Please remove retart AI drivers from LFS.
LFS is online racing simulator.

I like the AI. It's nice to have them on the track while training because you will learn where and how to change your ideal line according to other cars. That can be very challenging and when you take some extra-lessons offline you'll be just more appreciated online.

Vain

Quote from nesrulz :

Please remove retart AI drivers from LFS.
LFS is online racing simulator.

an online racing simulator, where slower newbies get told on the track to practice offline...

yes removing the AI would be great. that way they aren't welcome online and have noone to race offline... maybe they would even go away and play rfactor - would keep the community nice and small...

and kill the game sooner or later but then again we could all leave and start driving rfactor/GTR. hope they treat us rfactor/GTR newbies with more respect, than we treat the new LfS players...

The thing everyone needs to remember is that the AI only control the car the same way we do. In that they only have the wheel, gears and pedals. There is no cheating like other sims/games which makes AI programming that much harder.

This is the reason the AI have to learn because they need to find out what the setup they have is capable of.

As to not overtaking. This is simply NOT true. If you train up you AI so that the AI field is made up of many different types of cars they learn to overtake and learn a great deal more about track position etc.

Now take rFactor for example. Not sure how the AI work here but there is a huge uproar about them being utter crap in the RSC forums.

I had a load of UF1 races the other day with the AI and it was great fun. But then I have put the time in to make them this way.

Quote from Woz :

As to not overtaking. This is simply NOT true. If you train up you AI so that the AI field is made up of many different types of cars they learn to overtake and learn a great deal more about track position etc.

hm woz, i did that - but there still were no fights as soon as i raced them in single car classes once again. if you train AI1-6 in the XFR for 10 laps and AI7-12 in the UFR for 10 and after that train them vice versa, you will see some overtaking in both 10 lap races, but if you group the 12 XFRs and the 12 UFRs against each other, there will be no more fights after the first 2 laps

i did the same routine with almost all cars and all classes because i wanted to get rid of the first lap crashes and AI repair situations in offline racing - and the results were the same here - no overtaking with equally trained Ai in one car classes

maybe this was just a coincidence, but i heard of others with the same results

Quote from DasKlee :

hm woz, i did that - but there still were no fights as soon as i raced them in single car classes once again. if you train AI1-6 in the XFR for 10 laps and AI7-12 in the UFR for 10 and after that train them vice versa, you will see some overtaking in both 10 lap races, but if you group the 12 XFRs and the 12 UFRs against each other, there will be no more fights after the first 2 laps

i did the same routine with almost all cars and all classes because i wanted to get rid of the first lap crashes and AI repair situations in offline racing - and the results were the same here - no overtaking with equally trained Ai in one car classes

maybe this was just a coincidence, but i heard of others with the same results

The other thing I tend to do is random grid starts. Racing offline I make sure I start at the end of the grid so I have to pass them all but I have random order on so the next race all the start positions change. This jumbles up the start order as you normally find that those that always start at the front of the grid will turn in a faster lap time than those that start later down the grid.

The only other consideration is that if you have them all at exactly the same skill level and they are all flat out and not making mistakes there is NO way they will overtake each other because they will all drive the perfect line at the same speed so there will never be a point they can overtake.

I thought I read somewhere that the AI wasn't really working correctly just yet, and was to be fixed in the future.

I made today a server for Newbes and other drivers who have fun with driving minor cars in short run races. I put also an Amateur AI driver as pace maker into the race, as long as I was alone. But the AI got with every race faster and faster and was after 5 races it was about 10 secs faster than me each round. In the end the AI was fast enough to make problems even for the top drivers, which joined the server. I would say, the AI learns a little bit too fast.

I played with the 0.5 patch.

LOL, sorry but if your "top" drivers have problems with an amateur AI then your server really was full of newbies only. The only possibility for somewhat decent drivers having problems with an amateur AI is when it rams them off the track, but not because it's too fast.

Have you played up to 8-10 times against the same AI on the same track for about 5 rounds? Then you see what I'm talking about. If you're such a good driver you can start imedently wit a Pro or Ace AI.

I made this morning the same experience. This time with a beginner AI on Blackwood reverse. I took the XRT and the AI the LX4. After the 8th race it improves best times from about 1:55.xx to 1.34.xx.

Same track, same stupid beginner AI -> over 20 seconds difference each round. So it's nearly as fast as a Pro or Ace AI in the very first race.

I can't unlock LFS at the moment (I reinstalled XP when I moved back to Uni, and my internet connection STILL isn't working).

So, I am stuck with the demo for the time being, and racing the AI.

I am using Pro (the 'hardest' setting), and starting from the back of the grid. To start with I could get 1st by the exit of the chicane (T2), but now they've learnt a bit I need the whole lap to get 1st. Then I romp off at about 4 seconds a lap (depending on the car).

I give them my setup (which is a setup from before S2 Alpha was released), and try to give them as much advantage as possible.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I am using Pro (the 'hardest' setting), and starting from the back of the grid. To start with I could get 1st by the exit of the chicane (T2), but now they've learnt a bit I need the whole lap to get 1st. Then I romp off at about 4 seconds a lap (depending on the car).

The first round you have the best chances to overtake, because the AI drivers are very careful with cold tyres. If you like make your experiment like I did and start trying to overtake with the beginning of the 2nd round.

Even if I waited for them to have warm tyres it doesn't make much difference. When you are 4 or 5 seconds a lap quicker than (slightly) trained AI, then it's never going to be an issue.

