races @ Veedol?

 

just did 3 runs 15 min. @ Veedo, start middle pack, one run I was pounded otherwise good runs, Ai behaved well, no strange zikzak. I thought it was better than it has been (that's how it should be)
Renato Simioni says that when they test it's Agression 50.

There has been talk of running a quali to put Ai in order, do not know if it help's,
will try some races

 

No major issues here, you need to give them a bit of space as you would for actual people online and not barge sideways into fast corners, but they can be raced side-by-side just fine in my experience:

 

This GP not Vedol!

 

It's using Veedol, I just don't use that name because it's not the actual layout name. The circuit is still called Nurburgring GP even when not using the F1 chicane.