Pathfinding with an elevator

#1

I’m curious how people would approach this problem. I have a 2D platformer — imagine a building with two floors. The only physical connection between the two floors is an elevator.

Out of the box this package does not support platformers, so I’ve opted for a point graph.

There’s no node connection from floor one to floor two, so I figure, hey the agent could board the elevator, the elevator will move, and then we can recalculate the path and send the agent on its way.

But when calculating the graph, the shortest path between a point on floor 1 and floor 2 may tell the agent to simply stay right where they are. Why would you walk farther away to an elevator? You’re walking away from the destination. And yet in the real world, this cost pays off.

Will I need to create a custom Point Graph script that considers elevators, or is there some other idiomatic way?

Thank you!

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#2

For anyone who stumbles upon this thread and needs similar help, here’s what I’m considering:

I’m going to set up a GOAP system that AIPath can plug into. So, the goal would be: go to floor 2. But the linked goal before that would be, go to elevator. With that in place, then the out of box Point Graph would work without any modification.