DumbAI

DumbAIMisc  1.1.2

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Dumb AI Settings

Settings are avaible at the start of each session, in the setup menu

DumbAI_settings.webp


- Default Tyre Compound = replace the default tyre compound of CSP. This means that if you choose "Soft" and start a session under rain conditions, if the track dries enough, AI will get back to pits and mount its softest tyre compound. DumbAI assumes that tyres compounds are ranged from the softest to the hardest, removing Wet Tyres from the list. It is not the case for all cars so check it carefully.

- Qualifying Behavior = in a Qualify session, each AI randomly waits a bit (beween 0 and 30 sec) before going on track, then makes a maximum of 3 laps and goes back to pit to change tyres to its softest compound before making another run, until the session ends.

- Pit strategy =

- Vanilla AC = as the name says, just the original pit stop strategy behavior

- Tyres Change only = AI gets back to pits to change its tyres when one of them reaches the red level of vanilla AC UI tyre wear. Refuel is not allowed and an AI "running out of fuel" procedure is added by DumbAI. Take care of your race configuration ! Body (front and rear) damages and Suspension damage are also taken into account and can trigger a pitstop.

- Tyres & Refuel = AI gets back to pits to change its tyres when one of them reaches the red level of vanilla AC UI tyre wear and/or if fuel level goes too low. Fuel strategy is recomputed dynamically during race. Body (front and rear) damages and Suspension damage are also taken into account and can trigger a pitstop.

- Mandatory Mixed Compounds w/ or w/o Refuel = AI has to change its compounds at least once during the race. Refuel allowed or not. Body (front and rear) damages and Suspension damage are also taken into account and can trigger a pitstop.

- Mandatory Refuel = AI has to refuel at least once during the race. Changing tyres is allowed. Body (front and rear) damages and Suspension damage are also taken into account and can trigger a pitstop.



- Qualifying and Alternate strategies =

- AI is allowed to adapt its race strategy by choosing randomly between a softer or harder tyre compound than default (if they exist).

- Fuel strategy is adjusted accordingly to the new tyre compound, e.g. an AI with one expected pitstop due to refuel will make a longer first run if it has chosen a harder compound and a shorter one thereafter.

- Alternate Mandatory Refuel strategy makes AI with softer compounds make a supplementary pit stop whereas AI with harder compounds at start will adjust their first run accordingly.

- Taking grid position into account in alternate strategies means that lower half tier AI under alternate strategy will lean to choose the harder compound and stop later in the race whereas top half tier AI under alternate strategy will lean to softer compounds choices.


- Blue flag behavior = "None" is the vanilla CSP behavior (nothing happens when an AI is outlapped), "Activated" makes outlapped AI make a lateral move and slow down to let leaders pass and modifies also outlapping AI agression.

- Detailed settings =
- Various values to try to enhance blue flag behavior, except for Rain threshold which is there to match CSP behavior. Not sure how it overrides it if you select higher value than the (unkown to me) vanilla CSP rain threshold but ensures you can make them pit earlier if you feel the first drop of rain should quickly trigger pit stops.

- The other values may be modified to explore which Blue Flag Behavior would suit best to your current cars/track combo. The aggression value for outlapping is set by AI Caution in the detailed settings. Be careful: the lower the value, the more aggressive behavior from outlapping AI but also the more accident incidence !

- Default values are from my own but limited experience. You can modify them directly in the lua code if you find that other default values would be more suitable to your combos.


Dumb AI settings file system
The load and save buttons in the app allows to use a file system with files that are saved in or loaded from the /settings folder of the app.

DumbAI_settings_files.webp


The file system is based on .ini format. You can modify values directly in the file or you can use the app, load a strategy, modify it and save it under another filename.

ini.webp


Base.txt is a simple line that makes DumbAI loads a particular .ini at start so that you can just make your car settings as usual and launch the race without having to tweak DumbAI. Please note that you have to modify only the right part of the line and match exactly the filename you want as base, without the ".ini" extension.

base.webp





Dumb AI in game windows


DumbAI_UI.webp

You can open Dumb AI Race engineer by clicking on the "ill robot" icon on the app list. It provides information about the current selected driver and also about the next three drivers ahead and behind you.

