The main issue is simple, I think. The .aiw lines are set by a human driver, and the AI can not keep up with them. Taking as much kerb as they do is fine for a human driver, but it causes the AI, with different car and tyre characteristics, to crash out. There are three issues, I think. -The AI cars take too much kerb/don't follow the .aiw lines strictly enough, causing them to flip over, drive into the barriers, or spin out as they hit the kerbs too much. -The AI cars crash into cars that have spun or crashed = this can be fixed with a clever ghosting system. -The AI cars don't swerve off the track after crashing or after a technical failure, but stop moving in the middle of the track, causing others cars to crash into them in a huge pileup. -The AI sometimes does stupid things like reversing or driving into the barriers after a spin, causing them to lose their front or rear wings.
There is a 4th issue - the AI love a pit maneuver - so many times I get suddenly spun out by an AI car that doesn't seem to know where its front end is. Other than that I think you're spot on.
If this stuff were simple there wouldn't be an issue in the first place. *and just on the AI coding generally: this is much harder than if/then constructs. The current issues showed up after some even more prominent issues were addressed, they weren't introduced by the changes. That's the nature of AI, and fixing everything is extremely difficult. But Devin sounds confident the majority will be much better, so we should be in a much better place than we were originally.
I never said that it is easy to fix, or completely fixable, but the problems can possibly be alleviated to a playable level by making some changes, at least. I have managed to make the AI perform much better with changes made in the .hdv, damage.ini, .rcd and collision files, but it are bandaid fixes at best. Right now, some mods, like Chief's beautiful CART 1990 mod, aren't very playable in single player because the AI keeps mucking up and the AI cars keep crashing and spinning out. I think that is sad.
Here is Devin thought about it...I agree with him 100%..I been part of a testing team myself and this this is either lack of attention the the testing team didn't care. The issue is extremely obvious to spot.. Honestly I thought the original poster was posting BS due all the positive reviews I had read ... then I had a look for myself.
To add a more positive experience to the mix ... I've just had a brilliant AI race with BTCC at Brands Hatch. A really lively race with the AI jostling for position (with each other and me), well balanced dry/wet performance and a few cars in the grass but no crashes. I don't usually race AI because it can be a little dull, but this felt like a proper BTCC race.
We can't ask them to fix mods from others too. There'll be cases where the issue is in the track or the car mod. Even if it's an issue in the AI code, they can't test everything. Your changes might be good for you but there's lots more track/car combinations and it's probably not the best fix. It's complex and it needs lots of testing and iterations. I'm glad the issues are being communicated and addressed but we should keep our expectations real. I hope there's more of these improvements, more testing done by devs, modders and users, and improvements and fixes in the mods too where needed.
Interestingly, this is something that I discussed with Devin quite recently. I had an opportunity to test some of the upcoming fixes the weekend just gone and overall, I was very pleased. The AI stability has improved significantly as a result of the loopback fix. They're much more likely to catch slides now and they handle changes in grip surface really well. For historical older content where AI drivers would over compensate the wheel for turning, I also saw improvements in this area thanks to the loop fix. Visually the over compensating of the wheel is visible but this will be due to the setup of the car, it will need adjusting like you say to make it more manageable for the AI to race with.
Well, that is good to hear. When the AI works, it works great, but when it doesn't it.. doesn't. The loopback fix sounds promising. Exactly, hence why I said that my fixes are bandaid fixes.
