AI basics

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by BoothJoe, Nov 4, 2015.

  1. BoothJoe

    BoothJoe Registered

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    I would like to get and understanding of AI in RF2 and how to adjust it. As a new RF2 user, the discussions about AI here in the forums are rather overwhelming.

    Let me explain what I've done, and maybe you can help me make things a little better and help me understand the whole AI concept.

    I started with the Eve and Spark ISI cars and added enough drivers and skins to be able to have a 22-car series. I did the skins and driver name setups in the Tuning screen. I clicked on the AI Edit button for each car/driver there and noted that they all seemed to have their own settings. With the default settings, we went to the new Mills track and I qualified on the pole 2 seconds faster than anyone else and easily won the race leading nine of the 10 laps. I should note that in actuality I really stink at RF2 and have no business winning anything.

    So what's the first step to improving them? Should I leave the Tuning|AI Edit settings alone and start by adjusting the AI settings in Session (where, I believe it's set to 80%)? Should I make slight improvements to the individual settings in the Tuning window for each car? Should I try to get a handle on talent files and adjust stuff there? Should I be looking at the settings in the player.plr file? What about the stuff where people let the ai drivers learn on their own?

    It's so overwhelming that a "Path to Improving AI" that would provide a roadmap would be really welcome. Note that I am far more interested in racing than I am in experimentation. I spend my days as a Unix admin and a lot of that is research|development|implementation|testing|etc (today's work project is getting collectd to work in RedHat 7)
     
  2. peterchen

    peterchen Registered

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    I understand that right, that you have AI on 80% and wonder that they are too slow???

    I can only answer your whole questions with another question:

    What do you want to achieve?
     
  3. BoothJoe

    BoothJoe Registered

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    I wrote a reply and it never showed up. So here we go again.

    According to F1 statistics from the inception of recorded history (http://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques/pilote/victoire/grille.aspx), if you don't qualify in the top 8, you probably don't have much of a chance of winning the race. So I'd say a goal is for me to be good enough (and for the AI to be good enough) so I qualify in the top 10. I think that's reasonable.

    The session setting of 80% is obviously too low. So is the best course of action to start increasing and running qualifying over and over again unattended until I'm in the 10th position? Or should I first adjust the individual settings in Tuning|AIEDit? Or should I adjust in player.plr? Or should I work on talent files?
     
  4. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    Firstly ignore any statistics, pointless comparison in this scenario, just keep tweaking the Strength setting until you find a decent similar balance between yourself and the AI then just simply Race. If you get to 120% and you're still beating them then edit their Talent to be better, first things first though - ignore trying any player.JSON (not plr any more!) changes or messing with the Talent values too much early on, just get the Strength right coupled with the Aggression (Low % for Open Wheelers so under 25%) first then worry about the rest later if need be.
     
  5. peterchen

    peterchen Registered

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    I think it is reasonable to adjust AI-strength InGame, so they are on par with you (in the race).........What´s so complicated about this??? :confused:

    Maybe you false-understood some posts here in forum. You don´t have to fiddle with anything as long as InGame-settings do it for you. (OK, doing talents IS actually an InGame-setting now, but not needed for a good offline-experience)
     
  6. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    BoothJoe was filling out a 22-car field with unique skins as Virtual Rides to avoid repeats. Perfectly natural thing to do :)

    ***
    Anyway, yes, increase the AI Strength in session settings to match your laptimes in race session. In my opinion, ignore the qualifying times as what you're after is competition in the race. I usually start a new car set at 100% AI Strength and adjust from there. Increase Aggression from 25% when you find the AI just rolling over on you, giving up too easily, even though the lap times are similar.

    Oh, and set AI Limiter = 0!
     
  7. BoothJoe

    BoothJoe Registered

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    I appreciate the information. There is some "definitive AI" post at the top of this forum that goes into an awful lot of detail and discussion. It gives the impression that RF2 is somehow deficient and needs these things done. I'm not tremendously interested in getting bogged down in technical experimentation because that sounds too much like what I do every day at work. I'm happy to race. But I don't want to win every time and I don't want to finish 22nd every time either.
     
  8. BoothJoe

    BoothJoe Registered

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    Just for the hell of it, I'm running against great authors. Herman Melville drives a white Eve (what else?), Hunter S. Thompson's is multi-colored psychedelic, Poe's is jet black, Whitman has a nice leaf pattern. I, of course, drive the #69 black and rust Team Doberman car.
     
  9. peterchen

    peterchen Registered

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    Screenshot please! ;)
     
  10. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    That thread was designed as a focal discussion point in tweaking various aspects of the AI just as you can do with many aspects of this sim, it's by no means a "you must do this to achieve this" instruction set.
    Rfactor 2 AI works perfectly well with ONLY adjusting the IN GAME settings, I can't stress that enough, so I'd highly recommend ignoring that thread and just getting the AI to suit you via those in game options.
     
  11. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    Oh, man, wish I'd thought of the authors!
     
  12. BoothJoe

    BoothJoe Registered

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    Okay, an update. Without changing anything else, I set the in-game AI Strength to 100%. I was easily beaten (20 second difference on fastest lap, for example). I set it to 90%. I was easily thumped and was 12 seconds off the pace. I set it back to 80% where I had won easily two days ago. The AI improved their performance from two days ago (where they were set at 80%) by 10 seconds per lap and easily won. I expected when I set it back to 80% I would see their numbers equivalent to two days ago and I did not...they had a huge improvement. So I'm somewhat confused about this but will do some more testing (possibly restarting the game after resetting the AI numbers).
     
  13. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    Probably a lack of rubber on the very first run, I've never personally seen massive differences like you describe, they are generally on similar lap times with certain % amounts, asking of rubber has an effect.
     

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