Firstly the thing I can't explain to you how to do is a good replay for the main race.LP, but I can tell you the following..
I drive smooth at what feels to me like about 90% overall speed and this
includes only using 90% throttle most places, in other words I am
driving to a 90% scale which I later increase to 100% by using AI
modifiers...
[ GP ]
dlong_speed_adj_coeff = 0.817000 ; value modifies dlong velocities (i.e. RELS) in .LP
dlong_speed_maximum = 2.062000 ; max. dlong speed (meters/tick) for .LP after all modifiers
With practice you kind of find your own % of speed but the important things that you must do are...
Brake early, I use 60% front brake bias for stability (remember the AI think
after so they actually brake about the correct place with a bit of
practice)
The slower/sharper the corner the more % of throttle
you must use when accelerating out for a tight hairpin I would use 100%
throttle until say about the end of 2nd gear then back to 90% throttle,
this is to do with the 'after the LP record' thinking of the AI and is
worst with differences in gaining speed (sudden acceleration) between
records - just trust me it works.
You may have come across slow AI out of hairpins and slow corners already in GPL.
Turning corners is actually tough until you understand why they wont do some
things but it mostly comes down to how they cross the centerline and at
what angle they do it
Here is a drawing to help understand:
Blue is the actual track
Yellow is the centerline
Black is the min/max.LP I try for
Purple is wrong
Dark Green is ideal
Light Green is what you must do to achieve Dark Green
Ok Purple is the line most try to do, late brake-late turn in-exit wide - WRONG !!
I know the drawing is rough but see how the purple line crosses the
centerline at about 60 degrees, AI cars hate this, as soon as they
deviate on too great an angle from the centerline they get confused and
don't know where to go.
The Dark Green line is what we are
looking for, turn earlier at a less angle to the centerline and turn
the corner a bit longer than you would normally then move out slower
the centerline angle in mind and very importantly.......
ONLY TO ABOUT 3/4's THE WAY ACROSS TO THE OUTSIDE OF THE TRACK, DO NOT GO TO THE OUTSIDE EDGE OF THE TRACK !!
Once you have completed the bulk of the turn you only then drift slowly to
the outside of the tack but this is well after the corner by now.
The reason is simple, AI cars hang about 1/2 to 1 meter to the outside of
the records during a corner, its the read after it should happen thing
again, the AI car goes past the LP record and thinks "Oh I should be
over there" but its too late and does this for the whole corner.
When the AI car gets to the outside of the turn and is 1 meter to the
outside of the turn it will simply run onto the grass or into whatever
is there !!
You may have already noticed this and this is why
the Light Green line is drawn on my rough picture, this is the line I
use to actually make the AI cars go along the Dark Green line!
The
Light Green line as you can clearly see cuts the corner, now this is ok
if you built the track and can move things out of the way and put
asphalt there ect to make life easy but I can tell you I have had some
fun doing AI for tracks that have armco etc there!
As a rule I cut to the point where just the outside wheels are still on the track.
The Black max/min.LP line MUST BE AT LEAST A WHOLE CAR WIDTH AWAY FROM THE INSIDE OF THE LIGHT GREEN LINE
Max/Min lines are quite important in fact and very underrated by many but the rules are simple,
1. On the straights drive the centre of the car along the outer edges
2. For the outside of a corner just bring the outside wheels back onto the
track but if you can drive the whole car with all wheels off the track
at the end of the corner for about 100 meters before gently coming back
onto the edge again, as this will help any AI car back onto the track
that has run wide.
3. For the inside cut as far as you can but not too early or AI can turn there if put into panic mode.
REMEMBER THAT AI CARS AT ALL TIMES KNOW WHERE THE MAX/MIN LINES ARE AND ARE A CONTROLLING INFLUENCE, USE YOUR BRAINS !
MAIN TIP, ALWAYS THINK ABOUT THE CENTERLINE WHEN DRIVING ANY LP FILE AND TRY
NOT TO CREATE TO BIG AN ANGLE FROM IT, EVEN BUILD YOUR .GTK TO SUIT !
Mark
Go to Lesson 5
Originally posted by Mark Beckman on November 25th 2004 at the M4Driving.it Forum under the thread "Lesson 4"
Posts originally converted to html by Jordi Roda aka runrun.
