Testing AI bots in US Full Server

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:32 pm

I have upgraded the US servers to the beta version of 1.0.6 which will hopefully be released in 2-3 weeks if no major bugs are found. The major new feature will be the possibility to have AI bots (in tracks where driving lines have been made).

US Full Server AI Fill has been set to 6, meaning that if there are less than 6 human players, AI bots will be added to get a total of 6 players. Thus, if you want to see what AI will look like, you can go there and test. Unfortunately, the ping is of course quite high for European players so the experience may be quite jerky for them.

There will be 5 different skill levels for AI. The US server is currently using 3/5. The AI may not be good enough even in the highest level for the best human players but at least, it should be good enough to teach beginners to become better

.

If you test the server and find any big bugs relating to AI or the new server, you can inform it here.

UPDATE: AI Fill is currently 8 and may change

.

Mouse · Post by **Mouse** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:58 pm

im on it ande! off to us demo server!!!!!! yay!!!

mandeagle · Post by **mandeagle** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 4:45 am

nice, but those ai bots will run only with default cars or with another cars too?

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 7:24 am

mandeagle wrote:nice, but those ai bots will run only with default cars or with another cars too?

As different cars require very different driving lines, there have to be driving lines for the each car in each track (if you want AI to be able to drive with that car in that track). At first, there are lines for the default cars in the default tracks. It will be possible for anyone to add driving lines but unfortunately, it is not super easy and can take lots of time. But it is all documented how you can do it

.

I have not tested how the AI algorithm works with different cars yet so it may also be that it is particularly bad with some non-default cars but it remains to be tested.

dby · Post by **dby** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 2:59 pm

Nice job! It was pretty fun to drive with bots. And they're not that bad. It's a challenge to get past the entire field. How much faster are level 5 compared to 3?

They're not very good at finding the way after a missed jump though, but it doesn't happen too often. And I saw some skip a checkpoint when they got lost, resulting in being disabled soon after - but that's no biggie either - kinda like some n00bs anyway.

I imagine they can be really competitive if some special manouvres are implemented.

I was thinking that maybe it should show in the name that they're AI drivers? Like an [AI] team tag perhaps?

Mouse · Post by **Mouse** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:15 pm

haha, i cant wait for some newbie player to enter a server and get passed roughly by a bot and then swear at it! "hey race cleaner Dr. Larch, you peice of crap!.......hey!........hello!?" lol i know it will happen one of these days, it will be great! haha.

ok now to get serious. i had a race with bots at westleap, where you said they have trouble. the good thing is in this race i saw no bots get lost. some did miss jumps but were able to get back going again.

really this will be so great when released! no server will be empty, and will be good practise for me with the default cars. then mabye i can be more successfull in tornaments.

this is great, imo, with a few more updates to TS it could even make 2.0.0.

mandeagle · Post by **mandeagle** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:31 pm

well, so in my point of view, it was a use less update to brazilian players, because we rarely run with default cars, and make lines to all tracks with the 3 cars we run sound crazy, but the idea was great and the people who run with those cars will like

yet, nice job

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:10 pm

dby wrote:Nice job! It was pretty fun to drive with bots. And they're not that bad. It's a challenge to get past the entire field. How much faster are level 5 compared to 3?

I guess it may depend on the car and track and how fast the humans are driving. In level 3/5, best bots go a bit faster if there are fast humans and the same applies to slowest ones. But an educated guess might be that if 3/5 bots complete a track in about 20 seconds in average, 5/5 bots might do that in about 19-19.5 seconds.

They're not very good at finding the way after a missed jump though, but it doesn't happen too often. And I saw some skip a checkpoint when they got lost, resulting in being disabled soon after - but that's no biggie either - kinda like some n00bs anyway.

Yes that's what they may do

. They normally manage to get back on route if there is road below and sometimes otherwise, too, but sometimes they just get lost.

I was thinking that maybe it should show in the name that they're AI drivers? Like an [AI] team tag perhaps?

That might have been a good idea yes, but somehow, it was not implemented as making it well might have required changes in client side code (so that people cannot pretend to be AIs). But you can see which ones are bots by using /who.

Mouse · Post by **Mouse** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 9:32 pm

hey ande i was wondering, when 1.0.6 comes out. will i be able to name my own bots for my servers?

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:12 pm

Mouse wrote:hey ande i was wondering, when 1.0.6 comes out. will i be able to name my own bots for my servers?

I can't promise any dates but hopefully in 2-3 weeks. And yes, AI names, colors and various skill parameters will be fully customizable.

road_oktane · Post by **road_oktane** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:46 am

Ande,

Will be there a possibility for each bot in server drive a different car?

Like bot Kimi Raikkonen choose the car form1-mclaren, Schumacher chooses form1-ferrari... or even the server admin set the bot's car?

The same question for setting the skill. The bots on server can have different skills? Like the bot Noobmaster having 1/5 skill, and the bot Mikenike-clon having 5/5 in the same race?

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:22 am

road_oktane wrote: Will be there a possibility for each bot in server drive a different car?

Yes but unfortunately, you can't tell what cars they should use. If the mode is non-fixed-car, they will make their own random selection (prefering the best car according to the driving line laps).

The same question for setting the skill. The bots on server can have different skills? Like the bot Noobmaster having 1/5 skill, and the bot Mikenike-clon having 5/5 in the same race?

It is possible to have bots of different skill. However, the system works so that the skill level is fixed but you can define individual bots inside a certain skill level to be worse or better. Skill level is in a way just a name of a group, but in the default AI definitions, all bots belonging to the same "skill" group have equal actual skill. But if you want, you can add really bad bots in 5/5, too.

Anthony · Post by **Anthony** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 1:11 am

Wow, that was awesome. Those bots are pretty adept to each of the 5 cars, and they didn't make any mistakes except if they mess up a ramp jump, they don't know to go around and try again, so they just re-do the whole lap. Aside from that, they were perfect, and I liked how each of them had different lines so they didn't seem like boring, generic, straight-line AI racers. They even came back from my bump attacks!!

Very nice job, Ande, looking forward to the next update so I can do some evil stuff to these little guys.