AI Appreciation

Just a shout out to the devs to say thanks for the dramatic improvement to the AI with the last patch!

With various titles I'm used to only seeing incremental improvements (and occasional regressions) to AI behaviour, but this amazing patch has seen the AI go from something I tolerated for the sake of having opponents offline, to something I actively enjoy racing against rather than just avoiding. Their increased awareness means that I no longer spend every race worrying about being tapped off into the grass, and they now appear to display racecraft, that most rare of commodities effectively emulated by AI.

I'm not sure if it's placebo but AI also no longer appear to be superglued to their race line, and can and do spin off if you inadvertently (or otherwise) give them a friendly nudge. This greatly improves the feeling of fairness, feeling that AI are operating under at least some of the same constraints as the player.

All that's needed is for the AI to be affected by running over kerbs and grass, and to take meaningful performance affecting damage (my other major gripe with this game) and I'll be a happy little vegemite.

I decided a while ago that I would only engage with the egregious online purchase system to buy new content when significant patches ocurred, and guess what? I have a shiny new GT3 Corvette (which only took 20 minutes of frustration to purchase) that I've spent all Saturday racing against great AI in a truly immersive driving experience.

Thanks again S3S devs.

 

Yes, the AI are now even better!
I am always suprised to see them lunging down my inside, rounding my outside and cutting back, which makes me smile. I also notice that you can sometimes see an AI that charges through the field, catching the leader. This R3E AI is definetly the best I've ever raced against in any sim!

 

Jep, a big bucket of thanks to Marko Hartikainen, Karsten Borchers, Robert Holm and everybody else working on physics and AI. They've outdone themselves this year.

EDIT: Added Robert for obvious reasons. Brilliant job guys.

 

They've done a fantastic job, so a big thanks from me too. The AI races hard but fair, attacks and defends....really good update.

The numbers seem to indicate that the majority of users are still playing these sims offline so I think it's crucially important to offer a quality AI. R3E is well on the way to becoming the best offline experience but I think there is room to go further.

If it's possible, I would like to see the AI given further character and 'life'. More AI mistakes such as out-braking themselves, running wide, getting out of shape when powering out of corners. Other events such as mechanical failures and retirements (how often do you watch a real race where every starter finishes?). I'm still yet to see a DNF since the update. In fact, I've seen (many times) AI take on race-ending damage and instead of retiring/pitting, they limp around the track at a crawl for the rest of the race, causing chaos for passing AI that don't know how to deal with slow cars up ahead.

Don't take the above as a complaint. I see potential for the AI to go from excellent to truly fantastic by adding a little more character and some random events, things that can shake up the field and keep things interesting.

Thanks again for the great AI update. As mainly an offline player it's hugely appreciated.

 

I'm also delighted with the new AI, they really are the business. They still have too much initial retardation in heavy braking zones but apart from that they're bang-on

 

Wasn't sure who actually did it anymore... Sorry Robert. => assigned => fixed

 

I had a few great races with the AI last night. Contact with other cars seems to be improved as well which doesn't result in a spin like it used to. A timely update with the addition of the TT Cup.

For the next AI update I expect them to start posting names in the name and shame thread

 

Superb update for the AI, I've had a chance to test it out on two GT3 races now, one at Norisring and one at Bathurst.

At the start of both races, great fun all round as the battles between myself and AI and between multiple AI cars were all superb, perfectly believable, but there are a few bugs that are still preventing it from being perfect.

The first was the classic 'slow car' one, where for some reason a car hits a wall and thereafter acts like it has the pitlane speed limiter on. This means constant lapping of these causes the leading cars all manner of issues. That was what decided the Bathurst race.

Norisring always used to have these problems, but didn't seem to have them this time, instead cars were retiring properly. However, an issue with cars exiting the pits causing sudden braking from cars that should have passed them at full speed meant another ruined race out of two.

Both superb fun until things like these, it's frustrating because it feels so close to the perfect offline experience, but it's just not there yet for anything more than sprint races (and even these can be ruined by the slow cars problem).

However, all credit on fixing some of the slower areas of the AIWs, especially at Bathurst - going into the Chase is every bit as thrilling as it should be now.

There are still a couple of smaller 'slow zones' for AI at both tracks I tested. At Bathurst, passing cars on the outside of The Cutting is a tad too easy, as is passing on the outside of Turn 1 (the first hairpin) at Norisring, both with AI at 105.

