Official General AI Comments & Discussion Topic

It would really help if you recorded your gameplay, upload it to "Streamable" and post a link here so we can see how it happens. I just tested F-V10 Gen 1 at Imola 2001 and i did not get rammed.

But i do agree their off-track and rejoin shenanigans can be truly awful because instead of rejoining safely, they will try to come back onto the track as quickly and early as possible right onto the ideal line causing havoc.

 

The modern Interlagos both as "GP" & "Stock Car" version need some tweakings. Here are some issues I found:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: These things happen on both the versions!

#1: AIs feel a bit way too fast for difficulty setting. With this example being raced with 105 %. This effect is worse with faster cars like F1 and LMPs

#2: AIs tend to do both a late brake and sniffing manoeuvre through corners 6(Ferradura) and 7(Curva Do Larajinha/Horseshoe)

#3 AIs also are slightly better on the brakes before turn 12(Juncao)

 

I have two issues to report with the GT1 class AI.
First, at least from my testing, AI pace is inconsistent with player pace in GT1s around Kansai GP/Classic in a few areas:
The AI is pretty slow around the 2nd half of the S-corners, very slow in Degner 2 and they often seem to take a defensive line even when noone is remotely close through 130r which then causes them to do a weird semi-slide mid corner and lose a lot of speed (if that can't be replicated I can take a video and attach it as well)

On the other hand they seem extremely fast in spoon, often catching up by about half a second to a second in that double-corner alone.

Also in general in the GT1 class the Nissan AI drivers are very slow, a lot slower than even the McLaren drivers and also slower than what the player can do in relation to the other cars, which makes it impossible to create a somewhat balanced AI file for the class. The fastest McLaren on 1.00 strength can get in the top 6 or so regulary with a 25 car field, the quickest Nissan will be mostly around the 10-12th position around most tracks.

In the race this also regulary leads to heavy AI trains behind a Nissan as it is also the fastest on the straights and the AI can't seem to make use of the slipstream and shorter braking distances of the other cars to overtake.

 

With Indy 500 approaching I did try a couple of offline races with the FUSA cars, but did not manage to get a good experience with AI. Anyone has any tips?

What is happening is that I qualify top 3-5, but in the race the whole AI grid outpaces me by at least almost a second.

Strength: 108
Aggression: medium
Race length: 250 laps

AI also is overly slow on T1 (I guess.... to an ignorant on ovals like me all 4 turns look the same) making me almost ram into them, and are grippy rockets out of all other 3 corners.

 

Here you see how AI loves to react after being overtaken. Even on the screenshot, you can clearly see it.



The green car is the AI. It had been overtaken before and was behind player, but then decided just to cut the curve and jump through the gravel. If player was in the way of AI in that situation, he would have got rammed off.
If the player would overtake like that, he would have to give back the position to avoid a penalty. But there are no rules/penalties for the AI.

Here is the link to the video:



Automobilista 2 2026.05.19 - 11.28.35.01.mp4

Here it is on Streamable (just for two days):

Edit: Race was done with low aggression settings.

 

The problems with AI are unsolvable. It will never be what we want. Never. Even so, it's much better than online racing. With humans, the absurdities are far greater. Stop wasting time reporting these problems. Try to adapt. That's what I do.

 

For a long time, I thought it was my own fault, but now that I’ve been racing the BMW M2 CS in ACC single-player mode and driving the GT4 against the AI, it turns out that the AMS2 AI is actually the problem. The AMS2 AI rams you from behind too hard and too often on the corners, sticking to you as if you were a magnet. I don’t experience this in ACC; sometimes you bump into each other, but that’s something you can correct—there’s no AI that sticks to you, no AI that dives into the back of you as if you don’t exist. Of course, ACC’s AI isn’t perfect, but it is more reliable in these areas.

AMS2 fans will certainly disagree, but objectively speaking, I don’t encounter this magnetic AI or dive-bombing AI in ACC or AMS1, or even in Race 07, but only the AI of the first AC where the AI is the worst of all the simulators.

