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This whole pathing thing is... a bit ambiguous. What I would LOVE to see in the editor is a toggle to show the lines that are being used to determine pathing.
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That would definitely be useful. Combine that with the idea to reveal every object's hitbox at once.
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Maybe color the lines different for raid pathing and normal pathing to really add some clarity. But even with them both the same color, we could get some real use out of seeing the pathing logic. This may even be something that could be done between issues.
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There is no distinction. There is only one type of pathing. The fact that items are called "Raidable" is obscuring the issues.
I guess if you wanted to nitpick 2 types of pathing, you could separate out doorway-to-doorway and doorway-to-object.
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If I build a base, then block the doors of a room so no one can use it, won't I notice this fairly soon, or get that 3am call from my SG mate who would like to use the teleport to the RWZ but can't because I put my latest dinosaur trophy in the way.
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I don't think it's totally unfair to have the game impose a few rules of fair play. It does so in other game aspects.
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All objects flagged for blocking would become destructible in a raid situation, with only 1 health.
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The trouble with that is finding the one green crate that is destroyable. The game doesn't normally mix and match destructable objects.
Now you could simply delete them. But you're still talking about removing editor path code to put in raid-time analysis code instead. Why mess with the system that much when so many other things are broken?
What decorating situations are really so important that pathing needs to be completely thrown out the window? I'd like to see screenshots of someone in the base editor, with an item in-hand, and see exactly what they're trying to do that's hitting a pathing limit they think is so bad there's no way to solve it short of scrapping the entire system.
Just to be clear, all clickable objects must have a traceable route back to the entry portal, right?
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There is no distinction. There is only one type of pathing. The fact that items are called "Raidable" is obscuring the issues.
I guess if you wanted to nitpick 2 types of pathing, you could separate out doorway-to-doorway and doorway-to-object.
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This is probably one of the more confusing things when you get the red box, determining just exactly what it is you are blocking. I think I have more issues from a design standpoint from the door to door pathing than the door to object pathing. I think this is in part because the editor seems to need a much broader path than an actual avatar, and it is not at all flexible when tracing a path through a doorway. There are only a couple of valid paths through a doorway, despite the fact that its wide enough for many more.
Its also not as intuitive as you might like it to be. If I place a desk in the way, it doesn't block access, but it does block pathing. Players can leap over three desks, but the path route must be on the ground. Take a doorway where the floor is at max height, then drop the floor inside the room one level. Try to line desks up in the doorway. From a player standpoint, this should work, as you can walk on the desks. I understand why the pathing system cannot work through this, but I hate being limited by it.
Unfortunately not able to do actual pictures at the moment. I'll try to find something representative later tonight or tomorrow morning. However, for me at least, its not disastrous or anthing, just irritating when you are trying to have it look just so, and you know you could have the look you want and still not truly be blocking, if the editor could only see it too.
I wouldnt say the entire system needs to be scrapped, but I am rebuilding a base from the ground up and ran into a problem last night that rather left me...perturbed.
using the 1x4 Control room as a hallway.
The doorways are at 2nd tier height. The room floor is at the bottom. Placement looks as such
D
XXXXD
I ran three short bridges the length of the the three Xs from the right most door
D
XBBBD
I tried to place an end to the bridge using the wooden platform and wanted it to go across. The topdoor way. I was told these objects are blocking a clean path between doors.
My question is. in what world?
Should the entire system be scrapped? Probably not
Does it need a swift kick in the [censored]? yep.
@PlasmaStream
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Eh, what the heck. A couple of quick pics 
View 1
Here is the red zone porter room. I really prefer the beacons under the porters, its so much easier from an end user perspective. Unfortunately we all know that requries double height floors to make them fit. So I went with a floating stair, adding a bookshelf walkway to make it all look nice. Unfortunately, due to pathing issues I cannot make the walkway connect A to B. So I had to use stairs down and stairs back up. Not nearly as asthetically pleasing, but functional. It is kind of funny, in a way, that the pathing settings are actually keeping me from making a certain spot MORE accessible
So, its irritating, and a little frustrating, not to be able to realize the potential here. But is it 'important'? *shrug* I guess that's a matter of perspective. Speaking of, here's another view from the porter side
View 2
Notice where the red box is versus the blue box. Although I can place the shelf in the blue box, I cannot complete the path all the way across because eventually the path to the other porter is seen as blocked.
