Many thanks for your reply!
My pleasure! Glad to have a conversation going about the plugin
@Weber44 
Currently away from my gaming computer for a few days, but will test these things when I get back to it. If I don't post again in this thread by the end of the week, be sure to remind me
Indeed the 'stuck behind backmarker while trying to lap' problem only occurs with single class mods. With the aforementionend example BES 2012 SP1.2 mod at Brianza GP I find the front runners not being able to pass on the very long straight. You'd think that with e.g. "PenaltyMassBlueflagKg=950" a car should be slowed down significantly to let the frontrunner go by easily - so I really think something doesn't work here... Maybe you could try to replicate that and tell me if it's any better in your case.
So sounds like the Blue Flag penalties are not working. That's a shame.
By the way... I've been told the "stuck behind on a straight" bug was nearly eliminated in Automobilista 1 versions prior to 1.50 – but was then re-introduced later (including in the final version of AMS1). Have not verified this myself. But, if you have the hard drive space for an additional AMS install, might be worth trying. Especially since I believe AMS1 also has built-in blue flag 'slowdowns' for lapped cars (though I'm not sure which version those were first shipped).
On the other hand no problem here with multi class mods - LMP1 cars easily passing LMP2 and GT cars. But this has never really been an issue beforehand and I'm not really sure whether this has improved with the plugin. Is there anything special in the AI behaviour I should monitor in order to be able to judge whether it does something here or not?
What I've done in the past (in rFactor, GTR2, AMS... even RaceRoom and rFactor 2) is set up a multiclass race with the AI, drive the first couple corners then quit, switch view to ride with a top class car, accelerate time until they catch traffic, then watch them try to navigate it.
From what I remember, with the plugin enabled in rF1, they should usually make rather human-like decisions and be able to pull out and drive by slow-class cars – even on a long straight (e.g. the back straight at Sebring). Whereas in my experience, without the plugin, they would get "stuck behind". With the plugin, they still do hesitate sometimes, and the decision-making isn't perfect... but it seemed much improved to me compared to the vanilla AI.
Another thought apart from this plugin: quite often the AI tend to initiate their overtaking manoeuvres rather late in the braking zone while they could have gone by easily on the straight. There is an entry in the tracks' .aiw file "AIDraftStickiness=(4.0)" which is said to determine that behaviour. Changing that value to 0.1 or even -1.0 didn't seem to have any effect, though. Maybe you'd like to test this as well.
So... this is a can of worms you're opening
AIW settings tweaking is an art unto itself, and many of us who play ISImotor-based sims like GTR2, RACE 07, rFactor, and AMS have been trying to figure it out recently
In my experience, lower values (e.g. 0.96) mean that AI pull out of the draft sooner. It'd be interesting to know if the plugin means this setting doesn't do anything. Given how the plugin seems to directly improve the pathfinding and collision detection in rFactor, this wouldn't be surprising to me.
HOWEVER... one last thing. I gotta bring up a bug that plagues most of sim racing.
The weird thing with ISImotor AI is:
they do not know how to slipstream, and more or less cannot pass in a straight line. This is a bug in any ISImotor-based title – GTR2, RACE 07, rFactor, or AMS. A lower AIDraftStickiness parameter means AI pull out of the draft sooner BUT they let off the throttle and fall back into line because
they don't know how to drive by another car in a straight line. (There are hit-and-miss ways to trick them into driving past you if you pull way over to the side or slow down a ton, but that's it) The ISI AI code seems to only allow overtaking by
outbraking into a corner.
So it means the AIDraftStickiness parameter tweaks don't help much. I've silently been hoping the AI plugin would help force cars to drive by when they "have a run" on a straight, but sounds like that's not the case.
It gets weirder, though. The inability to slipstream persists into rF2, actually. Despite the other improvements ISI made to the game engine. And in Assetto Corsa... its AI can be
even worse than in ISImotor in terms of "getting stuck in a straight line"
. Check out
this video from Mike at SimRacing604, for example. Slow on the racing line, and the AI will slow with you
So strange this bug has persisted for so long, even across game engines.
