Vehicle pathing

[prjw73]

Steve, could you explain in brief if vehicle pathing is affected by element coding ? I am under the impression that the combined width of elements such as "paved road" affects the pathing. The narrower the road is (less elements next to each other) the more zigzagging I see. Particularly in diagonal roads. I see this in our Rhineland mod where roads are often not as wide as in LSA and flanked by 'light muddy field' elements.

[SteveMcClaire]

NOTE: This info applies to LSA / TLD / WaR but PitF and GtC are slightly different.

The short answer is yes, element coding (and the movement cost of the elements, as well as bog and immobilize chance) does effect vehicle pathing. The vehicle will prioritize speed if you use 'move fast' and safety if you use 'sneak.' 'Move' is balanced.

The long answer is that pathing takes place at two levels -- the high level pathfinder finds a route based on the movement cost and passability at the tile level (4x4 elements.) Then the soldier level AI uses a very simply algorithm to follow this path at the individual element level.

A narrow road with high movement cost and/or bog/immobilize chance on the verges is going to make the driver AI turn a lot to try and stay on the road. Diagonal roads where three elements across don't fall in the same 4x4 tile may also cause the higher level pathfinder to add extra turns to its route.

I would suggest you widen the road to 5 elements. And as much as possible, make sure it has 3 elements across within one distinct map tile. This will give you the best results from both layers of the pathfinder.

Steve

[prjw73]

Thanks Steve, the suggested width for roads is what I suspected.