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Racing In The Wet

Discussion in 'Automobilista 2 - General Discussion' started by Harry H, Feb 5, 2023.

  1. Harry H

    Harry H Active Member AMS2 Club Member

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    I'm working on a series of challenge scenarios for the Caterham Supersport (check out the first one if you're interested. Link is in my sig). I use historic weather for them. One scenario will be a P/Q/R at Silverstone National on 4/7/17. Historic weather for this date, practice is dry but the rain moves in for Q / R. I'm finding the AI performance in the wet to be far too close to their dry performance. Basically, I can give them a good race in the dry at 100 strength, but I'm way off the pace against them in the wet conditions. I have stuck it out for 20 minutes of Q, trying both tire types and making setup tweaks to try to get the car more stable, but I can't get close to the AI times. Maybe I just need more practice driving in the wet. Perhaps there's some aspect of my driving that I need to change for wet conditions (any tips?). My suspicion is that the AI are just calibrated to be too good in the wet. I'm interested to know what others think.....
     
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  2. Mazdaspeed

    Mazdaspeed Well-Known Member AMS2 Club Member

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    The AI is very hit or miss in the wet depending on ther car/track combo. The real problem comes on a soaked track with big puddles on the racing line, you have no chance against them, they slow down for the puddles but dont lose grip, so they just keep on while you aquaplane and go off track.
    There is no real "trick" in my case to drive on the wet, just be more gentle on throttle and be very quick with the steering corrections. I can handle them fine on a wet track, not so much on a soaked one, thats where they need a lot of work.

    If you find them too OP just turn on TC to even the odds a bit, thats what I do when the track becomes soaked in the middle of a race, helps a bit until the dreaded puddles in the middle of the road appear. Also the Caterham is a very unstable car in the dry, so it's very hard to control in the wet.
     
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  3. Harry H

    Harry H Active Member AMS2 Club Member

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    OK good advice, thank you.
     
  4. Harry H

    Harry H Active Member AMS2 Club Member

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    On a related note, I looked up the Avon ZZR and ZZS tires. The ZZR is a dry weather tire and the ZZS is all weather. The 'S' is a little misleading, i.e. don't assume it stands for 'slick'! However, there's no TC available in this car. I guess I'm going to need to avoid inclement weather for my Caterham Challenge series :)
     
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  5. Aza340

    Aza340 Active Member

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    Yes I tried some wet racing in the Caterham a couple of weeks ago , had to give up after an hour of sliding, spinning and being lapped by the ai .
    My impressions were that as you stated the ai are way too fast and have at least double the grip compared to the player.
    Soaked track forget it ! Couldn't even accelerate lightly in a straight line without spinning out , completely ridiculous tbh , I know they aren't at there best in wet weather conditions but can't believe they are that dangerous either.
     
  6. Scar666

    Scar666 Zum Glück bin ich verrückt

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    Soaked is a preset that is red flagged condition race and should only be used as often as you would use a snow setting for a serious race... Anything above rain in AMS2 is red flag weather in real life...

    The AI runs on it's own physics so comparing it to the player really exaggerates how the tyres behave in the dry or the wet... The AI has no care for the puddles or driving on a rubbered up and therefore slippery racing line... But they don't even have fuel weights so who knows if they'll ever race realistically in the wet in AMS2...

    Racing in the wet against other humans is a completely different experience if the lobby all has good pings...

    There's a few occasions where the changeover between slicks to wet tyres needs work, but a vast majority of the cars work great in wet conditions... Just not on a default set up, but then they don't really work well in the dry on a default set up either...
     
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  7. F1Aussie

    F1Aussie Well-Known Member AMS2 Club Member

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    The AI don't even seem to be affected by puddles, they just plow through them without even a wiggle where my car often tries to spit me out sideways.
    They also often don't seem to slow down when the weather drastically changes from sunny and dry to wet and puddles in a corner or two whereas I cannot keep it on the road
     
  8. Aza340

    Aza340 Active Member

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    Agree about the red flag conditions, all I'm saying is that there is no parity between the players and ai performance.
    Something I have suggested in the past would make a world of difference and that is to be able to disable certain weather conditions completely , eg storm or heavy rain .
    As it stands at the moment random weather still throws up those two conditions far to frequently completely wrecking the race .
    .
     
  9. Scar666

    Scar666 Zum Glück bin ich verrückt

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    With the AI the wet is the least of my concerns... They have to be more believable in the dry first... And there's a long list of things to fix there... They need fuel weights and lots of updates to their physics (Corner entry braking too early or having better braking performance, mid corner just plain slow and too much traction on corner exit) before tuning them to the wet should be a focus... As whatever they do in those areas will greatly effect the wet weather performance when changes are made...

    The AI in AMS2 gets praise because it thinks better than other AI, but the physics they run on are very basic compared to other AI... As such there is little point to running a race with pit stops or anything longer than 10-15 minutes as you spend far more time gaming the AI to have a "good race" than you do actually racing competitors in AMS2... Unless of course you turn fuel burn and tyre wear off... Then everything is kinda of equal until the rain starts...

    But I do agree that random weather should be a selectable type of random where you can omit certain conditions... But then on some tracks you'll still get puddles on the racing line with the "rain" setting...
     
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  10. bobbie424242

    bobbie424242 Well-Known Member AMS2 Club Member

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    I'd also like Random realistic weather: appropriate to the location (more chance to rain in rainy location), no thunderstorms, weather transitions that make sense (ie not sunny to heavy rain or heavy fog directly, etc).
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2023
  11. Scar666

    Scar666 Zum Glück bin ich verrückt

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    I do find even with random slots that the races have to be longer for them to work well for transitions... So it is possible to have sunny and heavy rain in back to back slots and have it transition appropriately...
     
  12. Mazdaspeed

    Mazdaspeed Well-Known Member AMS2 Club Member

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    But I think thats how it works right now with random weather, you get more rain in places like Silverstone and Interlagos than in Laguna Seca etc. About thunderstorms and such, yes that could be improved. The transitions are fine in longer races (40min+) with 2 to 3 slots synced to race.
    But I did find a bug with the FRetroG1, they would pit every lap to change to dry tires but never did change them, shame because it had been an excelent race till that point with a very realistic weather transition.
     
  13. Harry H

    Harry H Active Member AMS2 Club Member

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    Yes I think that's correct.

    Meantime I've been practicing in the wet, experimenting with the setup, etc. I'm getting closer. If I pull the AI back to 95 I can hang with them, but any mistake is disastrous. However, as others have said, once there are big puddles or torrential downpours, it's best to bring out the red flag.

    I still prefer using historic weather to random, so for my Caterham challenge series I'll look for timeslots that don't have the massive downpours.

    Thanks all.
     

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