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 an interesting read. I try to come up with a method to determine AI Levels for me and I am curious to see what you come up with. But I don't tweak any game files. I am just trying to predict race laptimes by the AI performances in qualification and warm-up and, by comparing it to my times, setting an AI level for each race that suits my level of driving. HQ tracks and with addon/mod cars. I'm not sure if what I am doing is valid or if I'm just lucky in hitting the right levels but after 10 rather boring races the last two were really good (I have one in progress that really demands my everything). Opposite to you I am doing mostly endurance races depending on how many cars are in a mod. Full grid 100% race length, half grid 50 % and likewise. I like doing endurance races. I made two observations during those races and wanted to share those. Maybe it helps.
First thing is consistency. An AI drivers times can vary dramatically within a race (probably not a factor in a 10 lap race). I discovered that several times during races. While I keep my times within a second over a couple of laps I gained about 5 secs on the car following me. Then, all of a sudden within one lap he made up that five seconds within one lap and overtook me on the next only to be overtaken be me again and falling behind rapidly. And this kept going on (Audi RG GT3 LMS mod). On my actual race I was within a second with another car for 10 laps fighting for position. Upon entering a corner I saw him going sideways in the mirror and the gap rose to 6 seconds. He was back at my rear within a lap. There is a consistency entry in the talent files but I've never touched them. I don't know if a higher number means more consistence laptimes or more variation. I have already won a race where my fastest laptimes was 2 seconds slower than the slowest AI time (on a 36 car grid). That makes it more difficult to set an AI level since only taking one best time from each AI driver doesn't give enough data I think. I am cheating here a little bit by adding a certain percentage to the difficult level. It's my personal performance penalty if you will. But it works for me. I am in the process of a 93 lap race in Dubai with BAC Mono and Ariel Atom 500. I'm in an Atom, started at 13th (random grid position). By the middle of the race I gained 1st due to varying pitstops and fell back to 3rd. But I had several exciting battles with different cars going back and forth. Most fun I had in months. As I mentioned maybe I am just lucky in hitting the right AI Level. I don't think I can win this. The Mono is faster but needs to pit more.
Talking about AI pitstops. Maybe not a factor in determining AI strength but it is unrealistic. I am certain AI always does 4 tires and full load of fuel. It sometimes happens that cars have to pit with only a couple of laps left and I was able to win races by just taking the needed fuel and no tires. AI was always pitting much longer.
Whatever, maybe you can take something out of it, if not I think I have taken enough of your time . I hope you will continue your work.

I spent a lot of time trying to find an in-game method of determining the right AI, as well, just wasn't able to find one that produced good racing.

My main problems were that qualifying had no bearing on AI performance in a race session. No matter where you end up in qualifying, if you're not many seconds off pace, you have a good chance of winning the race. That kills the immersion for me. I'm familiar with iRacing, where your qualifying position tends to be where you end up at the end of the race, plus or minus a few positions. You typically don't end up winning the race if you didn't qualifying top 3. That's realistic. That's what I'm trying to achieve.

I've actually written down the goals for myself while I document my changes and they provide a little more detail:

tl;dr I'm looking for realistic, close racing around my qualifying position.

Representative Qualifying Position:

If I qualify 5th I'm probably not going to win the race in real-life. I might move +/- 1-2 positions, occassionally but rarely more, but realistically I'm not in a position to win the race. If I do qualify 1st-3rd then yes I might have a shot at winning.

Realistically closer qualifying vs race pace:

Original AI will be MUCH slower in race than they were in qualifying. This results in the issue noted above where, for example, if you qualify 10th, with original AI, you have a good shot at winning which indicates your true qualifying position should have been much higher.

AI Qual/Race lap times differ by too much

For example, qual/race times may differ by multiple seconds and this can prevent hard, tight racing battles.
This is an easy fix, set PLR Player Car Equal="1", and on a 25 car grid times should all be within about 1.5sec of each other.

AI Levels Not Granular Enough / Have bad hard-wired side-effects

Example: +/- 1 AI Level increments do not provide the granularity needed to tune in AI for competitive, tight racing, and AI 80-95 are hard-wired to *not* use full throttle.

I'm also trying to eliminate variables such as differing AI 'personalities' affecting performance. I've been baselining as much as I could find so that I could have a solid foundation on which to calculate that would produce reliable results.

I'm doing short test races because there's a lot of round-and-round involved and I want even the short races to feel realistic with the AI drivers ready to go right from the start just like real-life, excepting first-lap jams and shenanigans, of course, but nothing artificial like limiting their speed, etc.

