Do you support the implementation of AI traffic in TruckersMP?

[Interstate Nomad]

Howdy fellow truckers,

 

I have following question and kindly ask you to answer it using the provided options.

 

Do you support the implementation of AI traffic in TruckersMP?

 

If you like, please explain your choice in detail in the comments below.

Thank you in advance! Your feedback is appreciated.

[Foobrother]

Hello,

 

Thanks for starting a new poll & discussion on this very interesting topic!

This is definitely something I would love to see on TMP, but as well as many pros you have a few cons which will need to be taken into consideration before introducing it here.

 

Pros:

• Fantastic way to have traffic everywhere on the map. Which will encourage people to travel in other areas than the CD surroundings
• Will make the game even more realistic than the original single player game. Since you will have the same experience as the single player game + human players
• Should force reckless drivers to drive more carefully since they will have MUCH more vehicle on the road which drive at the road speed limit which increases the chances of collisions
• Will attract even more players. Especially the simulation players who will finally find a good reason to come back or play more on TMP

Cons:

• If we have the interactions with AI vehicles exactly as in the single player game you might end up with trolls deliberately blocking the AI traffic or crashing with AI vehicles to generate traffic jams or other chaos
• You will always have reckless drivers trying to drive at 110km/h on small roads with heavy traffic (i.e. AI + humans). And this will generate a lot of collisions (even if they are not willing to crash). 
• Some already busy areas might become a total nightmare with deadlocks everywhere because of AI vehicles blocking each others on a roundabout/junction etc...

That's what comes to my mind for now as the biggest pros/cons. But there are probably more which will be raised below

[Sunstrider]

I like the concept of having AI vehicles. Especially in desolate areas of the map that the CD players just don't want to drive to.

 

AI vehicles are more lightweight to being pushed by players then player vehicles do. The AI will make CD even laggier. Especially if the vehicles are client sided. g_traffic 10 is what CD is during peak hours. g_traffic 0 is what being kicked/rest of the map is.

[Interstate Nomad]

Thank you @Foobrother and @Sunstriderfor providing your interesting and detailed answer.

 

I agree on many aspects you mentioned. In particular, the more evenly distribution of traffic over the whole map is an attractive option for players, who would like to have a more realistic traffic experience outside of the infamous area of Duisburg and Calais.

Deliberately causing accidents with or blocking of AI traffic could only be avoided, if the AI vehicles are non-collision. While it would take away a certain degree of realisim, it would make it impossible to behave recklessly towards AI traffic.

 

@Sunstrider, your concern regarding the negative impact of AI traffic on the road between Duisburg and Calais is legit.

AI traffic should only be spawned in areas, where the number of players per area has fallen below a certain level. The area in and around Duisburg and Calais rightly must be excluded.

The downside of this is that the more player are attracted by AI traffic, the less AI traffic will spawn.

[Foobrother]

12 minutes ago, blabberbeak said:

Deliberately causing accidents with or blocking of AI traffic could only be avoided, if the AI vehicles are non-collision. While it would take away a certain degree of realisim, it would make it impossible to behave recklessly towards AI traffic.

Yeah I thought about this solution. But you would end up with idiots driving though AI vehicles at 110km/h and crashing into a human who was cruising nicely in the middle of the AI traffic! And you will have people abusing it during traffic jams to move up the queues etc...

[Interstate Nomad]

1 minute ago, Foobrother said:

Yeah I thought about this solution. But you would end up with idiots driving though AI vehicles at 110km/h and crashing into a human who was cruising nicely in the middle of the AI traffic! And you will have people abusing it during traffic jams to move up the queues etc...

 

The past and present of TruckersMP has proven that if a player wants to cause mayhem, (s)he will find a way to do so.

But I understand your point of view. AI traffic could become another tool or target. How can this be avoided, if at all?

AI traffic is no mean to educate misbehaving players.

 

[Foobrother]

1 hour ago, blabberbeak said:

 

The past and present of TruckersMP has proven that if a player wants to cause mayhem, (s)he will find a way to do so.