It would be nice to be able to connect to point C as well.
I've also tried similar things, with a blue-ish floor representing water and trying to make a bridge through. I am sure the more creative types can post better examples, but hopefully this is at least a little bit helpful.
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Just to be clear, all clickable objects must have a traceable route back to the entry portal, right?
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Right.
However, every door of the room also needs to be connected, and there are rooms with no clickables, so perhaps the best phrasing of the rule overall is...
There must be a clear path connecting all doorways of a room; any clickable object needs a path to that door circuit.
The portal then being a clickable object in its own right falls into that rule.
The point with the Generator above (and some other objects) is that maybe the average non-PVP player doesn't see enough reason for them to be clickable.
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... I think this is in part because the editor seems to need a much broader path than an actual avatar, and it is not at all flexible when tracing a path through a doorway. There are only a couple of valid paths through a doorway, despite the fact that its wide enough for many more.
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Good point about the width. I wish we had an actual number from a Dev.
I wonder if the door-to-door path and the door-to-object path could be defined as different widths? Questioning both if it'd be possible to have a narrower path and be workable, and also if it'd even be possible to code the pathing routine with those different conditions.
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View 1
...
Unfortunately, due to pathing issues I cannot make the walkway connect A to B.
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That's a great example for me to explain what I'm trying to say about fixing items and not the system.
The system is trying to draw a line across the floor. It runs into your walkway. If the system could draw a line from the porter to the door *over* that walkway, isntead of thinking it had to go around, then that solves your problem without saying "well, that's it, it'll never work unless you delete the pathing line." You can add one item - a square block that reacts to paths the same way stairs do - instead of rebuilding the whole base editor.
Ill try to add screen shots of my pathing woes later...
@PlasmaStream
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If the system could draw a line from the porter to the door *over* that walkway, isntead of thinking it had to go around, then that solves your problem
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Aye, it would, and I think such pathing logic would fix 99% of the issues with pathing as it relates to inerfering with decorative placments. In almost all cases, base builders are not trying to block something on purpose, especially when it comes to items you interact with. We just have a different perspective of when something is blocked than the editor does.
Yeah, I honestly think a good deal of the pathing issues come from the base builder proggie not thinking three-dimensionally. F'r instance... In the Warren's 'temple' (AKA the generator room), I built a 'pit' across one half of the room, I believe it's a 2x4 room...and built (with as close to a 'fire pit' as I could manage down below it) a 'walkway' made out of floating SG logo tiles across the 'pit'. Some of y'all have seen it. I had a devil of a time convincing the base editor that there was a clear path from the doors at either end of the room, I suspect because of the floating torches and bonfires below the pathway.
My point being...even if I hadn't made a floating walkway, there's empty space above everything that's in between the doors. Even a level 1 character with no travel powers, not even using Sprint, could leap over everything that's in the way there--even the bonfires' and torches' hit boxes are small enough to allow it. Yet, 'cause you're right, the system's trying to draw a path across the *floor* (someplace we're by no means limited to traveling across)...I almost scrapped the whole 'walkway of fire' idea.
So...long-winded diatribe over. Yeah, I think the pathing is unnecessarily restrictive, whether it's for raiding or just for paths between doors.
well, I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect the pathing code to have accounted for the floating glitch that they didn't even realize was in the system.
maybe when they give us vertical building capability that will include improvements to pathing that account for raised pathways.
as to jumping, I wonder what standard the Devs use to determine "jumpable". Look at something like the 2nd villain respec contact. She's on top of a rock, and one side of it has a pretty good series of steps to make it easy to jump there with no enhancers. I'm pretty sure Sirens Call needs a jump to move from the villain base to the streets. And everyone knows that door in Talos. How deep are those bomb craters in Boomtown?
so I'm sure there's a number somewhere. It'd be nice to know exactly what it is, in feet.
Edit: and, well, duh... it's at least the height difference from low to high floors in the base! (what is that in feet?) so why does it path over that jump, but not path over a similarly high jump like a short bookcase?
Personally, I'm not sure it should be exactly what a level 1 can jump to with no enhancers. It might be better a little lower than that, just to be safe.
Of course, then -Jump becomes a huge factor in raids and likely needs to become suppressable. But since we don't have scheduled raids yet, I doubt it would hurt a lot if they put in jump pathing first and then fixed the PVP implications. (see, I do favor PVE usage, so there 
)
I wonder if we can get someone like War Witch to stop by here and explain a little about zone design parameters. Then we can respond with ways bases fall short of the zone flexibilities.
