2018 Development Update from iRacing: AI?!

[Brainling]

Read here:

http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/3588218.page

Highlights:

• Graphics and physics engine improvements are coming throughout the year
• Day/night will probably hit this year (leads me to believe it will miss Le Mans and probably be relevant for next years endurance schedule, but here's to hoping!)
• They are developing AI?!! Some people will panic of course, but if you read Tony's comments it makes sense. He seems to acknowledge some people are just going to panic anyway because change = bad
  
• LMP1's may be in as soon as next seasons build. This is huge. This means LMP1's for Le Mans which is super exciting.

Looks like 2018 is going to be a fun year for iRacing. I seemed to have gotten in to this sim racing thing at a good time last year, hehe.

 

[Slider]

I just hope AI will never make it into official, stat relevant races, but be an option in hosted and offline. Whatever its planned purpose is, I don't see it being useful in any way.

 

[Skid_Marc_]

I know I learned everything I ever needed to know about racing IRL by racing AI... it's so close to real life!

This is clearly a move aimed directly at competing with rFactor and Asseto Corsa, they state it right in message "..now you don't have to play any other sim..", and to be fair, given their pedigree with the Nascar Racing games and the old Papyrus team (on which iRacing was originally built) they have a very solid chance of having the best AI system out there. No AI in PC, rF, AC, FM, or GT has come close to what Nascar Racing 2, 3, 4, 2002, and 2003 provided. We'll see how it goes, but I'm certainly not surprised by the move.

The Day/Night transitions, and LMP1 on the way, may explain why the Le Mans race was pushed all the way back from June to August. Buys them more time to have it ready, maybe even have it for a season for testing?

 

[Brainling]

That's basically how I feel Marc. For me, it's not a terribly useful feature, but I see why they are doing it, and given their pedigree with AI it's likely going to be really good. Who knows, maybe it becomes a somewhat useful practice tool? Watching the people on the official forums who think it's going to take people away from online racing are funny though. Who that is currently racing online is going to suddenly decide "Man, I'd rather just race AI?". I just don't see any kind of mass exodus but some people on the forums are just convinced it's going to happen.

I am so excited for the LMP1's. My love of high down force cars is no secret and I had so much fun in the HPD at LeMans last year. The Porsche LMP1 and Porsche RSR are pretty much the only cars that can pull me away from the 488 GTE as my "daily driver" in iRacing.

 

[Kinger]

Watching the people on the official forums who think it's going to take people away from online racing are funny though. Who that is currently racing online is going to suddenly decide "Man, I'd rather just race AI?". I just don't see any kind of mass exodus but some people on the forums are just convinced it's going to happen.

I think there might be some validity to that concern. There certainly are folks out there who enjoy iracing, but do feel that if they can't be in top split they shouldn't race at all. I think the entire irating thing just drives to that and IMHO Iracing would be wise to hide that number.

 

[Brainling]

Those people are already not participating then. I don't care what people who are not participating are doing with their iRacing dollars. If they continue to not participate to race with AI, no one will know the difference.

I posit that the vast majority of people that are regularly participating in online races are not going to stop doing so to go race AI. People who never race, or race once every blue moon, will continue to do that, with AI or otherwise.

The irony of people who don't want to race because they aren't in top split, but never race to get the iRating to prove they belong in top split, is not lost on me.

 

[Kinger]

Good points and maybe just maybe if the AI racing is that good and people are already in sim they will do some official racing as well.

 

[Kenadian]

I'd love to see AI in iRacing especially if it helps them improve Netcode as they say it is.

AI would also be a terrific addition for Leagues that are just starting out or for filling grids on those days when not a lot of Drivers are available.

Day/Night transitions and moving clouds, I'm really glad they mentioned clouds lol. I wonder if this means they'll do something about the same confused flock of .gif birds, the Plane at Daytona that never lands and the one at Donnington that never seems to get to its destination?

 

[Noodleguitar]

AI could be good or it could be something that'll be ignored by the majority of drivers. Whether or not the AI can beat you is somewhat irrelevant I think. I can imagine racing the AI will only help you improve if they actually behave very similar to real-life drivers, and from what I'm hearing in a lot of games they don't. Knowing iRacing, they're probably don't want to come out with a weak AI system.

It would be very cool if they could edit the API so we can make our own AI drivers. I'm not too sure about mixing up real and AI drivers in leagues, because at some point somebody will be put at a disadvantage to other real drivers because of AI interaction, and fake drivers can't be penalized .

 

[Brainling]

Given iRacing's pedigree it's very possible they could release one of the best AI systems available today. They have direct access to a lot of the engineers who wrote the GPL AI at Papyrus, and from what I gather that AI was pretty excellent.

Allowing people to run user created AI's in hosted/testing sessions would be awesome. Valve did that with Dota 2, opened up the bot AI system, and it was a revelation. People have been able to create bot systems now that can really closely approximate high level play.

 

[Skid_Marc_]

I would not participate in a league setting with AI drivers. I wouldn't want the championship to be effected by AI which sufferes no consequences. Would rather race with 8 people than have a "full grid". Not crapping on the AI concept, if people want to have a single-player championship, or run a multiplayer race with AI and people, fine, but it takes all the seriousness out of a league environment when there are championship points in the balance. Are you going to get penalized for taking out an AI, are incidents going to count if an AI rear-ends you, or turns in on you?

 

[Slider]

I think there might be some validity to that concern. There certainly are folks out there who enjoy iracing, but do feel that if they can't be in top split they shouldn't race at all. I think the entire irating thing just drives to that and IMHO Iracing would be wise to hide that number.

Hiding it won't do anything. Splits will still exist and those same people still won't be in top splits. If they can't get iRating high enough to be there, then they're just not capable. It's simple as that. That's why I like iRacing, simple number that efficiently reflects your ability to race.

Many of those vocal forum warriors are people that can't accept mistakes or failure as a tool to improve themselves and until they do, they'll stay where they belong.

It's so simple it's awesome and it works.

AI, plez no. Just no. Keep it in offline testing or an option in hosted.

 

[Brainling]

Pretty sure that's exactly what it's for. I can't imagine official series with AI in them. People aren't going to want to put their SR and IR through the AI lottery.