I have been looking for a way to move non player entities on the map. For example I want cars to move around road, a parking lot, … I found way too many options without comparaison to see pro/cons. Is there a ressource telling which option is privileged?

I saw (in 2D, but I suspect all/most have their 3D equivalent):

Option My understanding
Path2D Very rigid path to follow (only saw used with tween). Can be nice to follow tracks, insert cubes in slot, … But when trying to have a more natural movement, with a bit of variety thanks to physic I don’t see how to do it.
AStar2D (and the AStar2DGrid variant) Robust algo known everywhere. Can add weight to connections. I suspect to make it work we have to give points to reach so we should “cover” the maps with points and link them together
NavigationServer2D Same as AStar2D but experimental, more automatic. Instead of specifying all the point we specify accessible zones. But adding weight to the connection is less obvious (using NavigationObstacle2D?) may be less customizable also?

Are there more options?
Is my understanding of each correct or completely wrong?
What is “the best” one (in Godot 4.3)? Like is there big performance drawback for some (at 100 entities there are lags or whatever)?

Keep in mind that I want my game as little as I can to understand how Godot/game engines work (I’m a developer so that part is easy, Scenes and Nodes choice less so), I don’t really care if using experimental feature means it disappear at some point or change behavior.

Edit: Just found out the official page explaining the different methodes.
So AStar is for grid/pathing on a set of points while NavigationServer can navigate to any point on the accessible area and uses A* as an implementation detail.

=> I think for my use case A* is better suited since I want to move on roads (that look like a grid with weight being the length).

    • Zykino@programming.devOPEnglish
      1·
      20 days ago

      Thanks. I think your message is not very clear at first (since I did not know about “nav mesh”). But reading Wikipedia is clear now. It also helped me find the official page (added the link in the post).