 

[FinFan]

One thing is certain, you are much deeper into the material than I am. Yes, I am working under the assumption that AI should be a certain amount faster in qualifying than in race. But that is really not the case. I mean, they are, sometimes, but it's all over the place. There seem to be no pattern. And even if I was right in calculating fastest times you are still not guaranteed a close race. Because it is this one lap they do while their average can be 2-3 sec down. So I guess I was lucky with my last two races hitting a sweet spot for the particular mod.
The biggest problem I have though are AI pistops. As I mentioned I had two good races but in the end I won both by big margins due to late, and in one case unexplainable, AI pitstops. They are not dynamic and don't react to what is happening on track but I guess that's a lot to ask from any sim.

 

[Shovas]

Sounds like you're hitting the 'random ai performance' issues I experienced as well That's what made me start searching for something better.

I haven't even looked at pitstops yet so I can't say my changes will help that in any way, sadly

I guess I'm just more of a sprint race kind of guy anyway even though I do enjoy the idea of and actually watching endurance.

Hopefully somebody else will come along and tackle pitstops

 

[Shovas]

Just a little update about where I am... I have one remaining sticking point and it's the fact that adjustments by AI BRK/CRN params do not produce linear performance changes. For example, setting BRK/CRN=0.9 might produce +1sec slower laptimes than BRK/CRN=1.0 but setting BRK/CRN=0.8 might produce +3sec slower laptimes than 1.0 as opposed to the linear ideal of +2sec.

Without a linear adjustment my formulas produce the wrong results, you'll change to new AI BRK/CRN values, then go qualifying and race again and it won't be competitive as I had intended.

The laptimes from BRK/CRN=0.5-1.0 follow a polynomial curve. I don't know much about formulas to interpolate values in between data points and the few attempts I've made didn't produce good interpolated results so I'm afraid interpolation isn't a good way to go. I could be wrong. Maybe I'll give that another go.

If you know math and curves and all that and have some ideas let me know. I'm not a super math guy so it's new territory for me.

So, for now, I'm just looking around for some way to get linearity in AI performance from adjustments to a given parameter. I'm not aware of a parameter like that yet.

So if I don't post back you know where I'm stuck

 

[Shovas]

Download: GTR2 AI Data Sheet

^ I'm noticing Google Sheets doesn't quite display exactly what you'll see in Office 365 2016 so just beware "works best in Office" I guess.

If you're interested, here's my AI Data sheet with a few car/track combos I've been keeping laptime data on. There's also formulas for calculating different things including the key thing, AI BRK/CRN values, to affect AI performance.

^ The calculation is in the cell-areas that have the headings "My Time", "AI Time", ..., "New AI BRK/CRN".

Maybe someone else will have some ideas I could springboard from

I have other spreadsheets and notes but they're not really readable enough for others to publish at this time.

For now I think I'll take a break unless I have a eurika moment.

 

[gwaldock]

Thanks for your hard work. I like the spreadsheets.

 

[FinFan]

With that many numbers it sure can make your head spin. Seems to me that whenever you think you made some progress something else keeps coming up. Who knows, maybe it's a bottomless pit.
Personally I am at around 110 % AI level and I am kinda satisfied with the performance. Overtaking isn't easy but it's possible if I set up the manouvre right. And they do fight back at times. In endurance races I don't expect position battles to the tenth for 100 Laps. It's strategy as well and as I mentioned that's my sore spot. I don't know if there is any way to alter the AI to make dynamic stops or at least only take what is really needed when pitting.

 

[Shovas]

With that many numbers it sure can make your head spin. Seems to me that whenever you think you made some progress something else keeps coming up. Who knows, maybe it's a bottomless pit.

It certainly has been one thing after another but what keeps me going is that when I do happen upon a competitive performance level the racing is hard, close, and intense so I know that if it's possible to streamline the process it'll be all worth it.

I'm looking into polynomial interpolation right now and I can see from the Excel charts that they make a very close match to actual data. The polynomial trendlines are produced by equations and I should be able to use those equations to come up with new performance parameters based on a laptime (ie. get the AI to match my performance level). The equations are right there but I can't get them to produce the right numbers although from everything I've researched online they should produce good numbers. Just not sure what I'm doing wrong yet.

Regarding AI performance, you can certainly make them go fast but for me it's all the other qualities of close-quarters, intense, hard-fought battling that happens in real racing that I want to get out of the AI. I've already got the behaviour to that point and now it's just getting their laptimes around my laptime so I'm in the right place on the grid to be competitive with the AI (and vice versa).

