Yeh, sorry, got side tracked a bit after seeing some other threads. I did come here with good intentions and generally curious about the AI element, ended up diggin up the past, sorry about that..
I wondered how the AI would do things a calculator couldn't do, or do it better (quicker?). AI isn't telepathic, so it's still going to need to be told certain variables to help the setup go in the right direction, or end up being as 'right' as possible (for a 'calculator') for the user.
To be fair, what your doing is way more advanced than even what I was planning.
There was a version 2.0 of ours, but it never went any further than a few chats with Corse and alot of wishful thinking. But reasons (this morning 'rant') meant I just chucked it all in.
The plan was to have the start of the process more 'automated', i.e. have a drop down box showing all cars and their spring rates and weight balance fr to rr already input. Some drivetrain(s) tended to have specific traits like FF/fwd likely to be understeer at the front, whereas MR tends to oversteer at the rear.
So as the FF/FWD cars would virtually always be better off with 120% front and 80% rear, so as soon as someone chose the car front the drop down box, it would load up with 120% fr and 80% rr specific for that car. So just from selecting the car from the list the calculator would instantly give you a 'base' setup.
Whereas previously, I would have to input the spring rates specific for that car, then 'guess' (on our original calculator) what % stiffness was needed at the front and rear. But after doing this god knows how many times, it started to become clear that for some drivetrains, or type of cars, a set % for the front and rear would always provide a pretty good starting point.
It was the same for the LSD, certain types of drivetrain would benefit from a set custom LSD settings, so this would be loaded up as soon as the car has been selected, giving you an instant base setting from just selecting what car you were going to use. Whereas previously, you would need to type all this in, start at stock % stiffness (100%) and go (test) from there, come back, change, re-test etc.
Even the dampers and brake balance could be loaded up straight away with a drive train specific setting rather than the stock 'calculator' setting that wasV1.0..
It got a lot harder when trying to deal with driver/user variables, as some drivers could and would be able to control a difficult car (i.e. MR cars) withdriving techniques (i.e. heel and toe). Or something as simple as controlling wheelspin by feathering the throttle – some people would still be on pad using the buttons to brake and accelerate at100%, this is where you can easily go down a rabbit hole, trying to make something perfect for all people, all of the time, and I don't think that's possible to be honest, but hey, someone or something(AI) proves me wrong, no worries. Until then, having a cut off point where you say 'enough' catering to different variables, need to stop*here*.
This is why I never bothered with top speed/gearing. There were 2 main reasons, firstly, I felt the variables from the driver's needs were more important to address, plus, anyone can just go in and change the top speed in a few seconds. Obviously, it might not be perfect, and certainly wouldn't be anywhere near as good as doing a full custom gearbox for a specific car/track, but I wanted to concentrate on the handling /feel side of things.
Being GT there was usually something that would throw a spanner in the works, whether it was the ride height 'bug' (nose up ass down), camber issue etc etc these are something you can't really cater for and even worse, if you do cater for this, then PD might 'fix it' and you now gotta change how the setups are presented to the user, and also, that user has to go back and change all their cars.
This is why having a clear cut off point about what the calculator is going to cater for really helps, as those rabbit holes can get pretty big.
I copped a lot of grief over these 'base setups', hey ho, but looking from a calculator point of view, they make a lot of sense. Having a balanced base setup makes it easier to do handling adjustments to suit the driver/user needs i.e. bit too understeery at the front, too much lift off oversteer, plus where is it happening, on the brakes, mid corner, exit etc.
The idea for V2.0 was to have a + and – 'button' on the side of the calculator, basically+ meant less understeer and – more understeer (or oversteer –whatever you needed to make it how you want) and by pressing this, it would automatically adjust the %/numerical values of the suspension. I was thinking about possibly having this for the brakes and lsd too, so user selects which one you wanted to adjust (brakes, LSD) 'more 'or 'less' of, then using the + and – to adjust and the calculator does the changes.
The other advantage o fa balanced base setups was that I felt (experienced) that they are more likely to carry over between tyre compounds i.e. you post a setup for Sports softs, someone comes along and uses racing softs but it still 'works' – and what I mean is that it's better than the stock suspension settings all GT cars come with.
Well, not sure you got this far, congrats to anyone who did. I know comparing the 2 calculators is a bit like comparing an old VW bug to a current F1 car, our original calculator was very basic and what you've done here is light years ahead.. But maybe there might be something in here that could help in some small way.
Well at least it's a bit more constructive than this morning post (sorry bout that)..
Fair play to what you've created and all the best
'H'
