Re: robotic failings and some solutions

On Thu, May 23, 2013, at 07:43 AM, Bernhard Wymann wrote:
... 
> Ok, when I find the time I will have a look, but beware, there has even 
> been formula 1 races with just 4 cars hitting the finish line, so in 
> racing it is pretty common that "***t happens". Same applies if you go 
> into an online lobby against human players (with other racing games of 
> course, TORCS is missing that)...
> 
> You can as well adjust the amount of "chaos" by the driver selection, if 
> you take "berniw" offsprings there should be not too much action...
> 

I know contact can't always be avoided, but the problem (one of them)
with these robots is their endless pushing which is totally unnecessary,
for example in turn 1 of a longer race (regardless of track type).
Obviously, no human driver in their right mind would initiate anything
there. In this game, that turn 1 riot is pretty much automatic. I start
my test races at the back of the field (20-25 cars usually), and there's
no point in joining that chaotic rush there because one of those brutes
will undoubtedly push me if I try to race "normally" or pass anybody,
and then some other rager will keep pounding till my car's totaled. If I
give them a 20-second head start, I might still catch some of them by
the end of lap 1.

 
> My experience/opinion with this differs, depending on you opponent 
> selection you can have a very "organized" race or a "chaotic" one, so 
> you have some choice (after discovering the characters of the bots).
> 
> At least for me as human driver it is pretty easy to stay out of trouble 
> in TORCS, compared to racing against other human drivers online with 
> other racing sims.
> 
> I agree with you that the robots could be more clever, they are 
> certainly not optimized for oval racing.
> 

But that happens on all tracks, including road courses, that blind
driving, smashing into cars even when there's room for passing (usually
there is). They have no restraint: they just force their way through
anybody, other robots or a human. That's what really irks me, and very
often ruins my race. And the presence of a human isn't necessary:
they'll exchange blows everywhere, bang into one another for no reason.
Just the other day, I ran one more test race for that as yet unreleased
road course (with the terrain problem), and the leader had a clear,
20-second lead when in the final turn, surrounded by a couple of lapped
cars, one of those brutes rams into the leader's car and sends it into
the pit wall on the front straight, and then comes another one and
bang-bang-bang, wants to drill a hole through the leader's car, sideways
and nose against the pit wall. 10,000 of damage in no time flat, and
race over for the leader, 150 m from the finish line. The raging
drummers flee the scene as usual.

...
> > 4. the inability of robots to drive smoothly (in a race, NOT on solo
> > runs), on straightaways and in turns. This leads to frequent incidents
> > when some idiot slams on the brakes all of a sudden, leaving a poor
> > human no time to react and swerve (obviously affects other robots too).
> 
> In the berniw offsprings this is the case, this is a relict from the 
> "200MHz CPU area", to save CPU cycles it does not reconsider some 
> decisions. When I am going to hack this, this will be improved.
> 
> > And as always happens upon contact, the human-controlled car is sent
> > into the wall or airborne while the slowpoke offender drives away
> > happily. This behavior is probably related to or a consequence of the
> 
> They probably just react better, if you run "semi pro" you have exactly 
> the same physics, with pro you have more damage and less grip. I do not 
> know how good you "drive", maybe some practise/analysis helps.
> 
> Usually sudden movements end up in problems, e.g. if you lift the 
> accelerator suddenly you can get heavy oversteer because of engine 
> braking, switching gears in the wrong moment can be pretty bad as well, 
> etcetc.
> 

It doesn't matter what I do because of their predictably unpredictable
driving. If I'm driving on the inside, they may smash into my car in
turn entry; if I stay on the outside, they're eager to hand out their
punishment right before exiting the turn; the center of the track in a
turn is a danger zone at all times. I don't know how to assess my
driving: being much faster than the robots, especially on short tracks
(where they can be 2-5 seconds slower than me despite driving lighter
trb1 cars), doesn't say much.

> > blindness and aggression described in 1. This kind of erratic driving
> > also puts the robots at a disadvantage: a human racer, if able to avoid
> > the aggressors and their endless repertoire of tricks, can often lap the
> > field or the majority of them unnaturally soon, not exactly the sign of
> > good racing.
> 
> Yes, this is the case, but this is not that important because of "our" 
> audience:
> 1. I think real race addicts/aces having steering whels etc. are by no 
> means running TORCS, or just out of curiosity, they are using iRacing, 
> LFS, or whatever, so this is not the intended audience.
> 2. People which have no budget and just want to have some fun, they are 
> downloading TORCS and enjoy some laps with the keyboard or maybe a 
> gamepad, but I suppose those not being fast drivers.
> 3. People using TORCS as base for their own research/whatever projects, 
> they can hack the things to make it fit their requirements.
> 
> So I agree that it could be better (e.g. in a future version there will 
> be rubberbanding implemented), but there are more important things to do 
> currently.

