AI limiter=0.0 makes the AI race smarter

[tra]

Hi all,

I strictly race offline and with build 60 I notice the AI are better than with build 49. (I only use the 60's F1 cars)However during a race I always tend to get a lot of AI crashes(I'm using 17 AI)by the AI within a few laps.I began to see if there was a setting I could change in my PLR file to correct this and this is what I found in the Game options:

AI Limiter="-1.00000" // Range: 0.0 (no limiting) - 1.0 (limiting used to make racing closer but also make more driver differences on flat-out tracks)
AI Mistakes="0.00000" // a range of (intentional) AI mistakes from 0.0 (none) to 1.0 (sometimes). Anything above 1.0 multiplies the frequency

Since I could not alter the AI mistakes file any lower I decided to change the AI limiter to 0.0(no limiting)I loaded up the monaco track with my 60's eve f1 against 17 AI and VIOLA!!! No more crashes. Even after several laps the AI were still racing clean.(I would normally see some of the AI crashing going thru the chicane after the tunnel.)Next I loaded up spa and had the same result after several laps,clean racing again by the AI.

Please give this new setting a try and report back if it.s giving you a smarter racing AI.Thanks!

Terry

[Navigator]

And that is what you want, okay.....but is that your vision of REAL racing; other cars all driving, never making a mistake and hit each other?
Maybe some of us may think that is just realistic and prefer it that way

[MarcG]

makes for Smarter AI yes but not for me personally, I like them to make mistakes just like humans. If they crash a lot at points on a track then the AIW either is'nt good enough or not setup for that particular mod, in this case I'm hoping Scott does a tinker of the AIW to prevent crashes. (Not raced there yet myself though so purely speculating that the AIW needs a fix of course )

Another argument to allow Free Editing of AIW files instead of having them hidden in a MAS, many tracks for rF1 came out with poor AIW which was a shame, hopefully a different approach to RFMODs means we can fix AIW issues ourselves without having to release a new Mod or Mod Update.

[Baule]

Well, for me other cars never making a mistake or hitting each other comes closer to real racing than the rFactor AI does...

[tra]

And that is what you want, okay.....but is that your vision of REAL racing; other cars all driving, never making a mistake and hit each other?
Maybe some of us may think that is just realistic and prefer it that way

I certainly respect your feelings on this navigator but for me racing against the default AI was becoming very frustrating after awhile. Sometimes I could not do more than 2 laps without a major pileup somewhere on the track which would end up me getting entangled in it.With this new setting I now have a much more competent AI that will fight for position with me lap after lap and for me personally that is a lot more entertaining.

Terry

[jtbo]

Here are some F1 dnf discussion:
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/vie...hp?f=1&t=10148

Of course mech failures should be subtracted from such database to get more useful data, but saying never making mistakes or hitting each other is at least not something that would be true in F1 which is considered to have best drivers of world.

I probably don't need to mention BTCC?

Maybe in some form of racing such things never happen, but what I have observed various motorsports there is almost always someone, rarely huge pileups, sometimes single race with only mechanical failures, but almost never everyone finishes their race and probably never single race is finished without anyone making a mistake, but mistake does not mean accident always.

Still rFactor AI has things to improve, I doubt that we can see very soon perfect AI in sim that has good physics, it is bit complicated because of physics.

20-50% of cars not finishing in each race might be good goal including mechanical failures. How far it is currently from that?

edit:
Here is few seasons DNF data, there is also crash and mech failures separated to get better picture of how in best of the best make errors:
http://www.angelfire.com/pq/roadrunner/F1outs02.htm

[Mechamorafa]

The problem with the AI for me is that it has performance too different to humans drivers. Even if you adjust the strenght to match your lap times, they are too slow in some corners and too fast in others. The battles for position are not plausible.

Well, for me other cars never making a mistake or hitting each other comes closer to real racing than the rFactor AI does...

I agree. The AI in rFactor sometimes is a mess. But not worse than some stupid human drivers in multyplayer online.

[Guy Moulton]

Thanks, tra. I just made the change and I'll check it out as soon as I can. I don't know about realism, but getting plowed into every race start with AI is frustrating. I'd rather enjoy the racing.

[jtbo]

I was thinking here, when you set 0.0 it really disables it, but have you experimented values of 0.0000000000001 or 0.0001 etc?

When I did adjust gear changes to make it more of real automatic gears in rF1, AI could not get out of garage because I used 0.0 for one parameter, but setting 0.1 would of spoiled the whole shifting, so what I did was to use 0.000000000000001 which did result AI to be able to put 1st gear in and still resulted desired effect for human player.

It is just something that is perhaps not thought that you can have many zeroes to finetune behavior, probably works with AI too.

