Patch: Better AI Pathfinding

[lordpalandus]

Ever had a frustrating moment as an unit hugs the side of a lava river or takes the long route to get from one end of a mountain range to the other? This patch is to help remove that.

[CK9]

the RCC is supposed to give better pathfinding, but it is severely limited.  I've noticed that, after a certain number of units, the improvement fails and they start hugging cliffs and lava again.  Multiple rcc's doesn't fix it.

[lordpalandus]

Ya I noticed that too. When there is cleared areas (bulldozed) they will naturally take that patch... but, without a cleared path, it tries to take the long route.

[TH300]

Improved pathfinding would be great. But it has been tried already, without success.

But could it be possible that the rcc malfunction is caused by the unit limit incrementation that Hooman added some years ago?

[CK9]

That could be a major factor in it

[lordpalandus]

Tried in what sense?

[TH300]

One opu member had tried to rewrite the path finding engine (I think it was Arklon). A rewrite is likely required to improve it, because apparently the original algorithm is too limited.

[lordpalandus]

Even something as simple (proly not to code but) as telling the vehicles to keep at least 2 squares away from a lava flow would help tremendously.

[TH300]

And what if going through a location that is only 1 square away from a lava flow is required to get to a certain place? We'd have to add exceptions which would certainly require a rewrite (or at  least total understanding of the current path finding engine, which, if we had it, would allow a rewrite).

[lordpalandus]

Aka a pipe dream.