Turbo Sliders future

Kuukkeli · Post by **Kuukkeli** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:07 am

Wet races mod would be nice

.

Post by **Tijny** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:11 am

Speaking of bots, I'd like to make some small feature requests. Shouldn't be too hard to implement.
We need a Punaball AI that can challenge the likes of me and dede, and we also need lapwanking bots that can drive perfect laps based on track & car analysis.

Jeffrey · Post by **Jeffrey** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:27 pm

That's just crazy. Who cares about that, we have billion features that should be implemented before of that.

I just made my own personal suggestion. Everyone is doing his suggestions.

I think i have the right to do it.

Then its up to Ande if to implement or not.

What I am just asking is just an additional sound in pits. And I'm sure this would add a great boost to the racing atmosphere.

Post by **dede** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:13 pm

Jeffrey wrote:What I am just asking is just an additional sound in pits. And I'm sure this would add a great boost to the racing atmosphere.

Yep yep, I'm not complaining about your rights to suggest new features. I was just considering that some players are focusing on "extra" features that I'd never think about. I see so many things that can be improved, and some suggestions sound to me just crazy

Just my opinion, like you have yours

Tijny wrote:We need a Punaball AI that can challenge the likes of me and dede, and we also need lapwanking bots that can drive perfect laps based on track & car analysis.

PunaBall bots sound to me very hard to implement. Maybe they could hit the ball with amazing perfection, but I guess that without the ball they would be terribly bad

About the lapwanking bots, me and Ande had already a short discussion: probably it wouldn't be so hard making the bot drive EXACTLY the same line/laptime as the AI line, in ghost mode. That could be an alternative to "racing against recordings"-mod, even though racing against a video would be excellent.

Post by **dede** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:03 pm

Oh, something VERY IMPORTANT I forgot to report. Currently some settings can't be applied before full server restart (close the game totally). That's very bad for "Community Servers", because we can't change those settings until we get the administrator restart the server. It would be really important if all settings could be loaded without restarting the game manually (e.g. currently we have to close the server to load new cars).
Add a command like /totalrestart which loads all settings and sets up the server again.

Post by **Tijny** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:08 pm

dede wrote:About the lapwanking bots, me and Ande had already a short discussion: probably it wouldn't be so hard making the bot drive EXACTLY the same line/laptime as the AI line, in ghost mode.

That's not what I meant though, I meant like a track analysation algorithm which would automatically calculate the right line, without having to record AI lines. Anyway, I was only joking, of course I know those things are sheer impossible.

Post by **Badeend** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:18 pm

Tijny wrote:
dede wrote:About the lapwanking bots, me and Ande had already a short discussion: probably it wouldn't be so hard making the bot drive EXACTLY the same line/laptime as the AI line, in ghost mode.
That's not what I meant though, I meant like a track analysation algorithm which would automatically calculate the right line, without having to record AI lines. Anyway, I was only joking, of course I know those things are sheer impossible.

You joker!

Hengari · Post by **Hengari** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:43 pm

Tijny wrote:That's not what I meant though, I meant like a track analysation algorithm which would automatically calculate the right line, without having to record AI lines. Anyway, I was only joking, of course I know those things are sheer impossible.

On the contrary, I know a guy who created a program for AI course which "drove" a certain track and searched for the best line.

That would be nice project to do but quite challenging when there are so many possibilities with gas/brake and driving lines. Maybe some neural network with analyzing different players driving lines and learning from there. Just like slower players now (should) do

Mouse · Post by **Mouse** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:30 pm

dede wrote:
Mouse wrote:50 bots... oh man...
Bots? I said players, real players.

I know what you said, I want 50 bots... damn it, dede, I love bots don't you know it by now?

It's just fun... lot's of people cannot have genuine fun playing with bots but I definitely have. The idea of 50 real players is pretty cool too though, I would enjoy racing 49 others in a ghost race.

I'm happy to hear bots will be ok. I can continue to make more insane tracks and set 20 Antisliders to race.. sit back in my chair and watch them annihilate each other.

Bit off-topic... but does anyone think that a 20 player drag-race mod would be pretty cool? With the new features, it's possible... Soon I'll make a topic will some new mods I'm cooking, for more feedback... see if I can get the community server some new stuff besides missiles and bumpz.

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:08 pm

Mouse wrote: I'm happy to hear bots will be ok. I can continue to make more insane tracks and set 20 Antisliders to race.. sit back in my chair and watch them annihilate each other.

If you have played with AI bots more, maybe you can give feedback if they seem different than before when the new version comes.

And about finding an optimal driving lines, yes it would indeed be a challenging job

. Actually, if computers were a zillion times faster, one could make a brute force search by checking every possible combination of controls for each frame in a lap but running it with current computers would take more time than the age of universe. But maybe if some computer scientist spent a couple of years researching the issue, some nearly optimal algorithm could be found. So the main problem would probably be to get a funding for a project like this

.

FDV · Post by **FDV** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 7:51 am

YES MEN MORE BOTS! IT WILL BE FUN!

