4 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Arkadiusz Sygulski 6bd95d4884 Pathfinding - optimize naval invasions (#2932)
# Pathfinding pt. 4

https://pf-pt-4.openfront.dev/

## Description:

Hello again! Pathfinding. It's fast, but inaccurate. This PR makes it
more accurate and actually faster. Sadly it is _faster_ because of a
blunder in previous PR (using BucketQueue where MinHeap would be
better), not because of a new tech. More importantly, it is more
accurate. And that's what people apparently want.

## What changed?

Most of the functional changes relate to `SpatialQuery` module. This is
the thingy that answers "we know the target, which tile of my territory
is the best to launch an invasion". To make it compute a path from South
America to the deep inland China river, it has to work on a coerced map,
one with a very small resolution, so small in fact, that every 4096 map
tiles gets compressed to just one pixel. I hope you see where this is
going.

Previously we selected a random coastal tile within this big pixel
(honestly it wasn't random at all, but could very well be for the
illustrative purposes). Now, we try to be a bit more deliberate. Since
we already know the rough location of the probably best tile, we can
exclude all other tiles from the computation. Imagine a player's
territory spans both Americas on global map - that's a lot of shores.
But since we already know the best tile is somewhere close to Miami, the
problem space was greatly reduced, no need to consider all other shores.
But pathing to the target in China from Miami is still crazy expensive.

This is where second trick comes to play - instead of pathing all the
way to China, we select a _waypoint_ in the rough direction of China,
about 100 to 200 tiles away. This way we fairly cheaply select best tile
to launch an invasion towards this abstract point. And chances are, this
point is far enough, the newly computed path is very close to being
optimal. When you throw a dart from far away, the difference between
scoring 10 and missing is very small. This is why aiming in the general
direction of the board - as opposed to the ceiling - is usually good
enough.

## Okay, but what about the crazy paths when I send invasion to the
opposed bank of a river?!

Well, pathing from America to China is cool, but most players wouldn't
notice the difference on such long paths, what about the short ones? We
now try more accurate pathing first and defer to hierarchy only if it
fails. This produces much better paths for short invasions. While the
fix described above ensures the accuracy is improved also on
medium-to-long routes.

## Playground

Yes.


https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9cf9586f-c99a-416d-b856-8cf0a21c35ed

## CodeRabbit

Grab a 🥕. Remember `tests/pathfinding/playground` is mostly generated
code and go easy on it. It's enough for it to work and do it's job of
visualizing the paths. No need for throughout review of these files.

## Please complete the following:

- [x] I have added screenshots for all UI updates
- [x] I process any text displayed to the user through translateText()
and I've added it to the en.json file
- [x] I have added relevant tests to the test directory
- [x] I confirm I have thoroughly tested these changes and take full
responsibility for any bugs introduced

## Please put your Discord username so you can be contacted if a bug or
regression is found:

moleole
2026-01-16 23:10:55 +00:00
Arkadiusz Sygulski 85def73bd9 Pathfinding Refinement (#2878)
# Pathfinding pt. 3

## Description:

This PR introduces final change to the pathfinding - path refinement. It
optimizes Line of Sight refinement by searching with for the best tile
with a binary search instead of linearly. And then spends the recovered
budget on better refinement of the first and last 50 tiles of the
journey - the place where user is most likely to look at. Additionally
this PR re-introduces magnitude check and makes the ships prefer sailing
close to the coast, but not too close.

## Please complete the following:

- [x] I have added screenshots for all UI updates
- [x] I process any text displayed to the user through translateText()
and I've added it to the en.json file
- [x] I have added relevant tests to the test directory
- [x] I confirm I have thoroughly tested these changes and take full
responsibility for any bugs introduced

## What?

| Before | After |
| :--- | :--- |
| <img width="1097" height="1117" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4a0b300d-10ef-4151-b6dc-33acfb49f992"
/> | <img width="1093" height="1119" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/cf81c515-c145-40f4-91e5-a4353986907b"
/> |
| <img width="1096" height="1129" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/21b46bce-f961-4259-88f6-fe4a66180270"
/> | <img width="1098" height="1126" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d92587d1-e6b6-4353-b4a4-1efe71bca43d"
/> |

## Performance

There is actually a severe performance impact of these changes. The path
initial path takes almost 2x as long to generate - this is because pre
processing can only do so much if the initial path is ugly. Luckily in
real gameplay we only need to do this calculation once per edge, so the
actual observed performance impact should be much smaller. Cache FTW.

| | No Cache | Cache |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Before | 277.04ms | 208.58ms |
| After | 498.34ms | 264.27ms |

## DebugSpan

Small utility, it allows any code to be easily instrumented for
performance. The idea is the same as with [OTEL
Spans](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/signals/traces/). Produce
a span, create sub-spans, measure whatever you need. Works only when
`globalThis.__DEBUG_SPAN_ENABLED__ === true`, otherwise no-op.

