Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-35180316-20181011013659/@comment-35745775-20181016181253

Mugwumps wrote: It is possible they use a simplified physics for the bots, but what I don't think is going on is that it changes over the course of the race depending on where the player is relative to the bot.

It does, and this becomes very blatant once you have tuned into it.

Perfect example recently for me was the Furai FB, Stage 8.3. It is a 22 car line up. The sole purpose of the back 18 bots is to make it difficult for you to get to the top 3. Only the top 3 bots are challenging. The top 3 bots drive consistently very close together until you get close, then „Freidmann“ (3rd bot) drops back from „Lees“ (2nd bot) in order to hold you up and let the other two bots get ahead. Watch ME7‘s video, you can observe how well all three bots stay together for the whole of the first lap of Leguna Sec, until ME7 finally catches them up about one quarter to one third through the second lap, then they start to fall back slightly one after another and go slower round the corners than before to hold him up once he is close. The goal of the bots is to let the front runners get more of a lead. It is blatant, once you have tuned in!

I had to run this stage many times till I got it right, and the point where Friedmann started to lose his close spacing to the first two bots was always dependent upon where I managed to catch him up.

This however is not consistent with the theory that the bots are simply dumb and try to run laps at constant times without any influence from the human player.