AI Suggestions - for best first implementation

I originally posted this to rFactor 2's forum as a suggestion for them ... thought I would share here as well.

After playing around with AI settings and trying to get a good experience out of them in rFactor2, I have come up with a couple ideas for improvement.

I think that the way that AI is done in racing sims that I have played is kind of backward in that the difficulty settings seem to make the AI slower on the straights and does nothing to corner speed. Humans don't drive slower on the straights depending on skill level, they are slower in the corners. So - when racing the AI it seems like they are sebastian vettel with something wrong with his car - you blow by them on the straight but in the corner they are faster than you. Also, in some games, they run in to you to much.

On to the possible solution:

1) don't speed limit the AI on the straights - make them slower in the corners ... possibly adjusting lines through the corner to be less optimal or having them brake to early and accelerate to late.

2) mistakes - The lower the difficulty setting, the more mistakes they make - by mistake, I mean small mistakes - not swerving into the nearest wall for no reason. Have them brake to late / use to much throttle in the corners and thusly have to adjust their line or catch a slide or so on. Possible mistakes should never completely be gone no matter the slider - even pros make mistakes sometimes.

3) have the above be different for each AI so that they are not all the same speed running around the track like a big train.

4) The AI should try really hard not to run into you even if you are doing something stupid as this would be more like a human.

Those things should make it seem more like you are racing humans and less like racing the computer. If Assetto Corsa did these, they would immediately have the best AI ever made for a racing sim.

 

Some excellent ideas Darren. Unfortunately seems the devs are happy to be like the other sims, as the market wants something like Forza. Forza for PC to be exact. (prove me wrong please) So unfortunately any ideas that might make the game feel more realistic like yours probably won't be implemented.

I have an idea for AI similar to yours that could be implemented through steam. You do 10 laps within 107% of the AI 100% max setting in a certain car or on a certain track. Then your setup and average driving style is uploaded into a cloud, so then when you race offline the AI are actually the data of other sim racers already downloaded automatically via Steam. As you play the game more your driving data is updated.

Also someone will be along to attack you pretty soon as there are already other threads about AI. Apparently any good ideas anyone has should be a footnote on some other thread that no-one will read.

 

Luigi, do you have any experience with Forza? The AI in Forza 4 does exactly what Darren proposes: Depending on difficulty, cars brake earlier and accelerate later, but go full throttle on the straights. I found the AI to be quite reactive to my driving, and in the most difficult setting they could even put up a bit of a fight. Different drivers would be more courageous, or more timid. It's still a rather crude AI, but not stupid at all. It made the singleplayer quite enjoyable and challenging for me.

Way better than Race07, where (once you remove the artificial speed limit on the AI cars) the AI is challenging in pace, but rather stupid at overtaking and interacting with each other. Simbin finetuned the AI difficulties by changing grip values for each corner in a racetrack, which was a disaster on the Nordschleife, where cars would brake at strange places, causing human players to crash into them (leading up to Flugplatz for example).

I really hope the AI in AC will be a mix between the two. Making sure that drivers use full power on the straights, but not all the available grip. Let them use full G force when going straight with full power/brake and also when turning without any power applied. But whenever turning and acceleration are combined, the allowed total G force decreases depending on difficulty.

I found this image on the web:



Driver 1 is a terrible driver, okay to accelerate (Gas), brake (Bremse) and turn (links, rechts), but hardly combines the two. When turning, he is never on the brakes or throttle.
Driver 2 is a lot better, already combining longitudinal and lateral g-forces, but quite careful when doing so and never breaking traction.
Driver 3 is a race driver who is able to use the full traction of a tire at all times.

That's how difficulties should be modeled in AC. On top of that, an AI that reacts to where you are on track, brake-duels you, and gives you the occasional, fair bump.

 

+1 on the whole post ... minor note on the Forza 4 AI - no matter the difficulty settings, they never made any mistakes (at least not that I saw).

 

They did, you could also push them into braking mistakes without touching their car. If you're already next to them at braking points, they will sometimes get it wrong if you brake late enough. They go straight into the gravel, you keep the inner line and turn in.

Accidents and AI mistakes were rather rare, though.

 

They made mistakes usually when you "pull" them. Not hitting them, but just being very close to their car and braking late. After that, on a corner, there was a 40-50% that they brake while using full throttle, making them go straight to a turn. Seem's like a "scared pilot simulation" script, but it makes AI's pretty fool...

I found rFactor 2 AI much enjoyable: competitive, a bit responsive... but first of all, it wasn't a boring train: AI's overcome each other, and fight a bit. Hope that will be the same on AC...

 

what? whats wrong with my install then? looks like a train running around the track in rFactor2

 

Sorry, I thought Forza was a consul game like Grand Turismo?! If you think Forza is good, then sorry, I meant 'a popular generic consul game'. I played it a few times, it was like motogp 2013, pretty graphics but no substance? If it actually has good AI then bring it on! (But not the Forza gamepad handling maybe!

What I want is AI out-braking themselves! When is the last time you played AI and they out-braked themselves?! That would be fantastic. As Darren points out in the OP:

^^^This^^^

I agree, as much as I love real road I can't stand the AI or graphics in RF2, in RF2, it's like robot car, Legoland central.

