NR2002 Questions

I got NR2002 2 weeks ago and have been doing a championship at 95% difficulty with 15% race distances. I've done 8 races so far and have some questions about my tire wear and the ai. 1) I've noticed that using the fast setup my right front tire wears rather quickly. By halfway it's almost always in the yellow and at Bristol and Martinsville it got into the red before the end of the race (at bristol it blew out with 10 to go, during the race i scraped the wall off the corners about 20 times, would this effect the wear?) are there any tips in regards to setup or driving techinque that would reduce this wear without reducing my speed? 2) After the first few laps i have noticed little if any passing between the ai cars. At martinsville the leaders caught lap traffic after about 25 laps and never put a single car a lap down. Is there any thing in the track files that i can change to create more competiton between the ai cars? Patrick Shumar [email hidden]

On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 00:04:50 -0500, "Patrick Shumar" <[email hidden]> wrote:

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>I got NR2002 2 weeks ago and have been doing a championship at 95% >difficulty with 15% race distances. I've done 8 races so far and have some >questions about my tire wear and the ai. > >1) I've noticed that using the fast setup my right front tire wears rather >quickly. By halfway it's almost always in the yellow and at Bristol and >Martinsville it got into the red before the end of the race (at bristol it >blew out with 10 to go, during the race i scraped the wall off the corners >about 20 times, would this effect the wear?) are there any tips in regards >to setup or driving techinque that would reduce this wear without reducing >my speed?

The "fast" setups in N2002 are way too tight. You will either need to loosen them up or download some better setups. > >2) After the first few laps i have noticed little if any passing between the >ai cars. At martinsville the leaders caught lap traffic after about 25 laps >and never put a single car a lap down. Is there any thing in the track >files that i can change to create more competiton between the ai cars? This has been a gripe of mine since N4. The AI does not seem to pass as much as real life. However, running a 15% race you probably wont see a whole lot of passing. If you run a 40% or 50% race the AI will change positions over the course, and they will lap slower cars. Just not as much as real life.

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> > >Patrick Shumar >[email hidden] > > > >

Brian Oster

For that matter, it's been a a problem since N1, as well as, in some offline practice the other day at Rockingham, I noticed the AI cars still pit no matter what when it's time; i.e., come down and wreck non-pitting cars, etc. in entering the pits. Seems to be several AI issues still surviving from even N1. Doesn't bother me, as offline doesn't interest me, but a bit surprising that in all the installments, nothing's changed in several areas. -John "Brian Oster" <bgoster@*remove_to_email*swbell.net> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 00:04:50 -0500, "Patrick Shumar" > <[email hidden]> wrote: > > >I got NR2002 2 weeks ago and have been doing a championship at 95% > >difficulty with 15% race distances. I've done 8 races so far and havesome > >questions about my tire wear and the ai. > > > >1) I've noticed that using the fast setup my right front tire wearsrather > >quickly. By halfway it's almost always in the yellow and at Bristol and > >Martinsville it got into the red before the end of the race (at bristolit > >blew out with 10 to go, during the race i scraped the wall off thecorners > >about 20 times, would this effect the wear?) are there any tips inregards > >to setup or driving techinque that would reduce this wear withoutreducing

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> >my speed? > > The "fast" setups in N2002 are way too tight. You will either need to > loosen them up or download some better setups. > > > > >2) After the first few laps i have noticed little if any passing between

the > >ai cars. At martinsville the leaders caught lap traffic after about 25laps

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> >and never put a single car a lap down. Is there any thing in the track > >files that i can change to create more competiton between the ai cars? > > This has been a gripe of mine since N4. The AI does not seem to pass > as much as real life. However, running a 15% race you probably wont > see a whole lot of passing. If you run a 40% or 50% race the AI will > change positions over the course, and they will lap slower cars. Just > not as much as real life. > > > > > > >Patrick Shumar > >[email hidden] > > > > > > > > > > Brian Oster

John Pancoast wrote:

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> For that matter, it's been a a problem since N1, as well as, in some > offline practice the other day at Rockingham, I noticed the AI cars still > pit no matter what when it's time; i.e., come down and wreck non-pitting > cars, etc. in entering the pits. > Seems to be several AI issues still surviving from even N1. > > Doesn't bother me, as offline doesn't interest me, but a bit surprising > that in all the installments, nothing's changed in several areas. >

They do need to overhaul the AI; such an effort is longggg overdue. The problem is the AI doesn't try to pass when it can, and tries to pass when it can't. I find at the plate tracks that if I am 2nd in line in the draft my group can run away from the competition because I will stick behind the leader all the way around and am able to 'manipulate' the third car into staying behind me (I have found that if I am low coming out onto the straights that he will stay high, then I can drift right up there and then we are running in a train). Meanwhile behind me the other AI cars are swirling around in a nondrafting mob, and are quickly left in our dust. John DiFool -- ======================================================== Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him....what? A super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis. ========================================================

I could probably write a 1000 line post with all the AI quirks I've found in N4/N2002 but the top things that need to be addressed imo are: 1) AI wrecking entering the pits. (its better than n4 but still a problem) 2) AI NOT wrecking themselves at the 1.0+ mile tracks. (again, better than n4 where there were absolutly zero cautions by the AI. I hate making nothing but green flag pits stops). Do to these two things, pit strategy becomes very simple. If you pit before the AI, they will wreck themselves when they pit and put you a lap down. If you let the AI pit first, they will wreck themselves half the time and put you a lap up on the field. So, you ALWAYS stay out until the last AI car pits. I want to see cautions in the middle of green flag runs, I want to see a single AI car loose it and cause a caution (and not just because their engine blew up). Maybe a few more debris cautions thrown in (say 1 or 2 for a 50% - 100% race). 3) When there is a wreck I don't want to see the AI dogpile the accident. If a lead car wrecks in the first 10 laps, half the field will be taken out. 4) AI not racing each other 5) Better drafting at the plate tracks. The AI never wants to work together. The AI needs a different strategy at the plate tracks. All in all AI is better than n4. Quite frankly when you think about how complex it must be to make the AI realistic, it is pretty good. But there is still a lot of room for improvement. Brian Oster On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 16:00:42 GMT, John DiFool <[email hidden]> wrote:

