WHY IS THE AI SO BAD?

[apachemerchant]

My #1 problem with the AI is that, when you pull out of (eg.) a company lot and onto a road, and an oncoming car slows to a stop to let you out/avoid a collision, they don't stop with enough room to let you keep pulling out - they will stop right in front of the nose of your truck, making it impossible to pull out any further. And then they refuse to move. The only solution is then to restart the game to reset the traffic.

Besides that, the AI can be annoying but I basically never have collisions as long as I'm driving carefully, in a style that emulates real life. The only places I still sometimes have collisions is lane merges, but these can generally be avoided if you let the AI drive in front of you.

Probably because you stop too close to them when you're waiting at a lot/junction/entrance to the main road. The AI obviously cannot swerve in these sims to avoid collisions so I guess they're super sensitive when you stop close to them and afraid to scratch you.

[De_Ruyter]

I have been saying this as well, but people keep telling me not to complain and it would be all ok. Yet the same people don't do anything other then TMP...
So far SCS didn't pick up on this either, which is a shame. The AI really needs a serious overhaul for it to become more realistic.
Yes, bad drivers are always possible, specially in specific countries. But that isn't the issue.
The issue is AI spawning in right next to you in the dead zone, causing a crash and you get fined for it. Which makes no sense.
IRL you wouldn't end up paying if you are not the cause of the crash, so why would that be the case in the game?
Another big issue is that the AI seems to think causing a lot of crashes is a good thing, only to get you stuck waiting forever until the AI manages to get things sorted again.
So yeah, the AI really does need a overhaul.

[Prince]

The AI really is bad. It's just not that visible with standard settings, as there are unrealistically few cars on the roads. I changed the traffic to 10 in the config file, and it was a complete mess. All of this happened during my last drive:

* AI is either waiting for nothing in roundabouts, or drive straight out in front of you
* Cities are a complete chaos with traffic jams all over the place
* AI will suddenly drive out in front of you from junctions
* AI stops at on ramps to motorways, because the AI on the motorway doesn't understand that it can switch lane in order to help the traffic flow
* At some junctions, the AI pulls out and the slams the brakes a few meter out, before it starts driving again

[David Paterson]

I had an absolute shocker yesterday, at a two lane roundabout in Dover. Both lanes are unmarked and there is no signage. I was in the right lane, going straight ahead; a Jag and a police car were in the left lane. They both turned right, straight across my bow and I slammed into the driver's door of the police car; not as much fun as it might seem...

1. why would they do that?
2. why should I be fined?

[Madkine]

2. why should I be fined?

Because you were in an accident (not because you caused it).

[Some newbie driver]

* AI is either waiting for nothing in roundabouts, or drive straight out in front of you

AI can be blamed of lots of things in SCS games, but not of their behavior in roundabouts. AI behavior in roundabouts is mostly OK with IRL laws and definitely way better than 75% of IRL drivers. The only thing AI should not do is to stop inside the roundabout, but to do another 360º turn if it had no space to exit where it wanted when driving on inside lanes. But even in those circumstances, AI is exactly depicting what most IRL drivers (wrongly) do. So, I would not expect SCS fixing something that ended being more realistic than if they would follow 100% driving laws.

Learn to drive inside roundabouts and the only problems AI would cause you in there will be:
- Very sporadic crashes between them caused in front of you (happens since in 1.42 approx they reduced the security distances AI waits to do maneuvers, in order to feel them a bit realistic; those crashes is one undesired secondary effect). They are a nuisance but very sporadic and don't use to delay us so much (and you always have the exit session/reload option to reset the AI traffic if the crash caused a really messy jam. Also, those crashes aren't specific on roundabouts; it's just they are places more prone to it due their layout and how AI works.
- AI entering the roundabout in front of you even you are still going on and NOT using blinkers. That's not AI's fault but mappers fault, they didn't included the "yield" marker (not the yield visible signal) on the entrance of the roundabout so AI would know how it should behave there. It's a map bug you can report.

Regards

[Axel Slingerland]

They both turned right, straight across my bow and I slammed into the driver's door of the police car...

1. why would they do that?
2. why should I be fined?

1. In my opinion, all you need to do is look at real drivers for the inspiration of that behavior. Like I always say idiots do idiotic things for a reason. They're idiots.

2. It's a catch-all fine. Like Madkine said, you were in an accident. And there aren't any conditions as to who gets the fine, the only one who can be fined is you. Or not... However, if it bothers you enough to do something about it, I would suggest extracting the def.scs file and open police_data.sii and either edit the following line:

Code: Select all

fine_amounts[0]: 400 		# car crash

And change it to any number you like. You could make any of those fines a higher number for whatever currency is for your country, or 0 for no fine at all:

Code: Select all

fine_amounts[0]: 0 		# car crash

Or you could disable fines completely in the game by opening the Options > Gameplay > Game Settings and uncheck the box by Traffic Offense.

Either way, you can do what I do, and just pretend you're in California. I've joked for years about how SCS modeled the AI after some of California's best drivers.
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[TheClubber]

I really can't understand AI behavior when it comes to roundabouts.
I use blinkers. Before entering the roundabout and before exiting it.
Sometimes, especially if I don't take the first exit (the closer), it may happen AI just seems not to see my blinker and crashes into me.
Most of time it happens with two-lane roundabouts.
But if you're driving a truck, also IRL, I doubt it's easy to stay in one lane, isn't it? So, the AI shouldn't only see in which lane I am, but also which blinker is flashing.

[wato]

In roundabouts, according to the rules, you only indicate right (left in UK) when leaving and after the previous to your exit.
Anything else IRL may be regional consensus (like indicating left while in the roundabout in France, e.g.) but is not according to the rules.

If you indicate before entering, the AI assumes you will turn before their entrance and drive in front of you, I guess.

[TheClubber]

In real life, I usually indicate just before entering the roundabout; I mean just before my car nose is beyond the line of "give way".
To be honest, I mainly do it if there is much traffic and I want to say the other drivers my intention (don't know in other Countries, but in Italy most of drivers isn't able to use roundabouts correctly, mainly because they don't use blinkers and those who are waiting to enter the roundabout don't know if they can go or have to wait).

As I was saying, I use it before entering if there is much traffic. Otherwise I use the blinkers only once inside the roundabout to indicate which exit I am about to take. And, once again, if I don't it's because there isn't anyone approaching the roundabout.

This is why I do the same in-game. It's a natural behavior, by now.