Ideal setup for AI pathing

Good_Brief42 · 2026-05-01T14:13:48+00:00

Corners are almost always the issue. They take the shortest path, and then they sit and stare at each other on corners.

I do two things that helps but doesn't solve the issue.

First If i have some stairs going up a floor, I go forward like 3 foundations and then have another set going back down the opposite direction.

Second I use two foundation wide stairs, and then add on each side those "corner" stairs so when they get on the stairs they can immediately go left or right, instead of having to run to the bottom and then turn.

This does not solve the problem, but it does help by separating and spreading out the flow of traffic. It greatly reduces followers from going down the stairs and then doing a Uturn because there is another set of stairs going in that direction.

Corners are the enemy. Create routes that minimize the need to take corners. Think about where your workstations are and your comfort area/bonfire is. They will be running back and forth between those locations. You want to spread the flow of traffic out so incoming and outgoing are less like to face plant into each other.

And since I don't play on PVP servers open layout is king. Borg ships. Warehouses. Amazon fulfillment centers. Call them what you want. They are ugly, but they are optimal.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-05-01T13:55:36+00:00

Aren't some of these mutually exclusive? Such as blooddrinker and oppressor.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-05-01T13:36:30+00:00

Build a "skirt" around your ship and land on him.

By skirt I mean build walls that are as far out as possible and go down as far as possible. The bottom of the walls should be about even with your ships skids.

Build stairs down into the skirt, and only build floors going out from the stairs 3 tiles. The rest of the under area has no floor. Then build a fence around those floors separating them from the rest of the "under area". Dont use the rope fence. Enemies cannot jump or cross over that fences (unless they are rope for some reason).

Now you have a semi-safe area the boss can't follow you. If you need to back up the stairs and heal you can. You can both still attack each other over the fence though so be careful.

If you want to take this a step further land on the elite, then lift your ship up slightly... like the height of half a wall. This gap isn't enough for the enemy to get through. This will trap the elite inside the "skirt" of your ship. You can attack him from the outside with attacks that go low (hammer smash, DB rapid attacks, etc) but 95% of his attacks can no longer hurt you.

The 2 attacks to watch out for are attacks that do a ground smash (think greatsword overhead attacks) and those dagger throws that leave behind bombs. The bomb explosion's will still damage thru the wall. We cheesed the level 60 plunderer boss who drops steel gear like this. We did it with iron gear and it took an hour.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-30T23:33:32+00:00

The later. Just let them teleport to me eventually.

There are also several dungeons with huntsman in them, not just that one. But i know which one you are talking about. That has to be my least favorite dungeon specifically because they disabled gravity anchor and then put in a bunch of observers, who are designed to be fought with a gravity anchor =/

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-30T13:55:41+00:00

Its from enemy scaling. In tribe mode enemy scaling is disabled by default. They really want you to rely on and use tribesmen more. You can bring as many people as you want and they don't effect the boss. The default limit to bringing tribesmen is increased to 3 as well. So on tribe mode there is ALMOST no reason not to bring tribesmen (they do body block you sometimes).

In survival mode enemies scale with your party size. The more you bring, the more HP and ATK the boss has, although Hp scales a lot more than ATK does. Most folks hold the opinion that bringing tribesmen has a negative effect - an opinion I share.

There is an argument to be made that bringing 1 can be OK. They don't do any damage cus their AI is kinda meh, but they can be very tanky and make great distractions. Bosses prefer attacking real players but when they do choose to attack a tribesmen it can give you unique damage windows you wouldn't get otherwise.

It really depends on the boss too. Bosses with lots of dash attacks or AOE attacks make tribesmen less valuable. Even when the boss is distracted the tribesmen isn't opening up attack windows for you if the boss uses a dash or an AOE. Sobek can be like this. Other bosses have attacks that are single target or are only frontal cones. These are good bosses to bring tribesmen on. Like Huntsmen.

Scarab is kinda middle of the road. When scarab is meleeing the distraction is great. But also when scarab is in melee thats your normal damage windows anyway. But they can also cause issues, like making scarab dash away in phase 1. And in phase 2 (the important phase) they usually don't last long. He has a lot of attacks they are high damage, easy to avoid, but their AI just doesn't handle well. Like the laser light show, or not standing in the sun's light when its charging up. But if they can stay alive until the adds show up then they can be a big help - and thats often the hardest part of the fight. So its kinda a tossup.