I'll keep plugging away

 

[Kenny Paton]

I've already got the behaviour to that point and now it's just getting their laptimes around my laptime so I'm in the right place on the grid to be competitive with the AI (and vice versa

You really have set yourself a challenge, oh the joys of a excel spreadsheet

 

[Shovas]

Good news and bad news. First the bad news because the good news is actually pretty good all things considered.

tl;dr Make some PLR/AIW/RCD changes once or per-track, run qualifying at different AI difficulty levels until AI qualifying roughly matching your qualifying time, then your race will be much more realistic and competitive with tighter, closer racing. See spoilers below.

The bad news is I kinda burned myself out of trying to find an easy and reliable way of auto-calculating AI Difficulty even though I still think it's totally possible in GTR2 and certainly in other sims if they focused on it. I ended up at decent enough place, actually. I had figured out the polynomial formulas for interpolating a point on a curve which would have allowed me to calculate a certain AI Difficulty based on your time vs who you want to speed up or slow down in relation to. Unfortunately, it seems like it will be situation where I have to do too much per-track work to get the formula to work when I really just want a simple formula that works everywhere. Still, I may come back to it later, as the variables are just determining AI lap times at various AI Difficulty levels. It's tedious but not the worst thing ever.

The good news is I feel I've accomplished a more important task: Realistic, competitive AI. When you have determined right AI Difficulty for your personal performance level, the AI turn into intense yet fair drivers who won't give up their spot willingly but won't ram you either.

What's involved? Setting some PLR, AIW, and RCD file parameters. There's more to it then this but basically (1) set some PLR AI params once and forget, (2) set some AIW AI params once per-track, (3) Set some RCD AI params in each RCD (I actually removed everything except Default.rcd and just edited the one file: Edit and forget).

Spoiler: If you're dying to know the details, here's some rough notes to get you started

PLR:
Player Car Equal="1" // Enabled results in AI laptimes in Qualifying that are ~1.5sec apart whereas disabled results in AI laptimes that are spread out by much more; Enabled to avoid inconsistent behaviour so we can reliably make adjustments to other parameters; Unsure what this is actually doing behind the scenes: Forcing AI to use Player car setups? Adjusting AI performance parameters? Unsure.
AI Power Calibration="0" // Disallow game adjusting AI using various available parameters (power, gearing, fuel) in order to get a baseline so AI calculations can be done reliably. This may also be the param that causes AI to use less than full throttle for AI < 95. Need to confirm.
AI Additional Fuel Mult="0.98000" // Supposed to reflect the fuel usage due to AI driving style
AI Brake Power Usage="0.99" // A calculation based on Player best laptimes vs AI best laptimes
AI Brake Grip Usage="0.99" // ~ AI Brake Power/Brake Grip/Corner Grip
AI Corner Grip Usage="0.99" // ~ AI Brake Power/Brake Grip/Corner Grip
AI Max Load="35000.00000" // Von Dutch AI says lowering this value makes more aggressive AI (try more passing)
AI Min Radius="20.00000" // Von Dutch AI recommendation; Not tested;
AI to AI Collision Rate="40" // Higher values result in AI crashing less; 40 is the max so why not.

^ For now, PLR AI Brake Power/Grip and AI Corner Grip are fixed values, not calculations. So you have to find your own AI Difficulty level by qualifying yourself and then rerunning qualifying as needed, changing AI Difficulty level each time, until AI laptimes roughly match your laptimes for the position you want to compete for.

^ Note: See Von Dutch GTR2 AI Tutorial for descriptions of parameters. I have only included my rationale for tuning them, here.

AIWs:
WorstAdjust=(1.0) // Worst/Mid/BestAdjust defaults (0.7,1.0,1.2) resulted in a very inconsistent AI Race performances; These are zeroed out to create a baseline so we can have reliable performances to adjust by other parameters
MidAdjust=(1.0) // ~ WorstAdjust/MidAdjust/BestAdjust
BestAdjust=(1.0) // ~ WorstAdjust/MidAdjust/BestAdjust
QualRatio=(1.0) // Always 1.0 for a baseline; Used to judge everything else by
RaceRatio=(1.08) // AI generally need to be this much faster in a Race (vs QualRatio=1.0) to match their Qualifying performance (this is not the same as matching their Qualifying laptimes); AI in a Race will run faster fastest laptimes than their Qualifying but 'performance' is matched to Qualifying 'performance' based on this RaceRatio; Might need/probably requires tuning per track (ugh).

