Q&A with Slightly Mad Studios: Ian Bell [Read OP]

[MABlosfeld]

Would it be possible to adjust the speed of opponents (AI)?
Example:

edit:
I was thinking that if it was possible to adjust the abilities of each opponent (AI)
Would be a way to make each opponent different from each other without harming the performance of the equipment.

1) Aggressiveness = Patient <> Aggressive
2) Speed = Medium <> Car Standard
3) Braking on Curves = input <> or middle

 

[ozwheels]

Does anyone have any information about Camber?

Good question. We actually had a bug at the core of the tyre model in the first game that allowed people to run zero camber and get faster laps for short bursts. This is one of the reasons why we reworked the tyre model so much for pCARS2. So that 'camber exploit' is now fixed and with that fix we're getting much better temperature variations across the inner, middle and outer portions of the tyre. So you have that information available at all times to allow you to tune the camber perfectly per car/track.

 

[Sentry87]

Yes there will be camber...




Not post release. It's day-one-patch. Game is going Gold and everything that's worked on now will be in the d1p. So the gold build basically just gets updated to the latest and final development build then.
At some point they have to submit a build as a release candidate and then keep working and then update it with d1p. Either that or delaying the release.

Even better

 

[Satco1066]

The needed patch is D1p in case of the gold versions. What you see are older builds and yes there are some slow AI. But in most cases it depends to specific tracks, and not the AI itself. The patches Ian meant are more the daily builds, that are also daily patches.

 

[05XR8]

I can't wait for that D1gP patch.

 

[CHEN255]

Codemasters released a day one patch that has really messed up F12017. It is a game that got terrific reviews including here at GTPlanet, in fact the best out of any F1 game of theirs so far, but then they go and break the game with that patch. It is such a mess that I am sceptical that they will be able to fix everything. Multiplayer is broken, there are graphical issues, AI issues, on and on it goes. Glad I haven't purchased it from the reviews alone, it's only once the retail copy is in players hands that we get to know what any game is really like.
I'm mentioning this because I am begging SMS to please, please, test your day one and any subsequent patches carefully before releasing them!!

 

[jake2013guy]

Codemasters released a day one patch that has really messed up F12017. It is a game that got terrific reviews including here at GTPlanet, in fact the best out of any F1 game of theirs so far, but then they go and break the game with that patch. It is such a mess that I am sceptical that they will be able to fix everything. Multiplayer is broken, there are graphical issues, AI issues, on and on it goes. Glad I haven't purchased it from the reviews alone, it's only once the retail copy is in players hands that we get to know what any game is really like.
I'm mentioning this because I am begging SMS to please, please, test your day one and any subsequent patches carefully before releasing them!!

Agreed. And I have the PS4 version which crashes every 5 minutes. (literally) And that handles PC1 absolutely fine.

 

[Pigmachine]

So just to be crystal clear, I can do some offline time trials in the ford gt gte at the nordschleife, have a time saved somewhere in the ui, then jump into the corvette c7r and do the same lap same conditions, and then compare? Thats really all I care about. I dont care if I need to click on "Practice" or "time Trial" to get that.

Well you get the total time and section times visible. But offline TT isn't ..well a TT, and the exact 'same' conditions might not be 100% if not in TT where it's 'set in stone'. (actually there is no real offline TT)
You can do a real TT with your Ford then load up it's ghost by choosing that ghost by selecting your specific cars ghost, and change car to choose the Corvette, and make a new TT run with Ford ghost/time loaded. And you see both the ghosts total time and section times, at least at the end, and visibly the ghost if you want.

 

[Anomalistics]

Post release patches are almost standard in this industry, calm down. Only thing that matters is it's improved over PC1 in which A.I. wasn't terrible anyway

What game were you playing? I just recently installed PC1's and within the first lap, all of the AI were going over the grass, cutting every corner, etc. I had to uninstall it immediately.

We're still yet to receive any response on how the AI will deal with localized weather on PC2 and how they will even approach pitting, etc. As much as I want this game to be success, i have a feeling the ai will come short on this.

