AI Racing Possibilities for Challenges

General Chat
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Good day everyone. I felt like making this post to show what possibilities we currently have for AI Racing cars made in automation. Please, if anyone has anything they can add to this list please tell me, because any possibility is something I can consider for the future.

I will add it to the list if it’s an option. All options will have their advantages and disadvantages listed, and a final rating out of 10.

Anyways, here we go.

BeamNG [PAID]

  • Most direct export of automation cars

  • High moddability

  • Mediocre performance means running more than ~5 cars requires a good PC

  • Bad and inconsistent AI

  • AI drives like grandma yet still manages to crash all the time without work

  • Near demolition derby style racing

  • Best for small scale demolition derby style racing, but mediocre at best for normal racing unless modded.
    (Hyperboloid and I made a mod specifically for BeamNG AI racing, but it broke at some point.)

Final Score - 5/10 :orange_circle:

Ultimate Racing 2D 2 (UR2D2) [PAID]

  • Export only possible if calculations or estimations are used to rate cars in Top Speed, Acceleration, Boost, and Grip from 0 to 10

  • Good, fast paced chaotic racing, but eventually turns predictable

  • Top down racer, allows car visuals from top, usually enough to see what car is what easily

  • Fantastic performance, but a max of 20 cars per race, with 2 per team

  • Struggles with balance, top speed is wildly overpowered

  • Ability to make custom tracks, but often gimmicks have to be put in to make racing truly exciting

  • Pit stops

  • Includes driver ratings, but not aggression ratings

  • Best for fast-paced exciting races, but struggles with anything longer than 15 minutes

Final Score - 7.5/10 :green_circle:

Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Any spreadsheet software [FREE]

  • No live visuals (unless you are crazy)

  • Requires math to get right

  • Near limitless possibilities if you know what you are doing

  • Difficult to work with compared to other options due to having to do everything from scratch

  • Best for rallying and similar due to having no visuals

Final score - 6.5/10 :green_circle:

Assetto Corsa [PAID, MAKE SURE TO BUY WITH DLC IF POSSIBLE]

  • Export currently only easily possible with “Engine Crane” tool

  • Only engines can currently easily be exported, so visuals have to be represented by liveries

  • Reasonably good AI, but struggles with consistency based on track and car. Requires testing

  • Requires some knowledge on how Assetto Corsa works to fix problems which inconsistently appear

  • Fantastic racing at best, demolition derby racing at worst. Inconsistent

  • Pit stops if configured correctly, but not yet properly tested

  • Extreme moddability, similar level to BeamNG

  • Decent performance, but anything above ~20 cars on track will require a decent CPU

  • Best for long spec racing where all cars are the same but with a different engine and livery, though more is possible but not yet tried (An example of this in real life is Indycar)

Final score - 8/10 :large_blue_circle:

Bloody Rally Show [PAID, BUT DEMO]

  • Export possible by writing down statistics of car, but may be time consuming

  • Far more detailed in export than UR2D2

  • Easy to work with car editor, making it reasonably easy to figure out how to import cars properly

  • Top-down racing game, allowing for views from top in a similar way to UR2D2 meaning cars can not be viewed fully

  • Many gimmicks such as crowds, guns, and helicopters to make racing more exciting

  • Bad camera system only currently allowing on focusing on leader, but probably possible to modify or replace

  • Mediocre AI best used for Demolition Derby style racing, but still more viable for normal racing than BeamNG

  • The ability to make custom tracks and auto-generate tracks, but limited in having no pitlane

  • Good performance and no limit on how many cars can be on track

  • Mediocre moddability, but most likely enough to allow for some changes

  • Best used for large scale chaotic Demolition Derby racing, but may require some more research if better cameras are wanted. For now only focusing on the leader unless there is a camera car

  • Will require testing, as not properly tested yet

Final Score - 7/10 :green_circle:

Speed Dreams and TORCS [FREE]

  • Open Source

  • Export currently limited and not yet tested, but since it’s Open Source it shouldn’t have limits