...

> > 6. the infuriating bulldoze-through-any-obstacle behavior that causes
> > nothing but trouble on the track. Why can't the robots back up and go
> > around an obstacle (stopped car) cleanly instead of forcing their way
> > through it? Is it totally inconceivable and impossible to change the
> 
> I explained this here:
> http://sourceforge.net/p/torcs/discussion/11281/thread/948d0e70/
> 

So a robot going in reverse OR avoiding the obstacle well in advance is
impossible, too complicated/time-consuming or completely irrelevant?
It's just that this very "feature" results in lots of wrecks, none of
which should happen, and depletes the field very dramatically. And for a
human, sometimes it's impossible to get away before one of those brutes
closes in and starts drumming away. My car's gone, my engine's cooking,
and unprintable words stream forth. 

> > 7. pit road failures:
 ...
> > in a longer race, never even turning onto pit road for fuel, instead
> > running out of it and crawling along the track, another recipe for
> > disaster and invitation to the rageaholic drummers. The pit road entry
> > point in the "Pits" section is usually far enough for the robots to be
> > able to get off the track in time and turn onto pit road, but for some
> > unknown reason, they don't even try to pit;
> 
> Maybe you have more drivers in the race than pits?

No, like I said, 20-25 cars in the field for me, and my tracks have more
pits (ovals usually with 43 or 44 like on real tracks, road courses with
30+ depending on front straight length and stuff). I don't remember on
which road courses this happens (it's been months since my last test
races there), but of ovals, you may check ac-speedway, dd-speedway,
is-speedway, mi-speedway, mt-speedway, ne-speedway, pp-speedway and
ri-speedway (or its night version) at least. Of those tracks, many have
a curving front stretch (which you told me a long time ago wasn't valid
for pits), but some like dd-speedway and ne-speedway have a front
straight, yet some robots fail to even enter the pits. To reiterate my
point, some robots do come to the pits for fuel on those tracks and
succeed in their pit stop too (I can't remember which ones or if there's
any consistency) while others just keep driving cluelessly until the
tank is empty. 
> 
> 
> Thanks for the input, here my opinion:
> The robots will need improvement, I agree on that, but my priority on 
> the last and as well on the upcoming releases is on TORCS itself. Three 
> planned steps will have a significant impact on the robots, that is why 
> I first want to complete those before adopting the robots. These are:
> 1. Car setup can be changed in the pit under certain conditions
> 2. More racing rules (pace car, etc.)
> 3. Split/Join/Crossing track segments (for city like scenarios in 
> research, but as "side effect" you can do then as well pit lanes on a 
> separate path, maybe ROC like scenarios or track variants).
> 
> Those have a big impact on the bots, so I basically sacrifice robot 
> development currently in favour of IMO more important things.
> 
> Btw. if you want to try other bots you can get them from the TRB events, 
> e.g:
> http://www.berniw.org/trb/events/event_view.php?vieweventid=17
> 
> Beware, for 1.3.4 you need to adopt them:
> http://www.berniw.org/trb/forum/showthread.php?topicid=3508
> 

Okay, I have to check that sometime later. 


> A final thought, about "Now the truth is out there": You should think 
> about if there something like truth outside a mathematical context even 
> exists, because usually the things selled as truth are just point of 
> views/opinions, or even worse beliefs/paradigms. So depending on what 
> you accept as facts and how you weight it, you will come to different 
> conclusions;-)
> 
> And if Einstein is right (nobody could falsify so far the theory of 
> relativity) there does not even exist a globally observable reality, so 
> even in physics your point of view matters regarding what and when you 
> see something;-)
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Bernhard


I know that's my interpretation (the phrase was supposed to be catchy
and semi-amusing after reading through all my aches and pains), but
that's why I encouraged everybody "out there" to run test races (which I
always run several times before any track release), so it's not just
some stranger's word on some mailing list. And it's not like I have any
interest in stirring the pot or trolling, let alone time for such
frivolities. 

Yours truly, (pun intended if accepted)
st

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - mmm... Fastmail...


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