Friday Facts #317 - New pathfinding algorithm

[MEOWMI]

I'm curious if the new pathfinding actually results in notably denser grouping and makes AoE weapons more viable. That's an exciting prospect since I usually find them underwhelming for their cost.

[BlueTemplar]

Flame Turrets are cheap and use very little oil.

[mrvn]

I'm hoping this pathfinding upgrade is a precursor to more sophisticated biter attacks. Would be nice if biters offered more of a challenge by avoiding hazards altogether and going through a hole in your defenses.

It is unlikely that the biter AI with change significantly in the future – apart from the newly introduced pathfinding optimizations.

If you are looking for more challenging biters, you may try playing with the mod "Rampant" by "Veden". It has a more sophisticated biter AI: probing your defenses, attacking the weak spots, etc. Lots of people love it for that.
See its page on the modportal.

It also works in combination with mods that increase the strength of the biters themselves, such as "Bob's Enemies" or "Natural Evolution Enemies". If you like a proper warfare challenge.

The heuristic and movement cost could easily include a cost factor for turrets in range. That would naturally prefer paths skirting around turrets.

Actually for group movements I would also include a cost for near entities. Squeezing a hord of aliens between dragon teeth is a bad idea so a longer path avoiding them is better. The resulting paths then try to keep a few tiles distance to obstacles. Otherwise half the group will crash into the obstacle when it tries to round it.

[BlueTemplar]

Rampant has a "cost factor" (?) for the places where biters died.

[mrvn]

Rampant has a "cost factor" (?) for the places where biters died.

Different terrain has different movement speed. You can run faster on grass than sand. The game should consider that too.

[BlueTemplar]

Alien Biomes is IMHO a must-have if only for providing this variety.

[stribika]

I'm hoping this pathfinding upgrade is a precursor to more sophisticated biter attacks. Would be nice if biters offered more of a challenge by avoiding hazards altogether and going through a hole in your defenses.

I think that's a separate, higher level issue. The pathfinding just tells the biter how to get from A to B, some other AI is responsible for picking a good B.

To me it seems like that's just nearest polluter for attacks, and random for expansion. They could instead expand towards either resources they know you need, choke points, near train tracks, etc. I've also seen some good ideas on this forum for how to pick attack targets.

[Brambor]

Just a note:
I recommend turning off clouds for gifs. Not only the filesize is bigger but also there is distracting change between the last and first frame.

[mrvn]

I'm hoping this pathfinding upgrade is a precursor to more sophisticated biter attacks. Would be nice if biters offered more of a challenge by avoiding hazards altogether and going through a hole in your defenses.

I think that's a separate, higher level issue. The pathfinding just tells the biter how to get from A to B, some other AI is responsible for picking a good B.

To me it seems like that's just nearest polluter for attacks, and random for expansion. They could instead expand towards either resources they know you need, choke points, near train tracks, etc. I've also seen some good ideas on this forum for how to pick attack targets.

Or you start the path finding in reverse with all the B's as starting positions and the resulting path is the closest one that can be reached.

[Filter62]

Biters now scary.

[IcePirate]

Not sure this new development in path finding has any relevance for Factorio, but it's an interesting read.
Finally, a Fast Algorithm for Shortest Paths on Negative Graphs
https://www.quantamagazine.org/finally- ... -20230118/