RCDs / Default.rcd:
RaceColdBrainMin=1.0
RaceColdBrainTime=0 // Basically disabling this effect because it seems to make drivers much too slow for much too long at the beginning of a race; The idea, if I understand correctly, is to simulate slow drivers in the first lap, but they're too slow with default settings.
QualColdBrainMin=1.0
QualColdBrainTime=0 // ~ Race/QualColdBrainTime

^ (?) Might need to delete all extra RCD files to force Default.RCD usage to reduce variables at play; Possibly reintrodue custom RCDs to spice it up after everything works nicely.

Spoiler: How to Race these AI

This section describes a few things you need to keep in mind in order to have good races

Race Weekend:
- Use Practice 2 and Qualifying 2

General:
- Treat the AI like a real person that you would respect on track. They will race hard and clean and won't easily give you a pass if they're close to your performance. You can race them cleanly side by side through a corner if you respect them.
- AI come ready to race right from the beginning (besides the first few corners and first lap where they're all jammed up). AI will race at top performance in Practice, Qualifying and Race (although Practice and Race performance will differ due to AIW QualRatio vs RaceRatio). There's no delay like in stock GTR2 AI (ie. RCD ColdBrain params).

Practice:
- Advice: Run laps until you're at race-level comfort with the track (ie. multiple, qualifying-speed, incident-free laps). AI calculatons assume you won't be improving your laptimes much faster in the race than you have achieved in qualifying. If you end up going much faster in the race you won't get the competitive, close, hard racing AI experience these AI calculations are intended to achieve.
- AI are as fast here as in qualifying.

Qualifying:
- Do not skip the session, use time acceleration, instead, to ensure all AI get a time in.
- Go ahead and qualify immediately but be aware the track will not be warmed up or as rubbered in as it will be later in qualifying. You can often achieve better laptimes later in qualifying. Use time acceleration to go to 10-20 minutes left in qualifying and you'll have a well warmed up track that is rubbbered in and now you'll be able to achieve better laptimes.
- Use your fastest setup. For me, I use Soft Slicks and put in enough fuel for 4 laps to give me time to put in my fastest lap. I return to the pits and try again if I run out of fuel. This makes sure you are at your fastest and the AI are at their fastest so that calculations work out.
- When to recalculate AI params:
- If you are 1st by 0.1sec+: You will probably lead the race all the way and not have any serious battles. It'll feel like hotlapping.
- When you are last by 0.1sec+: You will probably trail the race all the way and not have any serious battles. It'll feel like hotlapping.
- When you are more than a few spots off of where you want to have a good battle. For example, you qualified 8th but you really wanted to battle top 3; Or you qualified 15th but wanted to battle top 10.
- When to re-qualify:
- When you are off by more than a few qualifying positions based on the Q position you used to adjust AI params. For example, if I qualified 25th but really wanted to be in the top 10, I should probably re-qualify after adjusting the AI params with the calculations. If you don't requalify you may actually find you don't even get up to where you wanted. That's just the nature of AI, you need to be up there early otherwise it gets harder and harder as the race goes on.
- Shortcut: Set qual time early, accelerate and see where the AI are ending up (remember the target AI laptime you want to calculate against) but give yourself enough time to let the AI qualify higher after recalculating AI params, save your game, exit GTR2, recalculate AI params, start GTR2 again, and reload your race session.
^ Example: I used this when I qualified 1sec+ ahead of AIQ2 and wanted to recalculate but didn't want to requalify all over again.

Race:
- Use your race setup, not your qualifying setup. For me, I use Medium Slicks and put in enough fuel to last the race + a few laps/minutes more. This ensures you're aren't tricking the game and running an unrealistic setup in a race: If you did the calculations would be wrong and you wouldn't get competitive racing.
- Do not try to pass too many people on the first corner or first lap. The AI is still wonky and gets jammed up on the first lap when everybody is all together so do yourself a favour and work with it. You'll be in the correct position, AI competitiveness-wise, after the first few corners or maybe the first lap, and you'll have a much better race.

With the changes above, once you tune your AI Difficulty to produce AI Qualifying laptimes that roughly match your own, you will have more realistic, more competitive, closer, more intense racing.

How to find your AI Difficulty level: First you qualify, then, if AI Qualifying laptimes don't match your performance level, restart the session and re-qualify with a greater/lower AI Difficulty until AI Qualifying laptimes roughly match your laptimes for the position you want to race for.

