2023 Q2 Build Update and Hot-Fix

[hitm4k3r]

I don't know why this AI update hasn't recieved more recognition, but it's really a step in the right direction especialy for offline racing with openwheel content. Tintops have worked good before, but openwheel racing suffered really from AI cars rearending and crashing each other. Tried a 20 lap race with the F1 2021 mod at Monza and it was great. No wierd pileups, engaging AI that fought back and with each other and not just me, strategies made sense, no erratic movement or behaviour. Qualifying worked nice too. Simply a smooth and fantastic experience, even with 3rd party content. Yesterday I also tried a GT3 race at Long Beach and that was flawless aswell. Not a godgiven fact on street circuits.

As others have pointed out the AI seems to have some little issues with manouvering in the pits and reacting to other cars there, but it's something that should be fixable with some finetuning. I still need to test AI behaviour on ovals and under SC or FCY, but that's for the coming days. Now that AI is at an acceptable state I would really like to see more options in the UI for setting up offline races. Stuff like single file formation laps, safety car settings with thresholds and SC laps, tire rules, different practice sessions and stuff like that would really enhance the experience and should be in the realm of being possible. This was in the old UI and even in rF1 and AMS1 so I see no reason to remove such features. Maybe there could be different rule sets for different main series selectable like F1, FE, Indycar, BTCC, Nascar and Endurance racing.
I know development for rF2 will most likely fade out over the coming months or atleast slow down, but it's these little things that would really make it a more fleshed out experience and make it bullet proof for the years to come.

Anyway, keep up the good work.

 

[pkelly]

@hitm4k3r - Thank you for your testing efforts and creative thoughts on my favorite sim. Haven't had the time to sus so deep with the AI but the racing experience does feel more relaxed with the 'bots moving around me and not into me

 

[Forcer77]

AI is still a bit more agressive i think like they still follow their path no matter what happening near them
its not like racing against a real driver.
i m not sure they fixed their behavior to be more aware of what is happening near them or infront of them.
sorry but i m still not satisfied with all those AI changes

the same observation...probably they fixed such behaviour as hitting walls and cutting corners but I still have the same issues with AI drive into my car and being sometimes over-aggressive to me

but openwheel racing suffered really from AI cars rearending and crashing each other. Tried a 20 lap race with the F1 2021 mod at Monza and it was great. No wierd pileups, engaging AI that fought back and with each other and not just me, strategies made sense, no erratic movement or behaviour.

I still experince exactly these bugs and weird AI moves with F1 mods - AI still rams into my car from time to time

 

[Pales]

the same observation...probably they fixed such behaviour as hitting walls and cutting corners but I still have the same issues with AI drive into my car and being sometimes over-aggressive to me

I still experince exactly these bugs and weird AI moves with F1 mods - AI still rams into my car from time to time

What about official content? I think the collision mesh is different for modded cars, it may not be up to par anymore following all these changes. I could be wrong but during my beta testing of the hotfix, I did not encounter these issues.

 

[mesfigas]

@Forcer77 i posted a video on rf2 Discord and they told me is a known issue that AI ignores other cars paths.
probably thats what happening with all the people having major AI issues
they know the problem and i hope they fix that so we can have a trully good AI to race against

 

[Simonk]

What about official content? I think the collision mesh is different for modded cars, it may not be up to par anymore following all these changes. I could be wrong but during my beta testing of the hotfix, I did not encounter these issues.

Im in the middle of testing the collision mesh in my mod cars. I have disabled the mesh in the GEN file so the game creates its own. I’ve done two races and tried to recreate situations where the AI would hit me and so far they have been perfect. Need more testing to confirm but my initial impression is they are better without the collision mesh.
Also found if a mod doesn’t have RCD files, adding them improves their behaviour.

 

[Bernat]

@Forcer77 i posted a video on rf2 Discord and they told me is a known issue that AI ignores other cars paths.
probably thats what happening with all the people having major AI issues
they know the problem and i hope they fix that so we can have a trully good AI to race against

I think they said the AI ignores cars following paths different to their own. Meaning that cars exiting the pits will ignore cars doing their lap and viceversa.

 

[Lazza]

What about official content? I think the collision mesh is different for modded cars, it may not be up to par anymore following all these changes. I could be wrong but during my beta testing of the hotfix, I did not encounter these issues.

Im in the middle of testing the collision mesh in my mod cars. I have disabled the mesh in the GEN file so the game creates its own. I’ve done two races and tried to recreate situations where the AI would hit me and so far they have been perfect. Need more testing to confirm but my initial impression is they are better without the collision mesh.
Also found if a mod doesn’t have RCD files, adding them improves their behaviour.

