Make the player walk somewhere in a nice looking way.

[eradicator]

In my mod i want to make the player walk a short distance towards an object. Currently i'm using on_tick to set the walking_state of the player character each tick. In Singleplayer this works "okaish". The only thing that looks shitty is if the direction is changed too often (oscillating between two of the 8 directions due to angle to target) but i guess i could code around that but... In Multiplayer it looks horribly laggy. My guess is that the lag hiding mechanism reacts too aggressive. It looks like the player is teleported around every half second or so instead of properly walking.

CODE

Code: Select all

--WALK PLAYER TO WAYPOINT ('E' is my event manager)
E.add_disabled(E.on_tick,'make_player_walk_to_target',function(e)
  -- makes players walk towards a waypoint
  local nobody_walks = true
  -- for pindex,p in pairs(game.connected_players) do
  for pindex,p in pairs(game.players) do
    local walking = global.players[pindex].walking
    local character = p.character
    if    walking then                     -- is supposed to walk
      if  walking.end_tick > e.tick        -- has not timed out
      and walking.ticks_not_moved < 30     -- is not stuck
      and walking.old_distance < 50        -- is in walking distance
      and character then                   -- can walk
        if walking.old_distance > 0.5 then -- not yet close enough
          nobody_walks = false --keep the walking function enabled
          -- local direction = walking.direction
          local direction = get_vector_as_direction(walking.target,character.position)
          local distance  = get_distance(walking.target,character.position)
          --detect not moved
          if walking.old_distance - distance < 0.1 then -- = not-moved-threshold
            walking.ticks_not_moved = walking.ticks_not_moved + 1
          else
            walking.ticks_not_moved = 0
            end
          --handle not moved (deviate slightly from bird-line direction)
          if walking.ticks_not_moved > 4 then
            direction = (direction + ( (e.tick%30 > 13) and -2 or 2) + 8 ) %8 --deviate left/right from current direction
            walking.direction = direction
            end
          -- character.active = false --attempt to fix laggy multiplayer stuttering
          character.walking_state = {walking=true, direction = direction}
          walking.old_distance = distance
        else
          -- p.print('Waypoint reached')
          gui.open(p)
          --TODO: set walking state to nil when finished
          global.players[pindex].walking = nil
          character.walking_state = {walking=false, direction = direction} --attempt to fix laggy multiplayer stuttering
          -- character.active = true
          end
      else
        global.players[pindex].walking = nil --some condition failed, so stop walking
        character.walking_state = {walking=false, direction = walking.direction}
        -- character.active = true
        end
      end
    end
  if nobody_walks then E.disable(E.on_tick,'make_player_walk_to_target') end
  end)

So my questions are:

• Is there a better way to make the player walk then using walking_state? (biter ai maybe?)
• If not is there some hack around the lack hiding? (like temporarily detaching the player character from the player?)
• Has anyone done something similar before somewhere?