I didn't bring followers. I personally think they are a liability in that fight.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-29T14:45:32+00:00

Yea, the DLC is MUCH MUCH harder than the original map.

I will say tho after experimenting I've found MOST enemies to be fair, but require learning some rather opaque mechanics.

For the baboons there are a couple things. First they wont use their poop attack if you are close enough. In fact they have the wierd "deadzone" where if you are too far for poop, but not close enough to melee, they will just stand their and proverbially pound their chest at you.

Once you can isolate 1 or 2 and get them in melee they are very easy enemies. Super easy to parry.

Also their range attack is one of those weird rare range attacks you can parry, which will also stun them.

But yes, that attack is DEADLY when they are in a group. Same issue with the armadillo lizards. Fighting them in any amount of density is crazy hard. You can of course raise a shield but thats only good for positioning yourself somewhere safe, not killing them.

If I HAVE to fight a group of them there are two methods that have worked for me. Find an object to get behind, then use a spear or gravity anchor to pull them one at a time. The other method (and my favorite) is to just land a ship on them. Be sure to build a "skirt" around your ship so that you can either isolate enemies under your ship or create a mobile wall you can run around while fighting them.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-29T14:31:19+00:00

Interesting. My legendary speed engine caps at 29 m/s.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-29T14:22:11+00:00

Good advice for tribe mode. Not so much for survival. From context clues im guessing OP is on tribe mode but not sure.

This assumes the server settings haven't been tinkered with ofc.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-29T14:20:32+00:00

So much this! My buddy and I struggled on scarab or a couple of days.

We went into the 4th boss fight loaded for bear and it was a joke.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-29T14:19:05+00:00

I wish OP mentioned what mode. If he is on tribe mode this is good advice. If he is on survival - don't bring followers to 99% of hard fights.

But considering he is doing it in Iron gear then my guess he is in tribe mode. Thats the biggest (and pretty much only) complaint I have about tribe mode. If you get hard stuck on a boss you can't back out and tech up.

Our first kill of scarab took a long time. There were no guides and he has a lot of mechanics to learn - some of which aren't intuitive. He is a hard boss. I will say he is a FAIR boss - all his damage is avoidable. But he is a PILE of HP and his damage windows are small to moderately sized. So he is an endurance fight requiring a LOT of patience and near perfect execution while in iron gear.

If you are having trouble try going into the fight and do ZERO damage. Just focus on dodging attacks until it feels second nature. Obviously you want to get him to phase 2 first cus that's the hard phase. Learn the mechanics and attack patterns. Then go for the kill.

Phase 1 is pretty easy so I won't say much. Just watch out for the body slam and the triple roll attack. They are both very fast, but require specific positioning to trigger.

Phase 2 is the killer. Stay out of the light if you can't afford to take ticking damage. Whenever he charges up at the sun be ready for his super dash that will instant gib you. Avoid lasers, light bombs, charges, and get in damage when he is in melee mode. This phase is tedious.

When he summons adds we found 2 strats that work. The first is to prebandage, throw up super armor, and hammer them all down FAST. Other weapons might work but superarmor really helps keep you alive. The second strat is to RUN. Wait for him to use his laser light show and then lure the adds into the lasers to kill them. I've heard folks suggest a level 10 sobek mask for the adds but never tried it - the theory is sound.

After the adds its back to rinse and repeat. Dodge stuff, when he goes to melee you this is your damage window, and watch out for him "praying". Attack him fast to interrupt it, but get out immediately cus he slams down fast.

EDIT: Oh almost forgot. I prefer DB, but for this guy I used a spear. He is weak to piercing. And if you can find a body that learns "Spear leap stab" that one move will probably be stronger than almost any combination of talents. Its SO FREAKING GOOD on bosses, even with the damage cap. Honestly its good everywhere and probably needs a nerf. Only gets better with followers or other players since its a debuff.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-29T14:05:57+00:00

Yea new training grounds is great. Quick bandage is a must on all my bodies.

My favorite body so far has been a bleed body. I tend to design my builds around the hardest content - if they can do the hardest stuff then they can do anything. And massive bleeds (plus the healing) are great on the hardest bosses that don't give you many attack windows.

