rec.autos.simulators

I hit f2 and went to Hill's car. He was driving really slow, he did
about 2:30 about a lap. I thought he had car trouble and would go to
the pits on his next lap. But he drove on. For 43 laps he still drove
on, holding up most of the AI drivers.

I was very scary to have such a slow car on the track. Numerous times
a barely could avoid him. On lap 44, I just overtook Clark, Hill
entered the parabolica at a ridiculous slow speed. I had to slow down
early to avoid him. Clark rammed me from behind, and all three of us
were taken out of the race.

This seems to be a bug of the AI. When I went back to the main screen,
I saw that Hill was 18 laps behind.

Anyone else ever had this experience?

Andre

I assumed at the time that it is a case of the AI car randomly suffering engine damage.  Unfortunately there is no routine in the code to allow for AI cars to decide to pit if the car performance is hopelessly uncompetitive.

After all, GPL AI drivers are legendary for there stoicism and persistence, even when they loop their cars, provided they land upright they seem to find first gear and are back on the track without pausing for breath!

--
Mark Croasdale
ICQ 21549408

<snip>

Yes, once at a Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. Think it was Hill there as
well.

I guess it simulates Hill getting a problem which causes him to go
slow, but isn't enough to make him retire. Perhaps a bent susp?

/Martin

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: I hit f2 and went to Hill's car. He was driving really slow, he did
: about 2:30 about a lap. I thought he had car trouble and would go to
: the pits on his next lap. But he drove on. For 43 laps he still drove
: on, holding up most of the AI drivers.

: This seems to be a bug of the AI. When I went back to the main screen,
: I saw that Hill was 18 laps behind.

: Anyone else ever had this experience?

  Sure - it's no AI bug - the cars in GPL can all suffer failures even
the AI cars.  Presumably Hill had lost top end revs or had some kind
of engine problem.

--
Richard G. Clegg       Only the mind is waving
    Networks and Non-Linear Dynamics Group
      Dept. of Mathematics, Uni. of York
    www:  http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

Andre

Are we talking about Graham or Damon now? ;)

MRSisson

mechanical_failure_chance = 0.000000            ; chance in 10000 (!!) per
ACTIVE AI car for induced problem/failure each interval

Set the value to 0.00000 and this will prevent any of the Ai from
dropping out or having a mechanical failure that will drop them from the
race or leave them on the track going very slow.
I want to pass them because I'm faster, not because they had a problem.
DBH
P.S. Plan way ahead!!

*gdarvvf*

Bye!
Crash

MRSisson schrieb:

Andre

On Mon, 25 Oct 1999 10:39:39 -0500, "David B. Harrison"

I noticed another weird problem with the AI a few days ago, that is when I'm
going down the straight towards the Masta Kink at Spa I just reach the
199mph mark in the Honda, but the good AI (Clark, Hill,Amon etc) reach
199mph about half way towards the Masta and stay at this speed along the
whole straight.

The annoying thing other than the fact they creep up on me is that when
there is a massive chain of AI cars nose to tail behind eachother, they
still stay at 199mph, you would think slipstreaming would boost their speed
but they stay right on 199mph down the whole straight and their cars aren't
even in the redline. This creates boring racing for the fact there are none
of those lovely slipstreaming battles that Spa is renouned for.

Anyone experienced problems like this before? Is there a fix? Does GPL
simulate slipstreaming between AI cars?

Just wondering

Dan

This is a drag coefficient value, and by default it's 0.040. With this
low drag all cars reach 199mph, and most do it well before the end of
the straight. If you increase it a value of about 0.065 to 0.070, the ai
cars will have more drag. The Lotus and Eagles will still reach the
limit of 199mph, but further down the straight, while the slower cars
won't reach 199 at all.

You can also change the limit of 199mph to a higher value so that the
Eagles and Lotuses might go even faster than 199mph (particularly if
they're slipstreaming). To do this open the track.ini file in the
tracks\spa directory, and find the line:
dlong_speed_maximum
which is under the [GP] header.

The value following is the speedlimit of AI cars. It's given as meters
per tick with a tick being 1/36 sec. Knowing this you can set the
speedlimit to any speed you want, as it's fairly easy to calculate!

Oh and please note: this ONLY changes the speed of AI cars, it has no
effect on human controlled cars!

--
Arne Martin

Not quite the same but a similar disconcerting thing that happened to me
when I was trailing well behind almost all the AI in a race at Watkins
Glen (I came late to GPL and am slowly improving but am still at the
point where 12th or 13th place is a good result :-). Coming round the
last lap felt secure in my position so was backing off a bit to avoid a
stupid spin when suddenly a green Lotus appeared on my tail trying
pretty hard to get past me - I managed to hold it off as I went round
the last corners when suddenly I saw it pull down the pit lane. Clearly
the AI drivers do not ease off after the chequered flag to coast into
the pits!

BTW on another AI/race related issue - sometimes in the race results I
find I'm classified ahead of some driver who is marked as "suspended" -
what is this - did they get black flagged for some infraction?

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<snip>

Does it definitely say "suspended"? Or is it something like "susp." which
may indicate suspension failure?

regards
Ian Hill

Aha, of course, it was "Susp" which I interpreted as suspended but now
that you mention it suspension failure is the more likely explanation!

DeS

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