 

[Cholton82]

What game were you playing? I just recently installed PC1's and within the first lap, all of the AI were going over the grass, cutting every corner, etc. I had to uninstall it immediately

I mainly race GT3 and Lmp and never have an issue as bad as that , occasionally they will cut a corner but nothing major .

 

[Ian Bell]

What game were you playing? I just recently installed PC1's and within the first lap, all of the AI were going over the grass, cutting every corner, etc. I had to uninstall it immediately.

We're still yet to receive any response on how the AI will deal with localized weather on PC2 and how they will even approach pitting, etc. As much as I want this game to be success, i have a feeling the ai will come short on this.

Yes we specifically coded the AI with 'first lap behaviour'. I suggest not uninstalling within the first lap to get a more informed opinion of them though.

 

[Anomalistics]

Yes we specifically coded the AI with 'first lap behaviour'. I suggest not uninstalling within the first lap to get a more informed opinion of them though.

Whilst I appreciate the response, are you able to give us any further insight into what was briefly mentioned for PC2 in my last post?

 

[TexasTyme214]

Whilst I appreciate the response, are you able to give us any further insight into what was briefly mentioned for PC2 in my last post?

We've already been told a couple months ago that AI can "see" effects of Live Track 3.0 and that they are working to balance AI in all conditions. We haven't really been told how they will handle pitting. I've previously asked if we'll see different strategies among AI such as wets vs inters and softs vs hards. I don't recall getting an answer on that, but that doesn't mean they didn't answer.

 

[Anomalistics]

We've already been told a couple months ago that AI can "see" effects of Live Track 3.0 and that they are working to balance AI in all conditions. We haven't really been told how they will handle pitting. I've previously asked if we'll see different strategies among AI such as wets vs inters and softs vs hards. I don't recall getting an answer on that, but that doesn't mean they didn't answer.

The strategic part is probably the most important to me, especially for races like le man.

Edit; And yes, I understand that but how do AI determine when to pit when it is localized weather? The worry I have is they will go in for wets/inters when it's not required and allow the player to effectively get a free lap. I hope you see where I am coming from?

 

[MABlosfeld]

"Some developers send patches right after the game's release to break the pirate games." This comment is not mine, I read somewhere long ago, I do not remember who wrote it and where it went but for me, it makes some sense.

 

[Satco1066]

Totally pointless. Crackers break patches in hours and release hacked patches.
But playing a hacked Project CARS 2 without the ability to connect online is half the fun.

 

[warp9engage]

@IanBell Can we ask the game to choose the classes of a multi-class race for us? Like the dice on the weather selection?

 

[RoadRunner36]

Will the Nurburgring combined variation have the max amount of opponents on track increased? I ask this because in the quick-race menu PC1 caps the max opponents to 30 on this variation even though IRL the same configuration can handle 200+ cars (granted pit sharing exists). I understand the reason for the cap is because the real life track only has 30 pit boxes but could this cap be increased, possibly incorporate pit sharing?

 

[Ian Bell]

Will the Nurburgring combined variation have the max amount of opponents on track increased? I ask this because in the quick-race menu PC1 caps the max opponents to 30 on this variation even though IRL the same configuration can handle 200+ cars (granted pit sharing exists). I understand the reason for the cap is because the real life track only has 30 pit boxes but could this cap be increased, possibly incorporate pit sharing?

It's more of a case of us running up to the limits of memory. Texture and vertex combined are huge here.

 

[RoadRunner36]

It's more of a case of us running up to the limits of memory. Texture and vertex combined are huge here.

Good to know, roughly an average of 2 cars per mile is still great for 24Hr recreations though, haha.

There is quite a bit of mention how all track conditions will change depending on the date set, but will the seasons be different for tracks in the northern hemisphere compared to the southern hemisphere? In other words if I were to set the in-game date to December, would it be winter for northern tracks such as Willow Springs and Brands Hatch while it would be summer for southern tracks such as Mount Panorama?

 

[Ian Bell]

Good to know, roughly an average of 2 cars per mile is still great for 24Hr recreations though, haha.