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>John Pancoast wrote: > >> For that matter, it's been a a problem since N1, as well as, in some >> offline practice the other day at Rockingham, I noticed the AI cars still >> pit no matter what when it's time; i.e., come down and wreck non-pitting >> cars, etc. in entering the pits. >> Seems to be several AI issues still surviving from even N1. >> >> Doesn't bother me, as offline doesn't interest me, but a bit surprising >> that in all the installments, nothing's changed in several areas. >> > > They do need to overhaul the AI; such an effort is longggg overdue. >The problem is the AI doesn't try to pass when it can, and tries to pass when >it >can't. I find at the plate tracks that if I am 2nd in line in the draft my >group can >run away from the competition because I will stick behind the leader all the >way around and am able to 'manipulate' the third car into staying behind me >(I have found that if I am low coming out onto the straights that he will stay >high, >then I can drift right up there and then we are running in a train). Meanwhile > >behind me the other AI cars are swirling around in a nondrafting mob, and are >quickly left in our dust. > > John DiFool

Brian Oster

"John DiFool" (snip) > They do need to overhaul the AI; such an effort is longggg overdue. > The problem is the AI doesn't try to pass when it can, and tries to passwhen > it > can't. Sounds like they used an F1 driver for the AI..... dave (ducking) henrie lol :) <vbfg>

"John DiFool" (snip) Sounds like they used an F1 driver for the AI..... dave (ducking) henrie lol :) <vbfg>

Brian Oster <bgoster@*remove_to_email*swbell.net> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>... > 2) AI NOT wrecking themselves at the 1.0+ mile tracks. (again, better > than n4 where there were absolutly zero cautions by the AI. I hate > making nothing but green flag pits stops). Weird, I haven't had this problem at all (in either N4 or 2002 for that matter). I'm running a 35% championship race and 4 races in (Daytona/Rockingham/Vegas/Atlanta) I'm averaging 3-5 cautions per race, and while I was involved in one I did not cause any of them. Nor were they caused by erratic pit behavior. There was a great wreck at Daytona 10 laps from the end where Tony Stewart tried to go 3-wide at the front of the pack on the backstretch and drifted into Terry Labonte, sending them both hard into the wall and collecting another 4-5 cars in the ensuing melee. > 3) When there is a wreck I don't want to see the AI dogpile the > accident. If a lead car wrecks in the first 10 laps, half the field > will be taken out. I haven't found this *too* annoying yet, but it would be nice if they looked into it. The AI already does everything it can to brake and swerve to avoid accidents, the only alternative I can think of to make pileups less nasty would be to go back to the unrealistic insta-brakes that were present in N/N2/N3. > 4) AI not racing each other I'm pretty happy with the way they race for position, especially with how certain drivers really turn it up a notch at the end based on their Finishing rating. What I would *really* like to see is lapped cars yielding to the leaders and the leaders passing lapped cars faster. The problems with this are amplified at the plate tracks on late race double-file restarts where only a handful of cars will pass the damaged cars in the left line and everyone else will bunch up behind them. At shorter tracks, late race double file restarts usually result in cars spinning everywhere since everyone bunches up behind the slower cars instead of passing them. This is possibly the #3 thing I would like to see fixed in a patch, #1 being the lack of texture compression in openGL and #2 being an option to disable wall glue. > 5) Better drafting at the plate tracks. The AI never wants to work > together. The AI needs a different strategy at the plate tracks. I agree. Although, you could say the same thing about the real drivers, who spend all day 2 and 3 wide. If the AI did draft like humans do in multiplayer races (i.e. single file) people would complain about the lack of 2 and 3 wide racing, like nearly everyone did up until N4. In fact, a lot of people were using edited AI drafting distances in N4 to make the cars bunch up even tighter and kill the draft even further. At 100% I'm finding Daytona/Talladega to be a reasonable challenge. Early on I can usually work my way up from the back to the front until I kill the tires by overdriving and push up the banking a little, letting a 10 car train past. I've noticed that the AI cars also bounce from the back to the front and back again, and this is a real life phenomenon. Racing the AI at the plate tracks is harder than racing most humans, and you don't have to worry about people who haven't learned how to check up or try to pass you low when they can't hold a line. > All in all AI is better than n4. Quite frankly when you think about > how complex it must be to make the AI realistic, it is pretty good. > But there is still a lot of room for improvement. Definitely. It's getting there little by little though, and starting with the final patch for N4 it has been miles above anything we've had in a NASCAR game. Jason

In article <K4Wj8.2922$[email hidden]>, "Patrick Shumar" <[email hidden]> writes: >2) After the first few laps i have noticed little if any passing between the >ai cars. At martinsville the leaders caught lap traffic after about 25 laps >and never put a single car a lap down. Is there any thing in the track >files that i can change to create more competiton between the ai cars? > That surprises me. I've run at 70%, and the AI laps cars just fine... Eldred -- Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001 Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett GPLRank - under construction... Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you with experience... Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.