Cool stuff, try it out:
```ts
// Convenient wrapper, small performance impact
return DebugSpan.wrap('add', () => a + b)

// Synchronous API, basically free
DebugSpan.start('work')
work()
DebugSpan.end()

// Create sub spans
DebugSpan.wrap('complex', () => {
  const aPlusB = DebugSpan.wrap('add', () => a + b)
  DebugSpan.set('additionResult', () => aPlusB)  // Store data
  return aPlusB * c
})

// Access spans, data and timing
const span = DebugSpan.getLast()
const compelxSpan = DebugSpan.getLast('complex')

console.log(complexSpan.duration, complexSpan.data['additionResult'])
```

These are virtually free and can be enabled on-demand **in production**
and available in the devtools. Under the hood devtools integration is
just a wrapper around [Performance
API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API).
For clarity data keys not prefixed by `$` are omitted from the
integration. Every key prefixed with `$` must be fully JSON
serializable.

<img width="977" height="799" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/b4d43506-1639-4f78-a611-30e61de12a07"
/>
2026-01-13 12:39:54 -08:00
Arkadiusz Sygulski 0e3ced3bfa Pathfinding Refactor pt. 2 (#2866)
## Playtest

https://pf-pt-2.openfront.dev/

## Pathfinding Refactor pt. 2

<img width="1536" height="1024" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9477958e-54b7-4c83-b317-ba789e809e9e"
/>


This is a follow-up to a previous PR introducing pathfinding changes.
This time, it introduces a complete refactor of `pathfinding` directory
and breakdown into composable pieces.

### Unified PathFinder interface

`PathFinder<T>` and `SteppingPathFinder<T>` are introduced to unify
**all** pathfinding across the application. First one exposes complete
path, while stepping variant allows the callee to iterate over the path
by calling `.next`. All pathfinders share this one common interface,
which makes them easy to use in any scenario -
`PathFinding.Water(game).search(from, to)`.

`SteppingPathFinder<T>` extends `PathFinder<T>` with an ability to
iterate over the path. It handles caching, storing current index and
invalidation. This allows the units to not care about the inner workings
of the pathfinder and just call `pf.next(current, target)` and receive
instructions on what to do next.

### Common entry point

All pathfinders are now exposed from common `PathFinding` entrypoint:

- `PathFinding.Water`
- `PathFinding.Rail`
- `PathFinding.Stations`
- `PathFinding.Rail`

Additional entry point is introduced for pathfinders which need to work
both in the worker, but also on the frontend, which lacks `Game`
interface. Currently only `UniversalPathFinding.Parabola` is available.

### Spatial Query

New module has been introduced close to `pathfinding` - `SpatialQuery`.
It aims to resolve any questions game may have about finding tiles
meeting criteria. Currently `SpatialQuery.closestShore(player, target)`
and `SpatialQuery.closestShoreByWater(player, target)` are available -
they help answering questions about naval invasion: "What is the best
landing location from user's click?" and "Which our tile should be used
to launch the transport ship?". Under the hood they use very similar
mechanics to pathfinding, so it felt right to put them close by.

### Modular architecture

Pathfinders now support transformers: `MiniMapTransformer`,
`ShoreCoercingTransformer`, `ComponentCheckTransformer`,
`SmoothingTransformer`. Transformers functions like a middleware in the
pathfinding chain. They wrap around the pathfinder and provide
additional functionality. This allows the pathfinder to focus on
actually finding the path instead of doing unrelated things.

Example chain for simple (A*) water pathfinding:
```ts
static WaterSimple(game: Game): SteppingPathFinder<TileRef> {
  const miniMap = game.miniMap();
  const pf = new AStarWater(miniMap);

  return PathFinderBuilder.create(pf)
    .wrap((pf) => new ShoreCoercingTransformer(pf, miniMap))
    .wrap((pf) => new MiniMapTransformer(pf, game.map(), miniMap))
    .buildWithStepper(tileStepperConfig(game));
}
```

The Pathfinder - here `AStarWater` - does not care about the conversion
between minimap and main map tiles. It also does not care if the source
or destination is a land tile. The transformers take care of that. The
pathfinder gets a set of valid coordinates and produces the path -
that's it.

Modular approach makes working on a particular set of utilities much
easier - for example map upscaling is handled consistently across all
pathfinders. Additionally, the pathfinders are not tied to the
particular map resolution used. Pass them a different map and they will
work the same.