[Ryno917]

I agree that the AI in rF has some issues; I especially get issues with massive pileups in the Masta Kink and occasionally leading into Stavelot. I don't want flawless AI, but I would like to avoid the huge pileups that occur 20-30% of the time.

[Marc Collins]

And adjusting the limiter is not the way to solve that problem, though it undoubtedly avoids the pile-ups in the short-run.

Hopefully, as others have stated, we will get AI that actually react to their surroundings (both human and other AI cars not travelling the same speed they are) with some modicum of intelligence (the "I" part, remember??). Then, we can have AI that are not all consistent with each other without the pile-ups.

Also...wonder why the default is -1.0? What happens if you use positive versus negative values?

[Andy_R]

I'd like to help ISI with AI development but I'm not sure what (if any) data I can provide that will be useful to the dev process.

With Build 60 with AI Strength on 92% and AI Aggression at 1% I managed a 6 lap race at Spa without losing any AI cars, (that wasn't possible with build 49 in my experience).
When I did the same thing with AI Aggression increased to 7% I lost 2 AI cars - one crashed and one span out and 'beached' itself in the Masta kink so was unable to rejoin.

ISI can probably do more race simulations with AI than I can so I'd like to know what feedback is wanted regarding AI, or do we just look for obvious 'flaws' as we see them? Apologies if that is a dumb question.

[Ryno917]

My issue is not so much with the frequency of AI cars crashing as it is how they react to others' crashes. Instead of going around an accident, they tend to just plow into it or stop dead, and this causes a huge issue.

[tra]

And adjusting the limiter is not the way to solve that problem, though it undoubtedly avoids the pile-ups in the short-run.

Hopefully, as others have stated, we will get AI that actually react to their surroundings (both human and other AI cars not travelling the same speed they are) with some modicum of intelligence (the "I" part, remember??). Then, we can have AI that are not all consistent with each other without the pile-ups.

Also...wonder why the default is -1.0? What happens if you use positive versus negative values?

sorry guys,it's supposed to be 1.0 not -1.0

P.S. By the way I do still get an occasional AI 'crash' with the new setting however it is much less frequent.

terry

[MarcG]

My issue is not so much with the frequency of AI cars crashing as it is how they react to others' crashes. Instead of going around an accident, they tend to just plow into it or stop dead, and this causes a huge issue.

Something like that would be great for Banger Racing, as I allude too here in my Wish List thread:
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.ph...Mod-Developers

Open Source is probably the wrong term but a more open way for modders to adjust the AI to the liking of their Mod wuld be fantastic, as the default ISI AI would not work for an F1 Mod and a Banger Racing Mod, the ability to alter more characteristics either from the Mod developers or seperate AI Enthusiasts would be a step forward. Anyway I explain better in that thread!

[Andy_R]

My issue is not so much with the frequency of AI cars crashing as it is how they react to others' crashes. Instead of going around an accident, they tend to just plow into it or stop dead, and this causes a huge issue.

I completely understand what you are saying as sometimes the AI seems to slow down much too quickly and suddenly I have no where to go.

On the other hand, after seeing smoke start in Stavelot and thinking 'My race is over' too many times I spent some time learning how to brake into that corner if necessary. I don't make it through all accidents there now but I do manage to make it through the majority so there was some margin for improvement on my part (at least for that part of Spa).

I'm still playing around with the settings for the AI (Build 60) so I'm interested to see what else they do different.

[Ryno917]

I don't always get caught up in their accidents, either, but the ones I don't get stuck in I get past 10+ cars easily and then I'm way out in front, and that's not fun either.

[Satangoss]

If you want AI more realistic regarding to errors, you should modify AiMistakes=X.X line.

In fact, AiLimiter parameter should be set as 0.0. It's a variable which fakes the AI performance to keep them close in the track. Is totally artificial.

[Andy_R]

I don't always get caught up in their accidents, either, but the ones I don't get stuck in I get past 10+ cars easily and then I'm way out in front, and that's not fun either.

Yeah I get what you're saying, since build 49 I've been starting at the back of a 16 car field so I should probably change it around a bit now to get a better idea of different scenarios. Getting to the front that quickly doesn't sound like fun.

[Ryno917]

In a full field of F2 (30 cars at the moment IIRC) I can get to first position from the mid 20s by lap 2 with the AI at 94%, due in no small part to the ridiculous stop-ups at Eau Rouge on lap 1 and pile-ups in the Masta Kink. I'm no alien, either; I run typically 3:53s with the F2 at Spa in the wet, give or take.

I've even given to intentionally stalling off the line for a poor start, just to avoid stopping at Eau Rouge or passing 15 cars in one swoop.