How to find the right AI level without trying them all?

[Shovas]

Update 2020-04-10: Based on my experience in this thread, I've released an AI mod: "SHO Competition AI is a mod for original content GTR2 cars and tracks that modifies various AI-related configuration parameters to achieve more realistic race performance by AI drivers resulting in more realistic, tighter, and more intense racing." Click here to download the SHO Competition Mod.

How to find the right AI level without trying them all?

I've always had a problem with dialing in AI. I don't know what produces a good race. It seems like I either get blown away or I have to start from way back in the grid (even though my times are better) and work my way up... There's no middle ground like where I might qualify top 6 and have a good battle with the lead pack: If I quality top 6 I always end up killing them in the race by large margins, like 10sec+.

I feel like there's some combination of qualifying grid position that would mean the AI level is correct and that I will have a tough battle to win. Maybe I need to qualify top 6-12th but not higher or lower to have a good fight mid pack? I don't know.

How do you find the right AI level?

Here's some times I pulled qualifying at VLM Sebring in the Ginetta G55:
Ginetta G55 @ VLM Sebring, 20C+, Clear, 2pm QUAL

screen capture tool

1. I notice 80-95 has its own slope linearity vs 95-120. I believe this is due to <95 not being able to use full throttle (it's hard-wired like that into the game, if I understand correctly).

2. My best qualify was a 2:14.420 so that turned out to be AI 93 (which I had times for: 1st 2:14.660 vs 25th 2:16.088). My actual qualify was lower, like 12th or something but I easily got up to 1st within a lap or two and proceeded to lead by 18sec at the end of the 5 lap race.

Ideally, I'd like to figure out the time deviation between each AI level, run a single qualifying session at AI 100, and then run my time through a calculation that would pick the ideal AI level for me. That calculation is eluding me so far, though

My whole problem is I don't want to have to try qualifying in many sessions with different AI levels just to run one race. I'd much rather run one qualifying session and then determine an AI level from that with a calculation and then start another race session with that AI level. I think that's about as streamlined as it can get.

 

[Shovas]

This is crazy. Just ran an AI 95 (no throttle limitation on AI) race, qualified 23 of 25 (1sec+ behind in qualifying), and ended up in first within 3 laps of a 5 lap race.

This is what drives me crazy.

Do you guys put up with this?

 

[Jempy]

I always had the feeling that AI in GTR2 is slower than the driver mostly in the 2 first laps.
You may even gain many places in the first half of the 1st lap.
Did you try a longer race than 5 laps ?

Mostly, when I have time to do a race in GTR2 ... I mostly do races of minimum 30 minutes.
Rather short for a VLM LeMans 79 race .... surely the same for ... Sebring

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

In the individual track folder open the .AIW file.
Find:
WorstAdjust=(0.7500) // Used for 70% AI strength option
MidAdjust=(1.0400) // Used for 100% AI strength option (note that AIs now use full throttle above 95% AI strength option)
BestAdjust=(1.2400) // Used for 120% AI strength option
QualRatio=(1.0100) // 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

Lower the QualRatio or increase the RaceRatio.
Also MidAdjust needs to be close to 1.0 for people that normally race against AI @ 95-100%
Some modded tracks are way off

 

[jgf]

I tweak the aiw file for each track. Start by running enough practice laps to create a decent setup and know my average times, then set QualRatio and RaceRatio to zero. Run a few testing sessions and note the AI lap times, tweak MidAdjust to set them where you like. Now run a few qualifying sessions and tweak QualRatio to set the AI times where you want them. Next a few AI only races and tweak RaceRatio to set the laptimes there. You will now have AI speeds consistent through practice, qualifying, and race.

You will probably have to do this for each class of car you race, what is optimum for GT cars may be horribly wrong for F1 or prototypes. I keep a txt file in each track folder containing those lines for various classes/mods so a quick copy-paste into the aiw file sets the AI for whatever I want to run.

 

[Shovas]

WorstAdjust=(0.7500) // Used for 70% AI strength option
MidAdjust=(1.0400) // Used for 100% AI strength option (note that AIs now use full throttle above 95% AI strength option)
BestAdjust=(1.2400) // Used for 120% AI strength option

Thanks for this, very handy.

What does "Used for 70%", etc., mean when the AI is set somewhere in between? Like, does AI 90 use half way beteween WorstAdjust and MidAdjust?

 

[Shovas]

I had a much better experience in a race tonight at AI 100 with these settings from this AIW update:

WorstAdjust=(0.7)
MidAdjust=(1.0)
BestAdjust=(1.2)
QualRatio=(1.0)
RaceRatio=(1.0)

Qualified 19th or so and moved up to 9th by the end. More importantly the AI were racing much tougher and more realistic than before.

I'll try those tweaks mentioned above, as well.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

I also found that AI strength close to 100 produce the best racing against them.
Unfortunately the right settings varies from track to track. And as JFG pointed out it might not/ will not work with different types of cars.

 

[GTRacer123]

I put mine 95% with aggresion at angry or psychotic for all kinds of races because in the past I've tested a lot and sometimes (depending of tracks and mods of course) the AI is much faster or much slower, 95% is a great balance between AI and player.

