Doctor Feh
Active Member
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- 135
@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.