Racing Line

[dbarrade]

OK, I've done a few track days and played a lot of GT, and so far I'm loving GT5P, almost got my new racing cockpit set up with the G25 and gear stick in the right place, pedals flipped upside down so the action is correct and swapped the clutch and accelerator pedals around... now I'm really getting into the driving...

This is when it dawns on me that with the driving line on, all the magic of the computer AI is removed and it's starting to annoy me more and more...

I swear I remember in older GT's that the different cars took slightly different racing lines... ie a Dodge Viper would have lower cornering speed, so take smaller arc's in corners so they could get on the power earlier, and something like the RUF would have a higher corner speed, but less straight line speed so would take slightly larger arcs on the corners, I've seen this in real life here in Australia at GTP Nations series races.

It seems that in GT5P everything has the same line programmed in and then the AI makes "mistakes" and then does it's best to get back on the race line regardless if their mistake puts them in a better position for the next corner, all they do is manically try to get back on that magical racing line.

I believe all AI cars have the same racing line, from the Capucino to the F2007... am I wrong here, or is this not very realistic, am I being too critical?

 

[Beefaben]

I tend to agree with you that this is the case, however you may also be a little too critical. This would involve some hefty programming and processor power to take it from what it is to what it should be for every car for every track.. personally i think the only way you are going to get perfectly "human" type lines is by racing humans : )

I run a small weekly race tourney with some friends and the last event was a Quick Race in arcade mode with the BMW 135Tii moderately tuned and the AI set to 80 for a 10 lap race.

After the race, i was watching the replay but from onboard the other cars. Even at AI=100 the AI is still not even close to being realistic.. this is worth doing just to see how badly the AI drives !!

Whilst it would be nice, really i think the future of real race sims is online against real people.. its impossible to program that same level of racecraft and judgement.

 

[dbarrade]

Well they wouldn't have to create a raceline at all, they should just take it from the top time trial for each car on each track that is clean, have it load up into the AI, and then have it make mistakes and adjust for traffic as it does now... that to me would be awesome, or rather than have the top lap time, just load up a time trial lap that matches your skill based upon your average lap time for that track or something... now they have all that race line data stored in the best lap replays they should make use of it!

 

[Beefaben]

Good idea.. .fastest time for each car and each track.. reduce its speed by a % depending on the skill level you set (cause you want to be able to change this)

Not sure how it would cope any better than currently with multi cars and collisions, as watching incar replays it still struggles to know what to do, that decision alone is something we do in a split second based on intuitive reflexes... but seems a little harder to code. That alone is prolly the biggest problem with the AI. Watching AI car race against AI car is pretty bad.

In the days of MotoGP4 i would race against a recorded replay of whatever was the last MotoGP race using picture-in-picture on my TV (helps with a big screen). I thought back then, with so much recorded real time information and lap times why wouldnt it be possible to download to my PS last weeks race and then go head to head with Rossi etc... in theory it should be simple as Track / Riders race / lap time then factor in traffic decisions... same as what your suggesting here.

The biggest problem I saw was that we want some randomness and decision making, and to take a replay of 10 cars and apply a logic decision based on other cars meant you would most likely end up with a repeat pattern every race.