I don't think any of the AI changes will warrant a new collision mesh. Having said that, a bad collision mesh will always be a bad one - and because the only example car is a skip barber, I think third-party collision meshes are often done poorly (even cars very similar to the skip, end up with very troublesome collision meshes. Not enough focus on this object overall, I guess).

 

[hitm4k3r]

the same observation...probably they fixed such behaviour as hitting walls and cutting corners but I still have the same issues with AI drive into my car and being sometimes over-aggressive to me

I still experince exactly these bugs and weird AI moves with F1 mods - AI still rams into my car from time to time

I did my testing with the Forumla Hybrid by Advanced Simulation Modding, wich was pretty much unusable before the update. I got a slight tap from behind in one of the braking zones, but nothing too hard or race ending. I had AI difficulty at 90 %, AI agression at 15 % and AI mistakes at 0. Otherwise make sure that you don't run any obscure settings in the player.json or RCD files and maybe lower the agression a bit. I think for openwheel racing that should be done anyway or I do it atleast. There is no golden setting that works for all classes and disciplines and I think people need to keep this in mind. That's the reason why we have those sliders in the menu afterall. I hope it helps

 

[redapg]

I don't think any of the AI changes will warrant a new collision mesh. Having said that, a bad collision mesh will always be a bad one - and because the only example car is a skip barber, I think third-party collision meshes are often done poorly (even cars very similar to the skip, end up with very troublesome collision meshes. Not enough focus on this object overall, I guess).

I have the Suspicion, that in most Cases, the Collision Meshes are not completely closed Objects and have all Vertices welded.
And they also should not have too complicated Shapes.

 

[Forcer77]

Im in the middle of testing the collision mesh in my mod cars. I have disabled the mesh in the GEN file so the game creates its own. I’ve done two races and tried to recreate situations where the AI would hit me and so far they have been perfect. Need more testing to confirm but my initial impression is they are better without the collision mesh.
Also found if a mod doesn’t have RCD files, adding them improves their behaviour.

don't get it... what collision mesh does exactly? as far as I know collision mesh is responsible for what how collisions are generated and which objects are collidable but it has nothing to do with helping AI to avoid other cars (especially player's car).
And about RCD...what exactly settings in RCD files can help in this matter?? I know only one such RCD setting, it's Aggression...you can lower it in RCD but you can also lower it in the in-game menu. I already lowered this almost to the minimum. So I don't think editing RCD files can really help...

I think they said the AI ignores cars following paths different to their own. Meaning that cars exiting the pits will ignore cars doing their lap and viceversa.

I can't say about exiting the pits but in my case AI cars ignore my car's path from time to time while racing with me... for example AI is side-by-side with me and suddenly it turns exactly into my car and pushes me out of the track.

 

[Drogo]

A really massive thank you to Devin and the team for these AI updates, I have had some of the best offline racing in rF2 for a very, very long time thanks to you guys. I run 105-115 difficulty, 85 aggression and 0 limiter, flags on full and I've encountered zero problems so far, no rear ending me, no turning in on me unless it was an obvious dive bomb (one of the things that irks me about those youtube videos that spend the whole race dive bombing then calls the AI rubbish) and no unnecessary or endless safety cars. 25 mins BTCC at Croft left me with nothing but pure joy, I was either attacking or being attacked the whole race, about 5 mins from the end I put a wheel on the grass, recovered the car without spinning or anything but went from 8th to 14th in a nano flash, I just had to laugh with myself in excitement and the feeling of, OK!! So we driving,driving.... OK!! lol!! Once again thank you S397.

 

[juanchioooo]

The truth is that the AI has never interested me, in fact I still think that there are many more players who only play online than with the AI, for that very reason I think the relevance is low, I still think that rfactor needs more circuits than others thing, obviously fix other bugs but it seems they have forgotten about that

 

[Richard Busch]

The truth is that the AI has never interested me, in fact I still think that there are many more players who only play online than with the AI, for that very reason I think the relevance is low, I still think that rfactor needs more circuits than others thing, obviously fix other bugs but it seems they have forgotten about that

Quite the opposite for me. I only race the AI. Online still has problems. We have plenty of tracks and cars. We just need an online similar to that iRacing thing.

 

[Rui Santos]

Quite the opposite for me. I only race the AI. Online still has problems. We have plenty of tracks and cars. We just need an online similar to that iRacing thing.

For the online to work, you'll need to use mods also.. there are very good ones around...

