Quest "Sasna's Verschwinden"

tantalus38 schrieb: »

Wenn mand en ersten Questteil auf der ersten Karte gemacht hat, spawned normalerweise eine Patroullie. In der Foundry und bei der Preview hat das alles wunderbar geklappt. Doch bei mir lagt die Patroullie über den Boden, bleibt stehen und geht wieder einige Meter zurück, teleportiert sich dann weg und geht einfach nicht dahin wo sie hin soll. Daher musste ich sie leider erstmal entfernen.
Kennt jemand das Problem und weiß evtl. wodurch es verursacht wird?

AI Path Nodes

When you publish a quest, the bulk of the time spent in the publishing process has to do with AI pathing. Our server takes what you’ve built and organizes and compacts the data to a more efficient and readable format. The server then creates a layer of path nodes throughout your map, covering any surface that can possibly be reached by the player or an enemy critter. Essentially, the server starts from your map’s player spawn point position and creates a branching network of nodes that represent the topology of your map. These nodes are required for the AI to function properly, but they also use significant resources on the server.

Facts about Path Nodes

1. Any areas that are completely sealed off with collision from the spawn point will not be populated with path nodes, however areas like the tops of buildings and such do get path nodes. This is because the server isn’t very aware of the intricate flow of your map, so it doesn’t know if there’s a teleporter that takes you to a rooftop or if the player can use a power to knock an enemy into a previously unreachable area.

2. Dense geometry, especially on the ground, attracts more path nodes. For example, a large map with relatively smooth terrain may have far fewer path nodes than a small map with very rugged and rocky terrain. The more geometrically complex your map is, the more complex the path nodes have to be (and the longer they take to publish).

3. Most AI behavior requires path nodes to function properly with the exception of patrols, which only require path nodes when their patrol path is obstructed. This is why AI pathing does not work well in preview mode… There is simply no data for the AI to use yet.

4. Path nodes eat up resources on the server. If they get out of hand, they can eat up quite a tremendous amount of resources. For this reason, there are different categories of maps that the server handles in different ways. An adventure zone is allowed more resources than your typical instanced quest map, but zones also allow many more players in the map at the same time. They are also able to create multiple optimized instances of that zone when the player cap is reached, and some data and resources are shared between these instances. Quest maps do not have these resource-saving features enabled, nor do they have the larger resource allocation from the server that zones enjoy.

Path nodes typically do not affect things like the framerate on the client, but they can cause stalls on the server if they are over budget limits. As an example, in previous beta weekends, there were some quests that used entire zone exteriors for some maps. Since those zones were built with a different budget cap in mind, the server wasn’t expecting such complex maps to be used for instanced quests. As a result, every time those maps were opened by someone playing the quest, the server would have to quickly allocate additional resources to those maps. This was causing a solid 3-5 second freeze for all players on the server every time one of those maps loaded, which just made the entire game significantly less stable.

Optimizing Your Map for AI Path Nodes

You don’t really have a lot of control over path nodes, but there are some things you can do to help your map will work well with them.

1. Avoid excessive amounts of objects with complex geometry in walkable areas. A pile of rocks will have many more path nodes covering it than flat ground. If your entire map is one big debris field with extremely uneven rough topology, it will attract significantly more path nodes than a map with simpler topology.

2. Seal off non-playable areas with collision walls. If you don’t intend for a player to be able to reach a spot on your map, take the time to completely seal it behind invisible walls to ensure it does not get path nodes.

3. Objects that do not have collision, such as ground decals and grass, do not add to the path node count.

4. Placing a collision ceiling as low as possible on your map will reduce the number of nodes. This works best on maps where you have high places and rooftops that the player never gets to and that can be excluded from the playable area.

5. Break your map into multiple maps if you can. This not only improves how the server handles your content, but can also make the AI function better in some cases.

6. Interiors tend to use far fewer path nodes than exteriors, and are also quicker to load for the player. All of the above tips still work for interiors.