Description

ARS its a racing tool that allows single-player racing against smart opponents in a modded environment. (More info)

— Key Features —

Route-based tracks
ARS makes use of routes instead of waypoints to build its tracks. This has huge advantages – The tracks’ limits are very well defined and curves are well detailed. AI benefits greatly from this as they tap into the route info to try and follow the track to the best of their abilities, meaning they don’t need vanilla pathfinding anymore, and they’re able to make full use of the track’s width, encouraging multiple-car battles and overtaking behavior. Add-on lands are possible to race on thanks to this.

The track contains all the information the AI might need to navigate, and that’s huge.

Modding support
ARS is built to support a wide range of game modifications out of the box. Specifically:

Add-on vehicles: All kinds of land based vehicles are supported. Add-on included, there’s no difference between vanilla and Add-on ingame. In fact, ARS comes with a few IVPack and VWE vehicles added in.
Handling mods: ARS’ AI taps into the car’s Handling to judge the vehicle’s capabilities, like tire grip and engine power, for example. This allows the racers to work with almost any kind of handling, from the arcadey vanilla to realistic builds like Killatomate’s Realistic Driving.
New lands: It is possible to race in add-on lands of any kind. This is because the routes themselves provide the AI with everything they need to navigate, so there is no pathfinding needed at all.
Stunt tracks: Tracks can be built on GTAO’s stunt props (any prop, really), thus allowing Cunning Stunts’ style races to be done too.
Surfaces/Material mods: A few mods modify the ingame surfaces to have better physics, and this is specifically supported aswell. AI will account for the new grip modifiers.

Content Creation
ARS has an in-game route creator with prop placement support. It also allows players to create their own vehicle builds, tied to specific disciplines.
Both kinds of creations are stored in .xml format and can be easily shared between games!

You’re free to upload vehicle or route files from ARS to 5mods and share them with everyone. If you contact me, I can add them to the script’s content and make them official in an update.

Proper AI
The opponents feature a scratch-made AI specifically coded for this script. GTAV’s AI is disabled for the races!
Among other things, AI is able to take any kind of corner, overtake each other, make full use of the track’s width and respect personal spaces to a great degree. They are also context aware in a fair share of situations. For example, they know to give way or hold their ground regarding side-to-side battles, and can actively look for a gap to overtake.

Discipline system
Basically a glorified tagging system, it lets you define which kind of cars should show up to your races. The disciplines are custom and stored in each car’s xml file.

ARS comes with a few basic disciplines like ‘sponsor’ for sponsored vehicles (livery) and ‘drag’ for dragsters. Cars’ classes count as a discipline too, along their modelname and vehiclename.

REQUIREMENTS
.NET Framework 4.5.2
Visual C++ 2015
ScriptHookV Latest
ScriptHookVDotNet Latest

INSTALLATION
All the required files are stored within the ARS folder. Drop the folder itself on ‘GTAV Root/Scripts/’. It will look like /Grand Theft Auto V/Scripts/ARS/(Content).

Ingame, you can simply hold Shift and press E, and the main menu will appear.

SETTINGS
You should open Options.ini and DevSettings.ini inside ARS’s folder to configure the script to your liking. All the options in there are explained in the files.

THE INCOMPLETE PACKAGE
Sadly, you can notice this is not an 1.0 release. ARS is not complete and it is not the full experience. I have ran out of time and have not been able to complete this script before my deadline, and I have to move on. As of now, ARS is barebones and only the AI, editor and race behavior are there.

The reason for this is that scripting the route system and AI have been a titanic effort, and it has taken me more than a year to figure out and manage. So I am absolutely burned out and I have also spent the time I allocated for this project completely. Its releasing late, by the way. Should have been done by July.

ARS Lacks:

A complete set of vehicles to race against (Only a few dozen are included)
Multi-race championships
Any kind of progression
Immersion focused features
A proper interaction menu
General polishment and intuitive design
ARS’ AI is also unable to handle ambient traffic for now, so traffic is fully disabled while you’re racing. Hopefully, this becomes an option in the future.

I will attempt to work on ARS in the future and update it as I am able. It is not a certainty, though.

Show me the changelog!

Changelog:

0.8 > 0.8.5

Fixed crash on start. GTAV updates moved things around and caused these crashes.
Reworked speed control and lane control for AI. They’re better at cornering overall.
Reworked throtle and steering control, AI is much better at keeping their cars under control.

Known Bugs

AI tends to wobble a lot when racing side to side.
You can start to fly around when being ragdolled if you used the freecam.

0.7.7 > 0.8

Fixed AI slowing down on the start/finish line
AI has additional measures to try and correct speed mid-corner, should be more careful.
Small avoidance tweaks
Added ReverseRoute to the pre race options
Added Show Track Limits to the in-race options, displays arrows to the sides.
*Changed BaseOverdrive from -0.2 to 0 on all personality files, AI should be a bit more confident in corners.
No tracks or new vehicles.

*If AI overshoots corners when they didn’t before, go to /Personalities and change BaseOverdrive back to -0.2 on all files.

Be sure to check the Options.ini and Developer Settings.ini inside, they have a lot of settings you want to check out and maybe change. Like AI risk taking or auto-repair behavior.

