A.I in the rain - WTF?

[dan0812]

Did a career mode race at 90 strength in the dry and won comfortably.

Next race in the rain - even at 50 strength the AI is able to overtake me on straights and I'm several seconds down per lap.

I've had to go right down to 35 to race and will go back up to 90 for the next dry race. This seems very broken.

[Vlad Tepes]

Yes, unfortunately this was always a problem for me. Even worse, if you set your AI to a certain level, and it starts out clear, then begins to rain during the race, you are screwed. It happens in one of the scripted career paths. Drove me nuts and is THE #1 reason why I stopped playing. If you want good rain physics, AMS2 is excellent, and the AI seem really good (still tough but not as bad as PC2).

[Mahjik]

The rain physics in PC2, in general, are fine. The issue is how Career mode is done in regards to how weather works in PC2.

Weather in PC2 works on "weather slots". Those slots are 1 hour slots of weather. To get changing weather within short races, Time Acceleration is use. The problem with this, is that it will make 60 minutes worth of say heavy rain, happen in just a few minutes. This isn't a problem in itself, but because the AI don't suffer from puddles and other minor issues with wet weather like the player, it makes the career events sometimes less than fun.

However, if you run say a 30 minute race in Quick Race mode. Put two weather slots for say rain (not heavy rain) to dry, you will have a great race with the AI because it won't use as much time acceleration that is used in Career mode.

In short, what I'm suggesting is the problem with how Career mode was done, not the general way wet weather is handled in PC2.

[dan0812]

Problem I had was the opponents were all faster on the straights - even at level 35 I'd build a lead on the corners and see it reduce. It was also weird that in practice I'd be right behind an A.I car yet my lap times were way off.

I discovered in the next race that there's some weird tyre issues in the game. No matter what I did the tyres never warmed up and I was all over the place. I found a tip that default tyres are messed up and to choose wet tyres on cold tracks(!). Tried it and the car handled like a dream.

Originally posted by Voltaj Tepes:

if you set your AI to a certain level, and it starts out clear, then begins to rain during the race, you are screwed. .

I had that happen one of the early kart races - was a nightmare.

Also had dry practice and qualifying and then snow in the race which was annoying.

I am seeing why people refer to this game as being frustrating.

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by dan0812:

I discovered in the next race that there's some weird tyre issues in the game. No matter what I did the tyres never warmed up and I was all over the place. I found a tip that default tyres are messed up and to choose wet tyres on cold tracks(!). Tried it and the car handled like a dream.

Most of that is down to how the Career mode was designed. Some of the predefined weather conditions are just silly (like some of the cold and/or wet races).

Which series are you racing in now?

[dan0812]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Which series are you racing in now?

Sportcars Lites with the Caterham. I already did Karts (didn't like those at all) and Junior Ginetta.

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by dan0812:

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Which series are you racing in now?

Sportcars Lites with the Caterham. I already did Karts (didn't like those at all) and Junior Ginetta.

Ok. The tires for the sportcars are fairly realistic. In colder temps, you can use tires designed for rain as they are made with a softer rubber. However, the sportcars don't use tires that are made like professional racing series like FIA or ACO. They are more consumer / amatuer based.

On some of the series, like the Formula C, the different tire types have behaved differently for different people. i.e. some people found the Sport Tires better than the Slicks.

[Vlad Tepes]

Mahjik knows the most about this game so I trust his explanation. I never really gave the game a chance after getting stuck in those rainy career races. I hated the career mode because of this issue (I loved it otherwise lol).. and I mostly play offline and want to play a full season or a career.
One thing I did with the karts, is I had to wreck a few of the AI.. push on them.. get them to wobble.. of course sometimes I would spin myself out.. but if planned correctly, I could stay in the lead with AI set to about 90 in the kart race with the rain. Dirty? I suppose but they aren't real :)

[BluesyMoo]

It seems like AI is running on simplified physics that isn't affected by puddles. I don't think I ever saw them wobble when driving over puddles. I just turn down the difficulty for rain events. It's not real anyway.

[dan0812]

Originally posted by Voltaj Tepes:

I never really gave the game a chance after getting stuck in those rainy career races. I hated the career mode because of this issue (I loved it otherwise lol)..

Hmmm I only bought the game for career mode so it's annoying to find it has these issues.

[GDUBMX]

Originally posted by dan0812:

Originally posted by Voltaj Tepes:

I never really gave the game a chance after getting stuck in those rainy career races. I hated the career mode because of this issue (I loved it otherwise lol)..

Hmmm I only bought the game for career mode so it's annoying to find it has these issues.

dude, the game is the rain is the other way round for me.. the ai become useless in the rain.

its simple, if you see the weather is overcast (likely to rain) change your tires to wet before you start, the ai will choose slicks. as soon as the rain comes, you will blast them away.

[morgoth13]

Originally posted by GDUBMX:

Originally posted by dan0812:

Hmmm I only bought the game for career mode so it's annoying to find it has these issues.

dude, the game is the rain is the other way round for me.. the ai become useless in the rain.

its simple, if you see the weather is overcast (likely to rain) change your tires to wet before you start, the ai will choose slicks. as soon as the rain comes, you will blast them away.

It usually seems ridiculously easy in the wet for me too, but it does depend heavily on the car and maybe the track. Some of them they are just crazy fast but in many of them they don't even know what they are doing. I don't pit until it starts raining though, you gain around 10 seconds when pitting and usually gain a ton more on wets.

Because of the way the AI pace scales, the specific condition makes a huge difference. They're usually awful on a fully wet track but impossibly fast as it starts to dry out until I can actually pit for slicks. The worst situation is usually when it stops raining but the track only dries in the last lap or two so you don't have time to pit and make the ground back up. A similar thing happens if it rains in the last handful of laps. Sadly sometimes all you can do is to eat the loss/too-easy-win or else restart and adjust the difficulty.

If it gets completely flooded with the entire track covered by puddles that can get impossible too but that's extremely rare. A lot of times the puddles actually help you because you can avoid them but the bots drive right through and have to slow down.

[Nats]

Yeah I gave up on the career because of this wet weather issue. But single races are still amazing in this game, especially the ones where you have a drying line.