In case of Dumb AI bugs, you can also open the lua debugger and open Dumb AI lua app debugger there. The app throws here some messages from time to time (so that I can check that the code does what it should do) and it is also here that you can check lua errors that may be rised in red during your bug, so that you can copy it and send it to me with your bug context report.
 
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ancient_3 updated DumbAI with a new update entry:

new UI and new pit stop strategy

Dumb AI 0.1

new UI:
  • DumbAI parametrization can be done on the setup menu before the race
  • main Window while racing or replay serves only to look at different track & variables to check for model logic ; it is deactivated by default
  • DumbAI logs are shown in the lua debugger

new functionalities and bug corrections:
  • sliders are now correctly connected to model variables
  • all AI cars put selected tyres at the start
  • enhancement of Blue Flag behavior with a...
Click to expand...

Read the rest of this update entry...
 
ancient_3 updated DumbAI with a new update entry:

qualifying & alternate strategy

Changelog:

New functionalities:
- qualifying session: AI waits for a random amount of time before going out on track, then run 3-4 laps (depending of pit location against the finish line) and go back to pit to wait 60 seconds before going out for another run

- alternate pitstop strategy: if Mixed Compound selected, alternate pitstop strategy reverse the strategy for the last quarter qualified -> those AI start with the harder compound and pit at 2/3rd of the race

Small things:
  • ...
Click to expand...

Read the rest of this update entry...
 
Hi, not really in this 0.2 version but if you untick Qualifying behavior and keep Normal pit strategy, then you should only have the blue flag behavior (and the AI starting tyres set to what you chose, softer by default).

The Normal pit strategy should not work, it is based on tyreWear with a threshold of 0.9 that AI should never attain in fact. So it should not override normal AC/CSP behavior.

I'm working on 0.3 version where I'll add fuel management and debug this normal pitstop strategy but also add a kill switch for every functionalities of the app, like @fto_10 also proposed. In the end, I think I'll use a small .ini where any users will be able to write which functionnalities he wants at start of the app so that it is done once for good.

It takes a little time because I want AI to be able to assess during the race when to change tyres correctly and when to go refuel and adapt its global initial strategy for the whole race.
 
Hey ancient_3

First all your mod is really awesome and makes a lot bettter racing with AI. I really appriciate the effort and it become a mandatory add-on for me.

I am wondering in the future do you think it is posssible to make pit-stop strategy for the AI fuel based in order to replocate race for 1994-2009 era?

I would really love that and hope that this is somethingh that you can add so AI would run 1-or 2 stops based on theirr fuel level.

Again thanks for the hard work and I really hope this project will be continued
 
Philip00
Hey ancient_3

First all your mod is really awesome and makes a lot bettter racing with AI. I really appriciate the effort and it become a mandatory add-on for me.

I am wondering in the future do you think it is posssible to make pit-stop strategy for the AI fuel based in order to replocate race for 1994-2009 era?

I would really love that and hope that this is somethingh that you can add so AI would run 1-or 2 stops based on theirr fuel level.

Again thanks for the hard work and I really hope this project will be continued
Click to expand...
Thank you !

What are the rules for this 94-09 era ? They must pit at least once in the race to refuel and it is possible for them to change tyres while refueling ? Do they have some pitstop to change only the tyres ?

I would like to use the next update to clean up things about pitstop strategy.

I selected 5 theoretical cases:
  • case 1: no pit stops, either for fuel or tyres. AI must do the race with initial fuel amount and tyres
  • case 2: free pit stops for tyres but no pitstop for fuel. AI can pit stop when it wants according to tyre wear thresholds given by the app but can not refuel.
  • case 3: free pit stops for fuel and tyres. AI can pit stop when it wants according to tyre wear & fuel level thresholds given by the app.
  • case 4: 1 mandatory pit stop to change tyres compound with no refuel (current F1 rules I believe). AI must pit stop at least once and must have used two compounds in the race. AI must do the race with initial fuel amount.
  • case 5: 1 mandatory pit stop to refuel. AI must pit stop at least once to refuel, can use whatever tyre compound it wants in the race.

