Can't keep up in qualifying but easily handle race

[Shovas]

Any ideas why the AI race pace is quite a bit slower than their qualifying pace?

When I set the AI level to where I can beat them in qualifying by a small margin, in the race I blow them away and it's no fun.

But if I set the AI level to end up somewhere in top 10 or so I end up having a competitive race but I probably won't win.

Is this expected?

 

[DucFreak]

Unfortunately, yes.
The AI in most ISI powered games, such as the ones from SimBin, seem to suffer from this same problem, with GTR2 being no exception. Cars are super fast in qualifying, but mostly ultra conservative during the race (sometimes faster for a while or even making mistakes, all at random). It's more or less noticed depending on track and AI settings.

To minimize the problem seen during qualify, do not use "fast forward time" (never use the time acceleration during qualify) as that introduces the well known bug of the absurd AI laptimes. Which means, wait your time and let the qualify session finish. Go make a coffee or something if wishing to pass time instead of doing laps during qualify session. Then the AI qualify laptimes will be within the "reasonable".

Experiences and opinions vary but it has been considered to be better using the AI strenght as high as possible for yourself (to make them competitive for race) with agression set at medium to high levels (i.e, to avoid many DNFs in longer races avoid the most agressive setting).

There are mods that atempt to improve the AI, but are not recommended for a GTR2 installation used for online (multiplayer) racing, as they change important game files which will create problems when entering public servers (i.e, mismatch filter will detect and consider them as cheat files).

But if you're interested mostly in offline (single player), or willing to make a separate installation of GTR2 for the mods experiment, then I suggest the AI Mod v1 by VonDutch, or the GTR2 HQ AI found in the GTR2 HQ mods collection by GTR233. There's also the GTR2 reborn mod but this one changes a whole lot more.
I have very little experience with these so cannot say how good they really are, but there has been positive feedback by those who used these mods.

 

[Shovas]

Thanks, the time acceleration bug is handy to know. I've stopped doing that. I can skip sessions and that doesn't seem to bug the timings.

So far I seem to be around 91%-92% AI. If I set 91% I can pass ahead of the first car on the first lap and they can't catch me. At 92% I'm second half of the field and can work my way up to top 10. So far my skill has run out but I'm sure I can catch the first spot. Such a weird system. Guess I'll just have to work with 92%.

PS. I'm using HQ Cars & Tracks and HQ AI from the HQ Mods Collection v8.

 

[Shovas]

To minimize the problem seen during qualify, do not use "fast forward time" (never use the time acceleration during qualify) as that introduces the well known bug of the absurd AI laptimes. Which means, wait your time and let the qualify session finish. Go make a coffee or something if wishing to pass time instead of doing laps during qualify session. Then the AI qualify laptimes will be within the "reasonable".

Thanks, the time acceleration bug is handy to know. I've stopped doing that. I can skip sessions and that doesn't seem to bug the timings

For posterity, I thought I'd correct this: Time acceleration is okay, skipping qualifying is not okay.

Also, have both Q 1 and 2, or just 2, but do not use only Qualifying 1, as that leads to the same issue.

And make sure all cars come into the pits to really be confident qualifying went okay. Just let time acceleration for a little extra and wait til all the cars come in on the timing screen.

 

[jgf]

A well known issue, sometimes working the opposite way - you leave the AI in the dust during practice and qualifying but seem to lose 50hp for the race. The following tweaks are done on a track by track basis and will tune the AI to your speeds in all sessions; but this is not compatible with online racing so you may want to keep backups of the default files.

In the track .aiw file look for:

WorstAdjust=(0.7500) // Used for 70% AI strength option
MidAdjust=(1.0000) // Used for 100% AI strength option (note that AIs now use full throttle above 95% AI strength option)
BestAdjust=(1.1000) // Used for 120% AI strength option
QualRatio=(1.0200) // Used to adjust AI speed in qual compared to base values
RaceRatio=(1.0500) // Used to adjust AI speed in race compared to base values

Set both QualRatio and RaceRatio to 1.0000 and run enough practice laps to note your average speed; tweak the appropriate (based on AI setting in the game) worst/mid/best adjust so the AI run the times you want (same as you? faster? slower? whatever you like).

Now practice qualifying enough to know your average qual times and adjust QualRatio to tweak the AI qualifying times.

If, like many of us, your race laps are nearly identical to your practice laps, you can merely watch a few AI only races and adjust RaceRatio to set their lap times.

These settings are quite mod dependent, what is optimum for GT2 cars may be worthless for F1 cars. I keep a txt file in each track containing these settings tweaked for various mods, just need a quick copy/paste before a race weekend.