Pathfinding Issue? Time Stamps and Images to Show

Edit: Here is replay: https://replay.faforever.com/21242419

@Jip starting around 3:30 mark and throgh 3:45, you can watch the expanding engineers to grab hydros. At around 3:40 there is a reclaim action on the hydro from the engineer in front, then the second engineer bumps the first, then the orders just seem to simply disappear even though they are in queue.

I have seen this happen with a commander or unit getting stuck on some reclaim, but what is going on here has happened to me a number of times recently in addition to what @silentNoob showed here: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/6808/degrading-game-responsiveness-over-time-factory-queue-in-particular

It could be a separate issue but still.... it worries me.

Cannot figure out how to take a screen shot while order queue is visible as it "snip it" tool is refusing to work with the shift key held, but here:
 
https://ibb.co/album/Df913C

There's a strange interaction (read: usually ending up in unwanted behavior) with commands where pathfinding is not the primary task (reclaim, building, capture, loading, unloading, etc). When the pathfinding aborts then the unit 'assumes' all is good and then tries to execute the task it was set out to do. There's no 'retry' for these commands. To look at your case:

Engineer A (left) assisting engineer B (right)

Engineer B is reclaiming, but engineer A was not in range yet so navigates to be in range

Reclaim is gone, engineer B wants to turn back but ends up bumping into engineer A that was still getting in range to reclaim

The 'bump' between the engineers aborts the pathfinding. In this example, the logic of engineer B deems it is ready to build. But the build site is blocked - by engineer B itself! As the logic doesn't 'retry' it ends up being stuck.

This bug you experienced has always been in the game. It just doesn't happen often.

What you can do to alleviate it (in this example) is to use the CTRL + assist feature to not assist the engineer, but instead copy the command queue and apply it to your selection. You can find it in the game options:

It is by far the superior approach to assisting engineers when the complexity of the command queue is high

Interesting, however it is happening a lot more lately...

@Jip so I have been using the "ctrl-assist" and no problems since, but for some reason I have to click engineers or comm a few times to get it to work?

What's up with that?

I don't know how to share other than creating a video but it's super frustrating to have to click something so much as it really distracts.

it works in 1 click for me. There's a 5 tick delay before it is applied, but you can continue doing what you were doing. The selection is stored the moment you issue the callback

@jip said in Pathfinding Issue? Time Stamps and Images to Show:

it works in 1 click for me. There's a 5 tick delay before it is applied, but you can continue doing what you were doing. The selection is stored the moment you issue the callback

What is a "5 tick delay" in layman terms?

half a second

@ftxcommando said in Pathfinding Issue? Time Stamps and Images to Show:

half a second

Ah so that's why I'm going mad... Everything else is seemingly instant.

It's not though - if you look closely everything has a 5 tick (500ms) delay

@morax @jip

I've read that the game makes things look instant even when it's not

Units look like they move as soon as you give the order, but in the actual simulation, it takes 0.5 seconds before they change direction

The game does this because it would be uncomfortable for the player to give an order and watch nothing happen for 0.5 seconds

Well whatever is going on, it is far more noticeable with this one command.