Weird pathing issues with settlers. Vanilla behaviour?

Hi everyone,

First of all, I apologize for the long text.
I started playing FO4 again very recently after a one year hiatus, and this time using Sim Settlements (never used before).
So I rescued Preston and the gang, recruited some settlers, and started to discover how Sim Settlements works and started building plots.

But as soon as the first plot was built, I began noticing serious pathing issues with my settlers.

Everytime they want to enter a plot (I tested with every type, residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural...), they try to enter trought the wall. Of course plots that don't have walls were fine (some agricultural ones, like farms). Not just Sim Settlements plots, but vanilla constructions as well. I created a large house with one door and put a bar inside. The settler assigned to the bar tries to enter the bar through the wall instead of using the door. But some settlers do use the door (the ones that have jobs and comes to the bar only to sit).

But not only that. Some plots (like one I remember called "Dead end weapons") have some interactions that the settler assigned to does, like hammering something and then walking throught the store, go behind the counter, etc. They get stucked doing these things too. Everytime. So when I go to their shop to buy something, 50% chance that they're stuck at something. Sometimes I do caught them at their normal position (because the engine sometimes teleports them to their destination when detects that they're stuck, but sometimes don't).

As I never built before when I played the game a year ago (i didn't liked to built.... now that's all I do ingame lol), I don't know if this is normal vanilla behaviour or not.

Thanks in advance.

Yea, that's kinda vanilla behavior and rather normal -- the pathing AI for the npcs isn't all that great. This mod - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/20442 - helps with the issue a bit, but for the most part the npcs are dumb as bricks. You'll find them clustered and standing around outside a recreation plot, for example, rather than actually using it for, you know, relaxing.

Sometimes it helps to just wait a couple of minutes when you first enter a settlement, especially those with a large population, so that all the workshop and npc scripts can fire off and get them into their proper place.

I blame the radiation

Thanks for the link to that mod. Even if I don't use it, the sticky posts had a ton of useful information regarding pathing and potential issues. Great read.

The 2x2 plots are pretty good with the navmesh. But the interior plots are so small, it's almost impossible to navmesh them to the games requirements. Part of it also the idle markers enter points, which over ride the navmesh.. or any nav cutting you do trying to keep them from walking over tables.

woodfuzzy said:

The 2x2 plots are pretty good with the navmesh. But the interior plots are so small, it's almost impossible to navmesh them to the games requirements. Part of it also the idle markers enter points, which over ride the navmesh.. or any nav cutting you do trying to keep them from walking over tables.

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I understand, but still, why they can't detect the walls? I mean, I'm using a prefab wood house and the settler always tries to enter/leave trought the wall... in a vanilla prefab structure. I mean, Bethesda did not test this? This shouldn't be "normal", it's clearly a bug. All that I was craving for is a huge and alive settlement, wich I'm slowly making, a little day-by-day. But it crushes me to know that even after I finish, I can't in fact enjoy because it bugs me seeing all my settlers stuck and walking non-stop when facing a wall like if it don't exist.

Correctly made Sim Settlements plots have collision planes that should prevent them from trying to walk through walls. Settlement navigation just is what it is and it may take time for navigation to get set.

Have you tried leaving the settlement for a while? Going in to a short adventure? Spending some time away from the settlement may cause them to recalculate pathing and act less irrationally.

Sim Settlements encourages visiting your settlements often, but game mechanics and engine work in away that taking a few days trip to beat some super mutants is a good idea on occasion.

Ilja said:

Correctly made Sim Settlements plots have collision planes that should prevent them from trying to walk through walls. Settlement navigation just is what it is and it may take time for navigation to get set.

Have you tried leaving the settlement for a while? Going in to a short adventure? Spending some time away from the settlement may cause them to recalculate pathing and act less irrationally.

Sim Settlements encourages visiting your settlements often, but game mechanics and engine work in away that taking a few days trip to beat some super mutants is a good idea on occasion.

Click to expand...

In fact I did wander around the commonwealth for 3 ingame days, after installing the "settler sandbox expansions" mod, as the description suggests, went back to Sanctuary and still find the settler assigned to the "Dead end weapons" stuck on the wall after a while there. What I did was changing the plot to another store (Tailor store) and now is working great. Maybe it's a bug with that exactly plot plan? I don't remember if it's from SS or some AddOn I downloaded.

