Assetto Corsa AI Video and Massarutto Statement

[Paul Jeffrey]

Following the big Assetto Corsa PC update from Kunos Simulazioni, Aristotelis Vasilakos has released a nice video of the new AI code - with some interesting words from Marco Massarutto.

The main thrust of the 1.14 build update released last week focussed around the single player artificial intelligence, an area of the game lacking behind its main sim racing rivals in recent years. Now following considerable work from all involved with Kunos Simulazioni, the current generation build of Assetto Corsa has moved on leaps and bounds since its early days to arguably move very close to the top of the AI pile. With passing and defending from the AI cars and human like behaviour, the new build really is a substantial step forward from the development team.

To mark the new build release and in something of celebration of the new AI physics engineer Aristotelis Vasilakos has released this excellent video of a multiclass AI field racing around the Spanish Barcelona Grand Prix Circuit in Assetto Corsa:

By way of his own personal Facebook page, Marco Massarutto added the following words with regards to the responsibility structure at Kunos:

"I would like to take advantage of this gameplay video to say something. We are a team of crazy, genuine people who love their job, showing some talent but, even more, a genuine devotion for what they do. This makes Assetto Corsa what it is today. But I can't forget to mention that, most of AI&physics algorithms, as well as the tyre model, the netcode and the graphics engine of our game has been programmed by one single person, my teammate in business Stefano "Kunos" Casillo. .

All the tracks (except for one) have been modeled by one guy, Simone Trevisiol, who takes care also about shaders, post processing effects and gfx fine tuning. Most of the sound environment and effects has been managed by one guy (with some programming support), Luca Sodano.

Only one guy, Aristotelis Vasilakos, is behind the car handling, vehicle dynamics and tyre data (that means this lazy guy updated all the hundreds of cars included in the game each time Stefano updated the code behind physics and tyre model). And Gianluca Miragoli is behind the 3D modeling of at least half of the car models and most of the interiors. I should mention all the others that made Assetto Corsa what is today and I thank all of them. But the people mentioned above are with us by the beginning. I'm proud to be part of this team.

Oh, btw: the video shows the new AI algorithms in action: the Toyota TS040 is driven by AI (aggression set at 45%) and it has been placed in the last position in order to show its capability to overtake slower cars at Barcelona circuit , where overtaking sometime is not an easy matter, and it was pretty difficult to see before this update. Sorry to be late, but good things need time.

Assetto Corsa is a racing simulation available to purchase on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

If you enjoy the new AI then I'm very pleased for you, it is very good indeed. Want to know what's even better though? I'll let you in on a secret... racing against real people, online, in organised events with an emphasis on respectful driving... enter into the equation RaceDepartment Club Racing! We have the best cars and tracks from the game, great event admins and a lively and enthusiastic club of enthusiasts with some awesome teamspeak banter. Suitable for rookies right through to aliens alike, out club events are for you, the sim racing enthusiast. Get yourself involved and sign up for a race today*

*good times guaranteed

Enjoyed the video? Impressed with the new AI? Liking AC post V1.14 release? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[protonv5]

Just to mention also, perhaps it was mentioned already, but if you set up a championship and not just a quick race, you have additional settings. You can give the AI handicaps such as add kg's to each car, also restrict engine power. This allows me to set up my car looser (less wing) which makes the cars handle more to my liking and I can turn the AI challenge down and have such awesome battles. It's not just "go as fast and as frantic as you can" but you will be able to enjoy the 'feel' of the cars better while making them a little more challenging to drive yet be able to keep up with the AI etc. This is not for everyone I admit, but some may like it. But the handicap features are awesome. Perhaps Kunos will enhance this as they go: Set AI fuel, tyre type etc. Would be awesome.

 

[JayJayRaceinho]

They can, though. AI uses the setup named AI_default

From technical and programming standpoint AI that uses real physics is more advanced. So dismissive and reductive comments like "wow, GTR2 did this in 2006" aren't very justified.

AI in some old Flatout game was always "competing on my level" because it used rubberbanding AI. In my opinion it wasn't good AI just because it was competitive, knowing it rubberbands felt stupid. Having simplified physics for AI or giving them extra grip to make them faster, is the same thing to a smaller extent.

All sim AIs cheat (AC too with stability control) then it comes down to which one cheats the least. And AI that wouldn't cheat at all (and still give a fairly good race) surely wouldn't be most competitive, but it would be the most intelligent.

Surely AI that is too slow for you isn't entertaining to drive, depends on your pace. But thinking that AI laptimes determine how advanced it is technically, can be deceptive.

basically, however you do it, with real physics or simplified physics, if the ai has a slower pace than you then there is clearly something wrong. racing is about challenge, competition, battles etc. etc. and not something like.... qualifying 10th, after first corner 5th and 10 laps later Pole... atleast not on the max difficulty

for a quickrace the ai may be good and a fun challenge. would agree to that from what i saw so far on youtube...but really, that's it.

