Ship Moving When it Shouldn't

[littlelegofan]

When we spawn in our ship it starts moving around in circles after what seems to be a random amount of time. I'm not sure what causes this I've looked around in the A.I to see if something obvious is causing it but nothing stands out. If there is any information you need about the ship just let me know.

[jfblake90]

Did you try turning the AI off?

[littlelegofan]

I understand that we could turn off the A.I but is it normal for the ship to just move around on it's own when there isn't even an enemy around or a command to move? It used to be where you could just leave the A.I on and it wouldn't do anything unless an enemy shows up.

[BaconsTV]

Hey, try setting the order complete distance to something like 100m (rough example as I dont know how your construct is built) and keep increasing.

This is happening as when our constructs are spawned they are automatically assigned a way point, the construct would need to hit that way point to stop.

You would also need to ensure that you have a good turn ratio, if not the construct would keep circling the way point as it never hits it.

You may find this happens less if you have a construct setup with six axis manoeuvre and is also setup with reverse and strafe drives too.

[Glass of Lime Soda]

Add a ACB that sets the mainframe to either "patrol" or "movement off", when "at start". This will basically put your ship to patrol/turn movement off when you spawn it.

[Salami Tsunami]

I've got an issue similar to this, so I'll stick it in here.

I simply cannot get 'point at and maintain distance' behavior to function. I've tried it on multiple craft ranging from ships to hovercraft to jet fighters and spaceships.

Regardless of AI settings, propulsion, or turning authority, when I have that behavior active, my craft will just drive around in circles and ignore enemy vessels.

[BaconsTV]

Originally posted by Salami Tsunami:

I've got an issue similar to this, so I'll stick it in here.

I simply cannot get 'point at and maintain distance' behavior to function. I've tried it on multiple craft ranging from ships to hovercraft to jet fighters and spaceships.

Regardless of AI settings, propulsion, or turning authority, when I have that behavior active, my craft will just drive around in circles and ignore enemy vessels.

If you want your craft to "constantly" keep its nose pointed towards the target you would need to use 300m, best to use six axis and dont forget the strafe drives. If you still have issues, make a new thread, post the blueprint :)

[jfblake90]

Originally posted by littlelegofan:

I understand that we could turn off the A.I but is it normal for the ship to just move around on it's own when there isn't even an enemy around or a command to move? It used to be where you could just leave the A.I on and it wouldn't do anything unless an enemy shows up.

It has something to do with the pathfinding, turn radius, and waypoint stuff. The craft isnt reaching its waypoint and is circling it.

I just turn the AI off. You can go in and adjust its movement criteria and it would solve it but for me its 20mins fiddling with that or 5 seconds to turn it off till I need it.

[littlelegofan]

Originally posted by BaconsTV:

Hey, try setting the order complete distance to something like 100m (rough example as I dont know how your construct is built) and keep increasing.

This is happening as when our constructs are spawned they are automatically assigned a way point, the construct would need to hit that way point to stop.

You would also need to ensure that you have a good turn ratio, if not the construct would keep circling the way point as it never hits it.

You may find this happens less if you have a construct setup with six axis manoeuvre and is also setup with reverse and strafe drives too.

Sorry for taking so long to respond i didn't look at my notifications all day. I'll be sure to try out all these ideas next time i get on From the Depths.

Also Since you mention the turn ratio what's a good way to find size of the turning circle I can't find anything on how big the turning circle should be.

I'll be sure to update this post as soon as i test out these ideas, thank you. :)

[BaconsTV]

Also Since you mention the turn ratio what's a good way to find size of the turning circle I can't find anything on how big the turning circle should be.
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This currently is something you will have to eyeball and judge. I just guesstimate this for now sorry :/ . Hopefully someone has a good tactic to measure this, as it does help the AI set way points a little better for the construct.

However its not something that needs to be set perfectly. I probably have a number of craft where I never touched the turn settings (near the reverse option) and just increased the order complete distance.

[littlelegofan]

Ok so the ship was moving around a way point when it was spawned the main problem was that ship just didn't have a good turning ratio so it never reached the waypoint.

We were also using the steam propellers and they take awhile to speed up and slow down so even when it did reach the waypoint it went straight past it so i had to put some normal propellers on instead.

Changing the complete distance also helped but i mostly just had to mess with the turning speed of the ship.

Thank you for all the help everyone!

[Gozzon]

The problem seems to be that the ships do not respect their defined turn radius if they are close to their movement target instead of planning route according to their turn radius they just pluck the way point on top of the target even if it is far too close for turn to succeed

[BaconsTV]

Originally posted by littlelegofan:

Ok so the ship was moving around a way point when it was spawned the main problem was that ship just didn't have a good turning ratio so it never reached the waypoint.

We were also using the steam propellers and they take awhile to speed up and slow down so even when it did reach the waypoint it went straight past it so i had to put some normal propellers on instead.

Changing the complete distance also helped but i mostly just had to mess with the turning speed of the ship.

Thank you for all the help everyone!

Perhaps a strict forwards/reverse AI-PID could help

Originally posted by Gozzon:

The problem seems to be that the ships do not respect their defined turn radius if they are close to their movement target instead of planning route according to their turn radius they just pluck the way point on top of the target even if it is far too close for turn to succeed

This should be getting looked into if not already.

[Zourin]

I've been having problems as well. My ship keeps circling and circling, despite having a 200m 'complete' distance. It just keeps powering ahead and doing loops.

The ship will navigate to a waypoint, clear the waypoint, then keep plowing on. I can't get the AI to turn off the props :/

[BaconsTV]

Originally posted by Zourin:

I've been having problems as well. My ship keeps circling and circling, despite having a 200m 'complete' distance. It just keeps powering ahead and doing loops.

The ship will navigate to a waypoint, clear the waypoint, then keep plowing on. I can't get the AI to turn off the props :/

With questions like this we would need to see the blueprint

[Pwnicus]

Originally posted by Zourin:

I've been having problems as well. My ship keeps circling and circling, despite having a 200m 'complete' distance. It just keeps powering ahead and doing loops.

The ship will navigate to a waypoint, clear the waypoint, then keep plowing on. I can't get the AI to turn off the props :/

same here, sometimes it acts like it is supposed to, sometimes it feels like a machine rebellion