rec.autos.simulators

Has anyone noticed how well Katayama drives (esp. qualifying) in GP2?

I'm running a championship season at ace level and I can normally
qualify within the top 6. But *** me dead if good ol' UK isn't
right up there with the nearly best of them (4th - 7th) <g>.

How is it that he drives better in the sim than in real life?
(Coulthard seems to bee a wee bit too good too...).

Chris

Julian
_____________________________________________________________________

                                University of Oxford

Harold
--
****************************************************
*   Harold Zijp Multimedia- & Internetproducties   *

* Frozen Orange records: low budget cd-recordings! *
*      member of Iprecom Groep Groningen           *
****************************************************

Coulthard isn't quite Senna-like in the game (hardly ever takes pole,
for instance, and is *usuall* slower than Hill), but he is FAR too
consistent - I had the computer run a full season yesterday, and he
NEVER dnf'ed and finished no lower than fourth all year.  Hill still won
the title pretty easily - he won 7 races, and dnf'ed twice.

In general, the Ferraris are a bit too strong on slower circuits (Alesi
won Monaco!), Schumacher isn't strong enough (and was also too
unreliable in the season I ran, but that could just be bad luck), Hill
seems to be about right, the McLarens are about right, especially in
qualifying (Hakkinen usually much quicker than Brundle).

The game does run some good races - in my simulated season, I used
acccelerated time in qualifying and _most_ of each race, but would watch
the first few laps, and whenever the gaps got small at the front of the
field.  

The Italian GP was a CLASSIC - as good as any real race I have watched
in years!  Schumacher and the Williams duo were covered by about 2-3
seconds for the last 15 laps, with lots of great dicing, until the last
5 laps, when both Williams drivers went a bit psycho and lost the
ability to drive properly - they were both all over the road, failing to
come off corners properly, taking incorrect lines.  I kept waiting for
a "trouble" indicator on the dash, but none came.  Schumacher won, Hill
second, Coulthard third.

Has anyone else seen this wierd behavior from AI drivers?

Rick

: Has anyone noticed how well Katayama drives (esp. qualifying) in GP2?

: I'm running a championship season at ace level and I can normally
: qualify within the top 6. But *** me dead if good ol' UK isn't
: right up there with the nearly best of them (4th - 7th) <g>.

: How is it that he drives better in the sim than in real life?
: (Coulthard seems to bee a wee bit too good too...).

        During the season '94 that was the case: both Katayama and Tyrrell
were in great shape.

        Joonas

I change the names from Coulthard to Villeneuve which is more
realistic.

I drove Monaco in a Ferrari and it was a piece of cake(well, I did
have supension failure on the front right but nursed it back to the
pits for it to be fixed in under 10 secs!!!), I was 3 secs faster than
nyone else during the race, unlike other curcuits.

<snip>

Maybe their tyres had turned to poo by that stage.

So far the closest I've seen is at Spain. I drove (still driving it -
had to save) the best I've managed so far and about 10 or so laps in
blasted by Hill who was really running at below par speed. Seemed very
out of character for this car/driver. He's still in the race (at half
way point) but a very lack lustre performance. May be one of the
random elements coming in to play.

BTW has anyone noticed how if you start from the back of the field
that all the CC drivers ahead generally won't give an inch, but by the
time you come to lap them they are much more willing to "move over". I
can't be entirely sure of this, but it seemed to be a nice touch to
the AI.

Chris

Samppa
--

See my homepage for Formula One Shadow Series: http://www.hut.fi/~tax/
                  "Kuorma-auto - Hy?dyksesi tiell?"

snip

(I wrote)

At first, I thought that it was just another example of the neat AI in
GP2 - Coulthard actually appeared to block Hill into the second Lesmo
and on the next straight.  The wierd bit is, though, that after Hill got
by, both Coulthard and Hill wouldn't take corners properly - their
turn-in was very abrupt, and they would either miss the exit of the turn
and go off, or come off the corner WAY to the inside, leaving 2-3
car-widths to the outside curb.  I still can't figure it out....

Rick

                                                        Me,
                                                        Leon

eric

One thing that I have found works good for me during the races is that
to prevent the computer drivers from trying those patented Damon Hill
Banzai overtaking maneuvers in the corners which sometimes tend to take
both of you out, try taking a tighter line into the turn, for example
setup your line for that turn from the middle of the road instead of the
outside, this is called defending your line and works wonders to prevent
you from "tempting" them to try and make a pass at the wrong moment.

Please no flames, I don't mean to bash Damon here just that he had a few of
these maneuvers when trying to pass Schumacher over the years, and even
one of my favorite drivers Alesi has also been known to do this once
or twice ;-)

I don't think this agressiveness is bad AI, actually it is very realistic
when you compare this to some of the moves and mishaps that happen in real F1.

Cheers.

--John
--
-------------------
  John (Joao) Silva
  http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jsilva
  Seattle, Washington USA.

Too true. Give them an inch and they'll go for it and expect us to
back off. Close the door on them and they will (usually!) give way.

Cheers,
Richard