Official General AI Comments & Discussion Topic

Fully agree, the AI crashing into the player same way as they crash into each other is GOOD ! A human player should not be fully immune to getting hit because that is nonsense and unrealistic. People make mistakes in real racing all the time and you will sometimes just end up on the receiving end. If the AI would yield 100% of the time then everyone would just abuse and exploit them. And that is boring.

 

What used to happen to me with SPA93 and GT1s with 120skill High aggression was, I think I was the TT world record holder back then, I could qualify in front of the AI and I was faster than them.
However after starting last to do last to first vs the 120 AI. what I noticed was even the cars that were slower than me by more than 1 second a lap, would start braking later than usual when behind me, and trying to do dive bombs and unrealistically aggressive moves to the point where if I was defending the inside line just by holding it for a faster exit, sometimes an AI car would slam hard into the rear of my car and brake off my rear wing with 100% red damage, forcing me to pit, or just taking me out of the race completely DNF.

While optimizing the AI is really nice, the physics drawback is that they're in a "different world" and I can sail past them on the straights like they're sitting ducks but then they're braking a lot later than what I can into the corners, but even if I can exit the corners faster, the dangerous braking zone is where the worst craziest most damaging accidents happen.

But I think my mistake was having aggression on High, and then I'm complaining the AI is being aggressive? I think that Reiza has just "upped" the settings so that the words on the settings actually have meaning. For such fast, finicky and sensitive cars maybe Medium aggression should be the maximum to use.

I do not totally discredit the guy on the videos, but this kinda proves my other point.
To complain that the AI is hitting you and doing something wrong, you actually need to be on pace with it, or be able to beat it in order to be sure that the AI is not respecting safe braking distances.
(A mistake human players can do, but they don't do it "too often" or "too consistently", where in my GT1 SPA races, certain corners it was 100% guaranteed the AI would brake late into hitting me, every lap, every car, every time on that corner and some others.
I had 3000 restarts so, it was really a repeating pattern.)

I think the "AI Mistakes" setting was added precisely to add a bit of control over that kind of thing.

Another things is when the AI has some kind of performance were they consistently cut the track or consistently hit the player like a pattern emerges every lap or couple of laps. Specially if you only race realistic time distances and not 20m sprints all the time, the behaviours start to showcase a bit more due to sheer exposure.

 

I think the key to a good AI is that it’s confident enough not to be nervous before the race starts, but flexible enough that a human player can’t be sure the AI won’t do anything to them—I think the virtue lies somewhere in the middle

 

I see. I once was in a level where I could race and beat AI at 120, which has not been the case for some months now. While I have not experienced a squared ram on my back, it does happen that they end up making late braking moves and swerves which causes incidents. I cannot recall if the last races I did last night were with aggression at High or Medium, but I found myself being chased hard by rivals at Barcelona with the new 2006 pack, and I could hold them just fine (emphasise just) braking hard into T1.

The proximity boost is still a thing, and while the new performance scalars tend to mitigate it, it is still there. I hope Reiza can erradicate it someday.

 

AMS2 devs must be doing something right, if so many people are quick to point fingers at the player when someone casts doubt on the AI. It's a bias, really: “You have problems with the AI, YOU must be at fault.” We all know how pointless it is to discuss something with someone already being biased against you, even before all the facts are on the table.

In regard to the AI:
After more testing, I can see a bit of a pattern (current version v1.6.9.81): the AI causes collisions when fighting, especially due to braking late and trying to take a “shortcut.” Sometimes they lock the brakes and go wide in the process.

This is, of course, when the player has the same pace as the AI.

But let me add another thought here in regard to pace. There must be a tolerance window for slower cars in the AI. At the 1997 Austrian GP, for example, Villeneuve qualified with a 1:10.304, whereas Mika Salo did a 1:14.246 - so that's about four seconds slower per lap. And back then, faster cars didn't randomly crash into slower cars and blame them for braking earlier or being slower overall. That's the tolerance I'm speaking of.

I might try some multiclass endurance racing, driving a slower car, and see how it works out with the AI. But currently, from what I can tell while driving at the same pace, they often enough “go nuts” that - unless I'm lonely up front - I can barely finish a 20- or 30-lap race.

There's really so much to say, but I think this is enough for today. If u, dear devs, need info or testing to be done, please reach out. I'll gladly provide more info or do more testing.

 

At this point a lot of people on the forum likely know me as the biggest critic of the AI in many, many aspects. I also give praise to the AI in places it deserves as there are many good things about it right now.

It is important though that if someone says "AI did X thing to me and it is bad please fix", then Reiza has no idea what is wrong or if indeed it is the fault of the AI, and not the player ignoring the AI on the track and getting pushed because they were driving like they own the road.

I always provided video recordings of all my findings and errors of the AI, and know what ? It lead to improvements and fixes being done. So do not wait for someone to reach out to you - you be the active one if you want things to improve, record videos of what the AI does or does not do, make it clear in the editing and text what is happening, post it here or other discussion sections about AI in the game where it fits and then things can be done faster.