But I understand your point of view. AI traffic could become another tool or target. How can this be avoided, if at all?

AI traffic is no mean to educate misbehaving players.

 

Ideally to limit the mess and problems, you would have a dynamic system regulating the amount of AI vehicles depending on the number of humans in the area.

i.e. max number of total vehicle in a square km = 30.
if 1 human in the square km, then have 29 AI vehicles.

if 10 humans, then have 20 AI vehicles.

if 30 or more humans, then have 0 AI vehicles.  

 

Edit: @blabberbeak I just realised that's pretty much what you said to @Sunstrider. I didn't mean to steal your idea 

[Sunstrider]

@blabberbeak That's a good idea for the spawn rates. As none of the trolls are going to venture into the paid expansion areas. Therefore, i have a solution.

 

Make the overall spawning percent of AI based on map location and player population. That way, it gets evenly distributed. Maybe even check road direction of the traffic (Example: If a convoy of 10 is going west, spawn less but if it's just you going east, spawn more).

[FernandoCR [ESP]]

Pros, from my POV, everything.
Cons... It will probably never happen. Because anything that could threaten the current status quo (as in TMP = C-D mayhem compilation) would be immediately rejected by the majority. And what the majority wants, the majority gets.

[Interstate Nomad]

3 minutes ago, FernandoCR [ESP] said:

Pros, from my POV, everything.
Cons... It will probably never happen. Because anything that could threaten the current status quo (as in TMP = C-D mayhem compilation) would be immediately rejected by the majority. And what the majority wants, the majority gets.

 

Can it be regarded as a threat?

The area in and around Duisburg and Calais would not be subject to the implementation of AI traffic due to the constantly high number of players, and therefore nothing would change for the majority. The "C-D mayhem compilation" (thanks for the good laugh ) could continue without being bothered.

[Foobrother]

31 minutes ago, FernandoCR [ESP] said:

Pros, from my POV, everything.
Cons... It will probably never happen. Because anything that could threaten the current status quo (as in TMP = C-D mayhem compilation) would be immediately rejected by the majority. And what the majority wants, the majority gets.

 

16 minutes ago, blabberbeak said:

 

Can it be regarded as a threat?

The area in and around Duisburg and Calais would not be subject to the implementation of AI traffic due to the constantly high number of players, and therefore nothing would change for the majority. The "C-D mayhem compilation" (thanks for the good laugh ) could continue without being bothered.

I actually agree with both point of views!

While on paper it would indeed not change anything to the CD fans if we don't introduce AI Traffic in this area, I'm still worried that TMP management will be worried to see less people on CD (due to the rest of the map becoming more attractive for many players). And, as a result, some CD racing fans will find the road less attractive because of less obstacles/crash, traffic jams etc... Which could lead to attrition in terms of total number of users. 

[Granite [SVK]]

They attempted to bring AI traffic from singleplayer to TMP years ago.

It can work in SCS convoy with maximum of 8 players that are typically close together, but in TMP, I don't see how without serious problems, since it is player centered, spawning and despawning based on distance from the player.

Nevertheless, I still support addition of AI traffic to TMP, but I'm afraid that without developing something completely from scratch, we will never see it, and I'm inclined to believe it has been put in the drawer indefinitely, because it's either beyond their abilities or there are problems that can't be solved at the time. It has nothing to do with C-D road or whatnot, which could be solved with traffic-less server anyway.

[[S.PLH]Warrior]

Restrict from busy areas and let spawn AI in quiet places and generate low traffic depending on the area.

So the busy areas will not have additional traffic, i would support this thought.

[Mischievous_Vixen]

13 hours ago, Foobrother said:

Yeah I thought about this solution. But you would end up with idiots driving though AI vehicles at 110km/h and crashing into a human who was cruising nicely in the middle of the AI traffic! And you will have people abusing it during traffic jams to move up the queues etc...

Exactly why I do not and will not support ghost mode A.I. as the half baked solution to A.I. on TMP servers. Ghost mode A.I. will just be more annoying then not having it at all. Between the increased collisions by players into others, and the performance impact it would have on most player's PCs.

