Official General AI Comments & Discussion Topic

I agree that the AI were like this, but in my experience patch 1.2.4.1 has dialed back a lot of that excessive AI behaviour. At least in the classes I like to race. The 2021 Stock Cars for instance seem to be really well behaved.

 

I had a race with GT3 and GT4 at cascavel (25 laps) V1.2.4.1, and i must say the AI were good and not agressive as Azaris said, at least in that combo, i had strengh at 95 and agression at 50. the AI behaved very well.

 

I almost exclusively drive the Retro G1s, and I'm not having issues with the AI playing rough.

They do tend to dice each other quite hard and there's a bit of contact here and there, especially during the first couple of laps, but after watching replays I know for a fact that every AI vs player incident has been entirely the fault of yours truly (dive bombing/rejoining).

Actually it's quite easy to force them into the grass. It's like they have a proximity alert that one can exploit just by closing in on them when going wheel-to-wheel.

Maybe it's different for other classes?

 

I agree too. The update caught me in between the two 40 min races for the built in Stock Car 2020 Championship, let say I raced the first one on the previous build, and the second one after the update, so I had fresh in memory the first race to compare.

The AI was a lot better overall, they don't dive bomb on the inside going over kerbs, grass and the player on the same spots they did before. I noticed they now have less grip going over the dirty racing lines, and the super boost have being toned down.

What's remaining IMO is that the AI is such affraid to hit the player that they just leave the space for you at turn in given you put the nose of your car in there, so the player can exploit this to dead.

Those were my observations on this particular car class. Now that Monza is live, I will setup a custom Formula Ultimate Championship and test the AI there.

 

They have been programmed for a while to be very cautious side-by-side versus the player. It is so much that you can exploit it/cheat and drive them off the track with any consequences to you very unlikely. I am sure at some point, when other aspects get fixed, this "overactive proximity sensor" will get toned back and we can expect some solid objects in our path if we try to be inappropriately aggressive.

 

[cross posted from beta forum based on current AI issues. Personally it seems to have become faster and more aggressive, not just on Monza, and therefore more frustrating and less fun, as it's hard to find the right AI setting to suit your class/car/track combo skill level]

Some more AI thoughts, to better help players find the right settings for their skill level.

You can roughly estimate your AI opposition settings needed for a skill competitive session (ie: fun, not frustration) by setting them to various combinations for the car class and track, then running a qualifying grid of cars and skip to end. It will show the spread of times from fastest to slowest. Run a few of those from 70/25, 75/25, 80/25, 95/25 etc (or 50 for aggression etc) and you can match those times with your car/track time from either a test or qualifying session to estimate what you should set it for a competitive fun session.

What would be a super helpful UX is if the system could auto calculate that before you go into the session, so you could see on the AI settings screen what the likely track time range will be for the AI for that car/track combo with the current AI settings (say a spread of 5 AI cars), matched with your best track time for that car class/track combo. It is auto calculating anyway when you do a "skip to end" so it should technically be able to do that. That way you can also change the AI settings, and see the times change to reflect that. Hop back to car/track, change as needed, go back to AI settings, check your likely AI competitive position. Rinse/repeat.

The other advantage of a system like this is because it's automatically estimated/calculated it should automatically reflect any AI changes that will affect times, so players can always have a sense of how the current AI settings will compare with their current skill level for that class/track.

It would also help in QA as historically you would have a set of rough times for each class/track combo matched with AI settings, and if the AI system is tweaked those recalculated figures can be highlighted to show if there's a big change in track time in either direction. Objective data based testing rather than subjective, even if it's range based.

If there's a big difference between qualifying and race time (due to AI or other factors, as I've seen mentioned from time to time) you can cater for that with an adjustment factor.

Also, being able to change the AI settings from within the session itself would allow you to use the existing functionality to iterate "skip to end" by restarting qualifying with different AI settings to estimate what your track time is vs the AI settings, once you've run a couple of laps to calibrate yourself.

 

Unfortunately, this does not work with all car classes/tracks. Sometimes, when you skip session in order to check the times of the fellow AI, they are some seconds faster/slower than the laptimes they achieve when really driving on track. Mentioned that for some cars within the Bug Reports Thread some time ago. Not quite sure, if it has been fixed yet.
Of course, I can not talk about all car/track combos, as I did not try it for all of them.

Edit: On my side, I have to change the AI strength when driving different cars, because my skills are not the same with each vehicle. With some I can race pretty decent, whilst with others I have difficulties to keep the pace at 90%.

 

It's a valid point, and I forgot to include an update I did where I mentioned that in my original post:

"If there's a big difference between qualifying and race time (due to AI or other factors, as I've seen mentioned from time to time) you can cater for that with an adjustment factor.

Also, being able to change the AI settings from within the session itself would allow you to use the existing functionality to iterate "skip to end" by restarting qualifying with different AI settings to estimate what your track time is vs the AI settings, once you've run a couple of laps to calibrate yourself."

The main point being some idea is better than no idea, which is what it is currently. And it's laborious to figure out atm, not a good UX at all.

 

The same issue persists here that plagued already rFactor 1 and probably earlier games: time acceleration uses some formula to predict the AI lap times and has nothing to do with the actual AI routines or their strength beyond a convoluted scaling factor for the lap times. Fortunately for AMS2, this formula seems to mostly produce lap times that are strictly slower than those actually achieved by the AI, so effectively if you "accelerate" to the end of the session the lap times will remain as they were. In some cases there is a bug that makes them go several seconds faster, but I haven't seen it too often these days. I really wish we'd gotten beyond this kind of stuff in the year 2021.

