Full Course Yellows AI fix, on the roadmap?

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marvelharvey

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While viewing William's latest Sim Racing Paddock video. I noticed that not only did he experience the irritating FCY bug, but luckily @Marcel Offermans just happened to be watching the Stream. This is an age old bug that I've brought it up in July 2015, August 2015, November 2015, February 2016, May 2016 and November 2017.

Of course, this stream was only broadcast a few days ago, so I'm guessing that the issue hasn't been looked into yet, but I have to ask, is the AI going to be developed any further? rF2 is the class leader in AI and it's a shame that such a seemingly simple bug can break immersion (and ruin a chance of victory!)

Anyway, to quote myself from last year, here are some short repro steps if 397 need them:
marvelharvey said:
OK, I've done some further investigation and discovered the cause of yellow flag AI issues. When under yellows, the AI is checking the speed of the car ahead, and making sure it doesn't exceed the speed of said ahead car. This seems a perfectly normal and safe thing to do. However, the AI is only occasionally checking the distance to the car in front and will slowdown regardless of how many metres/kilometres they are ahead. If car A comes to a hairpin, while B is 500m behind on a straight, B will slow down on the straight, then speed up again once A exits the hairpin.

This explains why after a yellow, the cars involved can never catch up.

My repro steps (other cars tracks will probably work. GT3s at Matsusaka also produced the same result):
  1. Select Portugal's Estoril circuit
  2. Select the Dallara DW12
  3. Select Rolling start
  4. Include 17 AIs
  5. Start in 18th place
  6. Let the cars drive off on the formation lap
  7. Wait about 20-30 seconds on the grid, then push the "i" key to give AI control to your car
  8. Watch the AI drive your car up to speed, then slow down, the speed up, then slow down, all on the start/finish straight, trying to avoid the cars 1km ahead.
However, if you continue to watch the lap, there are certain points where the AI suddenly acts normally and floors it for a few seconds, trying to catch the pack 20s ahead, before returning to its weird stop/start nature.
Click to expand...
 
I’ve has issues on a lot of tracks where I’ve been in a FCY situation and I’ve had cars speed up, slam on brakes, speed up, slam on brakes. Catches me out, then the sim penalised me for overtaking under safety car. So I turn it off.
 
I've only ever had it work out properly once and that was a V8 Supercars race I did at Ipswich. (Skip to 19:25)

 
marvelharvey said:
I wish I could turn FCY off... but I love the strategy of endurance racing too much for non-stop green conditions. :D
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It's also amazing online :D wish FCY was something you can trust more in rF2. We used this in our leagues in AMS, it's bloody amazing when a FCY mess up with your strategy or you make a strategy counting on it, just like real life!! Of course people can be as dumb as real life racers too when the green flag waves and then yellows breed more yellows :D
 
This was the case in the video I posted above. I jumped right to the front as the result of it and I'm pretty sure I would have run out of fuel had it not happened.
 
check these lines in player.json
"AI Formation by Position":false,
"AI Formation by Position#":"If true, AI will line up for yellow or formation laps by fixed position behind the pace car, if false they will line up relative to specific car they should be following",

does changing that to true fix anything for anyone? (could only test on one track and it seemed to have worked.

And this issue has been here since the stockcar fcy update, hasn't it?
 
AI is hard to get right so maybe this bug isn't easy fix as it looks from the outside. Though FCY works sometimes so hopefuly I am wrong.

I was wondering how does AI behave in other sims under yellow flags.
iRacing is out of equation obviously as there is no AI
 
Will Mazeo said:
Yep, and probably the best offline experience to this day IMO. The system worked great online too but had a poor netcode
It's the base code of iRacing
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I would remove the probably, that one is basically the benchmark for AI racing. Still had it’s quirks every now and again, but the racing itself is still far and away better than anything produced since.
 
I remember trying to do a full championship with 100% race lenght, man it's way harder than road racing :D
All that game needed was animated crew from all cars, would be really immersive but I guess it was too much for PCs back in 2004.
I dont understand why devs cant do some stuff now that they did in the past, I don't buy the "things are more complex now" as the sole excuse.
 
Filip said:
AI is hard to get right so maybe this bug isn't easy fix as it looks from the outside. Though FCY works sometimes so hopefuly I am wrong.
Click to expand...
rFactor 2's FCY AI was perfectly fine 2012-2015. I've no idea what changed summer of 2015, but I wish we could roll back to the previous AI.

rubennaatje said:
check these lines in player.json
"AI Formation by Position":false,
"AI Formation by Position#":"If true, AI will line up for yellow or formation laps by fixed position behind the pace car, if false they will line up relative to specific car they should be following",

does changing that to true fix anything for anyone? (could only test on one track and it seemed to have worked.

And this issue has been here since the stockcar fcy update, hasn't it?
Click to expand...
I'll check when I get back home. I think I tried before, but no luck. And yes, it was around the Stock Car release when this broke.
 
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