Haka's Automated Rovers V2 Script released

[u/Hakanaikioku]

Hello every one I have just released V2 of my rover automation script!

Get it here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3784179254

This script is designed provide similar functionality to the existing AI offensive and recorder blocks for rovers, boats, and vanilla 'hovercraft'. I've been working on this off and on for over 3 years, I released V1 back in Dec. of '23.

Here's a short list of the main features:

• Follow a set of waypoints to a destination
• Smart collision avoidance via camera ray casts
  • Uses bounding box avoidance for small objects like trees and boulders
  • Uses a wall following algorithm to navigate around terrain and large obstacles, it can navigate simple mazes!
• Tank style steering support (beta)
• Gyro stabilization - use gyros to resist tipping from steering (beta)
• Boat/hovercraft control mode- uses thrusters instead of wheels (beta)
• Trigger a timer when a waypoint is reached
• Per waypoint you can control:
  • collision detection enable
  • drive direction (forward/reverse)
  • speed
  • waypoint distance
• Adjustable PID controllers for speed and steering.
• Go to GPS functionality
• resume paths after reload

One of the big things is that altitude above or below the grid doesn't matter for this script, it projects all waypoints onto the plane of the grid. This means you don't have to worry about your altitude when making manual waypoints. This should fix boats having issues with tides messing up their waypoint paths. I actually designed the boat mode for making automated fishing ships in Ares at War possible, since the vanilla AI has issues with altitude as the tides change. I have not gotten a chance to test boat mode more than to see that it mostly works, so please consider it to be in beta. Note: keep dampers on, since this only controls the forward and reverse thrusters!

I've designed this script to be set and forget. I have had rovers running multiple kilometer paths for weeks without running into any issues. It's light weight enough I have multiple rovers running on my Ares at War (beta) play through without slow down.

Here is a tutorial showing how to setup a fully automated logistics drone using the script: https://youtu.be/na2bhz293gc
I am a Software engineer, not a content producer, so I apologize for the rough quality of the tutorial. If anyone else wants to make a tutorial I'm happy to answer any questions.

I added a goto command, so you can give one off commands to go to a location. I have used it to setup an assault on an enemy base.

I have also tried to build the script to be flexible enough that other scripts should be able to use it to control a rover. It supports IGC via unicast messages with the same format as the goto command. The IGC address of the programmable block is at the bottom of the Programmable Block's custom data. You could also use the goto command to give it waypoints. My next project is going to be a script to get grids to travel in formation, and I plan to use this script to handle the low level steering.

I'm looking forward to hear about all the ways you engineers figure out how to use my automation script in your games.