[0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

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GregoriusT
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[0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

Post by GregoriusT »

So I live in a Ribbon World. I managed to conquer everything between me and the East/West Lakes of uninterrupted Water from North to South. I got bored of being invincible due to those Water Barriers and decided to put Artillery in the middle of one of the Water Barriers, still not attackable by Biters because Water. Once I fortified myself in the Lake I decided to Landfill everything in front of the fortification as to let Biters finally come in.

First nothing happened. So I decided to shoot into the hordes of Biters using my Artillery so they would attack me like they usually do, but nope they just move a few Tiles and then stop again. Then I shot into a Settlement. The Biters grouped up at a "Rallying Point" and then just stood there doing nothing but roaming around like a resting herd of Cows. There is no Pollution in their Area, but that never stopped those Bugs from attacking back when I Artillery Strike them.

Obviously something cant be right with this, and I remembered the Factorio Friday Facts talking about new Pathfinding Optimizations, then I realized that said Path Markers on each Chunk might not update after using a Landfill in said Area. Afterwards I closed and reopened the Save File, to see if this might update their Pathing, but they still get stuck just like before.

I am not on Peaceful, Biters did attack me in this Map earlier just fine. Just the Base Game, no Mods.

The Question/Bug is: Do those Path Markers at Chunk Borders update when the content of their Chunk changes due to Landfills and similar Tile changes?
Don't underestimate Landmines!
Biters bite, Spitters spit, Spawners spawn and Worms... worm? - No, they throw their vomit! They even wind up to directly hurl it at you! friggin Hurlers...


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GregoriusT
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Re: [0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

Post by GregoriusT »

Oh right, forgot about that. ^^

The Biters in question are to the far West.
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Don't underestimate Landmines!
Biters bite, Spitters spit, Spawners spawn and Worms... worm? - No, they throw their vomit! They even wind up to directly hurl it at you! friggin Hurlers...

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Re: [0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

Post by GregoriusT »

Okay because I realized that the inverse can potentially be the case too. Water Fills (Mods ofc) might undo the optimization too. Just in case this type of thing is the reason in the first place. (I dont have evidence for that case, it's just a suspicion)
Don't underestimate Landmines!
Biters bite, Spitters spit, Spawners spawn and Worms... worm? - No, they throw their vomit! They even wind up to directly hurl it at you! friggin Hurlers...

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Re: [0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

Post by Jorn86 »

I've seen similar behaviour in my Islands World (mod, not the vanilla Island) map. It seems like once biters have decided there's nothing to attack, they are content to just stand around forever even if something to attack does arrive.

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Re: [0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

Post by ivanisovich »

I have also been seeing similar issues on a marathon deathworld. When I post artillery on an island that the biters can't reach, the attack group just keeps getting bigger and bigger. When the artillery clears everything in its range, the attack group will just find the next closest nest and become a part of it. I can end up with thousands of biters in other nests. I've also noticed that if the biter group has one or more individual biters trying to reach the rally point, but are stuck on a cliff, the entire group will just sit there, waiting on the few stuck on the cliff (same effect if the group is split by water). I've experimented with this a bit, and cleared the few held up by the cliff. Sure enough, the group was then "released" to go attack. I did this with artillery so my presence wouldn't change their behavior. When these event occur, my UPS drops to below 10 at times (the last artillery range increase caused it to drop as low as 1.5 on a very good computer).

I would suggest some controls that allow a blocked biter the option to disengange its order to join a group rally point...basically make it free roaming to find a nest. This could be done if the biter has stopped moving because it can't pathfind to its group. Or, have a time limit on rally points and force the group to abandon any stragglers.

Also, when pathfinding changed last year, I was just getting to a megabase status on my last factory. It was also a marathon deathworld. I was having very few UPS drops, but when pathfinding changed, it went into the toilet. UPS would get back up to 60 over time, usually because the biter groups would go idle. When the chunk was activated again, the UPS would drop drastically. And, I can also say I am frequently running 15,000 bots at one time with only a drop of 1-2 UPS when giving massive construction orders. But, activate one of these problem chunks, and UPS drops anywhere from 15-50 points. Thanks!

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Re: [0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

Post by GregoriusT »

One thing I should add by now is that I had a shitload of Solar Panels/Accumulators (around 400000 of each), and while those in on themselves did not have any impact on my UPS at all (which is awesome), they did cause Biters to engage in infrequent lovely Pathfinding Lagspikes for a few thousands of milliseconds each, one may call that kilo-milliseconds by now, or seconds for short.

Removing all the Solar Panels reduced those spikes to around 300 milliseconds. I replaced them with an Infinite Energy Generator and am now in the process of shrinking down my defenses to a less absurdly huge area.

So let that be a reminder for everyone, Solar Panels dont cause lag themselves, but surrounding your Base in a Solar Field will make Biters get very angry from having to think so much.
Don't underestimate Landmines!
Biters bite, Spitters spit, Spawners spawn and Worms... worm? - No, they throw their vomit! They even wind up to directly hurl it at you! friggin Hurlers...

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Re: [0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

Post by Klonan »

There have been a lot of changes between 0.17 and 1.0.0

So I will move this to resolved

If it happens again, make a new bug report with updated saves

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Re: [0.17.79] Weird Behavior with Biter Pathfinding or something similar.

Post by GregoriusT »

I tested it on my new Map and it seems to work fine now. Biters on separate Landmasses actually react to my Artillery after I established a Land Bridge.
Don't underestimate Landmines!
Biters bite, Spitters spit, Spawners spawn and Worms... worm? - No, they throw their vomit! They even wind up to directly hurl it at you! friggin Hurlers...

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