Pathing blockers and the will to fly freely.

[Haxerflaxer]

Hey,

I'm currently working on a TD in the shape of a mountain. I have paths leading in a spiral to the middle top where the objective for the enemy is. Everything has gone well so far and I've been able to solve most of my issues by googling and searching the forums, except for a few things.

Everything works fine till a path is blocked by towers. Enemies will run back and forth and kind of find a cliffside to hog and nothing happens until I sell a blocking tower, opening a path(well, it does, sooner or later they do run up and destroy a blocking tower, but it's not until a minute or two has passed.). From researching I've found that Pathing blockers can resolve this issue, by making sure there are no micro-gaps making the computer think it can take another route, however if I put no ground & no fly, aka both, my builder will be locked into this spiral since it can't pass fly Pathing blockers. To no avail have I found a working solution for this, even if some threads say that zero collision will solve it. I can't really not have Path blockers either, since there are waves that are air. I have seen other maps where they have regions and call a wave from region 1, to 2, to 3, to 4, etc, etc. Issue with this is; you can maze on the map, and with regions placed everywhere the enemy units like to go berzerk and smash everything.

I suppose everything will solve itself if I can find a way to fly over Pathing Blocker(both).

Does anyone have a tip, trick or straight up solution to my madness?

 

[Chaosium]

Would it be gamebreaking to add a Blink spell with map-wide range to your builder? Or make it so that your builder is teleported instantly to its destination, that's two headache-free solutions I can think of

 

[Nichilus]

place an 'unbuildable' pathing blocker on ground. Not sure if you won't have to import custom pathing texture. This blocker (the blue-colored one) is used by tiles like 'rock' tile, etc.
If you cant build buildings in enemy's path, it should be resolved, no?
Otherwise use trigger action on your peon => Unit - Turn Collision On/Off. The unit will then ignore basically every pathing blocker

 

[AtivEnergy]

What if you set movement type to None on builder?
You can also use way gates.

 

[Haxerflaxer]

Would it be gamebreaking to add a Blink spell with map-wide range to your builder? Or make it so that your builder is teleported instantly to its destination, that's two headache-free solutions I can think of

Well, I've been thinking of this and it wouldn't be gamebreaking, just not look as nice and perhaps remove the challenge of running and placing towers which in itself takes a bit of time.

place an 'unbuildable' pathing blocker on ground. Not sure if you won't have to import custom pathing texture. This blocker (the blue-colored one) is used by tiles like 'rock' tile, etc.
If you cant build buildings in enemy's path, it should be resolved, no?
Otherwise use trigger action on your peon => Unit - Turn Collision On/Off. The unit will then ignore basically every pathing blocker

Making areas unbuildable would defeat the purpose of mazing unless I set a pre-determined maze players can make, which would be a tad boring.

I've tried turning collision off, but it only works if I stand right next to a wall of pathing blockers and spam-click move to the other side, else it will run around the entire map.

What if you set movement type to None on builder?
You can also use way gates.

I tried movement type none, but realized pretty quickly that now I won't be able to walk over cliffs, else this would solve the entire issue. Is there an ability that makes you fly but does not count as movement type fly?


I really appreciate the help guys. If you have any more or other ideas, I would love to hear them.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Is there an ability that makes you fly but does not count as movement type fly?

No. Move the builder with triggers instead of allowing it to move itself. Instantly teleport to any location it has been ordered to move to would be the simplest solution.

 

[AtivEnergy]

I tried movement type none, but realized pretty quickly that now I won't be able to walk over cliffs, else this would solve the entire issue.

This statement is false. I set a default footman movement type to NONE and is still able to walk over all cliffs. You need to stay near cliff and after that you can right click on the cliff and the unit will go straight there. This indeed will not work if you're far away from the cliff. First get closer then will work.

 

[Nichilus]

You need to stay near cliff and after that you can right click on the cliff and the unit will go straight there. This indeed will not work if you're far away from the cliff. First get closer then will work.

Even if that works, I would personally not use this as a solution - it's very unintuitive from player's PoV

 

[AtivEnergy]

Even if that works, I would personally not use this as a solution - it's very unintuitive from player's PoV

You're right, it's not very intuitive.

 

[Uncle]

Alternative solution: Give the Air unit's Ground movement and use Ground pathing blockers. They can still be Targeted as Air and you could modify their collision to make them clump up more if that's what you want.