RTS pathfinding

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hello

It seems that everyone is making their own A* pathfinding but is there a pathfinding engine which can do the job for you?

Also, many pathfinding algorithm doesn’t take object of different size for the pathfinding. (usually no size or a fixed 1 unit size). For an RTS it would require that the algorithm work with many differents size object.

Anything that can do that out there?

#2

I guess that mean no… :(.

#3

You’re touching upon a huge subject.

There is A*, yes, with lots of different heuristics. That’s the basics.

There is all sorts of other stuff than A* that is required for movement of objects in a game world. Objects of being of different size is just one of considerations.

Flocking, collision prevention, steering, path sharing, tile sharing, just to name a few.

#4

I see (I forgot a lot of things…)

But many people tried to make an RTS and they all start from scratch? I figured in most case all this must be really similar from game to game.

Just a question like that : is it impossible to make a good general RTS pathfinding engine or can it be done?

#5

Kev Glass’s Slick API has a tile-based A* pathfinding engine. You should take a look if that’s was your after.

I made one for use with polygon obstacles.

Most games don’t need path finding because they’re got physics and/or only the human controlled player needs to navigate around.

What kind of RTS are you looking at making?

#6

Yea I saw your pathfinding through polygon it’s very cool. But I’m more looking for pathfinding through a grid map.

I don’t have a specific kind of RTS I want to make yet, I have some idea but I didn’t want to develop a story and designing the units before I finish the pathfinding algorithm or I find an engine for it.

#7

Thanks.

You should give the slick API a go then: http://slick.cokeandcode.com/

This has the path finding documentation: http://slick.cokeandcode.com/javadoc/org/newdawn/slick/util/pathfinding/package-frame.html

I’m interested in how you RTS goes, keep us posted!

#8

yeah well I wrote all that stuff myself for my RTS

I looked at A* and understood the concept but I built my pathfinding code entirely on my own
well thats how I do it with everything =P

kinda also depends on the kind of vehicle and landscape you have but basically a vehicle has a direction it desires and it tries to find a way to there
in my code I call something like that a simulation, because the vehicle would “think” what happend if he moved this or that way, and it does that as long as it find a route that works.

but what is the difference between a tilemap and a grid map ? unless your using a hexagon tile map its kinda the same, since the tiles are places like a grid

#9

I’m finishing my Geometry War remake before I begin it so I will begin it in a couple of weeks :). I’m just gathering information for now.

I don’t know the difference either…