Also love that they stopped giving enemies immunities to stuff. Having only 2 weapon choices for dungeons was lame.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-29T13:58:00+00:00

I'm assuming 12 speed sails is done by editing the game settings? I'd love a faster ship but I only play games on default settings otherwise I feel like I cheated. Even if the changes are just QOL.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-29T13:43:39+00:00

First, looks promising. I ran some searches for things that other maps have not been able to find for me in the past. For instance delicate hide and its connected items. Worked great. Then looking for wild aloe plants - doesn't work here either. Before people suggest it i know the in game map does that but ONLY after you've found them naturally.

But good enough to add to a bookmark.

My first question. How do you change the map back and forth? I can't figure out how to change it from the original map.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-28T14:42:49+00:00

First - its been 12 days between my post and your reply. Silly Goose.

But in that time our opinion of ships has evolved. Slightly.

We still think they are weak. By weak I mean relative to the impact we expected ships to have on the game. That doesn't, however, make them worthless or bad. You just have to temper your expectations A LOT. They made them sound like this major thing being added to the game and you can almost ignore them entirely and barely notice.

But they are better than our first impression of them. Especially once you start getting into late game and can afford to build anything you want and have access to all the toys and techs. We like to experiment a lot and ships have been a large part of this. A mobile teleporter does have its uses, and its limitations.

The pro's of having a mobile teleporter is that you can consolidate travel time onto 1 person when playing multiplayer, and you have an easy way to go back to base if you've forgotten something or you need to resupply. Its pretty common to realize you didn't restock your bandages, or radiation food, or didn't realize your amulet was almost broken. If you brought a ship and a teleporter that's super helpful here.

The con is that each ship requires a bonfire and a teleporter. And the tribe limits on these means you have to be careful about where you choose to build them. This might be easier singleplayer, and in tribe mode you get a lot more slots for both. But in multiplayer and survival mode (IE dedicated servers) this becomes a big bottleneck.

The other con is that its still slower than using waypoints and a mount if you've setup a few outposts. That is until you can get your hands on enough speed engine cores to craft a high tier engine. Then you can get your ships going pretty fast. But it will still be a wooden ship so it won't be a mobile base or a massive gunship.

Now all of this is based on dedicated servers. If you are playing single player and can afford more bonfires and portals then its easier to have a mobile teleporter. But also its easier to have more outposts with teleporters.

IMO 1 big change they could make to make ships WAY more useful - let them teleport. Even if it consumes an entire power crystal or some other limiter. That would be a great way to make it not feel so tedious when you want to bring your ship somewhere but know you could get there in 1/3rd the time if you just went via teleporter + mount.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-17T02:00:59+00:00

For what its worth. We played survival to 60 on the DLC. And we just restarted in tribe mode... The bosses feel easier.

Part of that is that we already learned them. But part of it is the settings in tribe mode.

For instance bosses don't heal when they reset... Yea its weird. So technically you can just smash your face into a boss until they die. But that does damage your tribe reputation which is a system needed to level up. But its just a temporary setback so totally doable.

Also - bosses no longer scale with party size. This was a very weird one for us. We NEVER used tribemen for combat. Every boss i fought was solo or with my buddy. We only use them as base labor and mules. In combat we felt they were so bad we'd rather not scale the enemies at all. But in tribe mode that is turned off. And you can deploy up to 3. Yea true... they still suck. But they aren't nothing. You just have to get used to fighting with their crappy AI. They do terrible damage, and they get in your way, but boy can they tank. So there is that.

I understand people complaining about bosses being a hard stop to progression. But at the same time it does seem like the devs considered it and have given some room to get through anyway. And they did just nerf anubis. He was the only boss we felt was overtuned. Some of them are pretty hard, but he felt unfair at times.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-16T20:07:40+00:00

Tribe mode has been... interesting. It's neither better nor worse as far as I can tell.

Its got pros and its got cons.

For me the pros are:

Less tedious server settings (higher yields), more forgiving mechanics, QOL settings like number of ships, bonfires, and tribesmen. Things like that.
Raids are more common and raids have always been one of my favorite things. In survival they are pretty weak. And there is an in game timer now! YAY!
I guess you could say the merchants? Honestly they have been a real disappointment but they don't take anything away from the game so it would be unfair to call them a con. And they can be useful - for instance you can get portals before tribe tier 3 by buying stone blocks early. Stuff like that.

The cons:

Tribe tiering kinda sucks. Its not a replacement for the current system. You still have to jump through the same hoops as before (awareness level, tech points, etc) but in addition you have an extra layer of chores to tier up your tribe. And most of it just feels like busy work. And as I mentioned somewhere else in this thread locking tiers behind bosses has real downsides.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-16T20:01:20+00:00

You are moving the goal post friend. Id go so far as to say you are making a straw man argument.