 

[Brandon Wright]

basically, however you do it, with real physics or simplified physics, if the ai has a slower pace than you then there is clearly something wrong. racing is about challenge, competition, battles etc. etc. and not something like.... qualifying 10th, after first corner 5th and 10 laps later Pole... atleast not on the max difficulty

for a quickrace the ai may be good and a fun challenge. would agree to that from what i saw so for on youtube...but really, that's it.

You're implying that the majority of AC players are faster than the AI on 100% and I don't think that is the case. It's been awhile since I properly raced them but usually if I turned them up above 95-96% I have a hard time keeping up with them. But I'm usually near the front of the RD club races so I'm not exactly a slow driver.

 

[JayJayRaceinho]

You're implying that the majority of AC players are faster than the AI on 100% and I don't think that is the case. It's been awhile since I properly raced them but usually if I turned them up above 95-96% I have a hard time keeping up with them. But I'm usually near the front of the RD club races so I'm not exactly a slow driver.

not implying anything, to be honest. i don't care about the majority of AC players since i'm the one behind the wheel and driving the car.

 

[MarkR]

Do the AI pit with v1.14 is a question I've seen asked a few times and the answer is a categorical yes...um I mean no...urm well after an experiment to find out I'm slightly confused.

I set up a Nordschleife Endurance quick race for a mixed class of Supercars (supercars as defined by the AC class) you can see the cars I selected in the screenshots. I selected 9 laps as this would require the Nissan GTR Nismo to stop at least twice for fuel to reach race distance. The other cars vary wildly in terms of fuel loads (eg the RUF RT12 AWD only has enough fuel for 3 laps while the Mercedes SLS AMG can run 8 straight laps).

Here are the race results, 10 cars completed the full race with 21 cars of the 24 classified as 2 crashed out on lap 1 and I retired my car to the pits to let the AI get on with it.

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Looking deeper in pTracker we can see that all the cars that completed the race successfully pitted at least once:

The rest retired for the following reasons:

Ran out of fuel (made no attempt to pit when amber/red on fuel when passing pit entrance on lap before running out of fuel). Cars identified by finishing position in the first image above:

Ran out of fuel.
11 & 12 ran out of fuel on lap 5, both started with more fuel that 13 & 14 but both also ignored the pit when low on fuel.
13 & 14 Mclaren 570s & MP4 12Cs all ran out of fuel exiting Bergwerk having set the race pace. Both cars ignored the pit entrance when on 'red' fuel at the end of lap 2. Retired to pit.
15, 17, 18, 20 & 21 all ran out of fuel at various points on track having ignored pit with less than 1 lap fuel remaining. Retired to pit.

The AI cars sometimes struggled with the section though Hohenrain as shown in this video, where the McLaren with almost no fuel left crashes and then ignores the pit.

Crashed out:
16 GTR Nismo crashed into the barrier at Hohenrain and remained stuck there for 4 laps, finally retiring to the pit. Remained on track.
19 crashed out again at Hohenrain but was almost immediately retired to the pit.
22 & 23 crashed on the grid and retired to pit.

Retired to pit:
24 my car, manually retired to pit.

So my conclusion is, well I'm not really sure. When the AI pit it is a good race with cars keeping even pace, they duel well too. They do make a repeated mistake at Hohenrain but other than that they race well. The different starting fuel amounts made me think it was going to be quite a tactical race and the 911 Turbo S certainly beat the lap time faster GT3RS by being able to go longer on fuel and tyres. The 10 cars that finished made a good race of it, the 9 that didn't pit for fuel I can't explain.

I'll try a couple of different experiements later and report the results, maybe in a dedicated thread if that is deemed more appropriate.

I'll add an @kunos in case this is useful feedback for them too. I'm not knocking the new AI in any way, I love it, but maybe this is behaviour they can explain or can be updated in future.

 

[Stereo]

So, one question remains...whats the advantage of real-physics for AI if they can't compete on your level?!

Same advantage as playing chess against an AI that has to use the same pieces as you do. Like yeah, you could design a game that gets harder by having the AI start with more and more queens instead of pawns when you crank difficulty "past 100%" but fundamentally you are not playing chess anymore - strategies you learn, moves you see the other player doing, are simply not chess strategies & moves. You don't make the AI harder by giving them mechanical advantage, you do it by making them better at the game.

Of course driving AI is more complicated than chess AI, instead of a game of ~40 moves, it has to make decisions 300 times per second for an hour at a time, so it's harder to write an AI that can beat every human.