And before someone tries to flex, even those that have super computers aren't safe from lag/stutter with the current game engine. 

Edit: Yes, you could theoretically have more done by server, such as A.I., instead of it being processed client side. However, that would require much more processing power for the server. Meaning, TMP will need more Patrons, or current Patrons have to pay more. I'm sure some will be willing. But I doubt most people will want to pay, even if it was for good hardware to get a good experience. Alternatively we could submit to full blown ad revenue based model, but I doubt people want the game to turn into 'ads simulator'/'ad pop-up simulator'. 

[Mischievous_Vixen]

4 hours ago, Granite [SVK] said:

They attempted to bring AI traffic from singleplayer to TMP years ago.

It can work in SCS convoy with maximum of 8 players that are typically close together, but in TMP, I don't see how without serious problems, since it is player centered, spawning and despawning based on distance from the player.

Nevertheless, I still support addition of AI traffic to TMP, but I'm afraid that without developing something completely from scratch, we will never see it, and I'm inclined to believe it has been put in the drawer indefinitely, because it's either beyond their abilities or there are problems that can't be solved at the time. It has nothing to do with C-D road or whatnot, which could be solved with traffic-less server anyway.

Unless someone is paying for a dedicated server, SCSConvoy runs on the host's machine. Hence the 8 player limit, as the avg person doesn't have a super computer to handle the exponentially increasing load as you add more players. Plus, the limits of the older game engine - which while has been been worked on/optimized since it was released, still heavily relies on 1 thread. Even the stuff that got offloaded to other threads, still gets sent back to the main game thread at the end. 

[_europeantrucks_]

yes but not on dc road or other populated areas like calais düsseldorf and duisburg...

besides the chaos it will end up with even more framedrops than rn i guess

[Foobrother]

There might be a solution to solve the problem of Non-Collision AI vs Collision AI.

 

You could have collisions enabled but restrict server access to people who have been members for more than 3 months (or even 6 months) or have less than 3 active bans (or even 2).

With this combination you only keep responsible good drivers and don't risk to have not enough traffic on the road since for 1 human kicked out, 1 AI vehicle will replace him/her.

 

And you leave another server without AI where all the reckless drivers would be able to continue racing.

 

But the problem with this solution is that you might lose the reckless drivers and trolls who will get bored quickly. And TMP might not want it to happen as I mentioned earlier.

 

And you still have the problem of computing power to keep it running as mentioned by @Mischievous_Vixen. That's a different beast!

[Interstate Nomad]

You've had an Interesting idea, @Foobrother, which could work.

The restriction to reasonable driving players would be a fair limitation and encouragement to improve one's behavior.

[Bеаn]

Implemented well, It'd be great. Give trolls a way to abuse it in anyway, it'll be hellish. Overall, if enough time and consideration is given to it, I think it'd drastically improve the playing experience in the less-populated areas (most of the map).  

[Interstate Nomad]

On 12/2/2023 at 6:47 AM, _europeantrucks_ said:

yes but not on dc road or other populated areas like calais düsseldorf and duisburg...

besides the chaos it will end up with even more framedrops than rn i guess

 

The idea is to only make AI traffic spawn in areas that meet a certain low player to area ratio, which is basically everywhere but in and around Duisburg and Calais.

The area in and around Duisburg and Calais naturally must be excluded from it at all times.

[_europeantrucks_]

3 hours ago, blabberbeak said:

 

The idea is to only make AI traffic spawn in areas that meet a certain low player to area ratio, which is basically everywhere but in and around Duisburg and Calais.

The area in and around Duisburg and Calais naturally must be excluded from it at all times.

yes

 

[_raffaele_]

Ofc, as others have said i think the only place it shouldn't be is in CD and maybe surroundings , otherwise i don't see any drawbacks

[OmSaL]

Heya!

 

Since your topic has been inactive for over fourteen (14) days, I will lock and move it to our Archive section. 

We apply these procedures, in order to keep the forum organized and structured. 

 

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me. 

 

//Locked & Moved to Archive

 

Kind Regards,

OmSaL

TruckersMP Community Moderator