Why are AI so humbling in qualifying and average in race?

[s0cks]

Hey guys,

Recently got GTR2 on Steam and I'm remembering this same "issue" when I originally got the game on release. I've recently got back into sim racing after a decade plus hiatus, and I wanted to try this game out again.

But this "problem" was something that annoyed me way back when too. I'm pretty rubbish, as I don't really know the cars or tracks and so when playing on simulation realism it seems to take me like an hour at least to really learn a track. But even once I think I know it fairly well, the AI waste me on qualifying (by like 4-5 seconds). I have to turn it down to 95% AI strength to be able to not qualify last. But then when it comes to the race I stomp them!

Why is AI so much slower in a race? Is it just because of all the extra traffic? I can understand saving tyres too, but in 3 lap championship race there is no need to save tyres.

I wish I could set AI strength separately for both qualifying and race.

I understand I'm pretty rubbish at the game thus far, and some of this is bound to be my lack of skill. I suspect with a lot more practice I could keep pace in qualifying, but that doesn't really address the AI speed difference.

Is this normal? What am I missing?

 

[Zipdrive]

Unfortunately it's normal, and your not alone. I'm a casual racer and have the same issue. Slow on Qualifying and a winner on Raceday because of the AI strength I use. I can start last in a 30 car field and by lap 8 - 10 I'm leading, depending on the length of the track that is.

I seem to remember a discussion back in the NoGrip days where it was mentioned that unlike rFactor, GTR2 doesn't scale the qualifying to match the overall AI strength settings. In rFactor if you set the AI Strength to say 96%, the AI use that in both qualifying and on raceday, not so with GTR2. Don't think a proper fix was ever made.

There have been and are AI tweaks available so you might want to check those out. I think editing a tracks AIW file made the most difference to keep the sessions close.

You can open the AIW file in Notepad or any other text editor and find the line

QualRatio=

The default for most stock tracks is 1.0200. If you drop this down to your skill level (trial and error) you should see a difference. Just make sure to backup the original AIW file first.

 

[s0cks]

@Zipdrive Thanks. Shame it needs to be set for every track. I want to enjoy this game but damn there is a lot of tweaking that needs to be done to get it right! Took me like a whole day just to get FFB settled. And I did get the anniversary patch with updated AI, but no better really.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Hehe, I feel that way often, every new event is a lot of work to set up. But that comes with the flexibility... It's a simulator, capable of simulating anything from karts to open wheeler.

For folks who use CC plugin, I have on my list to expose some AI configuration parameters and make them per track per car class. Too often, .plr settings used for one track do not work well for another track or car class... It won't reduce the amount of fiddling, but at least it will be easier to capture those for a car class so that those tweaks are not lost.

 

[Shovas]

This is one of the issues I've tried to fix in this mod by modifying RaceRatio for every vanilla track and variation:

SHO Competition AI

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...

www.racedepartment.com

I tried to keep it simple and left QualRatio as-is and instead just tweaked RaceRatio to make sure they perform like they did in qualifying.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

This is one of the issues I've tried to fix in this mod by modifying RaceRatio for every vanilla track and variation:

SHO Competition AI

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...

www.racedepartment.com

I tried to keep it simple and left QualRatio as-is and instead just tweaked RaceRatio to make sure they perform like they did in qualifying.

Can you tell a bit more about this setting? Would you agree it will need to be adjusted per car class, or is it more of a per track setting for any car class?

 

[Shovas]

Can you tell a bit more about this setting? Would you agree it will need to be adjusted per car class, or is it more of a per track setting for any car class?

AIW RaceRatio? I haven't found a need to tune anything per-car yet and I'm trying to avoid that because there would be a huge number of combinations there.

Because it's rather simple and just simply improves their laptimes, I find behaviour stays the same, and overall the experience is just as good as stock, it's just that they have faster, more competitive laptimes now.

As for behaviour, obvious braking and cornering flaws can be improved with the PLR AI Brake Grip/Power and AI Corner Grip params.

The Talent RCD files have much more to alter AI behaviour, and I tried tuning a lot of those params before I rebooted the mod at v1 again (ie. quite a while ago now), but haven't felt the need to get in there too much. Again, lots of RCD files and it can get annoying. They're all nicely differentiated anyway it's tedious to retain that valuable variation and avoid changes that just make them all the same.

I don't actually think I've really ever gotten into AI related changes in the car files. The GTR2 Reborn mod did, as I recall. Again, too many combinations and complexity for my tastes.

 

[Zipdrive]

@Zipdrive Thanks. Shame it needs to be set for every track. I want to enjoy this game but damn there is a lot of tweaking that needs to be done to get it right! Took me like a whole day just to get FFB settled. And I did get the anniversary patch with updated AI, but no better really.

Your welcome.