  • Outdated and old, especially in graphics and UI

  • AI appears to drive like grandma, but is willing to race other AI fairly

  • Mediocre performance beaten by Assetto Corsa

  • Will require major work and research to actually viably use

  • Avoid unless you know what you’re doing and stick to Assetto Corsa for now

Final Score - 3/10 :red_circle:

Not yet properly tested games, but possible choices as well

  • Grand Prix 4 [FREE] (Runs very well, but I have no idea how one would export engines or cars properly. Probably possible in some capacity)

  • GMod [PAID] (Extreme moddability means it’s probably very possible to get some AI racing, but not tested)

  • Gran Turismo 7 [PAID, CONSOLE ONLY] (Will have very bad and inaccurate exporting, but possible at some level)

  • Wreckfest [PAID] (May be possible but I honestly have no idea how viable exporting engines or cars to it properly would be. If possible may be a very good option though)

Please remember that this list is in no way comprehensive, and if you have any suggestions to be added, please tell me! I will try to update this list whenever I find another option or I figure out how to make my own.

1 Like
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Isn’t there some alternative from Betterdeals software we can use instead?

4 Likes
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There’s another version, and it’s one that a group of us briefly looked into, then stopped - for reasons I’ll get into at the end of this post: Code Your Own, in a real programming language.

In effect, this is a somewhat more extreme version of spreadsheets - but the possibilities are quite literally endless, and certain tasks are far, far easier than spreadsheets. With sensible choice of platform, 2D graphics are relatively easy - most languages offer some way to output 2D graphics. Some can even do 3D somewhat easily too. With the existing exporter API, you could even make a plugin to get arbitrary data from the game.

So, why did we stop? Well, certain content in the Little Dev Updates has been suggestive of an even better solution coming. The track simulation is getting weather and temperature simulations the ability to run multiple laps, and a few things that don’t really seem worth it for making a one-lap simulator… But do for making a full race simulator. Maybe I’m reading into all of this, and I’d love if the devs can come out and say it’s not happening, but it’s my suspicion that the ability to simulate races within Automation is on the roadmap for the medium term, with a concrete roadmap building towards that. This is, of course, entirely speculation on my end from various statements and impressions. I could be completely wrong. I just hope I’m not.

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I really hope you’re right, i suck at coding and the furthest ive really made it is a few basic things where you can drive around a track, but of course that doesn’t get you that far.

Even so, we don’t have that right now, so we have to either be patient, make our own, or find a solution.

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Pen and paper would probably be more effective.

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Use your imagination.

step one - take car stats into consideration
step two - make your bed
step three - set your alarm clock
step four - dream about your car racing
step five - wake up, record lap time
step six - done!

4 Likes
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The brain is the best computer!

In all seriousness, yes this is an option, but of course accuracy is… Mediocre at best.

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Genuinely surprised that Minecraft Cart Racing was left out from the list.

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Best.

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For all its faults, BeamNG as an AI platform for export is quite entertaining - especially when used for demolition derbies with small grids.

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Adding TORCS under Speed Dreams. About the same, but with way worse UI and even worse graphics, but with far better performance and what appears like easier to mod. Still, extremely similar.

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I use to be in a group who made cars in automation specifically for racing them in Beam.NG. For anything that we wanted to not turn into a demolition derby the races were run with collision off. The host for the races would record an AI line for the cars to follow, spawn all the cars in, pause the game and get the cars to start running at the same time and let it do it’s thing. One thing we did discover and I don’t know if it is still true, is that car weight in Automation and in Beam.NG varied drastically due to fixtures having either 0.2 or 0.5 kg of weight each, which could lead to heavy fixtured vehicles weighing 100s of kg more in Beam than in Automation. But that was late 2010s so it could be much better now.

He still has some of the stream highlights on his Twitch if anyone wants to check it out, under the title of AIT Racing: Twitch

2 Likes
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No collisions is smart, hadn’t thought of that before. Even so, you’ll need a beefy PC to run it, and is it really full on racing if its just no collisions? I dont think so, at least.

The way we used to do it before the CCC was that we recorded multiple lines for the AI to take, which allowed them to occasionally overtake. This is probably most effective on ovals. Even so it often turned into demolition derby, smart to turn off collisions though.