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The third parameter in the physics discussion involves the Newtonian element and whether the environment reacts realistically to damage. Losing a wheel, I marveled at the realistic and convincing way it became an individual object with own physics, spinning, bouncing and tumbling on its merry way.

On several occasions I've been exiting a blind turn only to find bits and parts of wrecked cars littering the track announcing a wreck amongst the AI drivers. So far I have not been able to determine if running over these parts can actually do damage to your own car.

Damage to the Armco, tire barriers and other structures on and around the track did not seem to be modeled.

Racing online with "20mm", "Chunx" and "guod", I noticed one of us (and it certainly wasn't me!) was deft at hitting the cones with his car because suddenly they would be gone from a certain corner.

Chunx on the Charge

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Like in GTR, the AI driver at your disposal will not know what to do when he runs out of gas. He'll drive the tank dry and then pull over to the side, DNF'ing your car. So be ready to take control before the scheduled pit stops.

The Artificial Intelligence, a.k.a. the AI drivers can be set to Real, Aggressive and Psychotic.

I really miss a setting that would let them at least attempt to avoid an accident. In rFactor I have succeeded in finding an AI setting that will cause the AI drivers to do all sorts of avoidance action if they find the road ahead of them blocked by my car facing the wrong way!

Initially from running in the 24 hour race of Spa, I was left with the impression that the AI drivers would stick to their line and if the human driver was in the way, they'd just drive into him, and more so than in the original GTR where they would actually compromise their own cornering speed and racing- line, in order not to crash into you. Provided you set the AI to race ”cleanly”.

It is rather frustrating to brake your MC12 into the bus stop chicane as late and as hard as you dare, only to be rear-ended by a Porsche GT3 AI driver who can brake later and harder than you — and so he does.

Racing against each other, the AI manage to get away with bumping and rubbing most of the time. In fact it seems like the AI in the second edition of the GTR franchise are tailgaters at large, in particular when racing amongst themselves.

It does look a bit odd when your substitute AI driver hits a Porsche hard in the rear and slows down half-way through the long Kemmel straight after Eau Rouge, and even goes down a gear to trail the Porsche through Les Combes, when the obvious solution would be to utilize the speed advantage, pull out and perform a perfectly clean pass — before arriving at the Les Combes section.

On the other hand, I was suitably impressed by the AI driver being very clever about placing his Lister Storm on different parts of an add-on track (Norisring) and finally tricking me into blocking him on the left part of the track only for me to find him going by me on the right hand side!

Racing a "normal" race, and not a 24 hour race at Imola, the AI also seemed to be pretty well-behaved.

The inherent risk is that in the time between my race at Spa and the race at Imola, I have become more accustomed to GTR2's physics and have perhaps have become better at braking in GTR2.

Otherwise the differences might be due to AI behavior depending on tracks and type of race.

The conclusion to this somewhat confusing discussion on my observations regarding the AI must be that the AI has been coded by the developers to provide some amount of car contact, however I would have liked to have a slider for AI aggression and one for AI speed. That way we could all tune the AI as close as possible to individual preferences.

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