rec.autos.simulators

The severity of the AI problem has perplexed me. Now I have not
significantly played with the AI because in my own opinion multiplayer is
much better. I also cannot discount how many people feel about the AI
because that is how they feel. I was really curious so I loaded up Laguna
Seca with a 26 car field. Here are my observations of the AI:

(1) I have not seen the AI race much. During practice the all seem to stay
the same distance apart. It would be cool if they passed each other and
ducked into the pits every now and then. Now I didn't spend much time
observing the AI race so I don't know if they actually do these things.

(2) When an AI does hit you it is very unrealistic. It is like a snow plow
clearing a car off of the road. If an AI car hits you it should be spun off
also. I have only noticed minor deviation in course of an AI car when
contact is made.

(3) Out of all the car to car contacts I had 9 out of 10 roughly were my
fault. Upon watching the instant replay I turned into the car or tried to
block the car when it was trying to outbrake me. The only time I had the car
run into the back of me was when I was going slow in the braking area to
turn 5. I was all the way to the right side. The AI veered to the left to
pass me on the inside. I moved over to the left by mistake in front of the
AI in the braking zone. The AI hit me while trying to outbrake me. This has
actually happened to me in real life while racing at Laguna Seca. It
happened in the corkscrew when I went to Pass a Scirraco on the inside under
breaking (Ala Zanardi but before his famous pass). The scirraco moved over
to the left to block me but I was committed to the braking. I tapped the
Scirraco squarely in the back. So I find this behavior realistic.

(4) I parked my car or drove slowly on the track to see if the AI could
avoid me. 9 out of 10 times the AI would move around my car. Sometimes the
AI would collect my car. This is realistic also. If you are travelling at
full race speed and someone is slow or not moving at all on the track there
is a high risk that you will hit the car. This has happened many times in
real life. I forget the particular year but I remember Mario Andretti one
year collecting a stopped car on the straightaway at Vancouver or Toronto I
think.

So that summarizes my brief evaluation of CART PR's AI. For the most part I
have had very few problems with the AI and actually was able to race with it
very well. The AI could still use improvement and refinement. If you hate
the AI and you have access to the Internet then I would highly suggest
multiplayer play because nothing compares to it!

Thanks
John
The APEX - The source for CART Precision Racing setups, fastlaps,
information, editing and more!
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~joja

Not perfect AI - but good AI.

Thanks for the detailed posting John.

I am sure people will follow-up this thread with extreme opinions but
it's nice that someone has taken some time to actually investigate the
claims
regarding CPR's AI.

Your detailed analysis highlights some interesting points:-

"Out of all the car to car contacts I had 9 out of 10 roughly were my
fault. Upon watching the instant replay I turned into the car or tried to
block the car when it was trying to outbrake me"

"9 out of 10 times the AI would move around my car. Sometimes the
AI would collect my car. This is realistic also"

I wonder how many people have a collision and automatically blame the AI -
if you do dumb things in CPR you WILL collide with the other cars. The real
CART series
has requirements on your level of competitiveness before they let you race -
this is for SAFETY. Accidents do happen in a field of drivers who are not
matched in skill.

We can "fix" this in the patch but we're begining to get into tricky areas
of  compensating for
human errors.

In reality, stopping in the middle of a Superspeedway with other cars on the
limit
at 240 mph is suicide.  It's likely to be the same in CPR.

At Professional difficulty, CPR does assume you are going to be within
approx 30% of the optimal
speed and brake points - if you are very slow or erratic then the AI cars
will have a hard time losing
70 mph in 10 feet  and steering around you at the same time. No surprises
there.

Can we tweak this in the patch? We're sure trying to find the "perfect"
answer. But it's not easy without
the risk of infringing several Laws of Physics.

You have seen several comments from CART drivers (Rahal, Zanardi, Blundell,
Mo) validating the behavior in CPR -
but the demand for "perfect" computer car avoidance goes on, almost
regardless of the  recklessness of the
situations you put them in.

But TRI are trying to provide them for you.

We hope we can find the right balance.

I am sure you will let us know if we have been successful or not (!).

But please - it would just be nice if people looked just a little harder at
these areas before jumping on the
bandwagon - one bump and the cry is "this AI sucks!".

. . . . .  no, the CPR AI isn't "perfect" - but how perfect is YOUR driving?

B en Sides

I think you're being a bit kind too the AI. Start a full field race on
a tight oval and just sit back and watch - it's hilarious.

Cheers!
John

Er, don't believe I've actually seen an AI car hit 240 on a
superspeedway.  ;)

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

Other than the snowplow effect when an AI car hits me and the speed of
the AI cars, I think the AI's not all that horrible.  Just make the
cars able to keep up with the sample setups and I'll be much more
happy.

-John