Tips for racing against the AI

@Alex Sawczuk and @Renato Simioni , you may want to take a look at it.

Yesterday I've finally could spare some time to do my tests. So, I did the same race I had 3 days ago (Endurance Brasil @ Autopolis), since I was already trained.

Race was set for 30 minutes, with a 30 minutes qualifying session.
I change some setting according to Renato's suggestion and completelly turn off Track Usage and Track Progression, to avoid the track rubbering's extra grip to mask AI times somehow.
Also set Fuel Usage to X2 to force a pit window with MCR in the specified time, and set Tyre Wear to normal, to check it's relevance in AI lap times.

A note for clarification: the Endurance Brasil skinpack consists of multiclass racing with MR18 and MCR2000. I've raced with MCR2000, and ran a qualifying session first to ensure the two grids will be fully separated in race start, thus preventing one class mess with other's lap times. (I explain this tip in the OP).

The picture below shows my findings:




In the left column, we have qualifying times. You can skip the first 10 positions (they are MR18 class, don't apply to our test).
Then, after 11th position, I isolated 4 AI Cars (subjects marked A, B, C, D), which I think could best describe the issue.
The complete qualifying and race results, laps, gaps, positions for this test race can be found here: http://simresults.net/170119-Xo1

In the RACE LAPS columns, I isolate race lap times for ours subjects.
The first two laps can be discarded, since in race start all cars are very close, some AI breaks too much to avoid touch, there's fight for position, etc.

So, after this phase in race, I've marked in green a reference lap time for each AI. You can notice that, for this car/track combo, lap times are 1s to 1,5 higher than qualy times.

As the race goes by, you can see that AI lap times start to decrease. Of course, there are some very slower times, due to AI errors, off-tracks, fights for position. But this behaviour is desirable, that's ok.

Marked in orange are the lap AI performed a pit stop, and the lap after. You can notice that lap times before pit are much faster, closer to qualifying times. Those laps are marked in blue, the same color I've marked qualifying times as well.
Interesting to notice that subject A could even be 1 tenth of a second FASTER than his qualifying lap. In those laps, AI have very low fuel, they are ligher and get faster times.

At this point, we can observe another tip of mine: the 'Pit Window'. We can see that, when MCR2000 AI cars reached a 20-30% fuel left window, they initiated their pit stops, and all cars were distributed in a 3-lap Pit Window, problably to split teammates and avoid them to pit at the same time.

After the pit stops, the AI cars fill up their tanks, which make them heavier. Their lap times as now compatible with race start times (marked as green for better comparison).

We can clearly see that Tyre Wear have INSIGNIFICANT EFFECT in AI race lap times, close to none.

This has been happening from a long time ago, in every car and track I tried (being default content or mods). So long that I could notice, test it, and create this system I talk in OP. As a matter of fact, I've been observing this behaviour since GSCE days. But is was worse then, AMS have fixed other important issues (like fuel usage influencing too much lap times, but this is past).

On the other hand, I've struggle a lot with my tyre wear. Got off-track once. And in my last lap before pitting, my rear-left tyre wear bar marker in HUD was already yellow. I could cleary feel the wearing effects, It was difficult to make long corners, and I almost spin in the harpin in third sector.
The negative tyre effect superceeds the positive fuel consumption for me.

So, with all that, I'm standing my position about my tip: to have a fair race against the AI, turn off tyre wear, since with that option on, as race goes by, you're gonna get slower, and AI will be faster, almost to the point of qualifying times.

 

wouldn't be surprised if this is in factor 2 too?

 

@Msportdan , while this is odd, I don't think it prevents long duration races, IF you know all the behaviour and commit to do the same. That's the main reason I keep this post updated: for helping people who wants a good race against the AI from start to finish.

BTW, check it out the OP again, I added a nice tip about when to request and enter the pits.

I assure you, if you follow my tips, you're gonna have a good time ;-)

 

This is really Renato's area. I can't really comment particularly.

 

i appreciate the huge amount of time you spent committing to this Thank you.. Just makes me think how deep this issue goes in other isi motor sims?

