Hello SEN, I'm having a problem I really shouldn't (at least in my opinion) be incurring.

In my map, units are created from a building and are ordered to patrol to Location X and they do so just fine. However, when I went to add a civilian purchase zone at the edge of the map, the pathing of my units was changed. Not only were the units' pathing changed, but even those of all units, including my own. When I order a zergling to move to Location X, it too takes the new pathing route. All this happened because I added a few terrain tiles. If I remove those terrain tiles, the pathing is reverted back to what it originally was. It is unfortunate that I had to encounter this makes-no-sense situation . Here's a picture of an example of the old pathing, the one I want (1) and the new, unwanted pathing (2).

http://i.imgur.com/ju6yk.png

Also, the area I added was in no way connected to the "mainland" of the map, so it had no way of interfering with pathing.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 10 2012, 5:24 am by Kimaru2.

Try copying the same tiles to the opposite side of the map? Although I'd recommend not relying on the pathing to make units go that way, use locations and actions.

Agreed. Use locations, and order your units to those locations (or away from a location) if you want your pathing to be precise.

The problem here is not a matter of locations, it's a matter of some phenomenon happening when I place terrain tiles. That is all that is relevant. When I place walkable terrain in a certain area of the map, the pathing of the units is the way I want it. When I place unwalkable tiles in that area, units attain a different "optimal route". This only happens when I place terrain tiles in the certain spot (which is somewhere in the top left of the map). Making those tiles walkable corrects the issue, though I cannot have the area where the tiles are be walkable. Keep in mind that the area where I'm placing these tiles is in no way connected to the playing area of the map. Sorry if I was unclear before.

I remember dealing with this, it was a major problem for Annatar before me and I inherited it when working on Helms East - I believe it stems from using non-isometric terrain in general.


The solution for me was twofold, one of these may help you

1) Limit terrain edits: try not to step on the toes of the pathing calculator too much, sometimes it's only 1 tile out of 8 causing the problem, and changing that one tile will fix the pathing, bit of brute force can improve your situation

2) The geyser doodad (dirt doodad#51 in scmdraft): this doodad seems to have an inexplicable power to edit pathing making them veer more downwards. Placing these in sensitive areas seemed to reverse the effects placing any other tiles would have there (around 50 of these were used to make split mass work properly!)

This is hilarious. If this isn't the finished product of terrain, I'd recommend finishing the terrain and then see if the problem still occurs, if it does, jus change shit till it works. There's no real use debating over this shit unless you wanna re-write SC, workarounds workarounds.

I still say locations will solve this.



If you need more of an explanation on how this works let me know.

@Jff & samsizzle
Hmm, interesting, the dirt geyser eh. Also, I suppose that's the reality then. Non-isometric terrain can screw things up a bit. So be it. Thanks.

@staxx
Not sure if I mentioned this before, but locations would only solve computer pathing. The problem affects all pathing. If I have a zergling at the start and a building at Location X and I right click the building, the zergling will take the altered pathing.

Also, I would attach the map for you guys so I could show where the problem is occurring, but I don't have permission to upload an open-source copy of it.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 10 2012, 11:25 pm by Kimaru2.

It seems like your only feasible solution is then to change the actual path.

Not unless you're constantly right clicking the building while that zergling is selected. Orders work for human players as well. If you click the building once and your zergling enters "do not go this route" it will be ordered to the "route" location and then to the "end" location.

If you're worried about players manually going the wrong route on purpose after reading what i wrote in the previous paragraph, you can take it one step further and give the unit to another player, then give it back to the appropriate player, and order it to go to "route" to force a unit deselection and make sure the player is forced to go the proper route.

I think unit deselection is possible through EUD's as well, but i'm not 100% on it.

Just revived so many bad temple siege memories...