PC1 pCARS AI a bit "exuberant" at the start and in close racing

[Sk3ptik0n]

I just did a new clean install of pCARS since I wanted to make sure I was getting the unadulterated last build (jan 16 2015) . I am really impressed by some of the cars and even as very low settings the game looks great on my rig.

However, I eventually did a couple of races and SPA and Hockenheim and I was a bit disturbed by the AI behaviour.

Putting it as plain as I can, the cars around me at the start and in packs during the race behave more like a bunch of 13 years old on Open Servers than even the most unruly league I have ever raced with, let alone RL racing.

At the start, (100% strength) the cars behind me drove as if I weren't there. If a car in front slowed down and I could pass it, I had 100% chance of getting hit hard from behind.

meanwhile, other cars were cutting corners, going on Sunday drives until they hit the barriers, then rejoining at an angle without caring about the other cars on track. The better behaved AI simply shifted from right to left and back through SPA's top straight, sometimes wrecking other cars or simply losing control and smashing against the barriers in what seemed to be a crazy way to find a hole in the pack. That may be OK up to T1 at the start, but for the entire race?

To me the effect looked more like what racing is in the mind of a pre-teen than real life.

No driver, regardless of type of racing, would simply take over by pushing the car in front off track. Cars that wasted time hitting barriers, came back with a vengeance and solidly hit me in the middle of a turn.

Once I made a great pass on another car while blocking the inside line for it. No problem, the other car simply drove on the grass, lost time because of bumps and grass, so it simply rejoined the track by T-boning me and sending me against another barrier.

I know the there is still time until release, but I am a bit concerned. Concerned that I won't be able to enjoy my SP races, but also concerned that a log of kids will buy this game and seeing how the AI races, they will rightly decide that it is the right way to do it.

Anyone else have had this experience or am I missing some magic setting in the AI panel? I left it at default because I figured most people will do the same.

 

[William Wester]

I can't speak for the combo (car, track, settings, etc.) that you tried but last night (latest build) I had the best couple of single player races I have ever had in pCARS. Up till last night, I have not tried the career mode much at all so thought it was time to give it a go. The career mode I chose started with the Clio Cup cars - practice, time trial, and 2 race set. The AI was competitive and aware/respectful of my position. There was a little paint rubbing/bumps and bruises but nothing so dramatic to get me off track. It was fun, and gave me hope that pCARS will deliver.

 

[William Wester]

For what it's worth:

Project Cars AI race

 

[lionofjudah72]

Hey Gents
Can I download this game? And where? On steam?

I just watched that LMP2 race on you tube. Wow. I would like to try it.

On Steam, I can only preorder it. So must I wait till March?

 

[Sk3ptik0n]

I forgot to mention that my last race where the AI misbehaved was at SPA with GT3 cars at 100%. Maybe 100% is too much?
Another thing that worries me is that I am far from an alien. If I can compete against the AI at 100% what are the faster guys going to do?

Anyway, I'll see if I can recreate it and shoot some video of it.

As for the preceding post, yes, you'll have to wait until March. But it's not that far away.

 

[Gpruitt54]

Hey Gents
Can I download this game? And where? On steam?

I just watched that LMP2 race on you tube. Wow. I would like to try it.

On Steam, I can only preorder it. So must I wait till March?

I have been asking this question for a long time. It appears that at one point, Project Cars was available to the public or was provided on disk through other means (CES, etc). Don't know how long ago that was. But, currently, I think it is only available on Torrents.

I've recently gotten my hands on the game and am now evaluating it in what seems to be clearly a pre-release. Even so, the game is, without doubt the best looking racing game I have ever seen on PC. night, day, rain and fog, all look truly amazing, and the cars look equally beautiful and seem to have astounding handling and tire modeling.

But, in the build I have, the IA drivers are freaking NUTS! They will plow into curbing, each other, and you like nothing I have ever seen. The nut-job AI is only a little better at lower opponent strength settings. God knows, we all hope this will be a massive fix in the final release.

 

[Robert Bachmayer]

yep i agree with you personally love the bac mono at bathurst.
now for your sins prepare to be flogged

 

[bmanic]

I forgot to mention that my last race where the AI misbehaved was at SPA with GT3 cars at 100%. Maybe 100% is too much?
Another thing that worries me is that I am far from an alien. If I can compete against the AI at 100% what are the faster guys going to do?

Anyway, I'll see if I can recreate it and shoot some video of it.

As for the preceding post, yes, you'll have to wait until March. But it's not that far away.

100% is crazy much for the AI speed. They are really fast and really aggressive at that setting. It's basically alien speed combined with massive aggression.. and it causes some issues. Personally I find a setting of around 90% to be quite good for the GT3 cars. Also try to respect the cars like they would be real players. You'll have a much better game if you do that.

Like this guy does:

 

[SwaggerJacker]

The AI are terrible. Perhaps it depends on the tracks and car type, not sure. But they are really, really bad. I'm having to drive off line to keep from being sent into the air by the AI.

