Look What The Cat Hacked In - S03E03

I wonder which American track we've got incoming?

Interesting comments about the difficulty of scanning public roads and mention of the Isle of Man. It appears you have to drive the scan vehicle at a constant speed so traffic is an issue if it prevents this.

 

Thanks, Minolin. Only caught the last bit of the Q&A. Damn, they are workhorses. Kudos.

 

Also because actually Mugello has only one layout.

 

I think the false starts thing should really be an option that can be set by discretion of the server admin online and the player offline.
- rigid start as it is now
- false starts with immediate teleport to pits plus time penalty (determined by setting) to avoid wreckers
- false starts without teleport and with drive through/stop and go penalty (determined by setting) to be served after x lap (or get disqualification if not served) instead

Please take this into consideration @Lord Kunos

Either way, many thanks for implementing it. =]

 

About AWD.. it will be improved in RUF due to new AWD code, like it is already in Alfa Romeo 155 Ti. Audi Quattro will stay like it is, because it's fitting for it. And the new Logitech G29 had some firmware update, that could fix a shaking wheel, when car is stopped (someone complained about it, and apparently only happens with new logitech wheel).

Edit: Removed some text, maybe I misunderstood completely something

 

It's a shame that they will not be releasing Barcelona National. I used to enjoy that track in P&G3

 

Great stream as always, thanks Stefano and Simone (great to hear about the track creation stuff and your history)

Ya some options would be nice. In Live for speed (if I recall), you would get a Drive through penalty if you did a false start. If you jumped the start by a lot (enough to hit another car) it would detect this and send you to the spectators (or pit lane in our case). Some thing like that would be cool, best of both worlds.

 

What does that mean? Corner cases? Different track layouts?

At least they are looking into rolling starts, that's something. I can see they must be a nightmare to code in SP with the player trying to keep pace with the AI.

 

Rolling starts will be exclusive to MP when/if they ever happen.
Corner cases means 'extreme or unique situations'; it is a term of speech and not an actual thing.
The teleport to pits for jumping the start is only the first iteration; later it could become something such as jumping with more than a second to green will teleport you to pits while jumping with less than a second to go will trigger a drive through penalty.

 

It's a programming term. It means when the user does strange extreme inputs.

On-stream he mentioned, during rolling starts:
- driver stops his car
- driver doesn't stay in the right lane
- driver crashes

They have to add rules for what happens after every possible thing the driver does, to be able to add the feature to the game. So it would be something like
- driver stops his car: send a message saying to speed up, then after 5 seconds, dq
- driver doesn't stay in the lane: first, detecting this is hard. How far to the left of the track do they need to be, is it just relative to the rest of the grid. Then, once you detect it, send a message staying to go right.
- driver crashes: if it's bad enough (interferes with other players) potentially restart the formation lap with repaired cars. Otherwise, dq.

In all cases, it has to work for both malicious players (who are trying to cheat and get an advantage) and newbie players (who don't know what a rolling start is, but checked the option)

 

Indeed it takes time with a potato and usually yes I only have load once and I leave the UI open. However there are many times I think I'm done for the night and close everything down only to realize I forgot to test something. So I have to load the UI yet again and then when done fight the stupid credits with 400 mouse clicks. I know its stupid and indeed a 1st world problem but launching without the UI it is a feature I welcome with open arms.

 

I finished watching this stream and remembered that last week Stefano was talking about the troubles and how hard would be for the AI to prepare for timed events because it doesn't know how much fuel it will need, etc.

Why doesn't the AI do the same thing we do? Just race a few laps around and try to estimate how many laps and how much fuel will be needed? I can hear your answer "Because it will be wrong most of the time". What if the AI could "learn"?

Something like this: Every time the AI finishes a lap/race it will save the time it took and the fuel it needed, (or the average of time and fuel per lap)?

What if we had something like this:

<track-name>_<car-name>.ini
[LAP_1]
TIME=1.22.33
FUEL=2.5

[LAP_2]
TIME=1.15.33
FUEL=2.4
.
.
.

OR

[LAPS]
AVERAGE_LAP_TIME=1.18.45
AVERAGE_FUEL=2.4

With tens of cars and tens of tracks we'd need hundreds of files.
The file is automatically updated every lap/race. So Stefano could use the system he invented when he was testing the AI that let him test a car/track a lot of times (I remember it from a previous stream) and generate the ini for the cars/tracks of the game.

What about modded cars/tracks?
Every time we start a race the AI checks if the file exists for this track and their car. If it's there load it. Else tries to guess. The AI will choose full tanks and hard tires most of the time. But it will only happen once.

Next time we race the same car/track it loads the previous file and gets a better setup. If you race 4 laps and then try to race 20 laps the setup will be improved but maybe not perfect for 20 laps (the AI can try and make an estimate from 4l to 20l). But after you race 20 laps it will have the data to race that distance. And the next time you race it will be faster (less fuel, etc) so it will get new/improved values.

Even better we could add the rest of the AI setup to this ini so we could tweak the entire setup that the AI will use (Tires, pressures, gears, etc). In the future this could be an extra tab on the interface (AI setup). But for now we could tweak it from a file. The code to read/write this is already done (player setup) so only the lap logging/reading is needed.

This solution would allow for more competitive AI and also if you know the average lap time and fuel consumption we can have timed races.

 

Well, while being quite punishing I think the solution chosen for false starts is better than the driver in front being rammed and gettin himself an unjust punishment.

 

Seems like that it's a magic moment for Kunos and AC.
I don't know why, maybe it's just a good time, or a more mature and skilled team, or they are believing hard in them self.
But from the outside they seems like... inspired at max. Just like a small football team that play like Barcellona.

Another time, the next update seems a very big step forward.

And than... Porsche...

 

Well, what do you suggest then?

 

Well, I do hope both this and all the other high-profile licenses, close work with manufacturers and hopefully successful console sales will give Kunos the opportunity to work on and improve the sim for a long time to come. It's precisely what the project needs... pretty much everything they or the community would like to have implemented is always subject to priorities and budget, understandably, naturally so... there's hope they have more leeway in the future. And if all the new content enables them to do so I'm definitely happy with that approach. I'm glad Stefano recouped from that depression moment he mentioned - from an outside view, and without having any inside knowledge, this seems like the perfect time to keep pushing, improve and really establish the company as international household name for simulations. They've come really far for such a small company, gained a lot of publicity, clearly turned some eyes in the industry. Can't just stop working on your 'baby' now.

 

Drive through if you did a false start and If you jumped the start by a lot you get a stop and go.
If you don't make the drive through/stop and go, black flag and the race ends for you.

 

Let's just thank that false start will be there at least

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Don't overestimate your fellow racers. I can imagine half the field taking of at the first red light in MP. Jump to pit would be welcome in MP as an option at least.

Lets see what they come up with, it's great to hear about the upcoming improvements.