Overall, huge improvement, and the track specific fixes are much appreciated. Hope the remaining issues can be sorted to aid offline endurance racing. The pit stop one in particular was fixable in GTR2 by making sure the normal line and pit exit line didn't overlap, but I don't know how similar the code is here.

 

And would also be nice to see the AI's serve penalties like drive throughs on occasion.

 

from an always offline player.. I commend great AI, I do rf2 and now ill add RRE to the collection of great racing AI. Good job S3 are starting to shine with their sim.

 

New to the forums here. I've been sim racing for nearly 20 years and I concur that there are some subtle and nice (IMHO) changes to AI behavior. AI collision avoidance is better now. I also purchased the Audi TT Cup cars, created a series and am two races into that. The AI behaves much better now, if you give them an opportunity they'll take it, but they don't collide with you nearly as much as previous builds. During one of my TT Cup races, the AI immediately in front of me went too deep into a turn, almost recovered, and then overcompensated and spun out, very cool and quite immersive.
I love what S3 is doing with this title.

 

whilst i too want to now commend the ai, the biggest thing that is bugging me is the ai braking ability...if i am following the ai close by and brake at the same place i plough into the back of them!!

another i just noticed is the ai racing line at bathurst is off....at the end of the very long straight the dont move to the left of the track before taking that turn like they do in real life.

but other than that i have not touched rf2 since this update after giving up on rre

 

Nice job on this update! The AI is very much more race-able over the previous version. Still in need of some more awareness, but very raceable.

I have done many races with the ai in the silhouettes and gt3 cars over the last few days, the starts at tracks like Zolder, Zanvort, Suzuki have been hectic, but fair. They are aggressive in their defending position, they learn of the passing maneuvers I might try and they defend against them, they are far better at braking and defending lines in corners. (non of these are perfect, nor predictable... but isn't like human drivers?)

I was in a race yesterday at Zolder, an ai car and myself went into the first chicane side by side, neither wanting to give up position, he finally gave up his passing attempt just after the chicane, we rubbed door handles all the way thru on that one . I would not have wanted to do that in real life, but it was a hoot!

Very enjoyable now, very tough opponents in adaptive mode for me.

Tha

 

Just want to add my thumbs up for the new AI !

I was one of the people who thought the old AI was excellent but I agree this is a further step up.

With the old AI you could get a perfect line by just following the car in front. Not any more... at least not always...

I was doing a WTCC 14 race this morning and Loeb ran slightly wide (something that did not happen with old AI) and so of course I followed him off the road!! He wobbled a bit and recovered. I ended up facing backwards. Brilliant!

Memo to self: the AI are not robots anymore...

 

I did a 2 hours race with GT3 cars on Spa. I quallified 7th so the AI strengh was set up properly.
I really like the fact that s the AI cars had different pit stop strategies and like the others sad before the AI is really fun to drive against. So when that " leaders don't overtake backmarkers"-issue is fixed and S3S have included multiclass and bigger grids, endurance racing will be absolutly perfect !
The only thing I still don't like about the AI in general is that, because of their physics, the AI cars drive so different to me even if laptimes are equal.
For example on Spa: In the first sector I'm the fastest, in the second sector I loose about 1.5 seconds and then through Busstop chicane I get the hole time back.
In the end there's still some work but for the moment I'll have some great fun with that AI.

 

Yeh I have noticed this too about how I can be a lot quicker at certain parts of a track and a lot slower at others yet still lap the same. Happens to me at hockenheim

 

This can happen in mp as well, some sectors you perform good and some you might struggle with.

 

Sure, but in most cases two player who are at about the same level would stay together the hole lap. Even if the one behind would normaly be a bit slower in some places, he can keep the gap small because he can see where to optimze his line or where he can break a little bit later, while the one in front gets a bit slower because he wants to defend that one.
I think the "fighting" thing I'm talking about is quit good in R3E at the moment but way to the fight needs some work.
It's quit obvious that at hairpins and tight chicanes the AI breaks harder and goes slower thru the corner then a human would do. On the other side the AI can turn in fast corners easier and a lot faster without any understeer. So it's very difficult to follow an AI opponent closely but then nearly every track has at least one spot where it's way to easy to overtake the AI.
It's like : You're 2 seconds behind someone and then in one corner you're so mutch faster that you can overtake him.
I know it's complaining on a high level. Compared to other sims the Raceroom AI is ten times better!

 

Totally agree with this