Howto: reduce excessive AI stability (SP only)

AMS AI are generally very competent and give a great race. However the no doubt difficult juggling of parameters to generate this competence has resulted in AI that are currently unnaturally and unfairly stable (IMHO). They instantly snap back onto the racing line after being unsettled by kerbs, collisions, and other driving mishaps which usually put the player backwards in the grass. After a bit of trial and error and with some helpful and much appreciated input from @Gringo over at Race Department , I'm pleased to offer a workaround, which is simply to inject a modified AiTorqueStab setting into each vehicle's HDV via its upgrades.ini file. The result is fairer (but slightly less competent) AI who react in a more human way to various race mishaps.

How:
Simply add the following lines to the end of the vehiclename_upgrades.ini file for the car whose AI behaviour you'd like changed:

Code:

UpgradeType="AI"
{
    UpgradeLevel="Stability"
    {
        Description="Reduced AI stability"
        Price=-1
        HDV=[GENERAL]
        HDV=AITorqueStab=(0.32,0.32,0,32)
    }
}

Restart the game and when you go to the Showroom screen you'll see the AI stability "upgrade" installed. Hit the track and marvel at AI who are no longer magnetically attracted to the racing line

Pros:
With reduced stability the AI will now pay the price for their mistakes. If they get unsettled over a kerb, powering out of a corner, or after a collision with you or another AI they won't instantly recover but will fishtail for a second or two just like the player, and may eventually lose it altogether. They are less stable when running off and won't instantly return to the track. If an AI turns or runs into you, it will be just as likely to break traction and lose control as you. The racing feels a lot fairer.

Cons:
You gain this fairness at the cost of some competence. The AI have more human-like reactions so there's a greater likelihood of the "Turn 1 Clusterf**k" as the Crew Chief calls it! The AI may lap slightly slower because they can't catch oversteer out of turns as quickly. The field will likely be more spread out as the various AI drivers lose time for their mistakes. On certain corners on certain tracks you might find a good percentage of AI simply can't manage it! You may need to adjust AI strength and aggression accordingly.

Caveat 1:
This workaround only works for vehicles that have a functioning vehiclename_upgrades.ini (i.e you can see upgrades in their showroom screen). Most Formulas, the MCR2000, Caterham, Ultima, Opala, and SV8 can be modified. Boxer, Marcas, Montana, V8, MetalMoro, Lancer, Mini, ARC, trucks and karts unfortunately cannot be modified.

Caveat 2:
You cannot race online with a modified upgrades.ini (mismatches), so will need to revert to the unmodified one to do so. Validating the install will recover the defaults.

Caveat 3:
AITorqueStab is notoriously under-documented. I've found that (0.32,0.32,0.32) gives a reasonably human like behaviour, but your kilometerage may vary and you should experiment too. You can lower it to make vehicles even less stable (I find 0.28 works well for some openwheelers), or increase it if you find too many AI coming to grief on your preferred tracks..

Hopefully Reiza will address some of the AI stability issues over time and render this workaround redundant. Or even better, they could introduce an AI stability slider so that SP users could further dial in the AI to suit their taste.

 

Τhe three parameters are for pitch, yaw and roll accordingly. What and how exactly they influence it's beyond my knowledge and under-documented indeed

 

As far as i remember on Rfactor, those 3 parameters are for "front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, 4 wheel drive" are you sure about that roby?

 

Grip loss after collision - NoGripRacing Forums

Updating HDV and TBC files – Studio-397

 

Thanks for the links, the 2nd one in particular is very interesting - AITorqueStab is hard coded to 1 in rF2..

 

Thanks, interresting post.

 

Thanks very much for that Renato, I appreciate the info. So are there any plans to make the AI behave a little more believably in collision situations? A brief loss of tyre grip or something similar? It'd be nice to see the AI pay the price for their mistakes occasionally a la rF2.

 

Thanks again Renato for your candid answers, far be it from me to dictate developers' priorities to them!

I can cope with the idea that AI stability is not a developer priority if it's something I can change for my own offline enjoyment. However currently a large percentage of Reiza cars do not respond to upgrades.ini changes, and in fact do not even implement the upgrade parameters that are in their existing upgrades.ini files .

So my further question: is there a reason why and and/or a way to get around this per vehicle limitation?

 

I think a more important thing that the AI in AMS NEVER do is if in your draft they never attempt to try and pass you .. as this is a BASIC thing all racing drivers try to do IRL as AMS is a simulation racing game why do they not do this ??

 

It's a Rfactor limitation, Ai is very shy to overtake. It can be improved by playing around with AIdraftstickness=X in track's AIW file but again you'll have mismatches online.

 

just out of interest.... What Ai engine runs on raceroom?

As Ai overtake from drafts I've seen it plenty of times in that. It's not on the rf2 engine, so what is it on?

 

Custom developed from isimotor2. But simbin/sector3 have a long history modifying the isi software

 

AI in my opinion is very good already. Main reason I enjoy this sim offline more than Assetto Corsa right now.

 

I'm enjoying rre for offline racing atm, and when i get that elusive right combo in rf2 - that as well..

Ill try the new 1.4 ai in ams, I'm sure.!

My ai greatness list:

1)rf2
2)rre
3)AMS
4)AC
5)Pcars

 

I had a terrible experience with RRE, bought the DTM Package and AIs keep crashing on my car rear every corner and making me spin, just uninstalled in 15 min

 

Sometimes acting a bit overhasty can be the wrong way.
My first contact with a Reiza sim, namely GSC, went the same way. Uninstalled within some minutes. Reason was ffb. We couldn't get friends.
For my next approach to AMS, I spent some more effort and it was worth it. Sensitive ffb with excellent response of my car's status.
The same thing might happen, if you took some time to learn AI's behaviour, to adjust AI level to your skills or you trained adaptive AI in Raceroom.

 

but they attack, yes theyre over aggressive but rather have that, and yes collision physics are well off. I had better AI with adaptive off, I think its sets it to high for your skill.

 

Interesting post...
Sorry for noob question, but i'm new here..
Where can i find "vehiclename_upgrades.ini " for editing?
Thank you so much!
Regards