Cargo boats max distance?

[annie]

I tried sending a cargo boat about halfway across a map on one of the tutorials. I thought there might be a barrier I was missing so I tried splitting the journey into 2, and it can do each part fine but not the whole journey, so is there a max distance they can go or am I missing something?
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post.

[Erik Asmussen]

There is kind of a soft limit due to some inefficiencies in the pathfinding system for boats. I made some changes recently that improved this, but it still probably struggles in certain situations of long distance and curvy coastlines that can fool the pathfinder. I'll take a note to keep working on this. If you have a screenshot of the route, that would help me test this out.

[Paul Kersey]

I used a lot of cargo boats in campaign 7. One route that didn't work was moving berry cake from the trading post in the southeast forestry island to the south side of farming island. I had silos set up on the shoreline for the goods. I ended up doing a relay with a midpoint silo and two boats.

[annie]

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

There is kind of a soft limit due to some inefficiencies in the pathfinding system for boats. I made some changes recently that improved this, but it still probably struggles in certain situations of long distance and curvy coastlines that can fool the pathfinder. I'll take a note to keep working on this. If you have a screenshot of the route, that would help me test this out.

Not sure how to share the screenshots but I think they're here!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2526976755
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2526976636

[Erik Asmussen]

Ah yep, that definitely seems like a case that would prove challenging. Since the pathfinder is map-agnostic, it doesn't know which water route actually leads to the destination, so it has to search pretty far in the 'wrong' direction in order to also find the right direction.

It'll need some more effort on my end to fix this. In the meantime, those kinds of relays are recommended.

I wonder if I should add the ability to let players pick delivery waypoints. That would go a long way towards giving the pathfinder the necessary hints on long routes.

[annie]

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

Ah yep, that definitely seems like a case that would prove challenging. Since the pathfinder is map-agnostic, it doesn't know which water route actually leads to the destination, so it has to search pretty far in the 'wrong' direction in order to also find the right direction.

It'll need some more effort on my end to fix this. In the meantime, those kinds of relays are recommended.

I wonder if I should add the ability to let players pick delivery waypoints. That would go a long way towards giving the pathfinder the necessary hints on long routes.

Or maybe a comment on the boat description saying their range is slightly limited? Thanks for replying!

[Damokles]

@Erik Asmussen it would be great if pathfinding could be improved for boats as campaign map 7 seems predestined for using a lot of boats. Furthermore, it would be great if you could copy paste the orders of one boat to another. Setting up more than one boat on a multi-stop route is tedious. This would also make using waypoints more feasible, I tried helping boats navigate with move-orders, but they seem to forget them, once they did them.

[mikeydsc]

Originally posted by Damokles:

@Erik Asmussen it would be great if pathfinding could be improved for boats as campaign map 7 seems predestined for using a lot of boats. Furthermore, it would be great if you could copy paste the orders of one boat to another. Setting up more than one boat on a multi-stop route is tedious. This would also make using waypoints more feasible, I tried helping boats navigate with move-orders, but they seem to forget them, once they did them.

With the update a couple updates ago, you can now set the first path from start to finish, then hold shift to add onto the path. You can do this several times to set way points now as long as you have a dock or a mid way point to tie it to. Maybe you know this, maybe not, but this is the best way for now to set really long routes. The rest of your post like copy/paste of the routes form unit to unit would be helpful.

[Damokles]

@mikeydsc that was what I meant with.

Originally posted by Damokles:

I tried helping boats navigate with move-orders, but they seem to forget them, once they did them.

I was adding waypoints with shift, but the boat seems to have forgotten those move orders, i.e., they were gone. I now use multiple silos as relaypoints and just have multiple boats ferry between those.

[Nneu]

Originally posted by Damokles:

@Erik Asmussen it would be great if pathfinding could be improved for boats as campaign map 7 seems predestined for using a lot of boats. Furthermore, it would be great if you could copy paste the orders of one boat to another. Setting up more than one boat on a multi-stop route is tedious. This would also make using waypoints more feasible, I tried helping boats navigate with move-orders, but they seem to forget them, once they did them.

Have you tried Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V to copy and paste the boat settings? I haven't tried it with waypoints, but I assume it should copy them along with the rest of the other settings.

[Damokles]

Coming back to the waypoints, I found that the cheapest way is to use crates and to designate them as dropoff points, but set the item filter for the crate to something incompatible, so the boat will stop for a short while and then continue. Luckily, I had to do it only for one way, the return journey didn't need additional waypoints.

Anyway, real waypoints would still be appreciated. I think a simple buoy building would fit nicely, with a new move-to command.

[P4nda77]

That is one of the best ideas ive heard but i should continue Ex: pick up from silo --> go to buoy --> drop off at crate. no shift needed (hopefully)