All cases look easy to read but are sometimes more complex to implement :-) in any case except case 1, AI must be able to assess its tyre wear and grip and project its fuel consumption with many intermediate cases once the mandatory pit stop have been done . Case 3 is in fact more complex than it seems and I have to deal with original AC /CSP behaviour in any cases... ;-)
 
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ancient_3
Thank you !

What are the rules for this 94-09 era ? They must pit at least once in the race to refuel and it is possible for them to change tyres while refueling ? Do they have some pitstop to change only the tyres ?

I would like to use the next update to clean up things about pitstop strategy.

I selected 5 theoretical cases:
  • case 1: no pit stops, either for fuel or tyres. AI must do the race with initial fuel amount and tyres
  • case 2: free pit stops for tyres but no pitstop for fuel. AI can pit stop when it wants according to tyre wear thresholds given by the app but can not refuel.
  • case 3: free pit stops for fuel and tyres. AI can pit stop when it wants according to tyre wear & fuel level thresholds given by the app.
  • case 4: 1 mandatory pit stop to change tyres compound with no refuel (current F1 rules I believe). AI must pit stop at least once and must have used two compounds in the race. AI must do the race with initial fuel amount.
  • case 5: 1 mandatory pit stop to refuel. AI must pit stop at least once to refuel, can use whatever tyre compound it wants in the race.

All cases look easy to read but are sometimes more complex to implement :-) in any case except case 1, AI must be able to assess its tyre wear and grip and project its fuel consumption with many intermediate cases once the mandatory pit stop have been done . Case 3 is in fact more complex than it seems and I have to deal with original AC /CSP behaviour in any cases... ;-)
Click to expand...
These are awesome scenarios!


More precisely, between 1994 and 2004 (in 2005 you could only change tires if they were heavily damaged, in 2006 it was similar to 1994–2004, and from 2007–2009 it became closer to the modern era—if you’re interested, I can elaborate on those as well), pit stops were primarily determined by fuel level. Since the fuel tank size was reduced, it wasn’t possible to fill enough fuel to run the entire race, so at least one mandatory stop was required.


During refueling, teams would also change the tires. In terms of compounds, there were only Soft and Hard options. Teams were free to choose which compound to start the race with, but they had to use that same compound for the entire race. Tires were much more durable back then, so fuel strategy dictated the pit stops. Some drivers stopped once, others twice, and in certain cases even three times. Choosing a two-stop strategy gave you a weight advantage compared to those doing a single stop, which created incredibly interesting strategic battles.


Regarding setup, I was thinking it would be great if you could define percentages for strategies—for example, 40% one-stop, 60% two-stop, or even 40% one-stop, 40% two-stop, 20% three-stop—so the game could randomly assign fuel strategies for each driver. Another nice feature would be the ability to set the strategy individually for AI drivers, allowing unique fuel plans for each race.


These are just ideas, and I know it’s much easier to talk about them than to actually implement them. Unfortunately, my coding skills are nowhere near yours, but I’d be happy to help with testing if you want.

Let me know if you need any more info and thanks for hearing me out I really appriciate it.
 
Philip00
These are awesome scenarios!


More precisely, between 1994 and 2004 (in 2005 you could only change tires if they were heavily damaged, in 2006 it was similar to 1994–2004, and from 2007–2009 it became closer to the modern era—if you’re interested, I can elaborate on those as well), pit stops were primarily determined by fuel level. Since the fuel tank size was reduced, it wasn’t possible to fill enough fuel to run the entire race, so at least one mandatory stop was required.


