rec.autos.simulators

One time I did around 80 laps at Long Beach and I was in 4th place (which is pretty high for me) when I came across a back marker.  I out braked him into turn 1, a clean pass.  But before I got to the apex he just tried to overtake me round the outside for some reason and the next thing I lnew I had a blown rear tyre.  Another example is on the start/finish straight where it curves slightly.  If you try to overtake on the inside of the curve the other car just moves across, even if your nose is ahead of hi
s.  And on some corners they just take ridiculously slow causing you to run into the back of them, and they often weave side to side.

I would of expected more from ICR since you lot have all been raving on about it.

[ Carriage returns added by me ]

I've been playing WC for about 1.5 years and ICR for about 1.5 months, and
I have to disagree with the above.  I've been very impressed by the AI of
ICR compared to WC.  It's so nice to go into a corner and have the other
drivers respect my line instead of just ramming into me.  I agree that some
of the corner entry speeds are slow, but I don't mind it nearly as much as
getting rammed into the side in WC.

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You are right about some of these quirks, but it isn't really that
bad once you learn where the AI cars do these moves. Just think they
are all Mario Andretti's wh are tough to pass, and just repect them
more than you would if they were "smarter".

Maybe you have to be faster so they don't come back and pass you ;-)

Well, they did. And I bet that they must have some really strange
hardware nnot to run into trouble in Cleveland. Tehr was no official
beta test of the track pack, and Indy shipped with a massive bug that
got fixed after release (yellow flags stayed out forever).

You give these guys too much credit. Expect the NASCAR simulator to be
rushed to the shelves for the Xmas shopping season and to be FULL of
Bugs (rememeber the modem play in 1.0 of Indycar?)

The bug that causes cars to go that slow lies withing the track.dat
fiel and in Cleveland it may have to do with the unusally wide track
trowing off the AI algorhytms. But it wasn't hardware that let that
slip thru (my new Pentium 90 does it like the old 486/33 I used 1 year
ago. It was teh desire to have the stuff on the shelves a day after
the big Indy 500 spectacle to see $$$$$$ roll in. I love the
game,  but I can't believe the marketing behind it. The charge
more for buggy tracks than for the original game and then forget
about the entire project because NASCAR is next...

Enough ***ing - back to racing...

        Generally the other cars behave more realistically in ICR, with the
        exceptions you've noted. One just has to treat the other cars with
        circumspection in tight corners - as though they were unobservant or
        overly aggresive rookies. Watch a tape of the Brabham/Alesi incident
        from the Portuguese Grand Prix of last weekend - you'll see a real-life
        incident similar to the one you describe at the top of your posting,
        perpetrated by a top-notch experienced F1 driver, or Nigel's attempted
        pass on Emmo in the last turn of the last lap of the Vancouver Indy
        several weeks ago....it just happens more often in ICR.

        ...As for the 'molasses' corners, I've removed Cleveland and Long Beach
        from my computer because the time warp behaviour of AI cars on the tight
        turns at those tracks is so distressing. I feel that this behaviour
        may be hardware related and that the testing setups used at Papyrus
        didn't experience this problem because I just can't believe that
        they would have knowingly released otherwise. It totally destroys the
        illusion of racing. If they don't fix this one at some point then I
        will be very disappointed indeed.

        As for the weaving - I've seen this under 2 conditions: 1) during
        yellow flag or on the pace lap to avoid passing the car ahead at
        slow corner traffic jams, and 2) when trying to block me from
        passing, or when they are looking to pass the car ahead of them.

        Real drivers certainly do block - witness Al Unser Jr.'s blatant
        blocking of Scott Goodyear at last years brickyard - on the last
        blast to the chequered flag little al clearly switches in front
        of Goodyear to prevent him getting by. It was accepted as a legitimate
        tactic - so I think its pretty realistic to see it in ICR.