Our ReVolt Pub

UnderThresh  1103.084839
UnderRange  3005.177490
UnderFront 0.000000
UnderRear    -500.000000
UnderMax    0.300493
OverThresh  1256.950439
OverRange    1391.000000
OverMax      0.930000
OverAccThresh  27.700001
OverAccRange    1719.054688
PickupBias      16383
BlockBias      16383
OvertakeBias    16383
Suspension      9830
Aggression      0

I know Manmountain has the last 5 pretty much figured out, but I still have no idea what the Over and Under settings do. I'm wondering if anyone else has done any experimentation with them?

Primarily I'd like to know if there's anything I might be able to do to reduce the tendency of certain AI cars to fishtail a lot in their efforts to follow the AI line.

Gah, Re-Volt AI is infuriating. The stupid cars aim at the next node, drive toward it, pass it, turn around, drive toward the next one, pass it, turn around, drive toward the next one, pass it, turn around...

Ends up in a big zig zag: \/\/\/\/\/

Not exactly going to win any races. But I don't know how to make the stupid AI work better.

I have a feeling all of the under- and over- settings have to do with reacting to AI nodes or turning radius or reaction time.

It was suggested a few years back by one of the founding RV community members 'Antimorph', that the OVER & UNDER refered to oversteer and understeer.
THRESH=threshold: The point that must be exceeded to begin producing a given effect or result or to elicit a response:
MAX=maximum : The greatest quantity or degree reached or recorded; the upper limit of variation, or The greatest value assumed by a function over a given interval.
RANGE= : An amount or extent of variation, or The maximum extent or distance limiting operation, action, or effectiveness.

The FRONT & REAR I assume referes to the wheels.
The ACC I assume referes to acceleration and possibly top speed, as I'm sure you have noticed that a slower car can seem to some how catch you up and pass you or slow down to block you.

I don't know what the values are in and what increment does what.

Here is what I suggest, as I have no absolute answers.
Set all the values to 0.0 then see if that stops any of the strange behavour, otherwise copy and paste over with a set of one of the original stock car AI params then test again to see if that helps.

If you get any possitive results please let us all know.

*bleep*! i wish i had seen this topic earlier. but i can toy with everything and see how it works...

If you can get any official results for what those params do, that would be really nice.

At the moment, however, I'm thinking that Re-Volt AI wasn't designed to handle cars quite as slippery as my Eternal Rivalry cars, so I don't think they're going to work.

Many years ago (about Xmas 1999), I set all the stock cars to a ranking of 0 and made them all rookies. This was to provide a new challenge, as I could easily beat the AI in each section. I then started keeping a record of all my race results (always 12 cars) and awarding points for the CPU cars, as awarded in the cups (10, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1).

I only used stock cars, on stock tracks - I intended to start on custom cars and tracks later. I selected my car, track and length of race to no plan, just what I felt like at the time, but I did have more than 2,000 race results recorded. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, I've lost all my records, but I do remember that Humma was top by a surprising margin and Cougar was in 2nd place. Adeon was near the top, possibly 3rd, but Toyeca didn't make the top 4. Volken Turbo was high (in the top half), much higher than a slowish rookie should have been.

At the bottom end, predictably, there was Sluggie, but next bottom was Sprinter, just below NY54, Genghis Kar, Pole Poz, Mouse and Candy Pebbles.

This didn't include Probe UFO, the Mystery Car, Panga (bear), or Rotor, as the game doesn't normally select these cars.

From all this, I deduced that Humma and Volken had the 'best' AI params, and that the rank 2 and 3 cars are crap!

Now, if you look at Humma and Volken, you will see that their params are totally different! I intended to look into this, but I became ill and have stopped working on cars and tracks. Now, when a car can't complete a track, I move its AI params nearer to those of Humma - if you go far enough, this usually works, but, when it doesn't, I start again by going towards Volken's params.

All this doesn't tell you how the AI works, but it should give you a starting point for future research

Incidentally, I set the AI on the last 2 cars I released (Wincar Adeon and Wincar Beta) by watching them at the end of nhood1, and adjusting the AI towards Humma (from Adeon and Wincar Too respectively) till they entered the pipe, ran through it and left the ditch cleanly.

Geoff

It's good to know that someone else has done thousands of race studies with stock cars.
When you say you adjusted the AI, do you mean you altered specific values in the 'Car AI details' section or that you altered other values relating to the wheels and body sections ?
My studies involved defining specific params for specific track sufaces and terrains.
That is why I produced my AI Project (Test Track), which help me produce my SDSUAI Pack.

My work is still on going, and I too would really like to know exactly what the AI section of the parameters.txt are supossed to do ?

Experimenting with GWC's idea, some mildly interesting results. I tested on a slightly modified version of my experimental STI, using Humma and Vulken AIs as a base, timed on the Oregon Bike Road track, one lap:

Time with Humma AI:
1:15.

Time with Volken AI:
1:30.

Time with Volken 'Over' settings and Humma 'Under' settings:
1:55.

Time with Humma 'Over' settings and Volken 'Under' settings:
1:10.

Curious results, although they could be in large the results of just random driving by the AI. I did, however, notice much less fishtailing with the Humma and Humma 'Over' AI. I think this warrants further experimentation.

I still don't get what are you guys trying to do. Make AI Much more smarter.

I did this once.. when i was making my first repaint. I deleted all AI details in the .txt and the car kept messing around even more stupid then before, but the question is... Whould the actully stop insead of messing around.