During refueling, teams would also change the tires. In terms of compounds, there were only Soft and Hard options. Teams were free to choose which compound to start the race with, but they had to use that same compound for the entire race. Tires were much more durable back then, so fuel strategy dictated the pit stops. Some drivers stopped once, others twice, and in certain cases even three times. Choosing a two-stop strategy gave you a weight advantage compared to those doing a single stop, which created incredibly interesting strategic battles.


Regarding setup, I was thinking it would be great if you could define percentages for strategies—for example, 40% one-stop, 60% two-stop, or even 40% one-stop, 40% two-stop, 20% three-stop—so the game could randomly assign fuel strategies for each driver. Another nice feature would be the ability to set the strategy individually for AI drivers, allowing unique fuel plans for each race.


These are just ideas, and I know it’s much easier to talk about them than to actually implement them. Unfortunately, my coding skills are nowhere near yours, but I’d be happy to help with testing if you want.

Let me know if you need any more info and thanks for hearing me out I really appriciate it.
Click to expand...
I'll be more than happy to have some feedback from your tests. In fact, most of my time is spent testing , which is not always easy if the problem occurs in a part of the race that need some time to reach: takes a lot of time to get there and understand what's happening.

I have refactored the code this week-end and now I'm gradually introducing the functionalities step by step. Plenty of problems are low level and comes from the interaction with "natural" AC/CSP behavior.

For example, I spent some time on the qualifying session , which is easier to test for basic functionalities. So I can safely say that, apart from the start of the session where I was not successful to overide AC/CSP behavior, we may have qualifying sessions where the AI checks for rain and goes back to pits if weather has changed, is sure to get the softest compound when track is dry or wet tyres when track is wet and goes out for only 3 laps and then get back to pits to change tyres (if weather has not changed before the end of these 3 laps).

AC/CSP has already a random distribution for AI starts (cars are blocked for a definite amount of time and not available with lua) so this should be sufficient to ensure some variability in the session and not have every AI on track at the same time in qualifying. But for example, another issue is that if weather changes while AI is going out from pits with the wrong tyres, it will get teleported back to the pit to change its tyres as long as it is not out of the pitlane. I suppose it is linked to the physics.setAIPitStopRequest() function behavior in the pitlane, so I may be able to solve it by making a special check but you see the kind of things that happens.

But once AI is on track, it seems one can manage to do many things for pit stop strategy. I have finished the information gathering necessary to compute fuel estimation and tyre wear. I also used random assignation for each AI. So I'm pretty sure it will be possible to have different strategies distributed amongst AI. But have to keep in mind that to make AI able to assess how much time per lap is gained is really difficult so better to think at those AI strategies as "planned templates", similar to weather plans, instead of "intelligent AI strategies". However, it is theoretically possible to include some feedback from tyre wear and fuel consumption while racing and adapt strategies accordingly. Just difficult to code and many low level problems to solve before :-)

I'll try to advance the race session work this week and get it altogether to make a clean new release so that you and others can test
 
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Well I'm a bit less optimistic since I spent hours trying to understand why AI kept pitting sometimes, whatever my lua code. In fact, reading the CSP logs, the unexpected pit in qualify was due to AI that had low fuel. I didn't expected that because I ran the test with fuel consumption at 0. Seems AC/CSP keeps hand on some specific elements, such as fuel management for example. And if AC/CSP triggers a pit stop, you can't override it in the current CSP version 0.3.0.140

While testing the Qualify session, I was able to fill the tank with setCarFuel, get the computed tank level with statecar::fuel with the good consumption rate for computation, but I still had one AI pitting too early in its Qualify run. And when checking the CSP log, it seems the lua modifications can't override the native behavior of CSP/AC: it keeps its initial fuel estimate for tank filling and make AI pit just as if you made nothing, including if you selected fuel consumption rate of 0 in CM, they keep consuming fuel whereas the lua access tells you the tank level is constant ...

For Dumb AI, let's say that trying to implement a particular pit strategy will be useless if AC/CSP keeps messing with its own fuel estimates that you can not override.

As a consequence, for the next release, instead of adding new pit strategy stuff , I'll wrap up properly the blue flag behavior and the tyres compound management, which work well. And then wait for updates or explanations that would solve those issues about fuel...
 
