Sea Faring AI Troubles

[Quintillius]

As work for study is coming to an end this semester, I'll get more free time to work on Nova Aetas.

One topic I want to work on first is the AI pathfinding troubles related to sea travelling. For this I need your help. There are a couple of findings worthy of further investigation:

1) AI lords stuck nearby harbours and the infamous Zendar harbour
2) AI lords getting stuck on coasts
3) AI lords travelling in a loop (port.1 -> port.2 -> village -> port.2 -> port.1 and vice versa)
4) Lords disappearing from the map
5) Check for messy dialogues, wrong prestige points or other stats and if screens are still displaying the info correctly.

Number 4 is a suspection. Some players noticed the disappearing of lords. Does anyone have some more clues on this? Number 3 shouldn't cause any harm as the lord will nog get stuck permanently. In one of my tests, the lord will do something else after a while. Number 2 should be fixed as of the latest versions. Number 1 is caused by the script not detecting the arrival of the lord. The script is now more flexible. I'd like you to test this for me. You can use the fix below for any savegame:

1) Have latest version: 4.1
2) Make savegame backup
3) Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/co700ogwrsdoa9d/simple_triggers.txt?dl=0 and overwrite file in the Nova Aetas directory.
4) Check if lords are still stucks around harbours.

If there are any other problems regarding AI sea travelling, please inform me.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/co700ogwrsdoa9d/simple_triggers.txt?dl=0

 

[Majher13]

First of all, thank you for your work, this is a great mod

And now- I've checked the solution you've posted and for me it doesn't work. Some ships still stucked near Zendar, and near that Mithradian village, and their shores- Rhodok and Sarranid lords. Mithradian lords stucked on the island, traveling somewhere, but not moving. Few Rhodok lords stucked on the shore near Hawaha, traveling (on horse) in the sea direction (following some Mithradian lord). About the missing lords- in the cheat mode with ctrl+t, just can't find Rhodok King, so probably more of them are missing.

If it helps I can upload my save file for investigation.

Hope you've passed your exams with high grades

Oh, and I forgot- I have a 4.1 version from steam workshop

 

[Quintillius]

Thank you. It will surely help if you upload your savegame.

 

[Majher13]

The file is sent on PM, I hope you'll find the solution

 

[Quintillius]

Thank you very much! I'll use it for testing purposes.

Of course I do know Nova Aetas has bugs and issues to deal with. I always consider the mod a project of both the developer (me) and the community. As I lack the help of a large team and because it's a hobby, not professional work, it will have its imperfections. I'm still happy that Warband offers huge modding possibilities. I have reached unknown areas and done unmatched stuff. You can literally do everything. Your own imagination is the only limitation. Nova Aetas is a great mod that has huge potential and unbelievable features. Of course I test everything endlessly to ensure stable and smooth gameplay. Still I need the help of the community to polish the game and fix all remaining bugs. It can be demotivating to see superb features being screwed up due to an insignificant little detail somewhere in the scripts, ruining most of it. I might not be able to fix 100.0% of the game, but you can be sure of my capabilities, dedication and will to make this mod work great!

 

[Alfonso dArmigerio]

Quick clarification: This fix, do you want us to test it with current games or with new starts? Or both?

 

[Quintillius]

Current saves are fine. But as Majher stated, the fix doesn't work for all issues.
I'm currently finding out what's going wrong.

 

[Jety Wawoo]

Sent savegame in a PM. Just go along the coasts and see how many people are stuck. And I bet like 6-7 lords have just disappeared in some ridiculous Z coordinate.

 

[Jety Wawoo]

Version: 4.1 with your hotfix from this thread. (You have my save)
Lords are actually still stuck on the coast.
Lords are still stuck at the harbor.

Here's a list showing the true severity of the problem of disappearing lords.

