Official General AI Comments & Discussion Topic

I've been setting the overall slider at 55 for formula cars and 65 for most tin tops. In my custom AI files, I'm using values between .1 and .9. (i.e. individual drivers have widely varying levels of aggression)

I think this 15-minute battle I had with "Gerhard Berger" really shows off all the things that are working well, a few things that can stand some tweaking yet, and some occasional questionable driving on my part, LOL.

 

Version: V.1.3.2
Car: multi class DPI, GT3, GT4
Track: Daytona road course
AI Strength: 120
AI Aggression:100%
Corner (if issue is corner specific): oval section
Session Distance: 10 laps
Weather when the issue was observed: dry
Player Tyre: dry
Type of session when the issue was observed (practice / quali / race)ractice

DPI struggle to pass slower vehicles on the oval, they often drive into the rear of slower cars or get held up behind them.

AI strength at 120% is pretty weak, I'm a mid packer at best and was 2nd in Gt3 class.
Higher skilled racers would be quit bored imo with the highest setting
Ai Strength variety needs adjusting, I was 2nd in class 1 sec behind the ai the remaining ai in class were .500 to 1.5secs slower than me.

AI disregard blue flags (not sure if feature is enabled yet?) When on out laps in practice they race for position when they should be yeilding

Not sure if pit crew issues fall under ai?
Pitcrew passes through the vehicle when changing sides for the tires.
Fueler for the Porsche Gt3 causes graphical glitches making the picture move and produces grey lines on the screen

 

I agree with @stlutz that the AI is getting better and better. However, I'm missing several important aspects;
1) AI mistakes are few and far between. Having done some fairly extensive tweaking of the custom AI parameters, I'm thinking that an additional parameter might be very valuable. Something like "Concentration" or "Focus". Its purpose would be to cause the occasional AI mistake, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the value set.

2) AI overtakes on other AI frequently look like they should be doable but they back out of the attempt too often. Conversely, they tend to not back out, even when they should, when attempting overtakes on the player. It looks to me like some of this could be related to slip stream effects not working properly, but what do I know?

UPDATE: AI versus player is much improved in the beta that just dropped! Nice work Reiza

Lastly, I do like that the AI comes back at the player after they've been overtaken, but I'd really like to be able to customize it for each AI driver. I'm still experimenting, but it seems to be a generic behavior as opposed to anything we can alter with the AI parameters right now. Perhaps a "fight back" parameter could be added / exposed?

Overall though, things are going very much in the right direction IMO. I'm putting more energy and attention to detail into setting up races with custom AI and I'm having some really rewarding experiences. Maybe not quite up to iRacing AI standards as yet, but definitely improving.

 

As far as I understand it the parameter 'consistency' might be something like AI mistakes but I could be wrong ofc.

 

I think you are right, but it doesn't seem to cause major mistakes, like missing an apex and going off track, or going too deep into a corner, or making contact with another AI vehicle. Also, there's a new "Consistency" feature mentioned in the latest beta. Not sure yet what that does exactly.

 

After latest update, AI still is blind for player overtaking on the inside before corners. Player is actually in front, but AI comes in from the outside just if player wasn't there.
Overtaking on the outside is much easier in this game, because then, the AI tends to step back. For me, there is something wrong with the logic here, because outbreaking an opponent usually happens on the inner line before corners. IN AMS 2, the opposite is the safer way.

AI also still changes it's driving line in the very last moment in breaking zones when player is going for the gap.

 

Version: V.1.3.2
Car: P1
Track: Watkins Glen
AI Strength: 102
AI Aggression: 65
Session Distance: 20 laps
Weather when the issue was observed: dry
Player Tyre: dry
Type of session when the issue was observed (practice / quali / race): race

20 lap race, no mandatory pit stop, refueling not allowed, fuel/tire burn rate at 1x. 8 out of 30 AI cars ran out of fuel.

 

Okay, so something is just messed up with the AI logic on the P1 cars. I've run 4 races all of different lengths (10-50 minutes) at various tracks and they all feature anywhere from 3-12 cars just stopping and pulling over pretty much all at the same time. At first I thought they were running out of fuel, but maybe not. On a 40 minute race I had 12 cars quit at about the 25 minute mark.

No crashes were involved (and I have damage turned off anyhow).

On the 50 minute race, there were also several cars who came in for an extra pit stop with 2 laps to go to change 4 tires.

I haven't experienced issues like this with any other cars in the game. In races between 30-60 minutes, the AI decision logic has actually been quite sensible.