Yep it's a real pain in the butt. At least with the stock tracks the lines are there to edit and tweak. Some add-on tracks don't have the lines so they need to be added to be able to then tweak them. That's a real PITA.

I tried searching the old NoGrip forums using the Wayback Machine site for that thread but no luck. As time passes more and more old NoGrip pages get removed from the Wayback archive. Sad too as there were 5 or so pages of discussion and things to try.

One thing you can do s0cks is get Notepad ++ and load all the stock AIW files at once then replace the value I mentioned with a generic one your comfortable with, then save all the AIW files at once. Further tuning can be done on a per track basis depending on how you do on that track. I personally like to qualify mid pack or in the first 33%. That way I have to keep hitting my marks and work to gain positions yet still have the AI strength during the race around 100%

Another thing I do is edit the DMG files for the vehicles as the stock AeroMin= value is too low. Ever wonder why after 10 or so laps the AI seem to slow down. It's from any mild beating and banging they've done to each other. Increase that value to between 2700 - 2900 and you will see a difference. The vehicles will still take damage but slight contact won't affect them as much.

 

[Peppelino]

Hi, Zipdrive.
Thinking I found some .. ".. five pages or so.." as 9 pdfs covering AI behaviour in that old tread, over at GetReal forum. Plus vonDutch Better AI Guide for GTR 2, found too. Discussions, lots of reading.
(edit : source.. GTR2 Misc, by RD's jgf on Oct 23 '18)
Maybe you have it allready?

 

[Shovas]

Hi, Zipdrive.
Thinking I found some .. ".. five pages or so.." as 9 pdfs covering AI behaviour in that old tread, over at GetReal forum. Plus vonDutch Better AI Guide for GTR 2, found too. Discussions, lots of reading.
(edit : source.. GTR2 Misc, by RD's jgf on Oct 23 '18)
Maybe you have it allready?

Can you post any links you have?

I probably already have seen the old AI tuning docs but you never know.

 

[s0cks]

This is one of the issues I've tried to fix in this mod by modifying RaceRatio for every vanilla track and variation:

SHO Competition AI

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...

www.racedepartment.com

I tried to keep it simple and left QualRatio as-is and instead just tweaked RaceRatio to make sure they perform like they did in qualifying.

Oh mate, this sounds great! I will definitely give this a go. Sorry, I have been busy play GT7 (a bit of a mixed bag).

Now if only I could use my wheel with a turn radius greater than 270 degrees, it'd be sweet. Feels odd to hit the turning lock so quickly lol. And yeah, I've tried the whole increasing the steering lock degree on the cars in game, but nothing really feels natural other than 270 degree rotation lock on the wheel.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Oh mate, this sounds great! I will definitely give this a go. Sorry, I have been busy play GT7 (a bit of a mixed bag).

Now if only I could use my wheel with a turn radius greater than 270 degrees, it'd be sweet. Feels odd to hit the turning lock so quickly lol. And yeah, I've tried the whole increasing the steering lock degree on the cars in game, but nothing really feels natural other than 270 degree rotation lock on the wheel.

CC plugin allows adjusting steering animation. Say if you use 540, it will rotate 1:1 with your wheel up to 240 degrees, and then will stop. Looks good enough but much better that rotation not matching physical wheel rotation.

 

[Peppelino]

Can you post any links you have?

I probably already have seen the old AI tuning docs but you never know.

Sending 6,8 Mb...

von_dutch AI guide_Shovas

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

 

[Shovas]

Sending 6,8 Mb...

von_dutch AI guide_Shovas

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

Good collection of old nogrip stuff. Think I've seen most of it.

Consider uploading to Race Department for posterity since nogrip is gone.

 

[Zipdrive]

Consider uploading to Race Department for posterity since nogrip is gone.

It's already on RD. JGF uploaded it back in 2018.

Misc - Von Dutch AI mod and tutorial

jgf submitted a new resource: Von Dutch AI mod and tutorial - AI mod for default cars and intructions for applying to other cars This includes the VonDutch AI Mod, the VonDutch AI Tutorial, and pdf files containing most of the VonDutch AI thread from the old NoGrip site. Note: the AI Mod...

www.racedepartment.com

 

[Peppelino]

It's already on RD. JGF uploaded it back in 2018.

Even more, of old nogrip AI talk at the *webarchive.. Link found on Get Real Forum..
* We need to get over to that place for saving it all. Pages seems to dissapear, as we speak..

 

[Zipdrive]

Everyday more and more of the old archived sites/forums are having their info removed to make room for newer old archives. Racing, Flight, RPG forums talking about and posting tweaks and tips for the older games are getting more scarce.

At one time pretty much all the threads on those now gone sites were archived. Going to one of the archive sites and searching for info was a breeze. Sadly not anymore, and with some of the older members not being around or not into the hobby anymore their contributions are now lost.

As they say, "That's Life" or "Nothing Lasts Forever", even tough we'd all like it too.