### Algorithms

Algorithms used are neatly organized inside
`src/core/pathfinding/algorithms`. They are prefixed with the algorithm
name and suffixed with the use case. File without suffix exposes generic
version ready to traverse any graph with adapters. Specialized versions
either use an adapter or inline logic when performance is critical -
using adapters leads to 20-30% performance loss.

The directory includes `A*` and `BFS` but also other useful utils, such
as `AbstractGraph` used to generate... an abstract graph on top of the
tile map and `ConnectedComponents` helping to identify whether two tiles
are connected by a path without actually computing the path.

### Playground

The playground have been updated with new algorithms, including tweaked
very greedy `A*`.

<img width="2175" height="1424" alt="image"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1f833651-0024-4299-bf86-882f5368358c"
/>

### Tests

Yeah, there are some, a little too many if I say so myself. But there
are no useless tests. I had to ensure refactored code works somehow
reliably. This PR comes with trust me bro guarantee, but I would
appreciate someone confirming **naval invasions, nukes (esp. MIRV) and
warships**.

### Discord
`moleole`

GL & HF
2026-01-11 20:11:14 -08:00
Arkadiusz Sygulski b090f2f624 HPA* Pathfinding (#2815)
## Pathfinding with HPA*

Hi! The primary objective of this PR is to replace per-tile A* with
hierarchical pathfinding - HPA*. In practice, this means we create an
abstract graph on top of the actual map with far fewer points and use it
to decide on general path structure. Only then we go back to tile-level
and build path between selected waypoints. This speeds up long distance
pathfinding by over 1000x in some cases. To make the review easier, it
comes with a benchmark and visual playground.

## PREPROCESSING

H part of HPA* means "hierarchical" and requires preprocessing.

This PR includes pre-processing as part inside `new Game()` constructor.
It takes about 135ms for `giantworldmap` on my machine, which increases
the effective initialization from ~95ms to ~230ms. This time could be
reduced in different ways, which are **out of scope** for this PR.

After confirming the initialization time is bearable on low-end devices,
I argue merging this PR as-is is acceptable tradeoff. It creates small
lag at the beginning of a round but pays for itself in the first minute
of the match.

## Nerdy details

**Architecture**
- HPA*-style hierarchical pathfinding
- 32×32 sectors on minimap with gateway nodes on borders
- Gateway graph built via BFS during preprocessing
- Water component optimization skips unreachable gateway pairs
- A* on gateway graph → local A* within sectors → Bresenham path
smoothing
- Minimap upscaling identical to currently used in MiniAStar

**Key Optimizations**
- Typed arrays instead of high-level primitives
- Stamp-based visited tracking (no need to recreate buffers, O(1)
clearing)
- Optional - enabled by default - caching of tile paths between gateways
- Line of sight smoothing for the final path

## Review Focus

Play with included tools, benchmark and visualization. Pathfinding
should be safe to merge as a black box - you do not need to understand
the details. Outcomes can be tested empirically in-game. Visualize (and
share!) edge cases with included playground. Confirm the 100x speedup is
real with benchmark.

If you plan to dive into the code, I suggest the following order:
- Pathfinding abstraction in `src/core/pathfinding/`
- Pathfinding tests in `tests/core/pathfinding/`
- NavMesh in `src/core/pathfinding/navmesh/` + integration with
`Game.ts`
- Benchmark in `tests/pathfinding/benchmark/`

Do not look at playground's code, it has been created with a clanker.
The design is 100% mine and I spent way too long polishing it, but I
haven't even once edited the code manually. There is probably no
abstraction whatsoever, just do not look at the code, let it play.

## Core Changes

#### Pathfinding (`src/core/pathfinding/navmesh/`)
- HPA* + refinement -> three phased pathfinding: A* over the graph ->
naive path -> refinement
- comes with A* and BFS optimized for for specific needs

#### Pre-Processing (`src/core/pathfinding/navmesh/`)
- identify water bodies to avoid pathfinding between disconnected nodes
- create high-level graph of gateways on top of tile map

#### Abstraction (`src/core/pathfinding/`)

- common `PathFinder` interface that can return full path and also act
as state machine (`.next()`)
- adapters for both new and legacy algorithm with fallback to legacy if
navigation mesh not available

#### Benchmark (`tests/pathfinding/benchmark/`)

- `npx tsx tests/pathfinding/benchmark/run.ts` - no guesswork, numbers
- `npx tsx tests/pathfinding/benchmark/run.ts --synthetic` - 1000s of
synthetic paths
- `npx tsc tests/pathfinding/benchmark/generate.ts` - generate more as
needed, test new maps
- includes ONE synthetic scenario to avoid PR bloat, generate more
locally / later