 

Is it normal behavior that the ai always, and it doesn't matter wich settings I tried, evade so abruptly if you drive beside them? They make a really harsh correction to the side

 

No it's not normal, I've mentioned it before that the ai is incapable of holding a line and when you get near to there inside they do this weird lateral slide to get out of your way

 

Since update to version 1.3, the cars of Formula Classic Gen 1 are a bit harder to drive, as the turbo seems to have more effect on the handling of the car (the higher the value in the setup, the harder it is to keep car on track when accelerating).
But the AI can boost out of corners from almost standing still just as if their turbo was always at 100%, without having any troubles with handling. So, they always get me when coming out of corners because of their ability to drive like on rails with this car. Wasn't like that in earlier builds, when the AI also had troubles when coming out of slow curves.

 

Group C:
Weird behaviour of AI:
They seem to have slipstream, even if they are that far behind that you can hardly see them in mirrors.
In corners, car in front braketests player by doing a breaking on the exit, where you should already accelerate. But they can rush out of curves out of nothing, from almost standing still.
Needless to say that they also do that weird lateral moves when you are beside them and sometimes ram you that way.

 

Version: V.1.3.3
Car: multi class DPI, GT3, GT4
Track: Daytona road course
AI Strength: 110
AI Aggression:100%
Corner (if issue is corner specific): oval section
Session Distance: 10 laps
Weather when the issue was observed: dry
Player Tyre: dry
Type of session when the issue was observed (practice / quali / race)practice

Faster class AI is much better at passing the player now but is still struggling when trying to pass other AI.
DPI is still running up behind another slower AI on the oval section and braking several times before trying to get around, they are also very hesitant to pass into and throughout a corner on the infield. Almost like they are mimicking the slower car's speed till they get a straightaway.

Same class GT3 seems really slow on the oval as they fall way back very quickly

AI is not very challenging at 110% either 1 sec slower than a mid-pack racer at best.

 

Version: V.1.3.3
Car: Formula V10 Gen 1
Track: Interlagos
AI Strength: 107
AI Aggression: 50 (with custom AI)
Corner: T1
Session Distance: 30 laps
Weather when the issue was observed: dry
Player Tyre: dry
Type of session: race

Did this race a couple of times tonight. In both races AI went 3 or 4 wide into T1 and crashed. Only happened once in each race in the first few laps.

 

Version 1.3.3.0
Track & Layout Used: Road America (maybe others, too)
Car Used: F Retro Gen 3 (All Cars)
Applicable Settings: Training/Qualifying
Report: When you skip the session before time ends, the AI cars are all over sudden up to 6 seconds faster on the board compared to the laptimes they achieve when racing on track.

 

Version 1.3.3.0
Track & Layout Used: Road America
Car Used: Any
Applicable Settings: Training/Qualifying/Race
Report: AI has huge problems with overtaking, fastest cars just follow slow ones and then the buddies are forming trains.
In in the slow hairpin in sector 1 (Moraine Sweep), they tend to crash when trying to overtake, car on the outside rams car which is already in front on the inside.

 

Version: 1.3.3
Track: Jaca 2005 Road Course
Car: Formula V10 Gen1
Issue: On the long straightaway, the player gets a pretty powerful slipstream and can slingshot other cars; the AI do not benefit from this.

 

Version: V.1.3.3
Car: multi class DPI, GTE,
Track: Daytona road course
AI Strength: 100
AI Aggression:96%

2 hour 40 min races, vast majority of AI not starting with a full tank of fuel and causing immersion breaking strategies and resulting in the AI pitting more than needed. This is the case at other tracks I have tried as well.

Also Daytona specific, the AI run a strange line around the banked sections, not low enough and faster class cars seem reluctant to over take. It feels like they aren’t changing from the normal racing line enough to get the run on you when as the slower class car your holding the normal racing line. This is the case to a varying degree on other tracks but I noticed it here a lot.

 

Two extremely odd things still there:

- When corner comes nearer, the AI cars in front constantly start doing their fake manoeuvres, going side by side without overtaking, just blocking the whole track. In order to avoid a crash, player has to crawl slowly behind them whilst being attacked from AI behind.

- When overtaking on the inside before corner, the AI on the outside permanently tries to force it's way through and goes for contact, blind for the situation on track.

 

I agree that the AI needs quite a bit of work at Road America. Although the feeling for me after trying both generation of CART as well as F3 that is action is just frenetic. At Watkins Glen, things settle into something that resembles as car race by lap 3. Road America has a lot of crashes, cars looking for (but not attempting) passes in impossible locations etc. It's a tough track to do AI because it's quite narrow and fast, so I'm not sure what the exact solution is and I can't identify specific issues. I just know the result is bad.