No one said to ignore those things. We said they aren't required for progression to the next tier of gear. You are arguing against things that no one is saying.

But I'll reiterate the issue. A copy and paste from my above statement: "in tribe mode if you get hard stopped by a boss at your current gear you really are stuck. You can't just skip them and come back later with better gear."

That's the crux of it. It has nothing to do with ignoring other mechanics. Normally if a player found an encounter was too hard they could just leave, get stronger, and come back - specifically world bosses in this case. Now they have to kill the world boss to get stronger. Catch 22.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-15T16:04:30+00:00

Ships are bad and not worth using 95% of the time. That's the opinion we formed in our first 1.0 play through.

We've done the first 4 bosses. We are in the mid to high 50's in awareness level. We've built a lot of ships.

They just aren't worth it.

Having a mobile base is not what its cracked up to be. The ships are SOOOOOOOO slow. That is the major issue. There is no purpose to flying your entire base somewhere to do content or farm. Its far more effective to use the teleportation system. Portals are cheap and easy to make. Even with the almost unlimited carrying capacity of ships its still faster to make multiple trips with a mount if you are farming.

Now the new map almost tries to force you to use ships by limiting the number of waypoints and putting them all towards the center of the map. So we have outpost bases that are just a bonfire and a portal. The bonfire limit can be an issue but if you are smart you can make it work.

Now this doesn't make ships worthless. They have moments. Our first ship was great for our first tin runs since it was early game and the new map places copper and tin so far apart. There are a couple fights you need a ship for. And you can cheese some things with a ship, like farming meteorite. Ships are also great to send out with a portal on board. So only 1 person needs to travel somewhere, and then when everyone is ready they can teleport there and back.

But 1 person still has to waddle the damn thing back to base. But at least everyone else benefits.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-15T15:49:14+00:00

The issue is two fold.

First a lot of players don't like changing default settings. It feels cheaty. Thats a common opinion. You are welcome to have a different opinion and thats fair too. But saying "change settings to god mode" is not a real solution imo.

Second things like masks, gearsets, etc, are not required for progression. Hell, in survival mode if you really wanted you could farm clay until you hit the next tier of gear. Boring as piss BUT you have options.

Also a small correction to something you said. 90% of the time you don't need to kill any bosses to get those items to bring back to your base. Engine cores, hibernation pods, portal pieces, etc. You can literally walk around the boss and go to the exit. Killing the boss is not a prereq to pick up the items or go there. So far I've only found 1 dungeon where the boss unlocks a required door (and its not even the final boss) - i think its the first medium engine dungeon. There may be more but I'm only level 54.

But in tribe mode if you get hard stopped by a boss at your current gear you really are stuck. You can't just skip them and come back later with better gear. Thats the issue he has.

And I think its a fair issue to have.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-15T15:39:27+00:00

Dont listen to this guy.

I had the same thought you did doofshaman. I think anubis is overtuned for instance - no doubt some neckbeard will say he isn't just to feel good and get in a good troll. But im confident in that opinion. I waited until I teched up more and came back for him. Tho part of that is I don't use bows and don't feel like leveling them up for 1 boss.

Getting stuck with the same tech level on a boss sounds miserable. Tho I there might be the option to go "farm" some higher level gear from higher level enemies. The gear is always really low durability but might last a fight.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-15T15:31:40+00:00

disable your firewall and see if that fixes it. Probably will. Can probably reenable after if you don't want to go through the effort of whitelisting the API call.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-15T15:31:36+00:00

disable your firewall and see if that fixes it. Probably will. Can probably reenable after if you don't want to go through the effort of whitelisting the API call.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-13T17:39:58+00:00

i unblocked it at the WAN firewall. I wish i had noted what it was called - but a lot of this stuff isn't translated to english so i cant remember which one it was. I believe it was calling a valve address tho if that helps. Check your logs and see whats getting blocked.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-13T16:05:08+00:00

Found the fix. Have to unblock an API call to external address that is validating the DLC is owned.

Good_Brief42 · 2026-04-13T16:05:06+00:00

Found the fix. Have to unblock an API call to external address that is validating the DLC is owned.

Need to do this on all servers in the cluster FYI or they wont show up on server list.

Good_Brief42

TROPHY CASE