+ BOTS -LIBERTINE

Ek Poepol · Post by **Ek Poepol** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:34 pm

Ive seen lots of guys posting about drag racing. I thought that to be the coolest but realised its usless if you race automatic. youd have to have manual gearshift to really be able to do drag racing.

I also thought it would be cool if you could custom tune cars for specific tracks, and races. Like tweaking gear ratios and suspension stiffness.

Post by **Badeend** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 1:22 pm

Ek Poepol wrote:Ive seen lots of guys posting about drag racing. I thought that to be the coolest but realised its usless if you race automatic. youd have to have manual gearshift to really be able to do drag racing.

I also thought it would be cool if you could custom tune cars for specific tracks, and races. Like tweaking gear ratios and suspension stiffness.

I think being able to tune cars is one step too far for Turbo Sliders. The charming thing imo is that you only need to drive fast, without any weird tactics. Looking at the tactics issue, the fuel system is just about enough.

But I do agree with you on the drag racing part. If besides starting fast you only need to push down your throttle button it would be pretty boring.

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 5:37 pm

I released a beta version, a new thread was opened.

Mouse · Post by **Mouse** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:14 pm

Drag racing should not be judged as boring unless you have tried it.

I have done a drag racing mod a while ago and tested it with my good friend Blutirchio, who is kind enough to try most of my crazy mods.

It is pretty enjoyable, not for a long period of time, BluT and I did about 20 duels or so before we moved on to something else. It will be nice to have in a mod-rotation in the community server along with battle and bumpz..

By the way, I'm making a drag track to support up to 20 people.. it's not restricted to 2. With the random start-light timing, it will be fun to have short cups every now and then.

Now about tuning cars... just play a 3D racer if you want that stuff, TS is best for it's simplicity.

xzeal · Post by **xzeal** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:46 pm

Mouse wrote:TS is best for it's simplicity.

I'd give you a gold star, but you already got 5.

Ek Poepol · Post by **Ek Poepol** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:14 pm

Ok fair enough mabye tuning is a bit to much. But to really test driver skill in drag racing we should be able to gearshift. Im downloading 2.0 as I wright (cant wait) so I dont know if you can or cant but ill soon find out.

Thanks Ande for the hard work.

Rendy Andrian · Post by **Rendy Andrian** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:09 am

How about Flying Start feature?

Mouse · Post by **Mouse** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:29 pm

Rendy Andrian wrote:How about Flying Start feature?

It could work. Probably all that's needed is a special AI line (one lap only) that takes the line around the center of the track, and control moves to the players when the pole car finishes the lap (crosses the start line).

BongRasta · Post by **BongRasta** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:39 pm

Mouse wrote:
Rendy Andrian wrote:How about Flying Start feature?
It could work. Probably all that's needed is a special AI line (one lap only) that takes the line around the center of the track, and control moves to the players when the pole car finishes the lap (crosses the start line).

that would be cool!

Ek Poepol · Post by **Ek Poepol** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:04 pm

BongRasta wrote:
Mouse wrote:
Rendy Andrian wrote:How about Flying Start feature?
It could work. Probably all that's needed is a special AI line (one lap only) that takes the line around the center of the track, and control moves to the players when the pole car finishes the lap (crosses the start line).
that would be cool!

That would be AWSOME!!!

I dont see how it could be hard to do that. You drive a special line and then the racing lines. I dont think it would need much changing just a special tipe of AI line like Mouse said.

Post by **Badeend** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:10 pm

Don't think anything is easy to implement until you know the source

Rendy Andrian · Post by **Rendy Andrian** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:45 am

Mouse wrote:
Rendy Andrian wrote:How about Flying Start feature?
It could work. Probably all that's needed is a special AI line (one lap only) that takes the line around the center of the track, and control moves to the players when the pole car finishes the lap (cross33es the start line).

But how? How to make a special AI Line? Do we need some special command?

Mouse · Post by **Mouse** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:17 pm

Rendy Andrian wrote:
Mouse wrote:
Rendy Andrian wrote:How about Flying Start feature?
It could work. Probably all that's needed is a special AI line (one lap only) that takes the line around the center of the track, and control moves to the players when the pole car finishes the lap (cross33es the start line).
But how? How to make a special AI Line? Do we need some special command?

It's not a feature right now, I'm only explain how it could [possibly] work.

Hwoarang · Post by **Hwoarang** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:39 pm

About the perfect race algorithm: I don't know the exact amount of variables present in the game, but I don't think it should be too hard to create an algorithm that works within the realms of the game. And it wouldn't be longer than a few lines, maybe a page at worst. At least when it comes to a ghost race (withouth crashes). If I had more time available I would voulenteer to create it myself, but if I could get listed all variables that contirbutes towards speed (with the exception of crashes and interaction between moving objects and such on the track) like speed (derivative of position), speed in turns, friction, acceleration (second derivative of position) position rate of turn, brake effect (this is a kind of friction, but in a different aspect in that the user can directly "turn on" this friction, as opposed to having to drive on it to experience this friction) and brake effeciancy on different foundations, etc, I could maybe see if it is possible to create an algorithm that would hold up within the physics in the program, or if potentially a numerical approximation would have to do.