AI Difficulty Setting?

[Gunn]

What would you guys/gals consider to be the most reasonable and/or realistic setting for AI? A setting that still gives you some competition but doesn't completely give the AI some cheat like advantages? Is 120% too high for that? What setting do you guys/gals run?

I know it depends on the rider/player skill, so what would you recommend for someone starting out, manual gear box, pro physics, etc, etc, that doesn't want to finish in first every race by half a track length, but also doesn't want to finish in last every race just because the AI got some cheaty advantages. I assume somewhere between 90% - 100%?

Also, was wondering about the riding assists that you can change on the fly. The Engine Braking, Traction Control, and Anti Wheelie. Are those game mechanics or do real riders actually have the ability to change those 3 things on the fly while riding? If so how often do they use it? I notice the game makes heavy use of it, setting those values to 3 or 4 by default it seems.

[The Wizard of Woo]

Difficulty is a hard one to call. I would say 100% is about the point where you have to be able to lap reasonably consistently to keep up.

Best thing I can suggest is do a few quick races with the Honda or Ducati (or other top rated team in the other classes). And see where you get.

I figure you should be struggling a little to win on the top bike for good balance in lesser teams.

As far as I can tell, the difficulty just makes them faster or slower. Nothing especially cheaty.

80-90% is probably a good starting point.



I would honestly Just go straight to Pro physics. Keep the semi auto gears & rewinds for as long as you need the crutches. But limiting the physics of the bikes will do you no favours long term and not really help you get good at the game much either imho.


I like 50% race distance. Works out about 10 laps +/- a few laps. 20-30 mins. Long enough to get properly tactical, but not so long you get bored before the end.




Traction control is mostly about regulating rear tyre wear. TC is essentially reigning back the engine when the rear slips to make it slip less. It won't stop it slipping in the 1st place (though can help). But can massively limit the damage when it does.

Setting 4 will somewhat hamstring how much power you can put down, but will make it much easier to not spin the rear (still not a substitute for good throttle control).

Setting 1 will maximise the power you can use by allowing you to leave nice black lines coming out of corners. But the price you pay for this is significantly increased rear tyre wear.

The actual gains in lap times are not huge, so it's generally very inefficient to run in full tyre burning sprint mode for more than a handful of laps where it counts.

But it can and will win you races/poles sometimes when it's really tight and you have the tyre life left.



Anti wheelie is basically the same deal as TC, in that higher settings slightly hamstring your power delivery. Once the front wheel starts to lift Anti wheelie will cut the power a little to make sure it doesn't rise to far.

Setting 4 kicks in soonest and limits power delivery the most. But will make it easier to keep the front down.

Setting 1 visa versa.

The fastest exit should be by controlling the wheelie yourself via rear brake, throttle control and short shifting. This way you avoid the AW system sapping power.

Realistically, I tend to leave it at maximum and forget about it. Better players might find a 10th or two by turning it down and getting better at avoiding them.



Engine braking I have basically never touched because I use Semi-auto gears. (something I'm about to work on changing)

But as i understand it, more EB makes the back end more squirrelly when aggressively downshifting into corners. Leading to more potential braking power, but offset by your ability to keep the bike stable and the front brakes fully engaged.

Someone else might be able to give you a better answer on that one.

[Geert]

I agree with most of what The Wizard of Woo says, but he does seem to underestimate the importance of TCS, AW and EB. Tuning these setting can gain you seconds sometimes. This is ofcourse in combination with a good setup.

But I wouldn't change those until you feel like you can properly control the bike.

[Gunn]

Appreciate the replies guys. Very good explanations!

[The Wizard of Woo]

Originally posted by Geert:

I agree with most of what The Wizard of Woo says, but he does seem to underestimate the importance of TCS, AW and EB. Tuning these setting can gain you seconds sometimes. This is ofcourse in combination with a good setup.

But I wouldn't change those until you feel like you can properly control the bike.

I have to bow to you on that one. I consider myself fairly competent, but far from the best.

I fiddle with TC a lot through the race tactically, but rarely touch the other two. On reflection I think you are right about me underestimating the gains sometimes. I think I tend to pay too much attention to the gaps and less to overall lap times. I probably attribute some of my gains more to the opponents tyres going off than boosting my own times I think. (My go to tactic is to follow the leader preserving tyre wear best as possible for the 1st half/2/3rds.)

If you have any tips on EB, AW and setup I would be happy to learn. But no worries if you don't have the time or inclination.

[Stephen1950]

This game is totally disheartening. I am Elite on Career rally and hardly ever can get one green sector in anything now, I think this game is actually quite hopeless and there needs to be two tiers for hand controllers and those people who have full set up. I cant' even place in the daily AI now it has been made harder and to be honest I think I am done.

[Geert]

Well it's hard to explain this, because it depends on your riding style, what bike you use,... but I'll give it a try.

TCS: I never put this on 4. sometimes I'll use 3 for the start but most of the time I'll use 1 or 2. This is though largely due to the fact that most online races are not more than 35%, so tyre wear is not so much of an issue. And you can always use hards on the rear and you should still have plenty life left at the end of a race. If the race is longer I'll go mostly go for 3. You just lose too much time driving out of corners otherwise.

AW: I barely use this actually, mostly I use 0 or 1. This is because the AW doesn't stop your bike from lifting the front, I seems to only kick in once it's already too late. I find that controlling your throttle helps much more than relying on AW. For example on a track like Redbull Ring in Austria I use 0 AW, even though it only goes up&downhill. I can do 1:21:3's like this but if I turn on AW (on 4) I can't get below 1:22's (in time trial that is).

EB: This is the only one I mostly leave at 3 or 4 depending on the track. If you have long corners with long brakingzones, it can be much easier to trailbrake into the corner by downshifting. The lower you put this the less your bike will react to the change in gears. But putting it too low will force you to use your tyres more to brake, since on a bike it is hard to trailbrake without using downshifts. You mostly do all the braking before the corner. And a bike doesn't turn well while using the brake.

Setup: Very important, more important that all the others settings combined. But I have no idea how to explain this, at least not in one paragraph LOL. As I said on here before, no two track have the same setup. Most important are rake & trail and gearing, rake & trail give you the option to lower your bike and extend your wheel base. The lower the bike and the further the wheels are apart the more you can lean. The higher and shorter the wheel base the easier it is to change direction, since if you lean more I'll take longer to get back up to center and than back to the other side. So short consecutive conerners are better with a higher bike, longer corners with a lower bike. You notice this very well when you have a short base you'll start to wobble in longer corners when you try to accelerate. Gearing makes it easier to control the bike out of corners. If you have a track with a lot of sharp corners, you might lengthen the 1 & 2 gear to avoid lifting the front when coming out of a corner.

Hopes that helps at least a little!

[The Wizard of Woo]

Originally posted by Geert:

Hopes that helps at least a little!

Pretty much dead on thank you. Just enough information to fiddle meaningfully and feel out the rest. :)