0.7.4 > 0.7.7

Large rework of Options.ini and Developer Settings.ini, be sure to check them out.
Added personality files that control how AI drives, distributable around the grid. Do open and edit them! They’re in ARS/Personalities.
Added slope and downhill acknowedgements.
Reworked the shitty menu a bit. Unlikely to move to NativeUI or LemonUI as I should.
Added an extensive, context aware Catch-up system, be sure to read on it on Options.ini and disable it if you want.
No tracks or new vehicles.

0.7.3.1b > 0.7.4

Performance optimization simplifying and compacting code. Also moved some non-crucial checks to longer cycles
Added Le Mans and Nurburgring GP as playable circuits. Remember that Nurburgring-Nordschleife and Spa Francorchamps are already supported.
Improved Catchup AI ahead won’t lose power, slowing down normally instead
Tweaked corner approach and interior hugging
Tweaked throttle control for all AI personalities
Tweaked lockup control for cars without ABS
Improved overall driving for low grip cars (1G or less)
Improved avoidance between cars AI will steer away or lift when contact is made
Improved overtaking behavior
Tweaked logic for existing maneuvers (divebomb, flatout exit, faster corner, etc) and added a new one, Early Exit, where drivers might try to accelerate earlier than usual when leaving a corner
Tweaked base logic for maneuver timing AI will only engage in a maneuver exactly when the context allows for it, and disengage as soon as it stop making sense. Earlier, maneuvers worked on a timer

Bugs:

AI out-of-track joins back stupidly aggresively. They can easily ram you out while moving in.
At start AI might reverse instead of launching sometimes. I think its related to avoidance but haven’t had the time to fix it yet.
Very rarely you can start a race and be greeted with no grid and a script crash with no crash report.

0.7.3c > 0.7.3.1b

Even MORE cornerhugging adjustements. The system is finnicky, has to work for every kind of curve, for every ammount of grip.
Leaderboard will only hide along the minimap now.

0.7.3b > 0.7.3c

Adjusted corner hugging for high grip vehicles (over 2G)

0.7.3 > 0.7.3b

Fixed AI not being able to rejoin the track after a crash.
Further cornerhugging tweaks.
Added a new option on DeveloperSettings.ini (RACERS>SteeringSpeedLimit). It helps smooth out AI steering input and lets you limit it down to realistic levels, in case you play with a steering wheel too.

0.7c > 0.7.3

Updated to use the ScriptHookVDotNet v3.0.4 api.
Fixed some steering issues derived from the Summer update.
Improved steering, AI won’t over-steer (causing understeer doing so) and will correct slides better.
Improved downforce acknowedgement, now fully supports all systems (No downforce, dynamic, active spoilers(raise/flap types) ).
Tweaked turn-in on corners to AI hugs the inside better.
Added new options in the developersettings.ini (GENERAL>Hotkeys , RACERS>GridSorting / BaseOverdrive / BaseBrakeRisk / AggroOverdrive / AggroBrakeRisk)
Honking now toggles the Aggro icons on the AI drivers. More close to red more aggresive.
AI will not aggro if they’re thightly packed, to avoid unnecesary carnage.

Bugs: AI has lost the ability of recovering from a crash for now. I’m working on it!

0.7 > 0.7c

Fixed a bug with corner approaching after reports of understeer.
Reduced corner skipping aggressiveness, AI will not take fast corners so fast now.

0.6.9.5 > 0.7

Added an alternative Anti-Overshoot system. AI will project their path ahead and figure out if they’ll end up on the grass or not, and lift, even brake, according to that. Its added to Developer Settings.ini > RACERs, enabled there.
Reworked LookAhead so AI approaches corners turning in earlier, while trying to stay on the inside mid-corner.
Tweaked side to side avoidance so AI won’t jerk the steering so easily. Less back and forth, but more strict steering if needed. Two and three-wides are a bit common as AI is able to hold better.
Increased wheelspin tolerance so AI corrects more smoothly. Earlier, they’d lifted the throttle too much for little wheelspin issues.
While in the grid waiting for launch, lowered idle throttle input from 75% to 25%, so the AI doesn’t need to correct throttle so quickly.
0.6.9
Reworked traction curve speed adjustments for corners
Reworked a lot of judgement calls and corrections in speed
Improved avoidance, steering and braking
Improved performance
Improved throttle and steer control
Improved Spinout, Oversteer and Understeer correction
Made the Disciplines filter look up and cache results when entering disciplines, instead of trying to find vehicles when starting the race.
Added Personalities, Maneuvers and Mistakes
Added corner approaching behavior
Added a few new tracks

Changelog

0.6.5
Fixed permanent BUSTED/PURCHASED messages.
Added a few options to the .ini settings
TimeOut, seconds to end the race after the first racer finished
AllowDuplicates, allow the script to fill the grid with duplicates if there aren’t enough unique vehicles
Added a ‘discipline’ tag , “nearby”, allows nearby cars to be picked up for the race. Else, nearby vehicles will be ignored. This functionality was already in ARS, but you had no way to control or disable it.

No new vehicles and no new tracks.