F1 2010 Spain Catalunya : Hard AI

[Ryan Vickery]

Just drove this circuit at my 2nd season, driving for force india with expert settings/legend ai. I qualified with a 1.22.6 which gave me 4th place.

Started the race and managed to sneak my way into 3rd by some luck as button spun off the track, was only a 20 lap race and i was pitting at lap 6, held my 3rd place until i went into the pits, came out in 20th with the prime tyres on, my pit stop was under 4seconds, and i was not held up.

With pitstops adjusted i had gone from 3rd place to 11th and despite me beating my fastest lap on almost every lap (in the low 1.23's) i was still not even able to come close to the top 10 again. Petrov was the 10th place driver and he was pulling times in the low 1.21's this is faster than the lap record, and over a second faster than the fastest car in qualifying.

I won the previous 4 races quite comfortably, qualifying in 4th, 1st, 1st, 2nd and then 4th again at Spain. Despite a decent qualifying, decent pit strategy and racing my heart out harder than i had at other races i was not able to compete with the raw speed of the other cars.




The point of the thread is, this is 1 track out of 19 where the AI are extremely fast, as there arent any areas of the track where the AI goes slow. If this trend was displayed throughout all the tracks and the qualifying adjusted accordingly i honestly cant see how anyone will be winning championships on expert/legend before driving for a top 3 team.

 

[Rob Harpum]

I noticed this as well , i too have gone expert/legend and am driving with zero aids and in the cockpit with no on screen data at all , makes a much more immersive game IMHO ..
I came 1st , 1st , 2nd , 1st in my first races but came last in barcelona .. i was in 3rd place come the pitstops but then emerged last behind trulli my team mate , who was then pulling 1 second a lap quicker than me , despite me banging in quioker and quicker laps .. Bit frustrating really

 

[Ralf Oeser]

Hi,
i am driving without any driving aids (except automatic gearbox) and legend ai.
first 4 races i was always first or second (in qualy and race) but now barcelona - no way to reach top ten times.
my teammate vettel makes low 1:22 times but i have to fight to reach low 1:25 lap times
i am loosing all the time in second sector of the lap, i am purple in the first one and may loose 0.3 seconds in the third one but do not understand how i could loose that much in the 2nd.
so, you are not alone

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

With autogears you will loose a lot of time in some sectors because you are basically in the wrong gear (too high)

 

[Anthony Lucas]

Catalunya is the pain in my F1 calender i hate the track i am always braking too much or too little and loosing valuable time for it and the AI are really good on it when i do get a 1:25: which is the fastest ive done they all get 3 secs more everytime it is such an annoyance and guess what its the next track in my season there will be alot of swearing at the tv tonight lol

 

[MarkVenom]

Hey guys,

I have to agree with all of the above statements. I also agre with Bram about the autoshifting. And although that being said I still am a firm believer, that one should be able to manually downshift even if autoshifting is enabled. At least the GP series always allowed that for obvious reasons(driving too high gears etc.) I would like to point out, that Suzuka and South Korea(sector 3) are also very itchy on autoshifting unless one adjusts the gears for those problem corners. However......in Barcelona?? Forget it!! The AI is totally out of control there. In 90% of the cases regardless of the car the GP of Spain is not winnable no matter how fast or steady one drives. This needs adjustment right away. When I hit Spain in my calendar during my career I just crash the car and move on. That track is a waste of time. And don't start me with AI drivers not pitting.......Codemasters work fast on that patch please!!

Greetings

 

[ERIXON]

I wanna ask, How to exit pit quicker?
I always finished to change tires and still stuck at the pit.
Should I press B or Gas when I using Xbox360 controller?

Thanks all

 

[ChaosSs]

Don't worry on Montreal AI's very very very slow so it's pretty fair.

 

[Jebstone]

Montreal's AI is broken slow. I am setting a pole lap by over a second and a half in a Virgin

I had to purposely neuter my setup and car to a wet setup with cruise engine mapping to keep me around where I should be (For the sake of realism)

 

[Anthony Lucas]

yeah i notice that too on montreal the AI is useless on it i just drove the track slower for the sake of competition theres no challenge on that track but catalunya is madness i started in pole postion luckily because the qualys were in heavy rain and still only finished last i pit in early to avoid the bug was first when i pit in was last on the way out and had to scrap to get in the top 10 luckily the teams under me for the constructor championship finished below me too and i am still top but with a slender lead of 3 points its a pointless race to drive on unless in the top tier cars like RBR or McClaren Ferrari etc

 

[chris_dx49]

yeah agree with everyone about spain and canada. i was playing with fuel and tire sim on and winning races with the lotus in my first year untill spain were i finished 15th and monoco were i finished 12th so i turned fuel and tire sim off and i was back to my winning ways. i dont know what settings to use, its either to hard or too easy. i dont like things to be too hard but i like to feel like i've "won" and not just cruised about ya know

 

[Gonira]

i play in professional ai difficulty, but change it to amateur in spain, intermediate in monaco/silverstone and legend in canada. it doesn't help too much. surprisingly, canada on legend is still easier than spain on amateur. imho these inconsistencies are the biggest bug of career mode, it's the one that most drastically affects gameplay. it's not just spain and canada, these are only the extremes, ai difficulty is track based in this game. i really hope this is solved by the patch, it's the closest to a game breaker that i met so far.