I did this process tonight with the EEC GT3 V3 mod. I qualified third within about 0.1sec of first and second. I was sloppy at the beginning and fell back to 5th. Racing was hard from that point on and 4th never got ahead of me by more than 2sec or so. I got into 4th after a few laps and was about 1-2sec behind 1st and 2nd and never did pass them, as is to be expected because they really were faster than me. It was a good, hard, intense race.

I'll keep trying things out. There's room for improvement but just getting hard racing AI is a big step. Having to manually find your AI Difficulty is tedious but it's now much more rewarding when you do.

 

[FinFan]

I just flew over this but it sounds promising. Thank you for all the hard work and time you but into this. I will look at this closer for sure and try this.
I can understand how you burned out trying to do this. I've only been at this for a couple of weeks and literally got nowhere. I got pretty good in predicting AI laptimes for the race. Mostly within 0.5-1.5 % of what I calculated. But no matter where I sat the AI level and despite some good races, in the end I won all the time with huge margins. Most off the time it was the aforementioned pitstops the AI took late in the race. I ended up racing at 115 % and still won. But I didn't edit any files so hopefully your approach will help.

 

[cangrejin]

sorry, I am ignorant (I just got gtr2, and I just entered the world "GMOTOR"), and I got lost in so much info ...
I noticed the slow "first lap" of ia.
In short, what do I do to make it "competitive" and "challenging"? without touching ANYTHING of .txt, .ini, plr, etc..etc because I would have to play every track and track mod (and every "seasons" mod). Is there a general answer?
I use ia at 94.

 

[Shovas]

sorry, I am ignorant (I just got gtr2, and I just entered the world "GMOTOR"), and I got lost in so much info ...
I noticed the slow "first lap" of ia.
In short, what do I do to make it "competitive" and "challenging"? without touching ANYTHING of .txt, .ini, plr, etc..etc because I would have to play every track and track mod (and every "seasons" mod). Is there a general answer?
I use ia at 94.

I think you just want to up the AI even further.

You can also change AI Realism/Aggression when starting a race session. AI tends to behave more realistic and more competitive the higher this paramater.

 

[cangrejin]

Thank you.
I use it at 94% ia, and full maximum aggressiveness

but it seems to have "moments" of challenge, it does not seem constant, unfortunately it depends on the track.
Thank you

 

[Shovas]

I am narrowing down a few things that are required to get consistent AI performance and competitiveness. It requires a number of file edits, unfortunately, including AIW files, although the edits are dead simple. I also remove all Talent RCD files except Default.RCD and there's a few tweaks to the UserData PLR.

It's very simple to be honest and that gets you to the point where the AI are consistent enough that then you can put in the effort to figure out the AI Difficulty level that you want to play them at.

Figuring out the AI Difficulty level is trickier than you would think, though. Still, at least they're consistent with the tweaks mentioned above that all you need to worry about is qualifying fast and adjusting the AI Difficulty to match your performance.

I think I will post a small how-to at some point of those changes for people to try.

 

[Shovas]

If anyone is interested in trying an enhanced AI mod based on my findings here, please message me and I can give you a beta link. I would really like to hear feedback on it. The mod is a simple GameData drop-in (AIWs and RCDs with full backups) and some PLR tweaks. There's a README.txt with a lot of notes in case you have questions.

This mod has a simplified focus. It's all about improving the competitiveness of the AI behaviour on track so that races are harder and more intense than original content GTR2. Most importantly, I think you'll find your qualifying position represents +/- a few positions how well AI will perform in a race, as opposed to original GTR2 where you could win a race starting from 10th+ which isn't very realistic. Now it will be a challenge.

There's no AI Difficulty calculations or any of that going on in this mod. You don't have to do anything by hand after the install. You still need to find your own level. I have been racing with AI at 100 and seeing how they behave when I qualify 6th, or 7th, or 8th, etc., and I like what I see. You can always change AI yourself but that's not the point of this mod. It's all about on-track performance behaviour.

I do plan on releasing the mod on RD after I hear some feedback.

Here's the 1.0.0-beta1 README if you want to know more:

Spoiler: 1.0.0-beta1 README.txt

Overview:
1. Introduction
2. Install/Uninstall
3. How To Play Against AI
4. Tips
5. Notes
6. Changes

#
# 1. Introduction
#

Shovas Competition AI is a mod of various AI-related configuration parameters to achieve more realistic race performance by AI drivers resulting in more realistic, tighter, more intense racing.

