SHO Competition AI V14

- Anderstorp GP 2003 is especially broken in regards to AI qualifying fast but racing slow

- I've been testing with Specials NGT's 2004 cars

- Go ahead and qualify mid-pack in a grid of 30-ish on a default GTR2 install. Save your session after qualifying so you can return to it, below. You'll notice you can probably win the entire race easily.

- Now, apply SHO Competition AI changes, and then apply this WIP change to G:\Games\GTR2AI\GameData\Locations\Anderstorp\3Anderstorp.AIW:

RaceRatio=(1.3625) // Used to adjust AI speed in race compared to base values

- Reload your session and enter a race. Don't try too hard on the first lap because AI aren't great all bunched up no matter what BUT when you try to push after the first lap notice how much harder they are to keep up to and pass. You'll really have to work at it and if you've qualified mid-pack you shouldn't be able to win the race at least not within 20 minutes or so (ie. a sprint race).

- This is such a good result that it's given me even more confidence the original content can be made to exhibit excellent, close, and hard racing.

- I'll be testing some more and releasing again soon, maybe in the next few days, we'll see.

- Enjoy!

This might go unnoticed for previous users of the mod but "AI to AI Collision Rate" should be set back to the default (20).

After some investigating, I decided I wasn't seeing much improvement from any higher values and sometimes I feel like I see worse behaviour.

Now that I've put a few versions out I've noticed my goals in the README are not really representative anymore, so I've rewritten them in a more general way:

- Improving obvious AI flaws on-track such as early braking, slow cornering, bad starts/first corners/first laps, and unrealistic crashes or collisions that all result in race performances that don't accurately represent qualifying performances

- Furthermore, race performance should more closely reflect qualifying performance. With original GTR2 AI, you could start from the back of the field and win quite easily. Instead, the aim here is to ensure you have good, hard racing battles with opponents that qualified with similar laptimes. As such, if you qualify top 5 you might have a chance to win, but if you qualify top 10, it should be very difficult to win outright. That's just realistic. Again, the upside is good, hard battling with AI you are competitive against.

- Tuned UserData PLR "AI Realism" for improved sportsmanship vs Version 3's AI Realism=2.0 which resulted in AI ramming you from behind if you're too slow in a braking zone or corner more than I consider realistic.

- Tuned UserData PLR "AI to AI Collision Rate" after investigating via bisection search and finding it very difficult to tell if higher numbers (theoretically "more aware" AI thus less collisions/crashes) is actually resulting in less collisions or crashes. I did notice less than 20 seemed to cause more issues but higher than 20 didn't seem to cause less issues. I suspect AI behaviour was tuned to 20 rather than the Collision Rate used to tune AI behaviour. So, might as well leave it at default.

- Tuned AI Composure (Talent RCD files) parameter to increase competitiveness of AI in scenarios where passing results in AI falling too far behind to be realistic. Now they fall behind less and tend to keep close for longer. Because you are faster they will fall steadily behind but at least they're not falling seconds behind immediately anymore. This isn't a perfect fix or improvement but I think it's good enough for now and I'll return to it later after tuning more areas.

While I'm making new releases quickly the changes might effectively amount to a single line in the PLR changing, as it was in the V3 release.

I'm doing it this way because the amount of testing required for even that change is significant and I need to make sure it's okay before I move on.

If it bothers you just ignore these updates for a while and come back in a few days or weeks and there will be more significant changes accumulated.

I suspect within a month or so I won't be releasing so frequently, as well, as I'll have exhausted my ideas.

- Improved AI aggression so they're less intimidated by your movements when you're beside them and tend not to just fall behind if you pressure them when they're on an equal performance level. This was just setting AI Realism so there might be room for further improvement using Talent RCD configuration in the future.

- Investigated but no change to slow cornering as it seems to have been specific to one car/track combo which I suspect has AIW issues with driver lines

- Since rebooting SHO Competition AI I'm planning to start from basics and work from the ground up

- The good news is that will mean quick/quicker releases at least for the first few iterations while I have ideas and energy

- The bad news means it won't be optimal in all areas right from version 1

- I have future release plans, also recorded in the README, regarding improving cornering speed, AI being too nice (ie. tune in proper amount of aggression), dealing with some tracks that just have subpar racing lines, AI <= 95 not using full throttle, etc.

- I'll try to tackle and release them one-by-one so it's easier to get it right (not too much testing each time) and to have the confidence the foundations are good enough to do more advanced work on

- Tuning UserData PLR AI Brake Power and AI Brake Grip params for alleviating early braking by AI

- Tuning Talent RCD files for AI slow start, slow first corner, slow first lap

This release is a reboot of the mod starting from basics, modifying just a few AI parameters in your UserData PLR. This release keeps things simple by starting off with just a couple of goals. Future goals will be implemented in subsequent versions but this will allow a stable foundation to build off for now.