That's why I said 'even without the walkway' 
Since I'm pretty sure that what tries to 'block' the path between doorways is the two bonfires on the floor...note, 'on the floor', not even floating. They've got what, a hit box around them that's half the height of a normal desk, if that big? My grandmother would've had a hard time leaping over that, but the average hero wouldn't.
Personally I think that so long as a line can be drawn toward an object that's the width of the hitbox I assume is around our characters, whether that line's in the air, on the ceiling, on the floor, whatever, it should be allowable...perhaps making some allowance for characters with super speed or no vertical travel power. The only reason I can think of for requiring the paths to be a line drawn across the ground is to account for rooted characters. I can understand that it could suck for a stone tanker to have to toggle off Rooted in order to jump some obstacle during a raid, but...
Pathing Issue
Ok so I cannot place desks any closer to the stones due to pathing, even though there is a clear path. There is other ways to get over the desks....so yet another example here.
@PlasmaStream
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I think some objects need to be flagged 'walkable' the same as some objects are flagged to allow items to be stacked on them. If the object is flagged as walkable, then pathing can go over them, as long as the height between them and any adjoining wlakable areas is four feet or less, something like that.
I think pathing currently ignores floor height completely. It just sees a floor, and knows it can move through whether that floor is at 0', 4', or 8'.
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I think some objects need to be flagged 'walkable' the same as some objects are flagged to allow items to be stacked on them. If the object is flagged as walkable, then pathing can go over them, as long as the height between them and any adjoining wlakable areas is four feet or less, something like that.
I think pathing currently ignores floor height completely. It just sees a floor, and knows it can move through whether that floor is at 0', 4', or 8'.
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That would be an interesting solution.
@PlasmaStream
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[ QUOTE ]
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I think some objects need to be flagged 'walkable' the same as some objects are flagged to allow items to be stacked on them. If the object is flagged as walkable, then pathing can go over them, as long as the height between them and any adjoining wlakable areas is four feet or less, something like that.
I think pathing currently ignores floor height completely. It just sees a floor, and knows it can move through whether that floor is at 0', 4', or 8'.
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That would be an interesting solution.
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You'd have to possibly worry about two walkable areas a small space apart. You don't want people to get stuck dropping in between them.
Likewise, you'd have to worry about too narrow of a walkway.
In both cases, it's probably a distance similar to the width you need for characters to walk thru. So pathing is done by a series of squares, say 2 feet square. So you couldn't make a bookcase walkable because it's too narrow, but could make large blocks walkable, and could string them together if right against each other.
"Walkable" is a good word for "whatever they did to make stairs not limit pathing". I like.
Perhaps this is a better example.
What we've got there is a working generator, so the pathing was OK getting it there. It's across a gap, the generator and the hall are at highest level, the square in betwween is at lowest. (I closed off the other 2 squares of the room to focus on the hallway effect.)
I placed 3 Cracked Blocks without trouble. You can see from the floor pattern that the width of 2 blocks is just shy of half the square. So the 4th block does indeed fit - the red hitbox isn't overlapping anything.
From the ledge beyond them you can see are shorter than the jump from the low floor up to the high floor.
This is clearly an example of a jumpable distance - the distance from low floors to high floors has not caused any fuss about difficulty using bases and this is lower.
This is what would be fixed by labeling Cracked Blocks as "walkable".
I'm sure it's been mentioned but things like the archways need to be redone so that they only have bounding boxes on the pillar parts or something for pathing because you can walk under/through them but the editor considers them to block doorways and things.
Djeannie's Costume Creator Overhaul Wishlist
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I'm sure it's been mentioned but things like the archways need to be redone so that they only have bounding boxes on the pillar parts or something for pathing because you can walk under/through them but the editor considers them to block doorways and things.
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I'd bet it starts getting tricky with things that will be blocking from one angle, and passable on another. For example, you don't want to end up allowing 6 archways across a door rotated so the pillars are all blocking the door.
One solution to that may be to create many new pillars and floatable cross-beams. So they're treated as 3 separate hitboxes, you just need to assemble them yourself.
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I'm sure it's been mentioned but things like the archways need to be redone so that they only have bounding boxes on the pillar parts or something for pathing because you can walk under/through them but the editor considers them to block doorways and things.
