Getting to know the fuel strategy of the AI

[Nico]

Ok, so I'm trying to have a somewhat decent racing experience with the AI. Today I started a custom championship with the cars from the DRM mod and some classic tracks. I have fuel consumption and tyre wear enabled, both to their default 1x setting. With Esotic's fuel app I figured out how far I could go with a full tank on every track I'm using for this championship, and decided to make races slightly longer than such distance so I could guarantee there will be pit action with the AI no matter what strategy they decide to use.

For the first race I chose a single pit strategy, start full on fuel and go to pits only once later on. The problem is that everyone else seemed to do the exact opposite: start light on fuel and make plenty of stops. I won the race without trouble, but this frustrated me a bit because it didn't feel like actual competition, I finished like 35 seconds ahead of the second driver and before the stop I was actually very close to lapping him. Now, I haven't tried every single DRM car, but this gives me the sensation that they always take different fuel strategies than the player. When I did a race with two fuel stops at the same track -outside of the championship- I got overtaken by cars that, I believe, made only one stop.

So my question is, there is a way to know which fuel strategy will the AI take before I start the race? I know this is kinda like cheating, but I want to know that so I can choose a similar strategy and have the chance to get a more fair race, or something remotely close to that. I don't get why they make several short stops when they could make a single, longer one and still finish the race.

 

[Sim Strata]

I am just starting to race with the AI in AC, other than the quick races I do to prep for online events. Mainly because the amazing RSS GT mod which needs to be used more. I will have a play when I get some more time in a few days. But the thought did occur to me that the AI seems very keen to pit for damage. Could that be the reason for frequent stops? Also, is it possible to force an AI setup with full tanks? I am guessing they just use the default setup with the std 30 litres..?

 

[Nico]

Back when I posted this thread I did not consider the lenght of the tracks. I realized that, if I create a championship with roughly the same distance for every race -let's say, 250 km which is like one hour races- the amount of laps obviously vary depending on the lenght of the tracks. For instance, a 11 lap race at the Nurburgring may be equivalent to a 35-40 lap race on Hockenheim. And also obviously, the bigger amount of laps, the more chances you and the AI have to do pit stops. I did a race at Hockenheim with a fuel strategy that technically was valid, starting full and doing only one stop near the end, but it didn't give a chance for the AI to recover, which from my little experience I think it tries to run as light on fuel as possible. In a previous Nurburgring race of that same lenght I made the mistake of going too light on fuel and stopping twice, while the AI only stopped once and overtook me. I don't really know if it's possible to make the AI use full tanks, I googled a lot about this game's AI and it seems like everyone has problems trying to understand how it works.

I personally don't have damage enabled anymore as I don't really like how damage works in this game. I prefer to have tyre and fuel consumption instead. But I do remember from my early AC days that if you slightly hit a AI car either on race or qualy, most times it will go straight to the pits even if you could tell it didn't take too much damage.

 

[Marcoca61]

This is my method to try, in some way, to have realistic races regarding AI pit stop strategies. In practice, after two laps, you'll get the amount of fuel per lap. This number let u decide your own pit stategy. Then at the start of the race you have to enable, from the right tool bar, the "debug fuel" icon, that show the amount of fuel for each AI car. This will let u know at least the first pit stop the AI will do. If it's a one pit stop race, u'll get the goal...obviusly u should restart the race after that, unless you can drive while reading the values.....

 

[Nico]

Totally forgot about this thread.

To be honest I gave up trying to race in AC, nowadays I play mostly with road cars on tracks like Highforce or LAC. Still not being able to save progress between sessions also kills my desire to race. But thanks for the reply.

 

[Dr.Dave]

yes, my experiance too. not possible to race the AI in a strategic way. races without pit stops are possible and fun. endurance is not an option. and also miss the safety car.

 

[Crackheadtabledance]

yes, my experiance too. not possible to race the AI in a strategic way. races without pit stops are possible and fun. endurance is not an option. and also miss the safety car.

How is it possible to race without pit stops? I hate to win every single race in a championship just because the AI does not start with a full tank and has to pit mid race. My rounds are about 100km long (~45 Minutes) which is absolutely possible without having to refuel.
Is there a way to fiddle around with the setups they use, i.e. force them to start with 100% fuel?

 

[Stereo]

If you look in AC's log.txt after a race it should tell you what the AI's fuel strategies were, I think they do need a practice/quali session ahead of the race to know accurate fuel consumption though.

 

[Crackheadtabledance]

Thank you for the tip, I've looked into that and found out that the game is looking for default setups for the track within system/setups/<car>/<track>/ai_default.ini, which is not even existing.
I'm always on a full weekend, with practice and qualifying, so that is not creating that file unfortunately.

There is an entry for every car in log.txt which reads the following:

CAR: 22 setting fuel for 10 laps, with mult=1.100000
Using RaceEnginner,Car::setRequestedFuel: 21.095257
fuelxlap=1.917751 fuel 21.095257

The amount is different on every car, but relatively close to each other, all around 8 - 12 laps on a 22 lap race.

I'll check out what to type into that ai_default.ini and will report if either successfull or useless.

[Edit] It's useless, the 'RaceEnginner' will always overwrite the amount of fuel with an individual strategy.
I'm giving up on trying to force them starting with a full tank so I'll just clone the cars I want to race offline and increase the maximum fuel capacity by 3. I've read somewhere that they will pit, if the race length will use more than 2/3 of the tank and that's pretty much what I've experienced so **** it, I'll just make those first 66% big enough for long races.

 

[Nico]

Years after I started this thread I'm going back to races after Content Manager has made possible to create LODs for any car.

Now I have a bit more of knowledge than I did back in 2018. I edited the data of some cars to forcefully limit the amount of fuel they can carry, and did a race. I noticed that in a 15 lap race at Brands Hatch with all cars forced to make at least one pit stop due to fuel limitation, I was the only one who did a single stop and all the AI cars seemed to do at least two stops, with some even doing up to four (!!!) stops.

I checked the log.txt and noticed that all AI cars aimed to separate the race in two stints, but many of them display an error: CANNOT COMPLETED REQUESTED AMOUNT OF LAPS! and don't seem to know how much fuel is necessary to do two stints. Although I only did a very short 5 min qualy before the race, so I believe a lot of cars didn't have enough time to do the proper fuel calculation by doing two laps. I assumed it you gave the AI a very brief qualy they would quickly go to the track to do their laps.

 

[sardokard]

A IA car run out of fuell (RSS Ferrucio 55). So this car is know unable to start a race !
In quick race, the car stop at the first lap but no fuel was added in pit. SO they never came back.
In other type of race (weekend, tarckday....), IA car start with 0 or 1 litter and no refuel !
I try to uninstall / reinstall this car but the issue stay

 

[Erase]

so anyone knows how to set a full tank for the AI cars ? I want to do a race of 10 laps or more and I want them to never go to pits.