Path finding still making me sad

[Rod]

Playing Al Amarah with v1.10 there are a series of buildings with a door behind L shaped high walls. I try to execute my strategy which depends on me getting into these doors. After several rounds I'm finally ready to move in only to watch my guys move from in plain site of the door back around the wall clear down the block and around the corner and are thenambushed. Instantly I lose interest in continuing to play.

Here's the video of the situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmWZn0_cLnY

I hope this is just an isolated instance but since I've basically waited until this version to really start playing the Shock Force scenarios and as this was my first one I'm kind of off to a bad start.

Best Regards,

Rod

[stikkypixie]

I remember this scenario. I thought it had more to do with the designer forgetting to place a door to that building, not the pathfinding algorithm. Could be wrong though.

[c3k]

Yeah, that is frustrating. Your video is pretty damning on pathfinding routines. However, there may be an explanation.

I couldn't tell where the final waypoint went. I see the MOVE after turning the corner around the wall. I couldn't see which building the waypoint goes into.

There is an obvious door just beyond your intermediate MOVE waypoint. Was that your destination?

In one of my previous threads, no doubt long forgotten, I decried the game's inability to provide feedback regarding doors. There are, simply, doors in the game which do not work. Sometimes they don't work because of the way the scenario designer has juxtaposed other terrain or features. Sometimes they don't work due to damage, either to that area or its adjoining area. Destroyed walls and other rubble seem to block doors.

The dynamic blocking of doors is a great game feature. If a building's rubble falls in front of the neighboring building's door, it shouldn't work. Cool detail in the CMSF engine.

I do not know if that (poor map design or dynamic change to the door's operation) is what occurred, or if it is just poor pathfinding.

I lean towards the bad door solution based on my experience with v1.10 pathfinding.

(In my previous thread about doors, I requested some sort of visual feedback when a door does not work. A bold red "x" across it; a black bar; perhaps a new door texture; anything other than the same graphic as a door that works. Obviously none of that has happened.)

Try getting a unit IN that building and attempt to get them to go OUT the door you were trying to go IN. Also, search for nearby damage: rubbled walls, etc. That should prove whether it was the door. If so, then the pathfinding was doing its best to follow your command.

Let us know.

Thanks,

Ken

[hoolaman]

This is an old problem at that exact spot in that exact map, which was much more entertainingly reported by RuhrRiver a few months ago:

LINK

Basically it has nothing to do with the door or rubble, it is a bug which makes that corner wall segment appear impassable.

Rod you are unlucky enough to have found an old bug in an old mission. 1.10 is not that bad really!

[JohnO]

Its being looked at. It should of been fixed before.

[Rod]

Hoolaman,

Thanks for the link. Yep that's pretty much what happened.

c3k,

Initially my 1st squad was ordered to the 1st floor of that building. They ended up going around the block and got clobbered. I placed the waypoint for the movie just outside so it was easier to see the door. As it turns out they can't even get to the door so yeah there must be a problem with the wall. It would be a little different if they got to the door and realized they forgot the key. Some feedback would be nice. Not sure how they would do it. I'm assuming the real time engine doesn't really know where it is going until it gets there so as far as it knows everything is fine.

Actually I had one scenario that I always used to test out the new patches. It had always had some quirky behavior. I was trying to play that one but hit this one instead. I'll try the other one again and see if the same problems arise.

To me it seems that the action spots and the 3d geometry are still to close to the same scale. I'm thinking that more action spots are needed without allowing the map designers to use the extra underlying resolution. Right now there seems to be a small margin of error.