 

I can confidently say I've never experienced that happening myself without the AI giving back the position.

It could be a track limits issue specific to certain corners on specific tracks. It would definitely be worth recording those sessions and keeping a record. I have Steam set to record for 2 hours of AMS2 so I can use the footage for whatever reason (such as reporting bugs or just trying to be clever)

 

Developers may once teach the AI to keep more distance to other cars. When you watch them driving on the monitor, they rather go for each other's rear and ram instead of going for a gap which often is there.
If the AI had a damage model similar to player's car, they would spend a lot of time in the pits for repairs because of having contact all the time.

Maybe, this behaviour is hard to patch within the Madness engine.

 

I do agree the AI needs to get more consequences due to damage. Usually when I see they've retired from the race it's been an incident out of my sight involving other AI, or mechanical failure.

 

Maybe. My gut-feeling is; very likely. Cosmetically AMS2 is really nice, and it seems like the limits of what is possible graphics-wise haven't been reached yet. However I feel as for gameplay and AI, quite the opposite is the case.

I'm kind of sad regarding the AI state. I've been playing this game a lot over the last years, but if AI doesn't improve I see myself being drawn to other sims.
The damage with AI is greatly bugging me, as well as all the other little AI problems...
I'm accepting the fact that they drive "on rails" and that it looks like total crap, to be honest, and I can also somehow live with the fact that the cars having entirely different properties which makes some situations awkward, but if they could at least drive like race cars and properly overtake (they often just drive next to each other and then get back in line even though there is a big gap), keep distance without crashing, "seeing" the player car, etc.

I've just closed AMS2 in a really frustrating moment, where I wanted to fine tune my CustomAIDrivers\F-Classic_Gen4.xml, to have it super realistic and balance out the different car model performances/properties.
With the help of chatgpt I've calculated an average for each driver according to their stats in the 1991 season - kinda complicated, I'm not going into detail here - but as I started a qualifying session to see how the values would translate to lap times, I saw that the cars just do 1 hot lap, and then they are stuck in an "out lap - in lap" loop. Seriously???
(On the normal Nurburgring track that was. The Pirro AI didn't even set any laptime, he was stuck in this loop without ever having submitted a lap time... )

It's been 6 years since AMS2 got released, and one would think this is something they fixed way before the first release. There are so many disfunctional things that I experience all the time (and I drive only like 8 or so classes and maybe 8-10 tracks) and then I see work being put into HUD updates, new cars, etc.
Flag marshals, dynamic crowd reactions etc. won't help immersion when the pit crew flickers like crazy, the AI is plain stupid, driver swap doesn't work properly, the qualifying session is broken like mentioned above, AI cars don't take (proper) damage, just to name a few.

I know this is not the general "bug section", but I am so desperately hoping that the AI will be working properly in the close future... or as Reiza would put it "within a few weeks".

Cheers (and sad noises)

 

Saddest thing is I reported this, and more, before the endurance pack was released over a year ago. Renato himself replied to my post, basically saying I was venting, not able to set up a car, or drive sensibly against the AI and should report in the appropriate thread. Like I or others haven't, what is happening here? Bless him, Renato offered help with car set up, but the problems far exceed what was charitably offered.

Ultimately I didn't have the energy to reply after mulling it over for a few weeks. The problems have been reported for years with very little in the way of progress. Issues such as, damage parity, corner speed/braking/acceleration inconsistencies/lines/wet to dry transition pace on slicks, lack of penalties, qualifying outlap blocking and AI actively racing the player whilst on inlaps, speed boost ramming/pit manoeuvres, wall collisions/curb jumps/corner cuts when attempting overtakes, strategy - tyre wear compared to player, use of different compounds, fuel weight effect, (Le Mans non re-fuelling under safety car is game breaking), collision physics - player vs AI, track rejoining after spins/crashes... Need I go on and on?