This mod is not intended to help you find the right AI level for you. It's only meant to make AI competitive who qualified similarly to you to give you a hard, intense race.

Specifically, the main goals include:

- Qualifying performance should more closely reflect race performance as compared to original AI. For example, if you qualify top 3 you might have a chance to win, but if you qualify top 6, you will not have a very good chance of winning (compare to original AI where you could win even qualifying 10th+).

- Closer performance differences across the grid. For example, a grid of GT cars should be separated by a few seconds, not 10+ seconds. Tighter grid performances will help closer, more intense racing.

Thank you to GTR233, Von Dutch, and others for help in the making of this mod, and SimBin for GTR2!

#
# 2. Install/Uninstall
#

Notes:
- This mod overwrites various files including AIW and RCD files
^ Backups in ORIGINALS folder
- Recommend extracting against original content GTR2 but should work with other mods bearing in mind original content AIW and RCD files are overwritten
- Recommend using OvGME (Open Generic Mod Enabler) for safe install and uninstall (but not required)

# Install

1. UserData\User.PLR(*)
- Make a backup of your PLR in case you want to uninstall

Player Car Equal="1"
AI Power Calibration="0"
AI Brake Grip Usage="0.98000"
AI Corner Grip Usage="0.94000"
AI to AI Collision Rate="40"
Vehicle Specific AI Setups="0"

*Rationale for each param change can be found under the Notes section.

2. GameData Files

Extract the GameData folder into your GTR2 installation folder, overwriting any existing files.

# Uninstall

1. Replace your UserData\User.PLR file with your backup

2. Copy ORIGINALS\GameData folder to your GTR2 folder, overwriting any existing files.

#
# 3. How To Play Against AI
#

General:

- Treat the AI like a real person that you would respect on track. They will race hard and clean and won't easily give you a pass if they're close to your performance. You can race them cleanly side by side through a corner if you respect them.

- AI come ready to race right from the beginning (besides the first few corners and first lap where they're all jammed up). AI will race at top performance in Practice, Qualifying and Race (although Practice and Race performance will differ due to AIW QualRatio vs RaceRatio). There's no delay like in stock GTR2 AI (ie. RCD ColdBrain params).

Practice:

- Advice: Run laps until you're at race-level comfort with the track (ie. multiple, qualifying-speed, incident-free laps). AI calculatons assume you won't be improving your laptimes much faster in the race than you have achieved in qualifying. If you end up going much faster in the race you won't get the competitive, close, hard racing AI experience these AI calculations are intended to achieve.

- Practice with a default setup and tweak as needed. Qualify with a fast setup (soft tires, minimal fuel). Race with realistic tires (ie. mediums for good weather) and enough fuel to finish the race.
- I tuned with this procedure:
- Practice: Medium Tires, 50L fueld
- Qualify: Soft Tires, 4Laps Fueld
- Race: Medium Tires, Enough fuel to finish race

- Do not jump on AI on race start when control turns over to the player: There is a small amount of time between player taking control and the actual Green Flag when AI start to accelerate. Wait until Green Flag for the best, more fair start.

Qualifying:

- Do not skip the session, use time acceleration, instead, to ensure all AI get a time in.

- Go ahead and qualify immediately but be aware the track will not be warmed up or as rubbered in as it will be later in qualifying. You can often achieve better laptimes later in qualifying. Use time acceleration to go to 10-20 minutes left in qualifying and you'll have a well warmed up track that is rubbbered in and now you'll be able to achieve better laptimes.

- Use your fastest setup. For me, I use Soft Slicks and put in enough fuel for 4 laps to give me time to put in my fastest lap. I return to the pits and try again if I run out of fuel. This makes sure you are at your fastest and the AI are at their fastest so that calculations work out.

Race:

- Use your race setup, not your qualifying setup. For me, I use Medium Slicks and put in enough fuel to last the race + a few laps/minutes more. This ensures you're aren't tricking the game and running an unrealistic setup in a race: If you did the calculations would be wrong and you wouldn't get competitive racing.

- Do not try to pass too many people on the first corner or first lap. The AI is still wonky and gets jammed up on the first lap when everybody is all together so do yourself a favour and work with it. You'll be in the correct position, AI competitiveness-wise, after the first few corners or maybe the first lap, and you'll have a much better race.

#
# 4. Tips
#

- Practice until your are race ready for best race results.

- Time accelerate 10-20 minutes in Practice and Qualifying to allow the track to heat up and the AI to rubber in the track so that it's at its fastest when you start driving.

