General AI Discussion

[cip]

are there any traffic rules / settings we as users can modify which will see the AI 'get a move on' or at least not be such overly cautious menaces?

I don't remember if you still use my traffic mod or your observations ar for the defult settings.
in my mod I use the following rules

Code: Select all

ai_deceleration_coef: (0.15, 0.35)

and

Code: Select all

ai_acceleration_threshold: 100

as names say one deals with deceleration and the second with the acceleration. although we do not know how much these can help without official information from SCS. in my traffic I do not feel like an issue with Ai at yellow, sometimes they stop and if they are too close to the semaphore and it turns yellow, first intention is to brake but they go through, certainly they don't hard brake
moving at semaphores it depends also an the weight of the cargoes because cars seem to be fine. I can only complain at road works, even with 30 seconds increased semaphore green still Ai move slow and stop before the green semaphore. so in these situation I just overtake the entire column of Ai and send my sweet thoughts to those who are supposed to have fix this bug long time ago when it has been reported and never done it

[The Old Fart]

Cip, Thanks for the response and for noting those code sections. I'll play with them and see what impact they may have - and any unintended consequences as well! I'll report back if any changes I make were useful.

And, of course I still use your traffic mod (both ATS and ETS2). I wouldn't hit the road without it! I have made some minor adjustments to suit myself - like killing off the street sweepers and reducing bus spawn (I think you see a lot more buses of all sorts in Europe than we do here in Canada, so I toned them down). They are more annoying in-game than in real life (the buses operated by our regional transit operator - OC Transpo - can't be accused of dawdling; they move along right smartly, even the big tandems).

And, for your information: as I noted earlier I'm still on 1.36 but I tried your v1.37 adjustments to traffic in my game. Some of the changes are indeed very welcome; there does seem to be better AI behaviour at on-ramps and such. I did however notice an increased frequency of trucks getting 'stuck' in cities at intersections and not proceeding through the lights. I passed some such blockages hours later and they were still there. The traffic jams were biblical! It may well have been prefab issues or conflicts of some sort (I was on the Coast 2 Coast map in North and South Carolina). Still, you're probably on the right track.

Thanks for your ongoing efforts to improve traffic.

[joschac2]

@cip i didn.t hit anything. I Just driving, then saw a truck spawn and fly into the bridge and merge it with it. It was quite funny too

[cip]

Joschac, not you necessarily, any Ai hitting a double the result is the same, I also see some doubles fling around sometimes

I'll report back if any changes I make were useful.

please come back, I am 95% busy with sounds now, don't really check traffic, this update was only because I was trying some combinations to get rid of the Ai cars stuck at some badly placed weigh stations and discovered accidentally that even in scs file there is high traffic density on that lanes and tested ultra low density there

I did however notice an increased frequency of trucks getting 'stuck' in cities at intersections and not proceeding through the lights

most likely it's a badly implemented strategy of the intersection, sometimes I see this in the SCS map too (I don't use any map mods in ATS), for example road intersection then immediately railway intersection with barriers and Ai not moving in the road intersetion because they wait for the barriers to lift up first, so traffic jam
thanks for the other good words!

[The Old Fart]

@cip, OK, I'll call this an interim report because I'm still testing. I made two changes which have an effect on traffic. Both seem to work as intended with no unintended consequences noted so far.

The first change I made was to increase the ai_acceleration_threshold: 100 to ai_acceleration_threshold: 135 (+35%). This actually does seem to have a positive impact on all vehicles. Cars and trucks seem to get moving through intersections more smartly and it also seems to help out with vehicles merging onto freeways and traffic flow in general. There are still trucks and cars stopped prior to merging onto highways, but they seem to get onto the highway more smoothly. Still testing this as I want to make sure I'm not seeing that because I want to see it.

The second thing I tried, because I was annoyed with the AI at traffic lights, and the traffic lights cycle in general if I'm honest, was a revised semaphore_profile.sii file. I snagged that file from the 'better driving experience' mod. I must say, I do like the new traffic light cycle. It looks like the ai has more time to get through the intersections and more of them now seem to do so. I have the impression that traffic flow is better - but I'll know more when I've driven a few dozen more city centres and rush hours.

[cip]

good! also good for the semaphore cycles, it;s true that for ATS I did not look to understand how some semaphores work, note that for ETS2 I increased semaphore cycles long time ago. for ATS the cycles were already longer than in ETS2 and thus considered is not worth the time, but I believe you that somebody have done it and I believe it's a good job!