It doesn't seem there is either the motivation or ability to solve. I find it very sad because there is so much potential in AMS2, the driving experience is believable and fun, car setup is rewarding, responsive and believable. The graphics are generally extremely well optimised, and the game runs smoothly even on outdated hardware, there is so much content that it's hard to decide what to drive! But, AI behaviour ruins the experience. If only half the effort historically expended on tyres and physics were focused on the AI, perhaps things would be better.

Suffice to say after 5 or so years I don't have the energy to report (moan) or hope any more that things will change. I have zero expectation of improvement to the AI, even at a glacial pace. Renato and team, please prove me wrong!

Whilst critical I must also add I've had some truly magical and amazing experiences with this game. But the frustration is this joy is inevitably crushed by a dumb and unnecessary manoeuvre by the AI in the next session.

This is why I've stepped away, watch from the sidelines, wondering if the joy of driving in this game will ever be worth the frustration of racing with the AI.

 

The qualifying bug loop drive me insane, happens pretty much every track every time - it’s only when you simulate the session is the grid correct - otherwise it’s a lottery.

 

This is my biggest issue with AMS2. There's no fluctuating of the gap with the AI as they go through corners. It's like they are towing each other with a short bar. They break off into groups of 2 or 3 and then follow each other inches apart lap after lap, which often results in an accident. It's one of those things that has been around forever.

The AI are darned good in AMS2, and I do really feel like I'm racing them, not just sharing the track with them. Unfortunately, this behaviour can ruin the immersion at times (and it looks very unnatural in replays). Hopefully it can be cured.

 

Back in version 1.5.5.5. the AI for a brief time had the ability to follow the player draft, but it was removed just as quickly for some reason and never re-implemented. My video from back then shows how it worked, and it worked and also looked great ! I hope there are plans to re-add this because it otherwise now it feels like the AI are not acknowledging the player's existence on the track.

I marked the video at 1:15 where i am the White car ahead and behind me the AI actually follows as i go from one side to the other.

 

For me 1.5 was when the A.I was at it`s best, it wasn`t perfect but a lot better than we have now

 

Honestly, I really like the offline mode with AI even like this, apart from Ams2 there is nothing like offline when looking at the other titles

 

F1 games (last played 23) still has the best AI i had seen in any racing game on the market. Nothing else comes anywhere near close, the AI there makes natural mistakes (similar to AMS2), they block (also in AMS2 but more often), change lanes, follow the draft of the player and each other, never hesitate to go for an overtake when there is space to do so, respect each other but realistically collide when the situation would normally happen in real life, it is just tops ! And before people tell me "But that is just one class" .. to that i say the devs of AMS2 choose to have many car classes.

Not hating, and anyone who played the F1 games would see for themselves how amazing the AI battles are. NOT just AI vs Player like in AMS2 which let me praise that part, but just as importantly AI vs AI. It is why i never needed to touch online, but also why AMS2 i only ever play online.

 

I’ve run hundreds of hours of single-player in LMU. Their AI also clusters together in groups, just not as tightly packed. They’re roughly split into four groups, each running their own lap times. And there are always one or two exceptionally fast drivers way out front. As the race goes on, they get slower and slower, while my fuel load decreases and my lap times get faster. At the start, I often inexplicably fall behind, but after a while I end up winning the race—as if all their tires had gone flat at the same time. Because of this, I can never find a difficulty setting that gives me a close race, and it feels really boring.

If I race in a multi-class event, I would definitely get battered and bruised by the faster-class cars. But in AMS2, none of these fatal issues exist. Racing there is very comfortable.It seems this is the case in several sim racing titles I’ve played. AMS2 has the best AI experience for me

 

AMS2 has it's own list of serious AI issues. THere is no setting that can fix the faster AI class hesitating to overtake a slower car when there is a huge gap right before corner entry. And the longer the race is the more these issues are apparent and whenever i tested multiclass with realistic combos i always ended up winning because it was basically cheating. Even with patience and respectful driving against the slower AI class i still pass everyone no issues, the AI loses whole seconds behind the slower class each and every lap. It has been like this forever.