#
# 5. Notes
#

UserData PLR Notes:

Player Car Equal="1" // Enabled results in AI laptimes in Qualifying that are ~1.5sec apart whereas disabled results in AI laptimes that are spread out by much more; Enabled to avoid inconsistent behaviour so we can reliably make adjustments to other parameters; Unsure what this is actually doing behind the scenes: Forcing AI to use Player car setups? Adjusting AI performance parameters? Unsure.
AI Power Calibration="0" // Disallow game adjusting AI using various available parameters (power, gearing, fuel) in order to get a baseline so AI calculations can be done reliably. This may also be the param that causes AI to use less than full throttle for AI < 95. Need to confirm.
AI Brake Grip Usage="0.98000" // Increase/Decrease when AI brake too early/too late before corners
AI Corner Grip Usage="0.94000" // Increase/Decrease when AI are slower/faster around corners than they should be
AI to AI Collision Rate="40" // Higher values result in AI crashing less; 40 is the max so why not.
Vehicle Specific AI Setups="0" // Reduce testing variables by avoiding custom AI setups

#
# 6. Changes
#

1.0.0-beta1 (2019-12-06)

- No changes since alpha6

1.0.0-alpha6 (2019-12-06)

- Note: Racing is pretty good. Field is tight-ish, and you are competitive within +/- a couple of AI who you qualified around and not much more. Feels decently realistic.

Problem: AI braking too early before corners
Theory: AI Brake Grip Usage too low
Experiment:
- AI Brake Grip Usage="0.97000", 0.98+
Result: Good, no noticeable early braking so far

1.0.0-alpha5 [reverted] (2019-12-06)

Problem: By the end of the race, GT field was spread at the top but spread out by 17sec+, NGT by 18sec+. Ideal would be to match qualifying where they all stick around each other by 1-2sec.
Theory: Some racing-related RCD param is spreading them out, try experimenting with them. For example, Passing, TrackAggression, Consistency
Experiment 1: TrackAgression...
- s/TrackAggression\s*=\s*(-?[\d\.]+)/TrackAggression=1.0 // DEFAULT=\1/
Result 1: SCRATCH: Mistaken problem. Grid should be spread out by the end of a race due to some cars being slower than others otherwise there would be no race. Having the same TrackAgression also made it seem like a train progression. Might want to tweak aggression later, though.
Experiment 2: Consistency...
Result 2: SCRATCH ~
Experiment 3: Passing...
Result 3: SCRATCH ~

1.0.0-alpha4 (2019-12-06)

- Reset RainAbility to avoid variable performance in rain situations
- s/RainAbility\s*=\s*(-?[\d\.]+)/RainAbility=0.00 // DEFAULT=\1/

1.0.0-alpha3 (2019-12-06)

Problem: Player gains too many spots on starts because AI are not fast/aggressive enough on starts
Theory: RCD StartsDry/StartsWet need tuning
Experiment: Tune StartsDry/StarsWet
- s/StartsDry\s*=\s*(-?[\d\.]+)/StartsDry=0.00 // DEFAULT=\1/
- s/StartsWet\s*=\s*(-?[\d\.]+)/StartsWet=0.00 // DEFAULT=\1/
Result: Good. Started from back. AI didn't appear to change spots too many much in lap 1.

1.0.0-alpha2 (2019-12-05)

Problem: Same-class cars performance difference too great in races. For example, ideal would be for top GT class to all be within 1 second or so.
Theory: Some params in RCD file are causing them to perform differently.
Experiment: Change some RCD performance params to bring AI closer in terms of performance.
- s/QualifyingAbility\s*=\s*[\d\.]+/QualifyingAbility=0.00/
- s/RaceAbility\s*=\s*[\d\.]+/RaceAbility=0.00/
Result (single class Specials GT's 2004): Good. Qualifying field within <2seconds. Race was tight. Qualified 7th, got to 4th by t1, made 3rd, then fell back to 5th on some mistakes. AI were still making mistakes, too.
Result (multi-class Official FIA GT 2004): Qualfying classes within <2sec of each, properly sorted by fast-to-slow classes. Qualified 4th. Reached 2nd by T1 and kept it for the race. By the end of the race, GT field was spread at the top but spread out by 17sec+, NGT by 18sec+

Testing: Specials GT's 2004 - Ferrari 575 at 2004 Monza GP (20 AI)

1.0.0-alpha1 (2019-12-05)