 

@Renato Simioni , sorry if I sound too extremist, after your kind explanations in this post, I stop stating the AI does not wear its tyres (even adjust OP text about it). But as I said, the above report is happening to me for so long time, with so many cars, that for practical purposes, I'm gonna keep my tip on OP, since that way I've been having nice races so far.

Thanks for giving feedback on our issues, Renato. That motivates us to test and report even more, after all, we all wanna see the AMS on its best

 

Dumb question I know but when you turn off tire wear does that turn off tire wear for AI too and also is this the same for fuel where if you turn fuel usage off then the AI does not use fuel. I realize might be obvious because if you multiply fuel usage it also affects AI but I just wanted to make sure turning fuel usage off affects the AI as I would expect because, for example, then presumably I could just turn both tire wear and fuel usage off so I can race the AI at Machwerk in 620R as a workaround until these issues get sorted.

 

@Professionalsimracing.com I believe so. I used to race like this in GSEC, and when you turn off both tyre and fuel, AI will be extremelly precise, they will perform virtually the same lap times lap after lap after lap (of course some minor AI mistake or fight for position can make 1 or 2 lap times differ).

 

@Lorencini Interesting. Thanks. I'll give it a try

 

Me again

Any idea why AI use full tank in this race?

http://simresults.net/170121-5aB

 

Was it just in this race?
I'm so used to race with 1 pit stop (where I know AI always fill up its tanks) that I always start a race with full tank myself.
Never pay attention to AI fuel usage in short no-pit race though. Gonna try some to see what happens.

 

Can't be sure it is this race only as I don't always review result logs and also don't always pay attention to AI fuel because I mostly use the laps view in simresults.net to see what my possible lap time is but I can say that when I have looked at that view and did notice AI fuel that it has looked correct with around 2-3% left or something like that.

One thing that is new though is that I am running longer races lately meaning 20 minutes instead of 10-12 minute races.

 

FYI, figured I'd try a test to see if possibly related to timed race. So what I did was create 8 lap race and let AI take control of my car and used time acceleration. AI are still taking on more fuel than they should be...

http://simresults.net/170123-gd2

I now feel like I have to track what combos work and don't work

 

An idea would be to not have set tyre ware only per car but to also have multipliers in the talent files @Renato Simioni

 

I have a question: why when i pass my car to AI he is much slower then the others AIs? In the VEH file i have driver1 and driver2, both with talent files with these settings:

Spoiler

Driver1

Code:

    Aggression=85
    Reputation=89.93
    Courtesy=90.28
    Composure=92
    Speed=97
    Crash=4.49
    Recovery=5.39
    CompletedLaps=95
    MinRacingSkill=92

Driver2

Code:

    Aggression=94
    Reputation=44.93
    Courtesy=90.28
    Composure=79
    Speed=94
    Crash=10.49
    Recovery=5.39
    CompletedLaps=95
    MinRacingSkill=72

but when i pass my car to AI (through I key) he is 2sec slower than the others AIs, even than the same car with other AI.
The real question could be: when i pass the car to AI, wich talent file he uses? driver1-driver2 or nothing?
I also noticed that i can't swap driver in the pit menu (MDF menu).
Any ideas?

 

AFAIK, none. When using the "I key", it does not use any talent. But, contrary to you, when I've passed control to AI, my car was ALWAYS faster than anyone else, which I've always assumed it gets Speed=100 in this scenario.

But maybe there's some randomness in this.

 

So, since i'm using 105% AI strenght, when i pass my car to AI it uses speed=100, but unmultiplied (105%).
It could be the answer, thanks!
I'll do more tests.

 

@Lorencini..many thanks for the tips, been using it since I only do offline races. For cars that does not refuel with tire wear=off, I edit the .gdb file so they would pit. Do you have another way of forcing AI to pit without editing the .gdb file?

 

Only changing fuel comspuntion in-game. Remember that AI only pits when ran out of gas. So I usually use Fuel Comsulption X2, X3 or even X5, depending on what car I'm using and how long race will last.