Hi
Now I've done half a season with rFactor 2, here is my feedback on the AI so far and what can be improved...
The quality of the racing in terms of realism is quite impressive, the AI now defend their positions unlike in rFactor, the cars actually wait to rejoin the track whenever they spin most of the time, rFactor 2 is definitely a much better game for running AI leagues than rFactor.
In terms of improvements, there are still improvements to be made. Backmarkers are a lot better in rFactor 2 than they were in rFactor, but this year they have still caused problems for leaders on quite a few occasions, they sometimes go onto the grass to move over or steer against walls to move over which can cause issues. There are also a few issues from rFactor that still remain, cars do still have a tendency to rejoin the track from spins straight into the barriers.
There are a few other issues that need ironing out. On some tracks, no matter what I do to the corridors, cars have a tendency to cut corners when a car suddenly goes to the inside in the braking zone, they just steer across the corner. Another thing, this shouldn't be eliminated entirely, but just have a reduced tendency for this to happen, when a car is close to another car, they steer onto the grass in the braking zone and spin.
The next improvement that should be made is where cars who have had failures stop. Soemtimes they stop in the middle of the track, and at the moment, I have to set the game to remove stationary cars like 2 seconds after they become stationary. Which means that some cars who are waiting for a safe place and time to rejoin the track are retired from the game as well...
The next improvement is the weather plugin, even though I'm thinking there might be a way I can solve this. In the last race in Hungary, it rained, and everyone went to full wets, when in real f1 it would have only really been inters weather.
The final improvement to add realism that I feel should be made is more tendency for mistakes and for them to crash into each other, like on F1 2015. For example, AI cars should be able to lock up and go down the escape road at Monza and slow down to not gain an advantage. Also as I said they should like crash into each other more. Another thing is in wet conditions, there should be more instances of cars aquaplaning off or cars overdoing it at corners and spinning...
Now I have some questions. Regarding what you can do. Firstly it's the starts.
I'd like there to be more of a variation in who gets a good/bad start. At the moment I have everyone's start value set at like 95. I know its possible in the talent files to state how good each driver gets off the line, but if I did that that would basically be fixing who gets a good start and who doesn't, which would be unfair. Is there a way that you can make there be a variation in a fair way without having to fix it?
Secondly, these are questions regarding the HDV files. This year has kind of been a learning year, as my first year using rF2. Next year I'd like to take it to the next level. Already I'm having individual shapes for each team, where what I'm actually doing is using 'collage' cars, where basically each car consists of parts from 2015 F1 cars, eg. one car could have the Ferrari body, the Mercedes nose, the Manor sidepods, the Sauber engine cover, the Force India rear wing etc. I'm using the WCP 2015 mod to do this, and WCP did actually give me permission to do this and put them in rF2. Also is it easy to convert physics packages from rFactor to rFactor 2? If not is there a base physics package based on the 2014/2015 regulations that I can use?
I also want to have individual HDV files for each team, to the point that the speed in talent files is irrelevant, where I could have everyone on 50 and have a true pecking order. Peterchen told me about a year ago some of the values from the rFactor HDV files that would make a car fast or a car slow. Would this have the same relevance in rF2? And I also want to do more than just making the front running car fast and the backmarker car like 4 secs off the pace. I'd like to make it so particular cars understeer/oversteer more, have more of a difference in the way each car handles, like in real F1, which would make it so on one type of track a car is quick but on another a car is slow. Is there anywhere I can find out what every single value in the HDV file does? And I'm not talking just HDVs, I'm talking engine as well, eg. making an engine have more power than another and making them more reliable/less reliable without touching the AvgLifetimeVar etc values.
Finally is it possible to make cars have metallic paint, like it was in rFactor? I know it's possible to make cars chrome but is it possible to make some parts of them metallic?
Now I've done half a season with rFactor 2, here is my feedback on the AI so far and what can be improved...
The quality of the racing in terms of realism is quite impressive, the AI now defend their positions unlike in rFactor, the cars actually wait to rejoin the track whenever they spin most of the time, rFactor 2 is definitely a much better game for running AI leagues than rFactor.
In terms of improvements, there are still improvements to be made. Backmarkers are a lot better in rFactor 2 than they were in rFactor, but this year they have still caused problems for leaders on quite a few occasions, they sometimes go onto the grass to move over or steer against walls to move over which can cause issues. There are also a few issues from rFactor that still remain, cars do still have a tendency to rejoin the track from spins straight into the barriers.
There are a few other issues that need ironing out. On some tracks, no matter what I do to the corridors, cars have a tendency to cut corners when a car suddenly goes to the inside in the braking zone, they just steer across the corner. Another thing, this shouldn't be eliminated entirely, but just have a reduced tendency for this to happen, when a car is close to another car, they steer onto the grass in the braking zone and spin.
The next improvement that should be made is where cars who have had failures stop. Soemtimes they stop in the middle of the track, and at the moment, I have to set the game to remove stationary cars like 2 seconds after they become stationary. Which means that some cars who are waiting for a safe place and time to rejoin the track are retired from the game as well...
The next improvement is the weather plugin, even though I'm thinking there might be a way I can solve this. In the last race in Hungary, it rained, and everyone went to full wets, when in real f1 it would have only really been inters weather.
The final improvement to add realism that I feel should be made is more tendency for mistakes and for them to crash into each other, like on F1 2015. For example, AI cars should be able to lock up and go down the escape road at Monza and slow down to not gain an advantage. Also as I said they should like crash into each other more. Another thing is in wet conditions, there should be more instances of cars aquaplaning off or cars overdoing it at corners and spinning...
Now I have some questions. Regarding what you can do. Firstly it's the starts.
I'd like there to be more of a variation in who gets a good/bad start. At the moment I have everyone's start value set at like 95. I know its possible in the talent files to state how good each driver gets off the line, but if I did that that would basically be fixing who gets a good start and who doesn't, which would be unfair. Is there a way that you can make there be a variation in a fair way without having to fix it?
Secondly, these are questions regarding the HDV files. This year has kind of been a learning year, as my first year using rF2. Next year I'd like to take it to the next level. Already I'm having individual shapes for each team, where what I'm actually doing is using 'collage' cars, where basically each car consists of parts from 2015 F1 cars, eg. one car could have the Ferrari body, the Mercedes nose, the Manor sidepods, the Sauber engine cover, the Force India rear wing etc. I'm using the WCP 2015 mod to do this, and WCP did actually give me permission to do this and put them in rF2. Also is it easy to convert physics packages from rFactor to rFactor 2? If not is there a base physics package based on the 2014/2015 regulations that I can use?
I also want to have individual HDV files for each team, to the point that the speed in talent files is irrelevant, where I could have everyone on 50 and have a true pecking order. Peterchen told me about a year ago some of the values from the rFactor HDV files that would make a car fast or a car slow. Would this have the same relevance in rF2? And I also want to do more than just making the front running car fast and the backmarker car like 4 secs off the pace. I'd like to make it so particular cars understeer/oversteer more, have more of a difference in the way each car handles, like in real F1, which would make it so on one type of track a car is quick but on another a car is slow. Is there anywhere I can find out what every single value in the HDV file does? And I'm not talking just HDVs, I'm talking engine as well, eg. making an engine have more power than another and making them more reliable/less reliable without touching the AvgLifetimeVar etc values.
Finally is it possible to make cars have metallic paint, like it was in rFactor? I know it's possible to make cars chrome but is it possible to make some parts of them metallic?