But at least you know you beat it because you drove the car better, not because it was programmed to have not enough grip to beat you.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Same advantage as playing chess against an AI that has to use the same pieces as you do. Like yeah, you could design a game that gets harder by having the AI start with more and more queens instead of pawns when you crank difficulty "past 100%" but fundamentally you are not playing chess anymore - strategies you learn, moves you see the other player doing, are simply not chess strategies & moves.

Exactly what I meant.

To me it holds some value knowing AI is playing somewhat fair. When you see them do some corner in certain speed / driving line, you know your car can do that too. And you can see their suspension movement and weight shifts, and think "ok, my car should handle that".

Also think that vast majority of AC owners can't beat 100% AI easily, especially in modern race cars and F1 which they handle particularly well. For "aliens" it may not be fast enough, probably no AI will be (without cheats). You could always give yourself slower powered car, ballast, street tyres or something.

would agree to that from what i saw so far on youtube...but really, that's it.

Why didn't you test it? Overall laptimes of AI cars also got clearly faster in this update. Being able to criticize would IMO require at least testing it first. On same strength (for example 100%) AI is now clearly faster, in addition to the overtaking capability.

 

[Thomas Gunderson]

Except that races against AI now are better than 90% of public server races. Also, some cars you can't find online, against AI you can drive anything you like, anytime you like

Yes that is true.. Now we just need to be able to add them to a multiplayer game

 

[Rob]

The game is still virtually useless 6 months after release.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

The game is still virtually useless 6 months after release.

There is a game, where?

 

[JayJayRaceinho]

Same advantage as playing chess against an AI that has to use the same pieces as you do. Like yeah, you could design a game that gets harder by having the AI start with more and more queens instead of pawns when you crank difficulty "past 100%" but fundamentally you are not playing chess anymore - strategies you learn, moves you see the other player doing, are simply not chess strategies & moves. You don't make the AI harder by giving them mechanical advantage, you do it by making them better at the game.

Of course driving AI is more complicated than chess AI, instead of a game of ~40 moves, it has to make decisions 300 times per second for an hour at a time, so it's harder to write an AI that can beat every human.

But at least you know you beat it because you drove the car better, not because it was programmed to have not enough grip to beat you.

...don't you think that the title 'Lord' (Kunos) is simply not enough for this major task to solve and that a' King' is needed to code such an advanced AI?

..seriously, we seem to have a complete different understanding or demand for racing vs AI. I'm interested in a realistic Race-Weekend Scenario where my Qualifying-Position is important and makes sense because i know i can't overtake 5-10 cars in the first few laps, because the AI likes to play Chess

So if i give 10 beta-testers, a car/track combo to drive with default setup and the Alien has a 1:30:00 and the slowest one has a 1:35:00, the minimum the AI should do@100% is the 1:30:00 and not 1:30:5, not 1:31:00 etc. (with or without cheats)

 

[Brandon Wright]

So if i give 10 beta-testers, a car/track combo to drive with default setup and the Alien has a 1:30:00 and the slowest one has a 1:35:00, the minimum the AI should do@100% is the 1:30:00 and not 1:30:5, not 1:31:00 etc. (with or without cheats)

So, based on your real-world testing with the new and improved and faster AI, what is the actual time that the AI is achieving on 100% then?

 

[Stereo]

...don't you think that the title 'Lord' (Kunos) is simply not enough for this major task to solve and that a' King' is needed to code such an advanced AI?

..seriously, we seem to have a complete different understanding or demand for racing vs AI. I'm interested in a realistic Race-Weekend Scenario where my Qualifying-Position is important and makes sense because i know i can't overtake 5-10 cars in the first few laps, because the AI likes to play Chess

You still haven't tried it so your opinion of what the AI does is based on what, a youtube video of them crashing into a wall?

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

I smell something.

 

[JayJayRaceinho]

So, based on your real-world testing with the new and improved and faster AI, what is the actual time that the AI is achieving on 100% then?

You still haven't tried it so your opinion of what the AI does is based on what, a youtube video of them crashing into a wall?

....based on this video (don't need to try it myself if someone else allready did it ) -> Assetto Corsa AI Video and Massarutto Statement

 

[Brandon Wright]

Yes, we all know basing opinions on YouTube videos is far more accurate than firsthand experience.

 

[Edu Martinez]

I have no complaint but AI hates walls.
Awesome mod tracks with good AI lines are worthless beacause AI hit the walls too often.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

I have no complaint but AI hates walls.
Awesome mod tracks with good AI lines are worthless beacause AI hit the walls too often.

Some mod tracks seem to work fine, but some might need updated AI line.

 

[F_B]

I smell something.

Spaghetti Trollognese?

 

[JayJayRaceinho]

Spaghetti Trollognese?

na, i think it's the smell of somewhere in Italy Can someone in Italy please open the window somewhere?

oh wait, maybe this is a bit of trolling now....ooops