Integrated Path Planning Object (T0) Version 0.4

New major build (this is a release candidate), we now have transition profiles when custom transitions are enabled.

Transition profiles allows us to change between different rules quickly without the need to manually specify the rules each time.

Testing is still severely lacking, if you know someone that's working on an RTS or RPG that may be interested in helping with the testing please nominate him here.

Not yet. As I mentioned in another thread I "hope" to be able to port it to Flash once it is finalized.

Certainly. There are at least two ways to do this:
1)Fill empty areas (gaps) with hidden rectangular objects and add them as obstacles. Then your units will only be able to use the other areas (including ladders) to move around.
2)Use the grid functions to specify which parts of the map are traversable, then generate the paths for your enemies and iterate over them to move the active objects.

The first approach is probably the easiest to get working, but will require you to place the obstacles yourself. The second approach will require more work but gives you more control and may allow you to automate the process by looping over all your platforms and setting up the grid which would be the better approach if your levels are large/complicated.

Here is an update (0.4.1) which includes transition profiles (and some minor updates). I have included an example that shows how to navigate units of different sizes on the same map.

Here is a help file for the object.

I think you can get the first approach running in your game in a few minutes. Just create rectangular blocks, throw them all over the frame to cover the gaps, add the active object as an obstacle to the system, and you're done.

If you need help getting it to work or run into problems, let me know.

Quote from AngelicTech

since I have NO idea how this object works

But that's the point. This object was designed to be simple to use for those that have never tried it before. Did you give it a try yet? You can refer to the "Messed Up Experiments" frame in my example file.

I would really like to know what is hard to figure out in using the object, so that I can make it simpler or explain it better in the help file.

Thanks for the feedback. Did you build any new examples that used this object? If so can you share them?

About the object:

I can support non-square tiles. Do you think this has any practical use?

Renaming "Agent" to "Object" would be confusing, especially since we have a condition that checks whether an object is an agent. Renaming "objective" to "destination" may be a good idea.
What about "Loop" instead of "Iterate"?

IsObstacle(X, Y) is a good idea, it's the same as the weight expression but may be simpler to understand.

About the help file. I'm not sure why you say it's non-existent, do you mean that it's lacking content, or you didn't get the help file in the first place? I'm assuming it's the later since I think I cover most of what you mentioned here in the file, if that's the case you can find the PDF in this thread.

I did mention in the "Custom Transitions" section at the beginning that heuristics will NOT work in this mode. What details do we need here?

In the Update Obstacles section in the help file it says "If your obstacles moved around the frame and you want to update the system, use this action".

I explain the group behavior in the "Plan Paths for Group" section. Do you suggest moving this to a different section?

Tile weights are explained in the "Set Tile Weight" section and it should explain how its used.

The "threshold" parameter has no significance and is there only to maintain compatibility when changes are made in the future.