 

[Anthony Lucas]

i dont mind that the ai are better on some tracks as no one is great on every track some drivers drive better on certain tracks and others dont i just grit my teeth hard and move on but it is frustrating dont get me wrong and i have never won on spain best finish 5th thats it monaco 6th but i cant drive the track properly.

Suzuka i cant break into the top 8 havent done so in the last two seasons. Season 1 i finished 12th and season 2 i finished 9th so that has to be my worst track also shanghai is abit of a nuisance i cant get first place closest is 2nd but thats F1 for you cant win em all just have to smile and carry on lol

 

[Gonira]

i dont mind that the ai are better on some tracks as no one is great on every track some drivers drive better on certain tracks and others dont

but it's nothing like that. no matter how much you practice and get good at spain, you'll never win. this doesn't match real life. for example, a lot of people say ai in sakhir is not difficult, but i struggle because i drive awfully there, so i lose, this is fair and it's just like you said. catalunya is a different thing, it's the track where i believe i drive my best, it is very familiar to me because of forza 3, i drive smoothly and consistently there (not so fast like most of you, but faster than i drive in the other tracks). so i shouldn't be 24th there every single time, this is not realistic when i get podiums in spa, it just doesn't reflect my relative skill track to track.

other thing is that the difference in pace between spain and canada is probably larger than 5 seconds per lap. this is absurdely huge. no one is 5 seconds slower because he's struggling with a track.

nice to hear this issue doesn't hurt your fun, anthony, but it does kill mine. if i could choose between fixing all the other bugs without adressing this one or fixing only these ai inconsistencies, i'd get the latter (but would still be crying for split times, lol).

 

[imacken]

I don't understand what some of you guys are saying about Spain. I mean, the real qualy times were 1:20-1:23, so I don't see what the problem is. I am into the early 1:24s after only an hour or so practice in GP mode in my Sauber.

 

[Ryan Vickery]

I don't understand what some of you guys are saying about Spain. I mean, the real qualy times were 1:20-1:23, so I don't see what the problem is. I am into the early 1:24s after only an hour or so practice in GP mode in my Sauber.

Firstly, GP mode is a lot different to Career mode, the cars are fully developed with perfect engines, so they are faster. Secondly you're talking about practice, imagine being in the race with a full tank of fuel and the other drivers are pulling laptimes faster than qualifying while you are struggling with a heavy car and needing to look after your tyres. Imagine driving clean personal best laps everylap and holding a 3rd position to then pitstop and come out in 20th, then even after all the other cars have done their pitstop you're in a 11th, with the car in front of you lapping 2 seconds faster, faster than your qualifying time, faster than the pole position qualifying time.

That is Spain on career mode. Its great, the biggest challenge in the game, but its probably a little over the top compared to the other tracks.

 

[Jo3f1sh]

I had a hard time believing the claims of the AI being too fast at Catalunya. I was top ten in the Lotus for every practice session and managed a 7th place qualifying. All of this on legend AI, no assists. Then came the race. 26 laps. Apparently, someone threw a lead weight in my car during the pit stop, because afterward, I was stone last and losing ground to everyone. Experiencing this firsthand, I'll agree with the claims.

Also, apparently it was all sector 2 as I was purple in 1 and 3. On the main straight, though, I was slower by an easy 10 mph.

Oh, and to add to the bug list, I finished 22nd almost a lap down, but somehow managed to win the race over a lap ahead of everyone according to the game...*sigh* RESTART.

 

[imacken]

Firstly, GP mode is a lot different to Career mode, the cars are fully developed with perfect engines, so they are faster. Secondly you're talking about practice, imagine being in the race with a full tank of fuel and the other drivers are pulling laptimes faster than qualifying while you are struggling with a heavy car and needing to look after your tyres. Imagine driving clean personal best laps everylap and holding a 3rd position to then pitstop and come out in 20th, then even after all the other cars have done their pitstop you're in a 11th, with the car in front of you lapping 2 seconds faster, faster than your qualifying time, faster than the pole position qualifying time.

Well, I hear what you say, and I'm just coming to Spain in career mode, so I'll check it then.
However, I don't think that your experience is unique to Spain. I had the exact same thing in China. I was holding 3rd or 4th quite happily several times (restarts!) with no-one visible behind, until I went in for tyres. When I emerged, I ended up in around 20th place and never really recovered. Might get back up to 15th or 16th, but that was it. Sounds very similar to your Spain experience.

 

[Ryan Vickery]

Perhaps, but i've not had any issues with other tracks, i won every race up to that point without too much difficulty, where at spain it really is not possible to win, unless you're in a Top 3 car (something i've not tried yet) or you turn off tyre/fuel sim (this will make you fast enough in any car).

China for me was quite nice, i qualified 1st and won the race with a decent lead, expert mode so no aids and all sims on, at spain that left me in 11th, and the cars behind were very close. This was quite a while ago now, to be fair ^^.

 

[imacken]

OK, I see what you mean now about Spain. Even just in practice in career mode, it is like a block of lead has been dumped in the car!
I am struggling in the 1:26s now (1:24 in GP mode.) Although my Sauber is not bad in corners, the straight line speed is a joke! Even with no wings and gearing optimised, I am reaching about 175mph at the end of the main straight with my team mate just flying past! Incidentally, so does Chandock, Trulli et al.
I don't think it's so much that the AI is too fast, it's that my car is way too slow.