Strange path finding: troops, bridge

[GreenAsJade]

Lucky for me these guys survived their humorous jaunt through the minefield, past the opening they could have used, over the bridge through the other minefield, around the wrong side of the bridge and back underneath!

I'm pointing with the cursor where they have been ordered to go to...

GaJ

[TheVulture]

The pathfinding around that bridge in particular is notorious - paths through the swampy ground tend to be avoided by the tac AI due to the slow speed and fatigue effects, and it doesn't know about avoiding the exposed bridge and minefields.

When plotting any path through the mud there, put a waypoint every action point or the results will be unpredictable (as opposed to predictable but slow).

[GreenAsJade]

Thanks - good tip. Interestingly, it's not unbearably slow going

through that mud.

I shared as much 'cause it's funny as anything, especially the second part where they could have turned left, but they turned right and went around and under

GaJ

[sburke]

Thanks - good tip. Interestingly, it's not unbearably slow going

through that mud.

I shared as much 'cause it's funny as anything, especially the second part where they could have turned left, but they turned right and went around and under

GaJ

LOL you could almost hear the platoon commander yelling "No! Your other left you maggots!".

[LongLeftFlank]

Never had a problem crossing bridges myself, so long as one waypoint is set at the near end and the next waypoint is set just the other side of it. If the unit's move is disrupted while it's on the bridge though, it takes refuge underneath which can involve funky movement especially for vehicles.

[GreenAsJade]

Never had a problem crossing bridges myself

Perhaps it wasn't quite clear: the troops were not ordered to cross the bridge.

They were supposed to leap over the hedge in front of them, and move down into the mud.

Instead they lept over the hedge that led to the minefield, so they could run across the bridge shouting "Trip, trap, trip, trap! "

GaJ

[womble]

Troops take the "least-time-elapsed" path between waypoints. With crossing the hedge, going 'as the crow flies' would have taken longer than scooting across the bridge did. When you have 'good going' (a road, say) next to 'nearly impassable', you'll often get this sort of pathing. If you want to control the exact path your pTruppen use, you have to set a waypoint on every, or every other action spot. It doesn't lose you much time 'rallying' at each waypoint, because with such short 'bounds', they don't usually get atrociously strung out.

It's also probably worth noting that this "TacAI repathing" is about the only way you'll get troops to pass under the bridge in that situation.

[Sgt Schultz]

Bridges are the worst examples, but there are other areas where one needs to be careful of movement order point placement and selection.

womble has it right... you have to watch when crossing any 'tough' terrain that is near any 'easy' terrain. A road can be a vortex of TacAI pathing. It can suck in all nearby paths and say, "let's take a stroll down this nice easy road... you don't want to crawl through those nasty bushes, or jump that hedge. Your master said hurry."

Move, Hunt(and Slow for vehicles) keeps a lot of this to a minimum as well. If you are not in a hurry, the TacAI will act accordingly.

Move through the obstacle, and then Quick once clear has helped me before.

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