Hey everyone! I’m working on a racing game and need help with the opponent cars. The main challenge is that my track scrolls based on where the player drives. I’m not sure how to make the AI cars behave properly on this moving track.
Should I use waypoints that adjust as the track scrolls? Or maybe some kind of relative positioning system? I want to keep things simple since I’m new to AI programming. Any suggestions for the easiest approach to get computer opponents moving realistically on a scrolling race track?
Try a rubber band AI system - works great with scrolling tracks. Skip position tracking and create dynamic zones around the player where AI cars hang out. Each opponent gets a target zone like “slightly ahead” or “behind left” and uses basic physics to drift there while doing normal racing stuff like braking for turns. These zones automatically move with your camera since they’re relative to the player. I used this in my arcade racer and it took barely any code but gave solid racing behavior. The AI naturally stays on screen and keeps things challenging without any complex pathfinding.
Had this exact issue in my kart racer last year. Skip the waypoints - use offset positioning instead. Calculate where each AI car sits relative to the player’s track position (distance ahead/behind along the centerline), then add side offsets for lanes. The AI cars automatically move with your scrolling without constantly updating waypoint coords. Control their speed by tweaking how fast their track distance changes vs the player. Way simpler than wrestling with moving waypoints, plus the AI feels more natural since they’re always positioned around the action.
Built something like this for an internal racing prototype. Use track coordinates instead of world coordinates - saves you tons of headaches.
Set up a progress system that tracks distance along the track centerline. Each car gets a position value showing how far they’ve gone.
For AI cars:
Track distance (progress along centerline)
Lane offset (how far left/right from center)
When rendering, convert track coordinates to screen positions using your scroll offset. AI just updates its distance each frame and adjusts lane offset for basic racing behavior.
Your AI doesn’t care about scrolling anymore. It moves forward and changes lanes. Rendering handles camera movement.
I wasted weeks on waypoint systems before figuring this out. It eliminates 90% of the complexity. Add AI personality later by tweaking target speeds and lane changing frequency.
Been there with my own racing project. Everyone’s talking manual coding, but I took a different route and saved weeks.
I automated the entire AI behavior system instead of hardcoding everything. Built automated workflows that handle car positioning, speed adjustments, and lane changes using real-time game state data.
Here’s the cool part - you can create different AI personalities just by tweaking automation parameters. Want aggressive racers? Bump up lane change frequency automatically. Need competitive cars? Let automation handle dynamic speed scaling based on how the player’s doing.
I even automated testing. The system runs thousands of race simulations overnight and optimizes AI behavior patterns on its own. No more manual tweaking and guesswork.
Your scrolling track issue becomes easy when automation handles all coordinate transformations and positioning logic. AI cars just follow automated rules that adapt to any track movement.
This scales way better than manual coding when you want more opponents or different difficulty modes later.
i’ve tried this too! waypoints can be a pain, a spline path is def the way to go. just let the ai cars follow the spline as the track moves, soooo much easier! this will help keep things simple and effective, trust me!