- Eliminate slow-starting AI when a race begins:
- Update all *.RCD *ColdBrainTime=0
- s/ColdBrainTime\s*=\s*\d+\s*$/ColdBrainTime=0/

- Eliminate too much variance given to per-track grid performance adjustments which cause widely variant laptimes leading to stretched out fields where you're not racing closely.
- Update all *.AIW (Worst|Mid|Best)Adjust
- s/WorstAdjust\s*=\s*\([\d\.]+\)/WorstAdjust=\(1.0\)/
- s/MidAdjust\s*=\s*\([\d\.]+\)/MidAdjust=\(1.0\)/
- s/BestAdjust\s*=\s*\([\d\.]+\)/BestAdjust=\(1.0\)/

- Alleviate situation where no matter how high the AI Difficulty, you can still qualify faster than them which means you're always likely guaranteed to win, which is a boring race.
- AI Corner Grip Usage="0.93000", 0.94000...

- Eliminate potential hard-to-test variable conditions where AI use car or track specific AI car setups
- Change PLR Vehicle Specific AI Setups="0" to avoid variable of AI using vehicle specific setups

 

[Gregoryleo]

I have a basic formula. Essentially it boils down to how fast is the P1 car. If your using the default settings, then the AI tend to go 5 to 6 seconds a lap slower in the race than in qly. Which tends to put me qualifying some where between 10th and 15th in a 30+ grid.
Another thing I've noticed is there is almost always 2 or 3 cars that are way faster than the rest of the pack. So that means I've got 1 maybe 2 laps the get through the pack and catch the leaders to race them. If I don't make that happen then they tend to leave me in behind, and I end up hot lapping and pacing the leaders while leaving the rest of the pack behind. Kinda frustrating.
As mentioned previously this can be remedied by editing the aiw files in the track directories. I've spent a lot of time using the vonDutch method to improve the AI behavior. Which is partly why I spend a lot of time in GTR2 even though I have all but 2 or 3 of the racing sims on the market today. I figure out which track I'm going to use that day and then take 5 minutes to edit the track before I boot the game. That way you aren't spending several hours doing it all at once

 

[cangrejin]

I think it's the stupidest question I will ask:
".rcd" files are the ones controlled by the ia, they are in the talent folder. The BPR mod doesn't seem to bring them. Do they exist in another format? Or can they be placed elsewhere?

UPDATE:
ok ... I just made an important discovery. Or just crap.
as I said: no BPR does not bring rcd, but if one file for each team, they have the names of the drivers. No levels of AI and strength.
WITHOUT mods, gtr2 at 94% AI, in monza 2004, with qualy and 5 laps race, it is challenging but you can fight for 1-4 positions
With this mod (it does not have rcd ... but if it has the names of the pilots) in the same conditions, it is very hard. In qualy and in the race you hardly fight for 7-8.

 

[Shovas]

I think it's the stupidest question I will ask:
".rcd" files are the ones controlled by the ia, they are in the talent folder. The BPR mod doesn't seem to bring them. Do they exist in another format? Or can they be placed elsewhere?

My understanding is that mods without Talent (RCD) files will use existing RCD files that match or the Default.RCD file.

UPDATE:
ok ... I just made an important discovery. Or just crap.
as I said: no BPR does not bring rcd, but if one file for each team, they have the names of the drivers. No levels of AI and strength.
WITHOUT mods, gtr2 at 94% AI, in monza 2004, with qualy and 5 laps race, it is challenging but you can fight for 1-4 positions
With this mod (it does not have rcd ... but if it has the names of the pilots) in the same conditions, it is very hard. In qualy and in the race you hardly fight for 7-8.

Which mod do you mean? BPR or mine? With my mod, yes, that's the idea: Your qualifying position will be representative of your performance vs AI in the race. That means it will be a challenge to move up. Just like in real-life, if you're not top 3 or so you're probably not going to win the race - that's realistic. That just means you practice until you get good enough

 

[cangrejin]

Thank you very much for answering.
The mod is the BPR 1994-1996 Mod v2.4.
I just tried another mod: eSR SCGT GT3-GT1 Edition v1.01
It also has no rcd files. I thought the same thing, that they use ia default, but their driver names are not default stock. these use a ".car" file (light weight). there is only the pilot's name ... but it is not a configuration of ia.
and even so ... it is very difficult to reach 7th place (94% ia)
I think I'm a cripple for the races. I think that is the problem.

Thank you for your efforts. I understand that your improved AI is only for default stock cars.

I appreciate the effort to keep gtr2 alive.