There is quite a bit of mention how all track conditions will change depending on the date set, but will the seasons be different for tracks in the northern hemisphere compared to the southern hemisphere? In other words if I were to set the in-game date to December, would it be winter for northern tracks such as Willow Springs and Brands Hatch while it would be summer for southern tracks such as Mount Panorama?

I hasten to add that I don't mean we're borking the PC version because consoles present the memory issues on this circuit. It's also an issue for our minimum spec PC GPU's.

 

[nrosko]

Will there be a shortcut for the combined nord to warm tyres rather than do the full lap?

 

[Zolon32]

We put them where they are in reality. We do have extensive head positioning and FOV options though.

Thanks very much for that. Sorry for my tardy response to your quick response, I missed the 'quote' alert. (Ironically it seems I'm not very alert.)

Cheers, Zo.

 

[F1Racer68]

@IanBell or @The_American

As a league organizer, where can I get more details regarding the Competative Racing License? Our first season of racing in pCARS2 will happen fairly soon after launch, and I am trying to understand what would be a good level to set these requirements at in order to allow our members to join, but still have minimum requirements to reduce the numebr of demolition derby drivers.

As an example, in iRacing, their minimum license requirements for their Endurance sepcial events is Class D license with a minimum Safety Rating of 4.00. This effectively means a Class C license in their system. Their system starts with Rookie, then goes D, C, B, A.

Based on what I have read so far, with the pCARS2 system, an equivalent approach would be a Class F license with a minimum rating of some kind. But how do the Safety Points work in your system? What do I need to go from a Class F to a Class E for example? IS it based on your Strength Rating, or is there another number involved? If a driver races fairly cleanly, how quickly can they progress from U to F to E?

As I read it in the article, the Safety Ranking and the Strength Rating are separate, standalone ratings. Is there somewhere I can go to get guidance on how to create my lobbies?

 

[Cluck]

...but will the seasons be different for tracks in the northern hemisphere compared to the southern hemisphere? In other words if I were to set the in-game date to December, would it be winter for northern tracks such as Willow Springs and Brands Hatch while it would be summer for southern tracks such as Mount Panorama?

Yes

 

[Georgeagea]

@IanBell or @The_American
As I read it in the article, the Safety Ranking and the Strength Rating are separate, standalone ratings. Is there somewhere I can go to get guidance on how to create my lobbies?

Hope it is like so and it makes sense! I'm an average racer but a clean one! That should be separate things! I should be able to race with similarly able drivers; being average should not make me race with the unclean drivers!

 

[Ekay_Jay]

What happens when I get rammed in turn one? Am I going to be penalized for contact along with the driver that rammed me from behind?

 

[F1Racer68]

What happens when I get rammed in turn one? Am I going to be penalized for contact along with the driver that rammed me from behind?

Probably. That's just the nature of these systems. They are not capable.of determining blame.

Why did you get rammed? Did the guy behind you not slow down/brake in time? Or did you cut him off in the braking zone and brake check him?

The game has no way of calculating in "the human factor", so to.keep it simple, both receive a penalty.

The thing is, if the guy who rammed you does it a lot, he will receive penalties every time. If you are the victim once or twice, it's a.minor set back.

Rhose of us who race in iRacing are all too familiar with having to deal.with exactly that scenario. It's annoying at the time, but far from a huge issue.

 

[Georgeagea]

Yeah it presents a pro more than a con! The con is minor while the pro is big!

 

[Ekay_Jay]

Probably. That's just the nature of these systems. They are not capable.of determining blame.

Why did you get rammed? Did the guy behind you not slow down/brake in time? Or did you cut him off in the braking zone and brake check him?

The game has no way of calculating in "the human factor", so to.keep it simple, both receive a penalty.

The thing is, if the guy who rammed you does it a lot, he will receive penalties every time. If you are the victim once or twice, it's a.minor set back.

Rhose of us who race in iRacing are all too familiar with having to deal.with exactly that scenario. It's annoying at the time, but far from a huge issue.

My only concern is getting points deducted off my license due to other drivers bad driving. I love to race random open gt3 lobbies and there is usually a few drivers in those that can't drive well.