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Hey ancient just a qq, does it work also with lower CSP versions? I am playing 0.2.7 but I cant make the app work.

Thanks in advance

EDIT: nvm I found what was the issue, I guess the mod which I am playing with has reserve Tire compund index hence when I select Soft in the app the AI select Hard and vica versa.
 
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Hello Philip,

Yes the app is built with logical hard indexes for tyres, 0 being soft and n-1 being the hardest , the last one "n" being always the wet tyres in CSP. I did not find easily a way to work with short or long tyres names but may have a look later.

I'm developping it with CSP 0.3.0.140.

I know it is very annoying to always have to update to new versions but there are important fixes in the lua sdk in these 0.3 updates.

For example, iirc, the function to set AI go to pit was dysfunctionnal in some of the former CSP versions, hence DumbAI may not work correctly with older versions of CSP.

I'll add a new update of the app just after this post ;-)
 
ancient_3 updated DumbAI with a new update entry:

complete code refactoring

Changelog:

- major code refactoring: everything decided at the bot level has been implemented in the bot class so that methods can easily access a common memory of what is happening during the race for the bot. Takes a bit longer to compute at each frame but huge improvement for implementation of more complex adaptative strategies in the future.

- Default tyre compound: default value is now the second tyre compound, usually medium.

- Qualifying behavior: is...
Click to expand...

Read the rest of this update entry...
 
I tried the new version of the app and I like it really much but I cant figure out something.

I did a test run with f1 1992 ASR mod and set the race for 20 laps. After 14 laps Mansell and Senna reached the lapping cars but they were not slow down/not moved away from the leading car, and the behaviour looked for me the vanila AC one.

Could the issue that I run the 0.2.11 CSP version or did I missed something in the settings?

Thanks in advance,

Philip
 
Philip00
I tried the new version of the app and I like it really much but I cant figure out something.

I did a test run with f1 1992 ASR mod and set the race for 20 laps. After 14 laps Mansell and Senna reached the lapping cars but they were not slow down/not moved away from the leading car, and the behaviour looked for me the vanila AC one.

Could the issue that I run the 0.2.11 CSP version or did I missed something in the settings?

Thanks in advance,

Philip
Click to expand...
Hi,

Blue Flag is automatically used in Quick Race and Race sessions so I don't believe you missed something in the settings.

Either I made a stupid mistake (which is likely considering all the moves in the code), either something is not working in the logic, either it is something in the CSP version or also either it could be that the behavior was not visible in this particular area of the track due to spline being not enough wide.

please, two requests to help me to search:

- 1) can you give me details about the context ? race , quick race, championship sessions? maybe which track also ? I don't believe it would be linked to the car but I can try to recreate with f1 1991 ASR, which I have

- 2), more important: could you recreate the situation while opening the lua debug app of CSP and select DumbAi debug (tick checkBox of DumbAI in app list in lua debug main tab and then change tab to see dumbAI debug) and tell me what it is writing?

(if it is not available in the app lateral menu, iirc, you may have to activate it in Content Manager / Settings / Assetto Corsa / appWindows / and tick "developper apps" check box on top of this window and also in Content Manager / Settings / Custom Shaders Patch / GUI (or UI depending on version) / Developper apps area, tick "Lua debugging tool" checkbox )

When blue flag works, DumbAI should spam in the logs some text such as " XX lets YY overtake him" followed by a description like "from common case" or ""from avoiding crash" etc... It may be lost in other logs for pitting etc... which are also spammed at each frame, depending on what is happening in the sim.

If it does not work due to particular circumstances, you should have red lines with error messages which will interest me ;-)
 
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ancient_3
Hi,

Blue Flag is automatically used in Quick Race and Race sessions so I don't believe you missed something in the settings.