Spoiler: List of Disappeared Lords

Alvise
Tlateken
Tlaltecatzin
Lothair
Numar
Enrique
Devlian
Daledus
Girlad
Agostino
Aiatarapa
Cocoyucu
Giovanno
Lorenzes
Theophilus
Matheas
El Amiri
De Baligne
De Tellosh
Tukhas
Adred
Hughues
Valsefor
Laurel
Kos
Gottlans
De Mars
Florences
Theofidel
Gundur
De Seppone
Rayeck
Cedrus
Reichsin
Reland
Naelchin
Manfrid
Lochmer
Mohammad
Archesilaus
Qu Adim
Deliquant
Constantius
Quryas
Bernardus
Mirchaud

TOTAL: 46

In order of frequency, this is what their current_behavior was set to, using the MnBSaveGameEditor.

8 - By far the most common behavior for disappeared lords.
6 - The second most common ahead of 10 by a bit.
10 - The third most common, ahead of 0 by a large margin.
0 - The fourth most common, only a handful.
1 - Only 1-2 disappeared lords had this as their behavior.

The rest of the behaviors never had any disappeared lords.

Perhaps you can write a script that teleports parties into the nearest town if they don't exit from ships within a week (this wouldn't fix people stuck on the coast that aren't in a ship, though). A lot of trade caravans are stuck at the coast too.

 

[Quintillius]

Thank you. I'll definitely need to get rid of this script if the effects are this severe.
Lords also disappear if they are defeated in battle. There's a script that let them respawn after a while.

 

[Jety Wawoo]

Thank you. I'll definitely need to get rid of this script if the effects are this severe.
Lords also disappear if they are defeated in battle. There's a script that let them respawn after a while.

Hmmm no that doesn't contribute to the list. Defeated lords get temporarily wiped from party record, and go from "valid = 1" to "valid = 0".

All of these guys's Z coordinate was something like -2e-006 and something ridiculous like that. If you ask another lord where they are, they will say "Near (or whereever they disappeared at) Zendar" instead of "I don't know".

 

[Majher13]

I'm not familiar with modding, but the feature of sea traveling isn't it similar to that one from Viking Conquest? Maybe it's possible to find the solution in the VC files?

 

[Jety Wawoo]

I'm not familiar with modding, but the feature of sea traveling isn't it similar to that one from Viking Conquest? Maybe it's possible to find the solution in the VC files?

Hmmm. I think if it copies it he will have to make the DLC required since both have you buy different ships and use ports, very similar indeed. Although, I wouldn't mind as actual naval battles in Nova Aetas using the Viking Conquest system would be epic.

Quintillius could always just chuck the idea of buying ships and using ports however, and just do what AD1257/Medieval_Conquests did, which has no ports or harbors at all. Rather, all of the surface is accessible like normal land, but when parties enter the water, their speed is sped up (similar to how forest biomes slow you down?) and party icons are switched to a ship, and you can only "enter" the water at certain locations where they so choose, thus making "ports" without it being an actual entity. This would probably break this Mithradian script though, where they get really angry if you land on their island.

 

[Quintillius]

Thank you! That makes sense indeed, excellent research.

Time to say goodbye to the sea travel script. I've done some tests to make the AI switch to water/land when the party reaches the coast.
I'm still wondering what to do with cliffs and mountainous areas however.

 

[Jety Wawoo]

Thank you! That makes sense indeed, excellent research.

Time to say goodbye to the sea travel script. I've done some tests to make the AI switch to water/land when the party reaches the coast.
I'm still wondering what to do with cliffs and mountainous areas however.

Would it be impossible to put invisible walls at the coast, except where you want people to be able to sea travel? Not sure exactly what AD1257/Medieval_Conquests did, but I think that's what they did.

 

[Quintillius]

Thnx I'll check it out.

 

[Lord_Richard]

I am so pumped up to play.

 

[wildgoose]

I am so pumped up to play.

Me too dude. So ready for the steady grind into the elites of Caldria.

 

[Jety Wawoo]

Any idea of when the next update is? I doubt it's save compatible so I can't wait to start playing this again.

 

[wildgoose]

Any idea of when the next update is? I doubt it's save compatible so I can't wait to start playing this again.

I believe it be sometime this summer. There wasn't an official release date posted, at least to my knowledge.