In the end the only way is to have a spreadsheet of AI values for each class that I keep updating every time the AI calibration changes. But more recently even this approach is not satisfactory, because even at 90 AI (or below) they still get magic grip hacks out of corners so that the only way to pass an AI is to divebomb them as they hit the emergency brakes on corner entry, then block viciously on corner exit until the player can finally pull away on the straight and following corner entry. All the while watching in your mirrors as three AI cars in full rage mode follow you side-by-side through multiple corners...

 

Monza 1991
Formula 3 (maybe others, too)

Since the update to version 1.2.4.2, AI is still too quick on this track compared to others of the game.

Within the chicanes (Retifillo, Roggia, Ascari), they seem to have some magic grip, which leads them to be able to brake extremely late and still rush over the curbs as if there was a flat street.
Above that, they never step back in those curves, trying to overtake by any means, forcing human driver off track. They also attack each others like madmen on meth. Did some races starting from last spot of the grid and in each chicane of first two laps, there were severe casualties.
In general, I had to lower the AI strength for this layout for about 10% compared to the one I usually use in F3, in order to keep up with the AI. But they still keep attacking in spots where there is just no space for two cars. Yes, it is immersive, but exaggerated.
Some decrease of AI's grip level would be good for this track, otherwise racing them is a painful experience.


Image shows what happens quite often. AI goes crazy.


BTW, the track itself is great, well done, Reiza!

 

Car: F Classic Gen 2
Track: Estoril Alternate
Weather: Light cloud
AI: 100% skill, 45% aggression
Setup: bit more wings because the track is tight
Race type: 15 lap race, no practice, 15min qual, standing start
Field: Same class

- AI is much faster on the start-finish-straight
- quite slow when entering Curva VIP curve but they can accelerate superfast out of it
- the AI seems also to have no grip problems when accelerating out of Parabolica Interior
- same with last corner Parabolica Ayrton Senna, it is hard to follow the AI here



Car: F Classic Gen 2
Track: Monza '91
Weather: Light cloud
AI: 100% skill, 45% aggression
Setup: very low wings because Monza!
Race type: 15 lap race, no practice, 15min qual, standing start
Field: Same class

- contrary to Estoril the AI is very slow on the straights, especially start finish. Had no problems to overtake 2 or 3 cars here
- they crash quite often in Variante Rettifilio
- AI has supergrip through Lesmo
- they're also quite fast through Ascari

Might have been my setup why the AI always caught me in the corners however I'd assume that the AI also uses a high speed / low wing setup here....

 

Indeed Great track,
Since the Formula classic classes are slow around Monza 1971 I was triggered by this call.

Track: Monza 1991
Car: F309 (Same Class)
Race type: Practice, Qualy and Race 30/20/10 laps
Skill/Aggression: 100/50
Weather: Full field sunny weather 05-09-1982 10:00 AM
I was just a bit faster so I started from pole with a 1:41.220
Second place AI did 1:41.357
Some trouble in Rettifilo so I lost 5 places
My Pace matched with the AI in Lesmo, and almost in the Parabolica, On the straights the AI is still a little bit slow, (Slip-Stream ?)
Setup: I wasn't running minimum Wings (24.00 / 24.00) and I could easily overtake the AI, but they also passed me once just before Lesmo, I think It is due the exit speed from Rettifilo and the slip-streaming, which I think Is ok.
I passed a few cars without any trouble, there were no nasty attacks from the AI, probably because our speeds almost matched.
Issue: The only problem is Rettifilo, the AI were literally flying over the curbs, with that fixed I think we are on the right way

 

I've been doing a lot more racing lately due to the AI improvements. Whilst the AI in general are vastly improved for me, I find that they are far better behaved in single make series (eg GT4 Cup) and silhouette series (eg Stock car 2021) than in multi series (eg GT4). Case in point, I tried a GT4 race at Donington with me in the BMW M4, and the AI were all over the shop. I switched to Opponent Field Type = Identical so that all the AI were in the M4, and the racing was clean and really enjoyable.

It seems that the AI have issues dealing with BOP, which causes them to drive more erratically/aggressively. Has anyone else experienced this or am I imagining it?!

 

Not sure if it counts, but I just finished a full GP length race and I've not perceived it for the FClassic Gen 3. Things went relatively smooth for the whole 2 hours of racing.

 

What's the BOP like between the different cars in that series?

 

BOP is just my blanket phrase for how evenly matched the cars are. And I only bring it up in the context of AI behaviour, which seems to become more erratic the less evenly matched the cars are in a race.

 

Try starting from the back of the grid, then you will see how the AI attacks each other by trying to fly through chicanes side by side.

Edit: Did the same as you. Also started from pole with a 1.41.xx.
Spots were the AI came close during first laps of race: Retifillo (double chicane after start/finish), della Roggia, Lesmo 1. Then, they have a slow exit out of Lesmo 2, but a quick one out of Ascari. On the straight to Parabolica, I can move away from pack again. In this corner, they are rather slow again, as on the following main straight.

 

They are fairly even matched yes. But as Crimson said, some models are better suited to some tracks than others, given their nature.

So yea, not really a good comparison for your original question, I apologize.

 

Car: Ultima

The collision model between player and AI are particularly bad in this series. In, say, Stock Cars and GT3, when you have contact with an AI, it's generally pretty logical which car(s) spin.

With Ultima, if the AI bumps you, you spin. If you bump the AI, you spin. If you have side-by-side contact, you spin. If you look at the AI with anger, you spin.

Bottom line, the Ultima AI cars are made of solid iron when it comes to contact.