4 ms·

I'm thinking though that if the AI runs less often, it might take different decisions depending on how fast the PC is. So just like if you did physics without f

I'm thinking though that if the AI runs less often, it might take different decisions depending on how fast the PC is. So just like if you did physics without fixedupdate, you could have players jumping lower or higher depending on how fast their PC is, maybe you'll be making the AI dumber or smarter (due to thinking more often).

BoorishBears 6y ago
The big problem here is "AI" is some an incredibly unconstrained problem space for games, "AI" could just be lerping towards the player, or it could be a state machine that doesn't have a concept of manually being stepped forward In fact, I don't think I've ever worked with a game AI that had a concept of manually being stepped forward. But more importantly, I can't think of any common game AI that benefits from "more thinking time" on a continous basis. For example, there's games like chess where more time can result in a better solution, but you wouldn't be using FixedUpdate anyways, you'd manually start "thinking" and use a timer to end "thinking". "Continuous" AI I've worked with are usually a state machine (or some loose definition of one) that will respond to events and change state, and while in a given state they're usually running a certain set of code on each update. There are parts of that update code you should put in FixedUpdate, like a raycast. You're (ideally) moving the colliders that are being cast against during FixedUpdate, so you do the raycast in update, you can miss raycasts that should have hit. - But that actual decision making shouldn't be in FixedUpdate. FixedUpdate should set some flag or fire some event that is then handled in Update. The AI won't be dumber or smarter based on FPS in any appreciable way (and if that's a concern you could still use coroutines). The parts of it that react to physics will already be happening as fast as possible since they're in FixedUpdate, the actual transition of states will happen on the very next frame rendered after this detection. If anything, putting everything in FixedUpdates means there are times when the user gets to provide input (frame renders and Update is called), but the AI doesn't because FixedUpdate never got called

BoorishBears 6y ago

The big problem here is "AI" is some an incredibly unconstrained problem space for games, "AI" could just be lerping towards the player, or it could be a state machine that doesn't have a concept of manually being stepped forward In fact, I don't think I've ever worked with a game AI that had a concept of manually being stepped forward. But more importantly, I can't think of any common game AI that benefits from "more thinking time" on a continous basis. For example, there's games like chess where more time can result in a better solution, but you wouldn't be using FixedUpdate anyways, you'd manually start "thinking" and use a timer to end "thinking". "Continuous" AI I've worked with are usually a state machine (or some loose definition of one) that will respond to events and change state, and while in a given state they're usually running a certain set of code on each update. There are parts of that update code you should put in FixedUpdate, like a raycast. You're (ideally) moving the colliders that are being cast against during FixedUpdate, so you do the raycast in update, you can miss raycasts that should have hit. - But that actual decision making shouldn't be in FixedUpdate. FixedUpdate should set some flag or fire some event that is then handled in Update. The AI won't be dumber or smarter based on FPS in any appreciable way (and if that's a concern you could still use coroutines). The parts of it that react to physics will already be happening as fast as possible since they're in FixedUpdate, the actual transition of states will happen on the very next frame rendered after this detection. If anything, putting everything in FixedUpdates means there are times when the user gets to provide input (frame renders and Update is called), but the AI doesn't because FixedUpdate never got called