[Oxyd] biters still inactive - pathfinding over landfill?

[Wackerstamfer]

New biter mechanic are way better than before but there are still some inactive biters around.

They seem to be having a hard time finding a path over landfilled area. The base next to it took its time but eventually started moving. These however stay inactive even when they as I believe have found a path. (white and black paths merge?)

overview base with inactive biters located left-center position - arty train is the target

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[golfmiketango]

Victory pole redux

[vtx]

I see the same thing happens! It's seem all new spawned biters are OK, but the legion of biters allready there don't move an inch.

[Wackerstamfer]

yes, biters that were affected are still standing still but I find that they will start moving when you shoot at them (which they did not do before).

My report is on a new biter base that was still in the fog before the 16.16 patch.

[Oxyd]

The biters are active as evidenced by the purple squares on the map. They're pathfinding and since there is a lot of them and there is a large body of water between them, it takes a lot of time and possibly fails for a lot of them.

I'll see if I can optimise this somewhat, but technically it's not a bug.

[Wackerstamfer]

Yes they are active and path-finding.

The base next to it also has a large body of water in between and it seemed to me that the land-filled area was not a favorite in the path-finding algorithm but it found one eventually.

One could argue that with that path found, the biters in the base next to it should not have a hard time finding that path over the land-filled area as it is supposed to be cached right?

I keep coming back to the land-fill part as I'm not seeing this behavior on a normal landmass where the path-finding is more ore less instant. I have no further prove though.

Thanks for looking in to it !

[Wackerstamfer]

Thanks for the thread hijack with an unrelated issue.

Have you tried engaging the biters with arty shells? my experience is that biters that were stuck in 16.15 will move when shot at in 16.16. I managed to clear all "inactive"/frozen ones (that were path-finding) and my UPS is back to 60 .
If it does not work for you create a new topic/bug report.

For me its just the reported bases that seem to have real difficulty finding a path even though the base next to it found one. It should be easy to find that path for the base next to it if it was cached.
This behavior did not noticeable occur when the biter path did not have to go over land-filled areas.

The biters stay frozen even when shot at. This is strange to me as, in some cases, biters that are on an island where there is physically no possible path, tend to run around when shot at even though there's nowhere to go.
The last behavior looks more natural then just standing frozen waiting to die or eating UPS.

Can you also make these observations Oxyd?

[Oxyd]

So, upon closer inspection it appears that the problem is biters trying to go to a spawner. If you kill their spawner, they will try to attack you, obviously – but if that fails, they will find a new spawner and go to it. Because it's in a lakey area, plenty of them chose a spawner that is on an island or behind a big lake. So now you have ~50 biters trying to find a path to a spawner and the pathfinder is too busy to give any paths to other biters that want to attack your base – those have to wait in queue behind those trying to go to their new home.

So for 0.16.17, we will treat biters returning to spawner as low priority, which should help with this issue. (You won't see the effect right away after loading the save in the new version; it should clear up within ~10 minutes.)

The base next to it also has a large body of water in between and it seemed to me that the land-filled area was not a favorite in the path-finding algorithm but it found one eventually.

One could argue that with that path found, the biters in the base next to it should not have a hard time finding that path over the land-filled area as it is supposed to be cached right?

I keep coming back to the land-fill part as I'm not seeing this behavior on a normal landmass where the path-finding is more ore less instant. I have no further prove though.

I don't actually know which bases you're talking about – there's quite a lot of them with plenty of lakes in between. If you could give me coordinates or a clearer screenshot, I can take a look.

[BHakluyt]

Thank you so much! Can't wait for the latest release. Thanks for letting know, now I will wait instead of control commanding all my biters to hell.

How about having biters that have to run so far to a spawner not rather just settle and make a new spwaner? Why do they go to spawners anyways? To regroup? Maybe rather make them rage. Give them + 25% speed and resistance and zero fear. Let them go kamikaze. . .

Edit - or make biters who can't get to their new home + standing still for 10minutes or so to make a new spawner. Never really looked which ones can and how spawners start...

[Oxyd]

Thank you so much! Can't wait for the latest release. Thanks for letting know, now I will wait instead of control commanding all my biters to hell.

How about having biters that have to run so far to a spawner not rather just settle and make a new spwaner? Why do they go to spawners anyways? To regroup? Maybe rather make them rage. Give them + 25% speed and resistance and zero fear. Let them go kamikaze. . .

I split your posts into a separate topic, we can continue the discussion about your issue there.

[Wackerstamfer]

AWESOME Thanks !

I don't actually know which bases you're talking about – there's quite a lot of them with plenty of lakes in between. If you could give me coordinates or a clearer screenshot, I can take a look.

Coordinates: 4173.6 , 666.9

Maybe they are doing exactly what you describe