Either I made a stupid mistake (which is likely considering all the moves in the code), either something is not working in the logic, either it is something in the CSP version or also either it could be that the behavior was not visible in this particular area of the track due to spline being not enough wide.

please, two requests to help me to search:

- 1) can you give me details about the context ? race , quick race, championship sessions? maybe which track also ? I don't believe it would be linked to the car but I can try to recreate with f1 1991 ASR, which I have

- 2), more important: could you recreate the situation while opening the lua debug app of CSP and select DumbAi debug (tick checkBox of DumbAI in app list in lua debug main tab and then change tab to see dumbAI debug) and tell me what it is writing?

(if it is not available in the app lateral menu, iirc, you may have to activate it in Content Manager / Settings / Assetto Corsa / appWindows / and tick "developper apps" check box on top of this window and also in Content Manager / Settings / Custom Shaders Patch / GUI (or UI depending on version) / Developper apps area, tick "Lua debugging tool" checkbox )

When blue flag works, DumbAI should spam in the logs some text such as " XX lets YY overtake him" followed by a description like "from common case" or ""from avoiding crash" etc... It may be lost in other logs for pitting etc... which are also spammed at each frame, depending on what is happening in the sim.

If it does not work due to particular circumstances, you should have red lines with error messages which will interest me ;-)
Click to expand...
Hey,

Of course I can help you with the details:

CSP Version: 0.2.11
Race Type: Quick Race
Car: ASR 1992 1.1 (asr_owc_1992_round_01)
Track: 1992 Kyalami (this is a free track from ASR site)

I checked the debug and I did not seee those lines that time but I am trying to recreate now the situation and let you know
 
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I just recreated the situation and the first couple of lapping it was worked perfectly, but after a while it stopped working and the lapped cars disobeyed the Blue flag.

Regardless it was working or not, I did not see those lines in the app (find screenshot attached)

The race was set for 20 laps.

Let me know if you need anything else.
 

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debug_dumb_AI_lua.webp

Strange that the behavior was variable during the race.
For the log lines, it is OK you did not see them in the main DumbAI window, they are in written in the debug lua app, which is in the lateral menu that you can open while in the session

Here is a screenshot to help, the redsquare is around the lua debug app you have to open (sorry , GTP automatically compress the png to webp...)
 
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Ahh got you sorry I misunderstood your message, my bad.

I think I figured out the root caouse of the issue, whenever someone retires I am getting an error which you can see in the screenshot that I attached here.

After that the blue flag behaviour is broken.

Let me know if I am on the right path or I am wrong and hope this will help you a little bit.
 

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Yeah, I think I have it. I suppose you had no AI pitstop in the race until this AI got retired, right ?

Because if I decipher the image correctly, the function that is rising the error is physics.setAITimeToStart which has been added in the last version of CSP and is used here to override the pitstop time so that to ensure that AI spends the correct amount of time while pitting. So here I suppose it is triggered because when AI is retired, it gets to pits then the isInPit becomes true and this function is called later. Most likely, it breaks the whole app loop and stops DumbAI to apply.

So if you try any pit strategy of DumbAI, seems it would bug as well when AI goes to pit, and it would be the same for all older CSP versions that do not have this function in physics, sorry...
 
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ancient_3
Yeah, I think I have it. I suppose you had no AI pitstop in the race until this AI got retired, right ?

Because if I decipher the image correctly, the function that is rising the error is physics.setAITimeToStart which has been added in the last version of CSP and is used here to override the pitstop time so that to ensure that AI spends the correct amount of time while pitting. So here I suppose it is triggered because when AI is retired, it gets to pits then the isInPit becomes true and this function is called later. Most likely, it breaks the whole app loop and stops DumbAI to apply.

So if you try any pit strategy of DumbAI, seems it would bug as well when AI goes to pit, and it would be the same for all older CSP versions that do not have this function in physics, sorry...
Click to expand...
Ahh got it so the solution is to use csp 0.3.0 right?
 
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Basically, yes :)

And tbh, I'll have to use the next CSP updates for DumbAI development because there is a need of new functions that do not exist right now in current CSP to be able to manage fuel correctly in lua :)
 

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