Closed Settlers not working/pathing

[Doctor Feh]

@Doctor Feh I've done a good chunk of pathing for settlements. Here's a few quick tips:

So yes, this is Pathing 101, which is fine, but I pine for a more advanced course. For example figuring out why settlers won't path through spots of city plans in RotC or figuring out other bizarre plot-related AI behavior. For example, in the RotC Hangman's Alley there is an alcove structure at Level 1-2 (haven't been beyond that yet) where the General Store and Clothing Store kiosks are located. Neither settler was willing or able to reach these spots in the default plan because they couldn't cross that doorway threshold, not even by teleporting:

Now I know what you're saying: "But Doctor... there they are!"

Yes, because to get the screenshot above I scrapped my two additions that fixed the problem, an unmoored floor square and a set of shack stairs. As 101 practices go this was a non-snapper no-no but as soon as I put them down everyone went to work:

I also managed to fix this WV residential plot by again installing my own stairs and floor, embedded in the existing ones. Beforehand the settler either couldn't get to her bed or couldn't get out.

So that's the kind of masterclass stuff I'm talking about. When the navmesh is failing, short of pestering the mod authors for fixes that may or may not ever come, how can you tweak things so the AI behaves as expected (or at least as expected more than 50% of the time? I mean I fixed these issues but others I've been continually stuck on, like: how do I get my settler to work this level 4 WV farm when they won't even recognize there are stairs, despite everything being quite snappy 90 degree angles (and that they were pathing fine on earlier plot levels)?

Or how can I get them to use this Level 3 "Bus Bar" plot from uituit when they stop right at the edge of that dirt mound that he added which intersects the plot plane? At Level 1 they seem to do fine and will at least teleport in, but I've tried all sorts of stairs and bridging and platforming at level 3 with no success. Even the owner just continually walks back and forth from a spot at the rear to the front corner, trying to get to her counter inside and never reaching it.

Also there are those rooftop farms at RotC Hangman's Alley which I've yet to see any of my settlers path to, much less use, and that's a situation that's persisted through all my levels of upgrade so far from 0-2. I can't imagine that was missed in testing so I'm really wondering what's going wrong there and if it will finally sort out at level 3. With a minimum 10 days between city upgrades though it's a long time to wait while your assigned farmers just stand around the settlement doing nothing.

And this is why I want to watch true gurus at work, and stare hungrily at those red connector blocks.

 

[tankthing]

The door issue looks like an issue with the ground mesh underneath it more than the doorframe itself (which should have the tiniest bit of navmesh on the wood at the bottom to allow passthrough. If that didn't make it into the game, then a lot of those doors in every settlement are going to be misbehaving which is definitely a possibility)

As for the plots: that's going to need to be taken up with each plot's author. These all look like they may be fixable with tweaks inside the CK but if there's one thing I've learned over the last 6 months, it's that the navmesh itself is almost as stupid as the settler AI.

iirc the need for food was more important than the animations. HA has a really short ceiling so that may be the cause of the issue. I'd throw a height expander on HA and see if they'll path up there.

 

[tankthing]

One other thing: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/22322

Not quite the same as what we used when building but pretty close.

Edit: I also pinged the designer on this one to see if he had any ideas, but haven't heard anything back from him yet.

 

[woodfuzzy]

One other thing: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/22322

Not quite the same as what we used when building but pretty close.

Edit: I also pinged the designer on this one to see if he had any ideas, but haven't heard anything back from him yet.

There are a few, more like a bunch, of items in the Tool Kit that block pathing. I'm working on yet another spreadsheet for kinggath so he can fix them.
The door frame in @Doctor Feh post is one of those items. The ones I posted about on Graygarden are a few more.
Hozsa's NavMeshFixer won't work. (I use them quite often in debugging) It's the collision of the mesh, KG fixed the windmill tower going up the stairs at Finch way back when. LOL
I noticed the blockage a long time ago, but "pathing" was pretty low on the list at that point in time. hehehehe

 

[tankthing]

The headscratcher comes in when I know for positive certain that these doorways have been fixed at least twice before.

 

[woodfuzzy]

The headscratcher comes in when I know for positive certain that these doorways have been fixed at least twice before.

Can't say for sure... but I do know that some "old" files got mixed in with "new" ones. So.... maybe.

 

[Tinuvia]

@Doctor Feh About the WV plots in your screenies - we do navmesh them meticulously so that you guys have at least a sporting chance to get the idiot settlers to move around the plots. And we leave the entrance points to the idles free so the settlers can get to them and check that they teleport to sleep. But we also love making odd plots. So the safest way to get the settlers to path well is to skip any plot with stairs, and tight places (the code-spawned plots will, as the you all have posted before in this thread, not have as good pathing as the ones you build directly in the settlements.) For our next update, we are testing the method Kinggath uses on the Max Shack for the Caretaker Tower and the Tree Tent which has made them find their beds more often than before, so we hope this might help.

 

[uituit]

The plot plain should no longer hinder settlers,but I will check that out.

 

[Doctor Feh]

@Doctor Feh About the WV plots in your screenies - we do navmesh them meticulously so that you guys have at least a sporting chance to get the idiot settlers to move around the plots. And we leave the entrance points to the idles free so the settlers can get to them and check that they teleport to sleep. But we also love making odd plots.

And I love using them! So any frustration I might have is tempered with the realization that if I stayed in the safe spaces I would be fine.

That said I actually got the Tree Tent to work. You don't want to see how. Let's just say she doesn't use the actual plot stairs.

 

[Aki]

@Doctor Feh I've done a good chunk of pathing for settlements. Here's a few quick tips:

Stairs:

• Do NOT leave gaps.
• Make sure stairs are square on to whatever they're supposed to attach to at the top
• If stairs can snap at the top, snap them.
• Watch that rotation. Make good use of place everywhere and console commands to ensure stairs are always 90 degrees off from whatever is at the top if snapping isn't an option for any reason.......

Thanks for the good info, it's helpful. Not sure if it makes a difference, but I was referring to the new RoTC settlements. For instance, at Abernathy Farm, the npcs congregate at one of the trees on a agriplot, and don't move. At all. I activate them and manually lead them away, but then they go stand inside the main house when I release them. I've had similar problems with other RoTC settlements, but so far, Abernathy is the worst.

For me, nothing wrecks immersion more than npc's that just stand around. I work pretty hard at creating paths they'll follow and accidentally learned some of your tips in the process. The bordered agriplots seem to create the most problems for me. Npcs won't work them, but they seem to love the regular dirt plots. I don't get it, and have tried to trick them into entering the plot, but haven't hit on anything yet.

Anyway, thanks for the tips. I've cut and paste them for future reference.

 

[tankthing]

This is script lag, usually caused by an overloaded save. I suggest taking a look at the wiki for some optimization options for xbox.