I really want to know how high the agression can be because all AI is to kind on tracks and I beat them everytime. I think they should all be remasted by MM make the AI much more smarter on Nhood1 just as expriment.

So yeah, as I think I can figr there is no harm in exprimenting.
I'm g;lad to help out if you need it guys I love cars a much as all of you I'm pretty sure if we all work together we could make AI very hard and that would make me want to play re-volt again.. As its very boring if your not playing online.

RoBeNuE.

robenue @ Oct 1 2007, 06:41 PM wrote: I really want to know how high the agression can be because all AI is to kind on tracks and I beat them everytime. I think they should all be remasted by MM make the AI much more smarter on Nhood1 just as expriment.

The goal is to make the AI settings on cars better, not to improve track AI. Manmountain doesn't know how to do that and neither does anyone else, which is the problem - no one knows how car AI settings work!

Apparently its just a matter of tweaking things and observing the results, then trying to decipher exactly how the results have changed, and what effects tweaking certain variables are having.

Exceeding Weirdness.

Fiddling with my AI, I've got my car's times on Oregon Bike Trail from 1:10 down to 1:02-1:04, which is a bit of an improvement.

I was just fiddling around, however, with this current setup, and I'm noticing weird things:
I notice when I set UnderRange to 100 and OverRange to 10000, I get some highly weird behavior out of the cars: It seems like, while driving around the course, they'll aim at the left node for one AI line, them swirve to aim straight at the right AI node in the next line, then once they cross that line, swirve again to aim for the left AI node again - and this is a repeating pattern. I'm wondering if the AI somehow works by driving back and forth between the nodes like that.

Also, it seems like UnderThresh and OverThresh, when both set to 100, encourages the AI to stick close to the AI line, slowing down if necessary to do so. The AI times for my cars are unusually consistent with this setting, as I've had the STI finish at 1:04 several times with this setting, while the Evo as finished at 0:59 repeatedly.

Yes now I understand. Snice Acclaim is doing online stuff maybe just send them an e-mail and ask them... They have a website now.

No Harm In Asking If you don't ask you don't get kinda thing.

Anyway I wish you luck in finding out what these values do.

MM.
What I do, is look at each setting in turn, AI only, and adjust it towards Humma's setting. This adjustment depends on how bad the car at fault is - possibly I adjust it by 10%, maybe 25%, whatever I feel like at the time (I'm not scientific any more). If I think it is getting too near, I go the other way, towards Volken's figures.

Aeon.
Very interesting. How do you get your times? I would start a 2-car race, so that the CPU car wasn't baulked. I would either drive round behind it, or I would use the remote camera (I always race as MAKEITGOOD) to watch it thru' the tricky parts of the track. Probably in edit mode with AI nodes selected.
I would also take my time other several laps, say 10.

Robenue
I don't think you would get very far asking Acclaim - the design team were all sacked shortly after RV was released, and I believe that Acclaim were not happy that MAKEITGOOD was included in the list of cheats that were released (it was meant to be only for editing the stock tracks before release - which is probably why it is not 'user friendly'). How did we get all the info about editing the tracks? Well, 1 of the design team was a member of the old Racers Point forum for a while (not that we knew) and another (it may have been the same 1) used to race online. I reckon it was 'leaked'....

Incidentally, have any of you looked at the Params in the demo? The version I have doesn't have the AI section, but the hex no. at the bottom is much bigger.

Geoff

GWC @ Oct 2 2007, 10:14 AM wrote: Aeon.
Very interesting. How do you get your times? I would start a 2-car race, so that the CPU car wasn't baulked. I would either drive round behind it, or I would use the remote camera (I always race as MAKEITGOOD) to watch it thru' the tricky parts of the track. Probably in edit mode with AI nodes selected.
I would also take my time other several laps, say 10.

I haven't done any sophisticated tested on lap times, I just know that with certain settings, the AI car typically got really bad times, and with other settings it typically got really good times. There are some distinct differences. Plus, driving behind or using MAKEITGOOD (I use both to get a different perspective) allows me to see what problems the car is having that are slowing down its progress. Is it zig-zagging too much? Is to steering too wide on turns and going off-course? Etc...

I usually just run one lap and check the lap time results.

Does anyone know if there are any of the original Re-Volt cars which are inclined to "cut in" on the AI line instead of swinging wide of it? That is, if the AI line goes through a U shaped turn, with the line directly in the center (like with standard lego tracks), are there any original cars that would attempt to drive INSIDE the line instead of outside it? Cutting the corner, so to speak?

I'd like to know if there are any original cars that do this because I'm not even sure if the AI has any provision for it. It seems that they're always trying to follow the line, and if their handling abilities can't keep them on the line, then they'll swing wide. But I don't recall ever seeing them try to stay INSIDE of the line.

I'm not sure I fully understand you there.
The AI cars only go where the AI line is, within the allowance of their individual parameters.
There is an overtaking line (which I use more as an overshoot line), which can be used to provide and nudercut route inside the natural racing line.

There are also the RED, GREEN, RACING and CENTER speed settings of the AI nodes which seem to have a default of 30, but as yet there is no know keybaord activasion ?
I believe the red and green refer to the boundry walls of the AI nodes.

I think that the AI values are related to the track AI and there positioning/spacing, and to the individual car that you use.
How I don't know... yet

Basically that means that really slippery cars are always going to go off track, regardless of their AI settings, if the Track's AI line says it should go near the edge.