war hounds problem

kenneth2222

after the hounds chase a unit to the edge of the map , they get stuck there and dont chase anyone else , or sometimes the hounds just randomly run to all edges of the map.
havent really used hounds much b4 so not sure if new problem.

ca_dionissiev

Hi @kenneth2222

Thanks for the report.
When the hounds have chased an enemy off the map limits their AI would have two conflicting orders - one is to continue the chase, the other is to not go beyond the map borders.
The second order is with a priority, but while the enemies are still close and visible, the two things are in balance for some time. Our testing showed about 15 secs of delay before the hounds would start looking for other targets within the map borders.
It is not an ideal behaviour, but unfortunately it is not something we can change at that point of development. Also we haven't changed anything in this regard, so it is what it has been before

Hope that this helps.

lilsweetcaligula

CA_dionisiev said:

When the hounds have chased an enemy off the map limits their AI would have two conflicting orders - one is to continue the chase, the other is to not go beyond the map borders.
The second order is with a priority, but while the enemies are still close and visible, the two things are in balance for some time.

If I may and if the answer can be publicly available, I have a question. Do prioritized orders mean that it is theoretically possible to trick the AI into going beyond the map borders, if, for example, some order happens to have a higher priority than the "do not go beyond the map borders" order? I haven't seen this in practice, but I've been wondering.

ca_dionissiev

Hey @lilsweetcaligula
Not being a coder I may not be the perfect person to ask about this, but i have never seen an unbroken unit leave the map borders in my experience. This is not to say that it is impossible, but it is certainly not easy to "trick" it to do so.
So I think the "do not go beyond" commandment rates close to the First law of robotics of Isaac Asimov

Hope that this helps

lilsweetcaligula

@CA_dionisiev

Got it, thank you! Haha, brilliant reference, too!

CA Sofia