Project NASCARfactor

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DaleTona

The Professor
Hot Pass Member
Aug 16, 2016
1,635
113
Yup, I'm talking about this again. As an aspiring modder, I want to get my feet wet with something I'm familiar with, and that is stock car racing and to answer my long standing question, "Is rFactor oval racing any good?" And If not, tweaking things until they are myself. This is the one thing that I feel plagues rfactor on the oval side, is not many people bother to properly set up the AI, so I will take it upon myself to tinker and experiment with what I view as a promising platform.

Now to start this project, I need to state my focus: The goal here is to create fun, door to door AI oval racing to a standard in which I am happy with. This means tweaking hdv, mas, and talent files. This is very much a learning experience for someone with little experience in sim tweaking, having traditionally run things as is, whether NR, rFactor, or any other sim, and never getting under the hood.

Luckily, rFactor's inner workings are well documented, and most cases have been explored, solved, and information put out there, so that should make my life easier.

To minimize variables at this point in time, I will be playing with a stock install with stock NSC06 and stock tracks, those being Jacksonville, Bama SuperSpeedway, Joesville, and Orchard Lake.

Hopefully I can learn some tips and tricks that I can pass on to others, so they too can have a fun experience. And by documenting my experiments, I can have them readily available, as well as gather input form my fellow sim racers, and hopefully showcase the true potential of the isimotor2 engine.

Buckle up, and enjoy the ride!
 

DaleTona

The Professor
Hot Pass Member
Aug 16, 2016
1,635
113
Humble Beginnings

So today I had my first runaround with rfactor oval AI, straight from stock, no modifications. The results were ok, but not too great.

I decided to start at the shortest track, the Joesville Speedway Runabout, a .656 mile flat short oval that looks similar to North Wilkesboro. Loaded the default fast setup, took some laps, and went to work.

Test #1 25% aggression and strength at 95%. I started from the back in a pack of 22 cars, but found my way to the front in about 12 laps. On such low aggression the AI did not run me over, but also rarely made a pass on each other, and I waltzed right around them.

Test #2 85% aggression and 105% strength. This time I qualified, and got the pole by about 3 tenth's. The AI behind were able to close on me, but not by more than say 5 tenths. I actually never finished a race due to first, crappy driving, and second, kept being doored when inside of the AI. This is a complaint I have seen multiple places. The AI still seem to struggle in traffic.

I have a few ideas already from this thread at the U.S. Pits: http://www.thepits.us/board/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9221
 
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DaleTona

The Professor
Hot Pass Member
Aug 16, 2016
1,635
113
A Potential Revival?

Well, this project went down the drain real fast didn't it? Not that I gave up on this project, more my rFactor crapped out and hasn't worked for about a year now, despite me uninstalling and re-installing multiple times.

IF I can get my rFactor working, I'll probably try and pick this back up. I'm still somewhat skeptical if I can truly get the AI to a good place considering the likes of Brian Ring and major first party developers like ISI, S397, and EA Sports could not, but I'm not about to throw in the towel just yet.

And why am I inspired to try and potentially pick this back up? This video by GPLaps of course:

Of course I will never abandon NR2003, no way even best case scenario this will get close to that, but even just as a fun diversion to add some variety to my racing collection.
 
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Highbank

Co-Owner
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Member of the Year
Zoom Racing World
Co-Owner
Aug 25, 2016
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Great video, makes me want to get an rFactor server back up
 

DaleTona

The Professor
Hot Pass Member
Aug 16, 2016
1,635
113
Playing Amongst The Orchards

So last time I was testing I ran at the Joesville Runabout. Results there were less than stellar, especially when lap cars are involved. So I decided to truly test the AI, why not go somewhere with a bit more real estate.......

So off to Orchard Lake I went. I did a fair bit of setup messing around to try and get something comfortable, and making sure FFB was turned on (something I tend to keep low to it making the wheel harder to turn and me not having much strength.)

The first attempts were a bit of a failure, not necessarily due to AI antics, but my own ineptitude :coldsweat:, and afterwards I decided to: A. up the race distance from the default 5 laps to 20, and B. let the AI race alone without human interferance. I did allow for the AI to run a full qualifying session so they would line up fastest to slowest, with AI Strength 95% and AI Aggression around 70%, I also had tire wear around 5x and 15 cars on the track. Here are my findings:

- The typical GMotor2 train racing was prevalent, as the AI tended to follow the same line when running single file, with maybe 1 foot deviations in their path from car to car, and mainly rode near the wall on the high line. Not very convincing.

- BUT the AI were very much willing to pull to the inside to make a pass, and on a few occasions there WAS some 3 wide racing, with the AI getting friskier the later in the race the run went on.

- Two of my races had mechanical failures, one tire related and one engine. Though when the car cut a tire, the AI made little effort to avoid, and didn't really spin out other than for the one car that had the failure and rode into the wall, when that should have caused a small melee with the way the cars connected to one another. Yet another GMotor2 issue that I gotta tweak. I've read of some values that can make the AI less planted and easier to spin out, so I'll have to play with those.

- The AI sort of rubber-banded in a way? Cars couldn't truly pull away until the pit stop cycle began, and while cars came up through the pack, there wasn't much separation between slow cars and fast, and once pit stops cycled through they started bunching up again.

- And speaking of pitstops, all the AI cars came down on the same lap, so there wasn't much in the way of long/short pitters.

So all in all the baseline test showed that at least at this track, the AI are willing to get a bit racey, but they still need much work. But now I know what to look for solutions to.
 
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DaleTona

The Professor
Hot Pass Member
Aug 16, 2016
1,635
113
Test And Tune

I tested again after making the changes stated in the thread over at The US Pits, and it made a noticeable difference. First the AI spread much more, but the cars still battled, and they didn't train as hard, though they were not exactly hunting around the track either. The AI mistakes made the racing dynamic, though the yellow flags seemed to not be coming out for some reason?

The test race was in basically the same conditions as before but with a full grid of AI cars. The racing wasn't awful by any stretch, and while it won't exactly give NR a run for it's money, I think it is OK enough that it is at least fun to watch. Of 42 drivers, 30 finished on the lead lap, while 2 fell out due to mechanical failures.

Finally pitstops were a bit of a mess as there was a significant pileup (that somehow didn't bring out the yellow) as the AI struggled to merge onto the pit lane. I think this is more a track AIW issue than anything, but I'm not sure fixing it is as easy as NR2003/AC where you can just record a new one.

But overall the racing DID improve, but I feel the racing groove is still a bit narrow, and the AI are still a bit too single file, though I wouldn't say they are docile either.
 
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The_Tigg

"The One, The Only"
Staff member
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Moderator
Dec 24, 2016
3,749
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rFactor AI needs to learn, they need to run a practice session 30 minutes at the very least with you driving with them, you need to let them pit and exit, they need to learn and if you don't like what they're doing delete the hat file in the log folder and start over.


They need to learn
 
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