 

Thread revival!

I think AC needs AI 'personalities'. How the AI get a personality could be programmed or taken from cloud data from real drivers.

How about this?
Each AI car on the grid has a different personality, some are uber fast others are pretty quick, some are at the back are noobs. If you race you don't need to set an 'AI percentage' because the cars at the back are 70-80% and the cars at the front are 105% or so of where the slide would be, so even if you are a bit of a slow driver you'd come about 21st as 4 or so drivers would crash out, if you did OK maybe 15th. So the average sim driver in race will be able to go top 10 on a grid of 25, but to win you'd need to be really quick. Of course some fast AI drivers would have a habit of crashing, and some slow drivers would hardly ever crash, different drivers would also be more or less aggressive.

This would be a massive improvement over the 'slider bar' % in most sims, which seems to cause a dreadful procession of AI that can all be overtaken on some straights and some corners, but seem really quick in other places and somehow hardly ever crash or crash far too often. Opinions?

 

The Forza AI is maybe good in comparsion with many other titles, but still not good overall. It have weeknesses you can easily use for your advantage, without consequences from the drivers or punishment.
Anyway, many (i tend to do that, cant help myself) arent gentlemans, while driving against the AI, cause there is no human being you emphathise with. And if the AI drives like the player, the players will get mad, I guess.
For compensation, even in a sim its kind of a sacrileg, some functions that make them cheat, to defend themeselfs for abuse from the player, maybe can help.
Its hard to make it demanding, fun and fair over a longer race.

 

most of the problem with AI in other games is summed up by all of them being approximately the same speed ... tight pack racing on a road track

I like the idea that Luigi has ... don't think you need to do any cloud anything to do that tho ... I would think simple algorithms regarding how fast to go through the corners. None of this driving slower on the straights - hate that - no pack racing on roads for the love of god

 

I'd seriously look into GTR2 AI to get some inspiring. By default, GTR2 AI is rude and a bit stupid, but when you tweak the several files (all of them editable with Notepad), they can be really competitive, except by the "cold brain" on the starting, when they're too slow indeed. But you can manage basically all AI aspects include their apex speed easily editing the talent files (RCD). It's a quite big step ahead from the Rfactor blind AIs.

 

First of all, this thread shows many good idea about the behaviors of the AI:
https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/i...ggestions-for-best-first-implementation.2447/

All the suggestions are the good ideas!

And I want to talk about the performance of AI.
In the current version of AC if we enabled the dev apps and be able to test the AI plugin.

And I found that even I set the AI with a "strong" setting they are still not strong enough.
Including big steer gain and 100% push with gas and break and perfect up/down gear points.
The racing line of AI seems as a fixed line and too safe for them. With the current setting if the difficult limits to 120% maybe better or still not enough.

And another idea is that if is that possible to make a learning-self AI? As I know the rFactor series can do that and make the AI can study the new tracks.

Also the behaviors of AI are important too. Make them as human being!
Sorry for my poor English and every suggestion which we posted just for make AC better. Thanks!

 

Talking about racing line, maybe the developers can clarify some points.

Taking other simulators as examples, in rF1 (and other software using the same physics engine) the AI cars behavior are really dependent on the track building. The AI racing lines and breaking / accelerating zones are based on a specific file which have all coordinates info and the AI driving (and its variations) are based on it. In other words, you need to "teach" how the AI car must drive in each specific track and save this teaching in a text file, that will be used forever when you load the circuit. In rF2 they add a new feature which is "Block Line", so you can also teach how the AI cars should defend their positions as well.

This make a huge difference in AI behavior. The same track with a polished AI file could make night and day difference to offline races. It could be boring and stupid or could be exciting since the track modder be dedicated on AI file creation.

The question is, Assetto Corsa's AI drivers will learn the track by themselves or the track creator can put his efforts on it? I mean, will it possible to teach the AI how to race correctly in a certain track, defend their positions and so on? Is going to exist an "develloper mod" to drive and save the correct AI driving lines? Sorry if it was asked before.

 

I would like to point out that after doing some digging a few weeks ago that there were AI "driving lines" present for each track. What that translates to, I don't know.
~Bailey

 

As I know, AC support recording a race line for the AI on each track and there's a file "fast_lane.ai" under the track's <ai folder>. You need to enable the dev apps so that you can open the AI plugin.
And I also found ai_corners.ini in the track's <data folder> I think AI will according to these corners.
For the two ways to build AI drives the perfect thing I wish that AI will study themselves completely. But it may be more difficult to implement due to the super smart AI algorithm.
If these "ai files" just are the basic knowledge for the AI and they can push with these basic data themselves I think it will be good enough.
Because different cars need different driving style on the same track but the basic lines are almost the same(minor different).
I've saw some videos showing about AI racing and I think the behavior of AI is good enough including try to pass and change the racing line to keep their positions. The blocking behavior I’m not sure about that because the video is too short.

Last sorry for my poor english

 

This could be a base for making a "human pilot recording", for creating AI's profiles based on human pilots ability... Just have a look at it... record data, saving it, speed/steer amounts... maybe developers are programming it just as we hope...

 

Don't worry about the A.I

It's going to be AWESOME