[Reignman]

The second thing I tried, because I was annoyed with the AI at traffic lights, and the traffic lights cycle in general if I'm honest

Light cycles, now there's a growing pet peeve of mine lol. I don't know about Canada, Europe, or the UK, but here in the US most traffic lights use a variety of sensors to determine when to change lights, or to skip them. Like if there are no cars in the left turn lane, it's not going to turn green and the traffic going straight will get a green sooner.

Same thing on busier roads, lights will stay green until some cross traffic shows up. It keeps things flowing. It gets a little annoying when you're cruising down Main Street through Roswell or Artesia, and you miss all 20 lights even though there's no cross traffic to trip them. So you gotta wait for those, then you gotta wait for all the left turn lanes, which also have no cars. Part of the reason why I have traffic violations disabled lol. I'm going to roll through those red lights if there's no cross traffic.

[Vinnie Terranova]

These are my AI issues:

- AI suddenly stopping on interstate at merging lanes.
- Amount of AI popping up at opposite lanes of interstates: it's like 15, 20 AI vehicles are thrown 'as a package' onto the opposite lanes. Behind those 15 cars there is emptyness (no AI traffic). And after that emptyness another package of AI vehicles is thrown onto the opposite lanes. And then there is again emptyness. Etc, etc.
- Too few ai traffic in cities. Big cities should be full of traffic.
- Collisions: you always have to pay, even if the collision is caused by an AI vehicle.
- AI sometimes changing lanes for no reason.
- AI sometimes overtaking other AI way too slow.
- I miss emergency vehicles with running sirens and emergency lights; exept for road accidents it only happens when I drive more than 5 mph above the speed limit / having no lights at night / driving in the wrong lane / etc. In short: when I make a mistake. But what about an ambulance who is driving towards an accident? Or a police car who is chasing another vehicle? Etc.
- Motorcyclists don't lean in corners (does vanilla game have motorcyclists, or are motorcyclists part of some traffic packs?).
- And then there is this Washington road error... Apparently somebody has changed my topic title as if it is caused by a mod. I use some mods, but I think I don't use a map mod in Washington? I guess I'll have to check with a new vanilla profile.

[supersobes]

Amount of AI popping up at opposite lanes of interstates: it's like 15, 20 AI vehicles are thrown 'as a package' onto the opposite lanes. Behind those 15 cars there is emptyness (no AI traffic). And after that emptyness another package of AI vehicles is thrown onto the opposite lanes. And then there is again emptyness. Etc, etc.

From what I've observed on real-life Interstates, this is actually a realistic scenario. Traffic often gets itself bunched up in groups. This is caused by faster traffic cathing up to slower traffic and being "stuck" behind them. Another factor is that a lot of vehicles do not maintain a constant speed. Cars will often pass each other several times if they are traveling on a rural Interstate for an extended amount of time. This is because of things like lane changes, passing slow trucks and trailers, getting caught behind a slow vehicle in the left lane, etc. If there's one lone car that is not like the others who is traveling way below or above the speed limit, it might find itself out on the open road with no other vehicles around it because it ended up between these groups as it's not keeping pace with the rest of the traffic. Incidents such as minor accidents and aggressive or clueless drivers can also cause groups of bunched of traffic if flowing traffic is suddenly forced to slam on the brakes. If everybody drove exactly the speed limit, then these groups would become less common and traffic flow would be more constant. Another contributing factor is interchanges and ramps. When you have a ramp, particularly one that has a traffic signal at the end of it regulating the traffic getting on the highway, you'll get sudden bursts of traffic merging onto the highway, causing a large group of vehicles.

[cip]

just had almost 2 hours driving in ATS and had no issues at all with my traffic mod, increasing traffic lights intervals / cycles in my traffic mod was a great idea ! traffic is fluent now in cities besides I have now much less traffic on ramps and weigh station, the ultra low spawn on these places has made the trick! vehicles stopped before weigh station, a single car in almost 2 hours so pretty reasonable (here I cannot do anything it's prefab issue allowing cars to enter although ahead is forbidden for cars. I have a very good density both in cities and freeways with no FPS drop at all, not even in cities, Las Vegas is basically full and yet no FPS drops here neither! ATS is currently working great for me, finally! besides will all traffic sounds, Max was right, FMOD do not affect the game it can handle easily all my traffic sounds, well done with the FMOD implementation (except for the know issues not yet solved)
@Vinnie, without these gaps you will be stuck on merging lanes forever