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I'd bet it starts getting tricky with things that will be blocking from one angle, and passable on another. For example, you don't want to end up allowing 6 archways across a door rotated so the pillars are all blocking the door.
One solution to that may be to create many new pillars and floatable cross-beams. So they're treated as 3 separate hitboxes, you just need to assemble them yourself.
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I'd be ok with that.
@PlasmaStream
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[ QUOTE ]
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I'm sure it's been mentioned but things like the archways need to be redone so that they only have bounding boxes on the pillar parts or something for pathing because you can walk under/through them but the editor considers them to block doorways and things.
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I'd bet it starts getting tricky with things that will be blocking from one angle, and passable on another. For example, you don't want to end up allowing 6 archways across a door rotated so the pillars are all blocking the door.
One solution to that may be to create many new pillars and floatable cross-beams. So they're treated as 3 separate hitboxes, you just need to assemble them yourself.
[/ QUOTE ]
That was pretty much my thought, or even not have a bounding box around the crossbeam part if needed and only on the leg-support pillars, if that was easier on the devs, though I'd like the floatable build it yourself better of the two options.
Djeannie's Costume Creator Overhaul Wishlist
Carnie Base
"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
[ QUOTE ]
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I'm sure it's been mentioned but things like the archways need to be redone so that they only have bounding boxes on the pillar parts or something for pathing because you can walk under/through them but the editor considers them to block doorways and things.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'd bet it starts getting tricky with things that will be blocking from one angle, and passable on another. For example, you don't want to end up allowing 6 archways across a door rotated so the pillars are all blocking the door.
One solution to that may be to create many new pillars and floatable cross-beams. So they're treated as 3 separate hitboxes, you just need to assemble them yourself.
[/ QUOTE ]
That was pretty much my thought, or even not have a bounding box around the crossbeam part if needed and only on the leg-support pillars, if that was easier on the devs, though I'd like the floatable build it yourself better of the two options.
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But I do that at work.......now I gotta do it in game...? 
I'm calling my Union Rep!......as soon as I finish this break.....
*dodges rotten tomatoes*
....
Anyway, something like that would be perfect. Base Editor ala Lego Style!! 
This has probably been posted a billion times on a billion threads but I want to make my say too lol
It would be really great if we, as supergroups, could just be given an option to not participate in raids and get rid of the whole pathing stuff.
I thought I had finally overcome my stacking stairs neatly in my tp chamber, from no floor to two floors, today. I thought it looked absolutely amazing considering this was my first base and first tp chamber. I had floating white bar counters, there were two sets with the higher part in the midde, floating atop one dual layer of counters which i removed. I then placed metal stairs against the counters and it fitted perfectly. This is really hard to explain and I will try and get a screenshot of it shortly. I now plan to bring this right around the room. ERRR, Item blocking clear path to raidable item. *****!!! Excuse my French but I just spent about an hour perfecting my basic base builder design ideas..... I finally come across my perfect solution and this just leaves my whole plan void.
ANGRY
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This has probably been posted a billion times on a billion threads but I want to make my say too lol
It would be really great if we, as supergroups, could just be given an option to not participate in raids and get rid of the whole pathing stuff.
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yes, it has been said.
The reason we have this thread is to try to study some of the specific situations that seem unfair, under the premise that pathing can't simply be discarded because there are plenty of non-raid situations that require it.
(unless you to find you rez inside a wall of desks...)
You mention screenshots. Those are important. Show the devs the layout that should not be blocking pathing.
A question for the panel. Is it even necessary to have non-raid pathing limitations?
If you assume their will not be any base raids, and you assume there will not be any AI controlled mobs in our bases, aren't players resourceful enough to determine their own pathing limits? If I build a base, then block the doors of a room so no one can use it, won't I notice this fairly soon, or get that 3am call from my SG mate who would like to use the teleport to the RWZ but can't because I put my latest dinosaur trophy in the way. Even now I check out my base for function after I place items, because often what looks ok in the editor from an isometric view looks different when you are walking around normally.
Now, taking that a step further into raids. What if they allowed you to place an object anywhere, but alerted you when you were placing it in a raid-path. You could still place it with a confirmation of the warning, however if you did so the object would be flagged as blocking. All objects flagged for blocking would become destructible in a raid situation, with only 1 health. If you wanted to accept that consequence, go for it.
Combine that with the suggestion above to visibly show the raid pathing and I think we could meet all needs.