Not SS related, but I had to remove the bar from inside the vanilla prefab wood house as well, since the settler assigned to always tried to enter from behind the house, instead of using the door. I put the bar next to a recreational plot and is great too, they all go there after work. Can I post screenshots here on the forum? If yes, I'll post some when I get home!

There are so many things vanilla and mod related that can have a negative impact on NPC pathing. I'll name just a few potential causes as I think of them:

• Using a scrapping mod to scrap things not intended to be scrapped in vanilla will leave your settlement with patches where there is no navmesh or the navmesh no longer fits the terrain correctly such as scrapping the house foundations in Sanctuary. Throwing plots on top doesn't really help.
• Mod authors who have created new workshop items such as prefabs or items meant to be walked on that either didn't navmesh them correctly or didn't add things like navcuts to items that need them (such as prefab buildings, walls with doorways, etc)
• Sim Settlements specific limitations include the fact that some plots are just too cramped for NPCs to properly use. A good rule of thumb is that NPCs need paths at least as wide as a doorway to navigate. Unfortunately that's not always possible in a plot and Kinggath and addon pack authors sometimes sacrifice usability for looks.
• Bad navmesh in general. Bethesda often uses the automatically generated navmesh tool which is less than ideal. Mod authors as well don't always know good navmesh practices. Navmesh with too many triangles or areas with starburst patterned navmesh are more complex for the AI to calculate and process correctly.
• Also scripts being backed up will impact NPC AI. It's the first thing to be dropped in an overloaded system.

damanding said:

• Using a scrapping mod to scrap things not intended to be scrapped in vanilla will leave your settlement with patches where there is no navmesh or the navmesh no longer fits the terrain correctly such as scrapping the house foundations in Sanctuary. Throwing plots on top doesn't really help.

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I discovered this the hard way! Last week I began a new save and decided that I would scrap almost everything in Sanctuary and made everything by myself. As you could guess, all I had left was settlers trying to hammer the invisible walls of the workshop house lol. I deleted everything and created a new savegame, this time using a mod called Scrap Everything Disabler Project, wich prevents me from deleting any major structure from Sanctuary.

damanding said:

• Sim Settlements specific limitations include the fact that some plots are just too cramped for NPCs to properly use. A good rule of thumb is that NPCs need paths at least as wide as a doorway to navigate. Unfortunately that's not always possible in a plot and Kinggath and addon pack authors sometimes sacrifice usability for looks.

Click to expand...

I think that's the case with the "Dead end weapons" plot. It's SO tiny that is hard to walk even for the player. The tailor shop is almost double the size, and both of them are 2x2 plots.

damanding said:

Bad navmesh in general. Bethesda often uses the automatically generated navmesh tool which is less than ideal. Mod authors as well don't always know good navmesh practices. Navmesh with too many triangles or areas with starburst patterned navmesh are more complex for the AI to calculate and process correctly.

Click to expand...

After navmeshing my vault 4 times.. I found it was faster and had faaar better results to do it manually.
Also, idle markers over rides navcuts, collision planes and ticked off molerats.

Just a question, do you guys always put a floor/foundation below commercial/industrial/residential plots or can I put on the dirty like the agricultural plots?

Most work best on a foundation, but there are some that work better in dirt or the new terraform plots. Usually the description of the plot says if it works better on a foundation or on dirt.

woodfuzzy said:

After navmeshing my vault 4 times.. I found it was faster and had faaar better results to do it manually.
Also, idle markers over rides navcuts, collision planes and ticked off molerats.

Click to expand...

Every time I see a mod author say they use the autogenerated navmesh I internally shake my head. Experience teaches mod authors over and over and over that it really is better and faster once you've memorized the keyboard shortcuts to do it by hand.

Something else I noticed when using the auto navmesh. When you look at the records in xEdit, you'll see stuff from all over the commonwealth. (very dirty)
Doing it manually, it's all in the cell you were working on. I'm not sure any "auto" feature of the CK works right. LOL