Ideas I've been thinking about

Hi,

I always forget to write things down so then I forget them. I'll write here the ideas that came to my mind:

I think that it would be cool if the AI behave a little more like real drivers do.

Driving Politely
Yesterday I was driving on a two way narrow street with parked cars at both sides. In front of me was a car on the opposite lane, waiting to turn to his left with his blinker on. As I was incoming not too fast, I hit the high beams (flash) a couple of times, letting him know that he could go on without waiting for me. Well, it seems I just forgot I was playing a game, because nothing happened. (he just stayed there, waiting)

So, my first suggestion: A car that is waiting for the bus, should stop waiting if the bus flashes him. This could be useful also when a car wants to do a lane change. Right now he puts the blinker and continues forward, or even stops a bit, and even if you brake, he wont enter your lane. So on those situations where we feel like helping the car driver, we could just give him lights or honk friendly, so the car knows he can go on. Of course I still want to see cars that pull in front of you without waiting or respecting anything

Also, on a similar topic, cars that help you exit from a bus-stop, waiting behind you, should honk friendly once or twice, or just give a couple high beams flashings, like in reality too (well, at least some of them, because of course in reality some others just stay behind without doing anything, and the bus driver has to guess they are waiting).

And of course I think some cars should change lanes or do street turns without putting the blinkers on. So you can find yourself in realistic situations like this one: you go behind a car that starts to brake (you still don't know why), continues braking, and suddenly arrives at an intersection and turns right (without a single warning).

Smarter AI
On another topic, I noticed that some cars don't like to pass when you're on a stop, when they have more than enough room. Maybe this should be fixed.

BUT, there are also times where it's hard to stop without blocking the lane (maybe because of parked cars), therefore blocking the traffic. In this situations cars should pass you using part of the opposite lane (at least some of them, like in real life), but also this should remove points from your driving hability, meaning you are a bad driver if you stop like that.

And to finish this post, buses on the termibus should know how to reverse and exit even if you're there, instead of standing behind you (so they don't get blocked).


Thanks for reading.

Irreo schrieb:

Also, on a similar topic, cars that help you exit from a bus-stop, waiting behind you, should honk friendly once or twice, or just give a couple high beams flashings, like in reality too (well, at least some of them, because of course in reality some others just stay behind without doing anything, and the bus driver has to guess they are waiting).

In our country (Netherlands) cars must give way to a bus leaving the bus-stop. So when the busdriver puts on his left blinker and there is a car waiting behind, the busdriver knows he can leave and the car doesn`t have to give other signals. So for me the cars do not have to give signals but I don`t know how they drive in Berlin.

About the A.I. system. I have read it is very difficult to script the A.I. so to be honest, I think you ask too much. I have never seen a game with A.I. traffic that does everything the same way in reality. But I have to agree that it can made even more realistic.

CityBus schrieb:

In our country (Netherlands) cars must give way to a bus leaving the bus-stop. So when the busdriver puts on his left blinker and there is a car waiting behind, the busdriver knows he can leave and the car doesn`t have to give other signals. So for me the cars do not have to give signals but I don`t know how they drive in Berlin.

About the A.I. system. I have read it is very difficult to script the A.I. so to be honest, I think you ask too much. I have never seen a game with A.I. traffic that does everything the same way in reality. But I have to agree that it can made even more realistic.

Here is the same, you must give way to the bus leaving the stop, but lot of people doesn't... The rule is simple: a bus with left blinker on a stop = red light. But some people doesn't understand that.

I understand what you say about not needing a signal at all, but I always give them a signal with my lights, and some of them thank me with the hand or with the emergency lights. And I've also seen other cars doing the same. A bus will not exit the stop just "because the rule says I have free way". They will wait until they really have free way, so that's why I understand that helping a bit isn't bad.


About asking too much... well, maybe you're right

It's true that to script AI is really hard. But the base work is done (and works good!), so they are just improvements.
For example about the high beams to let someone know they can continue... I don't see it so difficult. I dont' really know how this is programmed, but I guess the script tells the car to stay there until you pass... well, if the player uses the high beams, the script tells the car to stop waiting.

And about cars not using blinkers sometimes... well there is a script now telling the car to use blinker if they are going to do a turn. As I see it is just adding a calculation that randomly tells the car to use ir or not.

They are just ideas to make the driving a little more interesting and realistic.

Hmmm. That car-and-bus business really depends on the place... In Ireland there's a lot of rahter friendly drivers that give way for buses (they even move their cars a bit if possible to make way for the bus) but in Poland you could wait a Russian century* until they let you in... in my city there's a junction which detecs a bus in the bus stop bay and puts on red lights for the cars and a vertical bar for the bus... So we can't just adjust the AI so it works more real on one map than on another... We can make it a variable in the map file (friendly, not-so-friendly, un-friendly) and OMSI could load the variable and adjust the AI... but that'd be too much to ask.

*) anything between 70 and 130 years