There was a brief progress update on iRacing’s artificial intelligence and damage modeling posted today in the official iRacing Forums. iRacing president and CFO Tony Gardner had this to say:
AI will not be in this build [2019 Season 2] but we realistically expect it will release this year. We want it to be robust and be proud of it when we release it. Just so much to refine when addressing all the things that happen on track, close racing, starts, pits, race control etc. All those details are what makes it good or not. We are making great progress. There are some very nice options on skill settings, building seasons etc.
Same thing with the damage model. It will not be in this build but we expect this year we will release it. Likely in the back half of the year. We expect it to be better than our current damage model in every way. We will make a separate update post about it today in the forums.
This is disappointing news for those of us who have been looking forward to racing against AI. I don’t think AI will ever supersede racing against real world competitors, but it will be a great practice tool and should have many uses. So we continue to wait until later this year.
On the other hand, the glimmer of hope that we can take away from this post is that there is a better chance that we will see the New Tire Model version 7, aka NTMv7, roll out on some cars in this build.
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