I think my AI has done about 80 laps of Blackwood in all the cars, and I'm still quicker. So, apart from the AI not noticing you enough, or adapting to changing cars, the AI is okay. They're hardly 'fast' at the best of times.

Quote from Sunday Driver :

Have you played up to 8-10 times against the same AI on the same track for about 5 rounds? Then you see what I'm talking about. If you're such a good driver you can start imedently wit a Pro or Ace AI.

where does the Ace setting come from? My top setting is Pro. They still suck big time even after extensive training on different cars, tracks, days of the week and various levels of alcoholic over-indulgence.
Hic.

In my German language pack version there are 5 different AI's settings in S2 possible:

1. Anfänger -> Beginner or Rookie
2. Amateur -> Amateur
3. Halbprofi -> Semipro
4. Profi -> Pro
5. As -> Ace

(German term, used in the game -> closest English translation I know)

So whenever I'm talking about the Ace AI, I mean the strongest AI from all about 5 possible AIs. Hope that makes things clearer.

But regardless how the single AI levels are called, I'm sure it has no influence of the AI itself. Even if you're calling a dog as a cat, it's still a dog.

Well in English they're:
Newbie
Learner
OK
Quick
Pro

Besides that, they don't drive 'careful' while they 'have cold tyres'.

Quote from Scawen :

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Anyway, even with that flaw, it worked reasonably well in previous versions in cluding S1. But now it's quite bad because they have no understanding that their grip changes depending on temperature or if there is dirt on the wheels. Also they thing the same cornering force is available, regardless of their fuel load. Basically they haven't been coded at all for the new dynamically changing cars.
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Quoted from here

I haven't proofed that. I can only say, what I have watched. I watched the AI driving in the 1st round very carefully, so I could overtake them inside of each corner with no problems. In the second round it looks a little bit difference. Perhaps the AI performs in 1st round only with 80% of their full strength. That would have nothing to do with AI, it would be just programed behavior.

Perhaps you're a master driver, who is always racing in world record speed. Then you might not notice the differences in the AI behaviour, because the AI ist still much too slow for you and you're able to overtake them anyways.

But on my level of driving it's a big difference if the AI is able to drive every round 20 seconds faster or not and even a beginner AI becomes unbeatable even on tracks a I know to perform well.

Run the test a bit longer, watch them - the rate of increase in performance soon tails off to nothing. They are still easily beaten as long as you don't get barged off the track!

No-one seems to have programmed the AI to run 1st lap at 80% of their strength, so I must presume that is your interpretation, which I think is not correct.

Sure it's an interpretation. The interpretation of the post before, where it was quoted that the AI don't take care about the status of the tyres, although they seems to be careful with cold tyres. At least according to the first round of race out of my point of view.

Whatever. I'm annoyed that I can't drive against AI drivers because they are getting incide a few races all stonger than me. I'm improving myself as well, but not with so much speed. So the AI is going to be unbeatleable for me. That's a fact and no interpretation.

But I don't care anymore. I've read here in the forum that the AI developmnent still isn't finished. We can hope that it'll be done with the final release, allthough everybody has different expectations. For some the AI isn't fast enough and learns nothing, for others like me it seems to be already too intelligent, or whatever a AI can be.

For my to cents I bought LfS to have fun in races against other people anyways, so I don't care what's happening to the AI anymore...

I just don't understand how an amateur AI can seem unbeatable to someone

And I'm not driving near WR times, but still way faster than the "Pro" AI manages to drive. Do you use wheel/pedals for driving? Maybe the pedal calibration is a bit off and doesn't give you 100% throttle.

jeez, what kind of lap times are you getting for the AI to be able to beat you?

I already explained it yesterday.

Quote from Sunday Driver :

I made this morning the same experience. This time with a beginner AI on Blackwood reverse. I took the XRT and the AI the LX4. After the 8th race it improves best times from about 1:55.xx to 1.34.xx.

Same track, same stupid beginner AI -> over 20 seconds difference each round. So it's nearly as fast as a Pro (...) AI in the very first race.

Today I drove a little bit more on Blackwood Reverse the same track with the same beginner/newbe AI. It droves constant 1:31.xx times. My best time I ever drove so far was 1:32.xx. Don't know if 1:32.xx is such a pathetic time in a XRT. And even if it's a pathetic time, it doesn't explains why a newbe AI gets unbeateable now. Perhaps I should start a server at a certain time and you can join in and you can experience it yourself.

According to throttle issues: I'm using a gamepad with digital accelaration and brakes. So I can only drive full throttle.

Ok, I was just doing the first 10 laps on BL Rev in my life ever and my best time was an 1:28.99. You must be doing something wrong.

I got to play with some AI yesterday. Well this is what I noticed. If you are directly in front of them they will not hit you but if you are on the side of them they can't see you and end up running into you for some reason.

I set the AI to pro and just followed their line. I was able to keep up lap after lap. I found this a good way for me to learn the track along with its braking points.

I had a play with AI racing for the first time on As Nat Reverse, the XFR's, 25 laps. They start off lapping round 2 mins 10 secs (lap 2).
By lap 5, the leader is at 2:06.
By lap 12, he's at 2:03.66, and then gets no faster for the rest of the race.
Running the race again, no real improvements in lap times, peaking at 2:03.7 by lap 11 or 12. That's it, no further improvement.
What is a reasonable human lap time round As Nat Rev in the XFR?

Anyway, now that Sunday Driver's theories are disproved, he doesn't care anymore, so maybe we should move on to a new topic......