 

[Forcer77]

A really massive thank you to Devin and the team for these AI updates, I have had some of the best offline racing in rF2 for a very, very long time thanks to you guys. I run 105-115 difficulty, 85 aggression and 0 limiter, flags on full and I've encountered zero problems so far, no rear ending me, no turning in on me unless it was an obvious dive bomb (one of the things that irks me about those youtube videos that spend the whole race dive bombing then calls the AI rubbish) and no unnecessary or endless safety cars. 25 mins BTCC at Croft left me with nothing but pure joy, I was either attacking or being attacked the whole race, about 5 mins from the end I put a wheel on the grass, recovered the car without spinning or anything but went from 8th to 14th in a nano flash, I just had to laugh with myself in excitement and the feeling of, OK!! So we driving,driving.... OK!! lol!! Once again thank you S397.

nonsense... I made Youtube videos and showed it in other thread.. tell me if you are so wise where did I divebombing there??? I raced just a couple of laps and already had AI issues... AI still drive into me or ignore my path from time to time. And it's AI fault not my divebombing... I don't know maybe we play different games or you just try to embarass me

 

[AlexHeuskat]

Is the aggression fixed ? I like using a lot of aggression to see so much AI overtaking AI, but it introduces massive AI crashes...
And is the gap space between AI fixed ? I have always though the AI are too much close from each other in a train file...in an unreal way.
I guesss the AI fix means the rF2 developpemement will end this year.

 

[Drogo]

nonsense... I made Youtube videos and showed it in other thread.. tell me if you are so wise where did I divebombing there??? I raced just a couple of laps and already had AI issues... AI still drive into me or ignore my path from time to time. And it's AI fault not my divebombing... I don't know maybe we play different games or you just try to embarass me

Dude!!!!
I have absolutely no idea who you are! I have never watched any of your youtube videos! No where in my post did I reply to you, mention you, refer to anything you quoted! Indicated that I agreed or didn't agree with anything YOU specifically said in relation to YOUR experience! And can tell you until just now I hadn't even read your post!
Dude, I have been waiting for the AI to get fixed for many years and after many frustrating and slightly colourful language experiences when I've been using rFactor 2 I simply came to give credit where credit is due, go look at the youtube video by overtake_gg on which sim has the best AI on PC or whatever it's called and you'll see who I was talking about, people making their own videos on their experience is their business but if these guys are supposed to be promoting this hobby instead of just trying to get likes and views then at least get the wheel set up properly and do a decent test with decent racing to give people the information they want because that's how they market themselves as content creators.
When I looked the title of this thread was about the hotfix, and I only came to comment on the hot fix, and only the hot fix.
This is why participating in this SOCIAL media thing is just not for me, I have over 5000 hrs in this sim and have stayed away from forums, discord and all that, Like WTF is wrong with the internet!!!!

 

[Lazza]

Is the aggression fixed ? I like using a lot of aggression to see so much AI overtaking AI, but it introduces massive AI crashes...
And is the gap space between AI fixed ? I have always though the AI are too much close from each other in a train file...in an unreal way.
I guesss the AI fix means the rF2 developpemement will end this year.

If I'm interpreting Devin's comments correctly, AI aggression mainly (exclusively?) determines how close they need to be in order to decide to go for a passing move. The issues introduced with the previous update weren't related to Aggression itself. (so it wasn't broken, and therefore isn't fixed)

As for your last line: I support your right to speculate on pretty much anything, especially in a speculation thread (like that other one), but you're spouting nonsense to correlate an AI fix with rF2 development ending. I mean, even if rF2 development did end this year, the AI fixes cannot logically be seen to lead to that. Those sort of comments are just drivel. They can't even be used as an "I told you so" later, because there's no logic to it.

 

[Simonk]

Does anyone else race Multiplayer AI? Me and some friends race weekly and have done so for nearly 15 years. We have found the latest release not suitable with all of us being hit by the AI at least once in a 30 minute race. One of us was hit 3 times. When I say hit, I mean spun or pushed off track. I did some testing with just me and 29 GT3 cars at Silverstone Endurance and Misano (official track and mod track) 100% difficulty 50% aggression. Player and Multiplayer json files identical on the server and my sim. Single player races, the AI were floorless at both tracks. The racing was excellent and it felt like I could have been racing humans. Same races in multiplayer and the AI were hopeless. I couldn’t even complete lap 1 without being smashed off track. It like their aggression was 150% instead of 50%. I experimented with the aggression and setting it between 0~10% allowed me to complete the opening laps 95% of the time at Silverstone but resulted in a single file procession. 10% at Misano wasn’t much of an improvement over 50% so I still got banged around. I don’t know if this is an AIW issue or the inherent tighteness of the first few corners but clearly we’re still going to have issues at other tracks at any % aggression. Anyway, was wondering if anyone else had come across this. Really hoping v1132 isn’t our only option from now on.