 

[William Wester]

Seeing that pCARS is in development it would be good to clarify comments like "The AI are terrible". Which cars, track, level, etc?
I just finished a Clio Cup championship race (two race set) and raced door to door with the AI, no problems. I haven't raced all the possibilities, and there are many, so I assume some tracks/cars/AI are good some are not.

 

[SwaggerJacker]

Seeing that pCARS is in development it would be good to clarify comments like "The AI are terrible". Which cars, track, level, etc?
I just finished a Clio Cup championship race (two race set) and raced door to door with the AI, no problems. I haven't raced all the possibilities, and there are many, so I assume some tracks/cars/AI are good some are not.

Youre right. I drove the Formula Rookie. I also drove the M3 E30. The E30 I drove on Road Atlanta. That was a nightmare. I aslo drove the F3 at Imola. Of course the first turn was havoc. The rest of the race wasn't too bad. The AI performed much better. But man, those first few turns have you cringing.

Steve

 

[lionofjudah72]

without doubt the best looking racing game I have ever seen on PC. night, day, rain and fog, all look truly amazing, and the cars look equally beautiful and seem to have astounding handling and tire modeling.

 

[lionofjudah72]

without doubt the best looking racing game I have ever seen on PC. night, day, rain and fog, all look truly amazing, and the cars look equally beautiful and seem to have astounding handling and tire modeling.

I would love to test the game today. But I will wait. And yes totally agree with you on this..

 

[William Néron]

Well the AI will get better before release for sure. I think I read somwhere that the AI is calibrated based on car physics, so as long as those are not done, the AI will misbehave.

I myself tried the Kart 125cc in Career and the AI is over agressive (A.k.a Heading for walls of not each others), but it is different from track to track, some make for great racing, others would make good Circus show.

 

[Sk3ptik0n]

I have been doing more testing in career mode with the FC. Unfortunately, while a lot of the AI behaves quite nice in certain conditions, some of the AI are just terrible.

Almost every track with an airpin, you will see F3 cars cutting the track inside the kerb. Right on the grass. At Snetterton in T2 is a free for all. I got punted by a car that tried to jump the round high thing inside of the kerb (I am sure it has a name, but I don't know what it is.). I cannot imagine a real F3 driver want to thrash their car in that way, nor I can imagine the carnage of F3 cars bumping and grinding as if it was WTTC.

In addition, agan at Snetterton (96% and 93%) there are turns where instead the AI simply slows down without reason while keeping the racing line busy. I did the same race in GT3 and it was much better. The big to grinding was not excessive, but in Open Wheel cars it would be a disaster in real life. Note that this is now about a month from the official release (twice postponed already).

 

[Kyle Pearson]

There have been a few posts around about the AI, mainly from the stolen/leaked build which was from back in October. I did a quick video to show what to expect from the AI behavior shown above.

NOTE: This is a replay and shows a replay issue with gear changes (i.e. the gear display and animations are not in sync). SMS is fully aware of the issue.

 

[Msportdan]

They need to sort out that thing when cars go under other cars. I have the dodgy build (yes I've preordered it) and Watkins at the first 2 turns are a Ai nightmare. Seemed a little improved if not entirely fixed here. Also did the merc dtm at silveratone and I think all the cars crashed and was limping around.

Yes the Ai are good at some tracks. GT at road America was awesome

But flip side try the escorts at cadwell a disaster.

To hear that a month out and there's still these issues around is a little worrying.

Rf2 has me spoilt for great Ai.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

I have the dodgy build (yes I've preordered it) and Watkins at the first 2 turns are a Ai nightmare. Seemed a little improved if not entirely fixed here.

The things you have in the old build aren't there any longer. You have to understand that during the development phases, they were constantly breaking things to check/test other aspects. It's part of development which is why getting a hold of an early build doesn't necessarily show you what's to be expected.

There were many builds over the years which were just flat out unusable in certain aspects as SMS rolled out new functionality or wanted to test alternate implementations. That's development. So getting a hold of a single build in the middle of all that and thinking that's all the final will ever be is going to be very misleading.

 

[Msportdan]

I totally agree, I never said I expected my build to be representative of the final product im not stupid. But looking at the few videos above, supposedly from more recent builds I see some things that I noticed in my old build. The lmp vid where the first corner a ai ends up under one car.0:45 to be exact.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

The lmp vid where the first corner a ai ends up under one car.0:45 to be exact.

That's a collision model thing, not related to AI (i.e. you could see that in a MP race if a player rear-ended another player). Since the damage model isn't really "soft body" physics where the front would likely crumble before it scoops the other car, this can happen. SMS made a pass at most of the collision models to help with the "scooping" this past week, but there may be some that can still happen. I say maybe as I haven't seen it myself recently, but I won't claim it doesn't still exist as it's a result of other factors.

FWIW, this has been in just about every PC sim since SCGT. What modders had done in the past is basically make the front of the car a "wall" or "square" for the collision data which had other side effects.