BUT the thing I'm not able to figure out is why the AI has always more top speed than the player despite having exact same setups. No matter what mod or track, if you take any car and go full speed on the straight the AI will always top the speed by little further. Example, I take the 2004 F550 #1 and #2, I'm the #1, on the straight the #2 goes 292 while I always go 287 unless I change setups again just for player car. If autopilot takes over it will go 292 too but when I switch back to player control it goes down to 287. I always have to change setups just for the player's car.
Anyone knows something about that top speed?

 

[jgf]

...

BUT the thing I'm not able to figure out is why the AI has always more top speed than the player despite having exact same setups. No matter what mod or track, if you take any car and go full speed on the straight the AI will always top the speed by little further. Example, I take the 2004 F550 #1 and #2, I'm the #1, on the straight the #2 goes 292 while I always go 287 unless I change setups again just for player car. If autopilot takes over it will go 292 too but when I switch back to player control it goes down to 287. I always have to change setups just for the player's car.
Anyone knows something about that top speed?

It is probably the talent files, which are an entire different can of worms to tweak (my game computer is dead but if I remember correctly the "race ability" line in the talent file will tweak the overall speed for that driver, make very small changes, 0.01 or so). And if there is no talent file for a particular driver the game defaults to some hard coded data which is always too fast, so it is worth the time to create these files for each AI driver.

 

[Shovas]

AI is a rabbit hole in GTR2. I feel like this should be part of the 10th Anniversary Patches and the HQ Mods.

 

[Jempy]

There was at NG a long thread about AI .... initiated by Von Dutch.
I surely read it long ago as I don't remember anything about its content ... IIRC, it was very interesting.

 

[GTRacer123]

For some reason I can't open an rcd file, I was always able to before. I get an error when I right click and click on "open with"

"This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Please install a program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel."

I checked the Default Programs, I don't see .rcd file type.

 

[Jempy]

Easy:
- Open with
- more applications ( translated from french but not sure of course it's said that way in your own Windows )
- Choose Notepad
- Check "Always use this application to open .RCD files
- Click OK and that's done for good.

NB for good, except OS reinstall or sometimes a big Windows update.

Easier if you have Notepad++:
Simply Right-Click the RCD file and choose "Edit with Notepad++".

 

[Shovas]

For editing any kind of file, download Notepad++ and it'll add a right-click menu option called "Edit with Notepad++". You'll have that option no matter what file/extension you're clicking on. So handy. It's also a much more featureful editor than Windows Notepad.

EDIT: Oops, didn't notice it was already recommended above.

 

[GTRacer123]

I understand French too so it's fine. Looks like the changes are in the properties as it worked there than in "open with". Not sure if it's something regarding windows that made it that way. Anyway it worked, I'll try to alter some things around and report back. Thanks guys for responses and Notepad++ link.

 

[GTRacer123]

Nothing changed. AI still goes 292. I tried raceability=0.97, 1.00, 1.97 and 3.00.
To keep up with them I increased my rev limit in the garage setup +200 and my car goes 293/294. It's the only solution so far.

 

[jgf]

Another caveat with talent files is that the game will recognize them anywhere in the GTR2 folder. You can put them in with the respective cars, you can dump them in the mod folder, you can have a "talent" folder with subfolders for each mod, you could put them all in the sound folder, it doesn't matter. This means if you have two or more mods with the same driver name the game will recognize both files wherever they are; I've been told the game will use the first it finds, and I've been told by someone else, equally knowledgeable, that if it finds more than one instance of a specific name it ignores all and reverts to default parameters. So you must make certain there are no duplicate names among all the talent files; if you have John Dough in a 2005 F1 mod and also in a 2006 F1 mod, rename one to J Dough (in the car file and in the first line of the rcd, the name of the rcd file itself is totally irrelevant).

There is a talent file editor (one of "Tom's Tools") which also has a search function, it will find any rcd files anywhere in your install and highlight any duplicates.

 

[jgf]

There was at NG a long thread about AI .... initiated by Von Dutch.
I surely read it long ago as I don't remember anything about its content ... IIRC, it was very interesting.

There is also a "Von Dutch AI Mod" that includes his tweaks for all the default cars plus instructions for tweaking other cars. I can upload this if anyone is interested; also have numerous pages from that thread saved (I think they're in pdf format so could toss them all in a zip). He spent ages playing with the various settings and his findings make a world of difference in the AI, but it can be a long process implementing them if you have many cars/mods (a utility like Textcrawler simplifies this, you can edit one line in numerous files at once).

 

[Jempy]

There is also a "Von Dutch AI Mod" that includes his tweaks for all the default cars plus instructions for tweaking other cars. I can upload this if anyone is interested; also have numerous pages from that thread saved (I think they're in pdf format so could toss them all in a zip). He spent ages playing with the various settings and his findings make a world of difference in the AI, but it can be a long process implementing them if you have many cars/mods (a utility like Textcrawler simplifies this, you can edit one line in numerous files at once).

This should be a nice idea to upload it here, Jgf .... as I'm not really sure we could find it anywhere.

I don't know Textcrawler ... but I suppose it works +- the same way as "Search and Replace" which I already used a few times ?

AI is mostly the most difficult part in a sim in order to have it work at its best and I remember there were many tips and advices in Von Dutch's work.....
At the time, I didn't pay enough attention to it ... but now I know much more about GTR2 ... I'd need to find time to have a better look at it.