Path Node Finding

The path node finding is scripted almost entirely, now I can place as many path nodes in my game level and the monster will randomly choose the destination and head towards it. Therefore I don't need to rely on the MoveToActor kismet.

I cannot take much credit for the code I used to get pathfinding using nodes and scripts. After the pylons were placed into the map, mougli's code worked. So the only problem I really had with it in the first place was a lack of a navmesh. The pylons made everything work!

The code used before to calculated the velocity/speed/distance of the monster when travelling towards the player is now uneccessary. Because of that, I was able to use Mougli's AI Script mentioned in previous posts. Christian Skogen helped me out again especially with two parts of the code that would allow the monster to randomly choose any pathnode on the level and travel to it, of course it has to be within the range of the pylon placed there.

I will explain the additional parts of code here:

I used Mougli's code for AI with slight alterations like changing state names.

Then when it worked and the monster could navigate around corners, I tried looking up a way to call pathnodes into script (my monstersaicontroller). I came across this thread which told me about the arrays. This adds the pathnodes into an Array- a list of data. So then you can begin to use them in script.

simulated event PostBeginPlay()
{
    local Pathnode Current;

    foreach Worldinfo.AllActors(class'Pathnode', Current)
    {
        pathNodes.AddItem(Current);
    }
   
    super.PostBeginPlay();
}

Then looked up Random function, and vector maths (with much of christian's help). Applied that until I had a AIcontroller class that would make the monster choose random path nodes, navigate and travel to them. The chasing state (chasing the character) is still intact and just contains Mougli's code. Instead of an Idle, I changed it to Patrol, since it would no longer be idle and just copy/pasted mougli's code again.

He explained how vector maths worked so I could grasp the last bit of code. The last part of the code is an if statement- basically IF the distance between the monster and the player is less than the chaseDistance=1000 (which was alterable in the Default properties), the monster would give up and go back to finding patrol nodes.

 This was placed at the end of the Chase state just before 'goto Begin;'

    if (VSize(target.Location - self.pawn.Location) > chaseDistance)
    {
        WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Lost player");
        GotoState('FindPatrolNode');
    }