Pathing trouble - beasts from TP to pasture

[A Nonny Moose]

As an example, I recently purchased some sheep.  The TP and the sheep fold (pasture) were connected by a road, but one of the sheep actually swum up the nearby (indirect) river.

I've found that pathing is one of the weaknessess of this game.  Animals wander by any path whatever to get to their destinations when there are perfectly good roads.  They often ignore bridges and swim.  This might be OK for deer, but domestic animals should always have a drover, and generally they should go by land.

[nmid]

Hello Moose

I remember animals often going across rivers and water like that... while it's funny to watch, you have a point.
On the other hand, I don't really mind them acting like that, as it's an infrequent occurrence.

If we go for realism, a TP dock worker should be escorting them to the pasture too.. or a pasture worker should herd them away.
I'm ok with a little less load on the gaming engine, as I remember how sluggish cities became post 1500 pop.

[chillzz]

i agree moving animals to the herd should be accompanied by a driver,
however i've actually seen sheep and cows swim across water to get from point a to b, with or without a herd / driver.
My apartment view is towards agricultural area, surrounded by loads of water.. which isn't weird in this land underneath sea level.
Chickens not so much, but there is video proof they can do that too.


for game speeds sake, i don't mind the submerged cows.

[A Nonny Moose]

Well, I tend to agree that a sacrifice for game speed is fine, but it seems that pathing for the Bannies is working well.  I don't mind the deer getting wet, and I do understand about the failure for them to swim under a bridge due to graphic constraints (they actually appear on the bridge for one pulse) because the game really isn't 3D, now, is it?  There are the usual occupancy problems with the grid (invisible or not).

However, I really think a little more use of the pathfinder for getting the animals from the TP might have been considered.  Chickens, of course, don't swim.

[rkelly17]

Chickens, of course, don't swim.

Maybe not, but in Banished they can walk along the bottom of the river. 

[RedKetchup]

no, the poor pathing is 2D unfortunately in this 3D game

[A Nonny Moose]

Chickens, of course, don't swim.

Maybe not, but in Banished they can walk along the bottom of the river. 

Bringing us to the expression "mad as a wet hen." 

I suppose using the pathfinder for this might mean some recoding if it is hard coded only for bannies.  A parametric call might just be too much overhead considering the number of calls as the population increases.  Splitting or emptying a pasture might indeed raise hell with this.

On the other hand, if the pathfinder were a method in some object, I can see where instatiation overheads might be a problem especially if there were also memory issues.