 

So, I recently re-installed the game after the new update, so admittedly I haven't played in a little while. I mostly play offline, using a keyboard and a gamepad. Before the last couple updates (the last time I played) I was able to tightly compete with 95 AI difficulty and using the GT3 Gen2 I was able to do 2.08-2.11.00 ish qualy laps. not the fastest but not the worst either. after the new update, my fastest lap was 2.27 something and around 14-15 secs away from the pole. and the spread of times between the pole to the last has increased massively. Is anyone experiencing the same thing? is the GT3 gen2 slower?

 

This is very interesting as a sugestion but this is the exact problem that any Devs will struggle very hard to balance.

For multiclass racing, any fast driver complains that the AI takes "too long" or "too much time" figuring out a slower class car and identifying it as a "blue flag" and overtaking it aggressively and fast enough.
( But Automobilista 2 AI with the updates has one of the best multiclass AI behaviours in the world! )

And still some ppl will complain that they use GT3 and overtake GT4 very fast but the AI waits a bit to overtake GT4 or can get a bit stuck sometimes. (IDK if Reiza uses like a "class identifier" variable for the AI in order to activate "fast overtake mode" in multiclass, or something like that)

At the same time, if you keep increasing AI overtake aggressiveness, they can become too aggressive (not on easy or slow cars) but on cars like GT1 or LMDh, no ABS no TC, sliding into corners under braking, car fishtailing mid corner to corner exit, etc. AI cutting the track or being so aggressive they create crashes.

Probably today I'll try to do a quick fun jump in at Laguna with the 2005 GT1s and see how the AI behaves and record it.
But I asked (suggestions post) Reiza to add 98s BTCC cars, front wheel drive British touring car championship, and this same max aggression AI would be perfect for those cars.

The drivers back then were out to destroy each other on the track and anyone who has seen these races will know and see the drivers pushing each other off the track, punting each other on the rear, etc...

I just think on very difficult and hard cars, we gotta live with lower levels of aggression.
The train thing and the random touches that brake rear wings gives me an impression that it's an X axis longitudinal hitbox problem, the AI has very low spacial awareness or size tolerance for some longer cars like the GT1s.

Probably I'll poke some fun at the AI with 2005s GT1s at Laguna I'm enjoying them so much and I just missed that online race yesterday. I'll try to record something fun.

 

Unfortunately the AI still completely ignores the player's draft. Makes it look like they do not even acknowledge the presence of the player on track. I am the White/Red Maserati .

 

When I chose multiclass racing as LMP2 + GT3 (me as lmp2) with 40 AI players only around 8 is LMP2 and rest if GT3.

Is there a reason it's just not split 50/50 when selecting multiclass racing, and say 33/33/33 when racing 3 classes?

I rather have it split evenly by the classes.

Thanks!

 

Custom AI causing issues with certain classes. Try removing the GT3 custom AI file first and see if it helps. And if that is the issue then report the bug.

 

Do you have custom AI installed for GT3? AMS 2 prioritizes liveries that have custom AI assigned to them

 

Ok dear developers. This will be my last attempt to show the issues around Road America that I have discussed before. And if they will be fixed in either 1.6.9.9 or 1.7, that is awaited to be confirmed and seen. Have a look at this please:

I am the papaya Mclaren 720 in this video. The difficulty I used was 105 %

 

After some more testing I've realised the "blindness bug" is a very big problem. The AI is in a really bad state. The following clip was taken from (only) about 5 in game minutes, these issues are all over the place (in the clip it's almost exclusively AI vs AI):

The last accident recorded in the video was a little bonus . And btw the Nissan at 0:40 was parked there for the remaining session time, unable to leave.

Automobilista 2 v1.6.9.81
AI at 95
Aggression medium
no custom AI files

 

That's some outside of box way of stress test AI behavior! Nice job.

 

I tried lowering the AI a bit—I set it to 110% and medium aggression—just for the Barcelona circuit, and I didn't have any problems. I also tried 120%, and I didn't have any problems there either, although at 120% they were already trying to squeeze into spots I wouldn't go... And even if I was a little slower than the race leader, that’s how it’s supposed to be—because if you’re always in first place at that difficulty level, then the level isn’t challenging enough and it’s no longer worth it… That’s why I need to race at 120% AI—because anything below that feels way too easy for me overall on the tracks I’m good at.

 

I noticed one of my major complaints has been somewhat addressed recently, or it was just luck but either way happy:
In multiplayer non-host cars seem to be getting rammed less due to ping difference!

 

The video of yours should be posted here because it is just channel promoting, regular video, not something that highlights a specific AI thing.
Need. More. Videos! C'mon guys!

 

Yes, sorry, i change the place, not my intention

 

I think what I'm seeing here from the various posts being made about people being upset that the AI are actually being aggressive, going for gaps and attacking under braking, is that the AI aggression setting needs to have a wider, more noticeable gap between the low, medium, high and max settings, or have it as a % slider with a minimum of like 30% and a maximum of 120% for example. That way the player can fine tune it to their exact liking.

Personally I'm happy with how the AI is acting in terms of aggression and going for gaps. When you see some of the moves drivers pull in real life, it makes the AI seem tame
But it largely comes down to giving the AI as much space as you would want to be given if the roles were reversed. Yeah, they'll throw it into a gap if one becomes available, but that's racing for ya!