#### Playground (`tests/pathfinding/playground/`)

- `npx tsx tests/pathfinding/playground/server.ts` - visualize paths
with both new and legacy algorithm

## Benchmarks

### Compared with legacy in default - hand picked - scenario:
```
Initialization: 95.95ms -> 227.29ms
Pathfinding: 3038.43ms -> 6.45ms
Distance: 26972 -> 26810 tiles
```

### 42,000 synthetic routes across all maps
```
Running 42 synthetic scenarios with hpa.cached adapter...

 synthetic/achiran                   | Init:    93.42ms | Path:    139.07ms | Dist: 1481630 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/africa                    | Init:    87.14ms | Path:    155.08ms | Dist: 1829414 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/asia                      | Init:    57.60ms | Path:    112.55ms | Dist: 1204082 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/australia                 | Init:    78.18ms | Path:     77.12ms | Dist:  978375 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/baikal                    | Init:    78.26ms | Path:    152.14ms | Dist: 1600016 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/baikalnukewars            | Init:    81.44ms | Path:    165.90ms | Dist: 1699283 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/betweentwoseas            | Init:    29.29ms | Path:    114.99ms | Dist: 1338075 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/blacksea                  | Init:    30.66ms | Path:     93.14ms | Dist:  949217 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/britannia                 | Init:    74.12ms | Path:     85.62ms | Dist:  866752 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/deglaciatedantarctica     | Init:   105.49ms | Path:    192.93ms | Dist: 1574684 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/didier                    | Init:    81.51ms | Path:    153.70ms | Dist: 1734876 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/eastasia                  | Init:    49.29ms | Path:    128.63ms | Dist: 1410270 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/europe                    | Init:    92.55ms | Path:    178.35ms | Dist: 1525216 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/europeclassic             | Init:    33.50ms | Path:    104.40ms | Dist: 1209759 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/falklandislands           | Init:    63.00ms | Path:    107.41ms | Dist: 1080251 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/faroeislands              | Init:    71.91ms | Path:     49.52ms | Dist:  604613 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/fourislands               | Init:    45.75ms | Path:     78.91ms | Dist:  937439 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/gatewaytotheatlantic      | Init:    81.00ms | Path:    257.06ms | Dist: 2555551 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/giantworldmap             | Init:   214.25ms | Path:    220.42ms | Dist: 1976693 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/gulfofstlawrence          | Init:    45.16ms | Path:     96.05ms | Dist: 1014604 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/halkidiki                 | Init:    74.68ms | Path:    149.39ms | Dist: 1546781 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/iceland                   | Init:    58.72ms | Path:     78.16ms | Dist: 1001554 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/italia                    | Init:    29.78ms | Path:    139.93ms | Dist: 1412024 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/japan                     | Init:   161.07ms | Path:    118.65ms | Dist: 1154393 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/lemnos                    | Init:    52.59ms | Path:    136.69ms | Dist: 1481101 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/lisbon                    | Init:    49.27ms | Path:     86.53ms | Dist: 1032011 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/manicouagan               | Init:    53.74ms | Path:    110.52ms | Dist: 1307630 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/mars                      | Init:    29.39ms | Path:     80.55ms | Dist: 1091702 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/mena                      | Init:    26.37ms | Path:    120.09ms | Dist: 1272751 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/montreal                  | Init:    26.08ms | Path:    106.77ms | Dist: 1187736 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/newyorkcity               | Init:    56.60ms | Path:    181.19ms | Dist: 1753875 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/northamerica              | Init:    96.29ms | Path:    123.02ms | Dist: 1217221 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/oceania                   | Init:    52.81ms | Path:     51.96ms | Dist:  482373 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/pangaea                   | Init:    21.29ms | Path:     56.58ms | Dist:  716189 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/pluto                     | Init:    53.89ms | Path:    141.62ms | Dist: 1304362 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/southamerica              | Init:    85.19ms | Path:    123.03ms | Dist: 1301403 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/straitofgibraltar         | Init:    76.68ms | Path:    108.30ms | Dist: 1304592 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/straitofhormuz            | Init:    38.97ms | Path:     67.78ms | Dist:  754920 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/surrounded                | Init:    95.35ms | Path:     90.18ms | Dist: 1017142 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/svalmel                   | Init:    60.58ms | Path:    104.75ms | Dist: 1235501 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/twolakes                  | Init:    62.05ms | Path:     94.54ms | Dist: 1140807 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000
 synthetic/world                     | Init:    41.43ms | Path:     93.42ms | Dist:  873406 tiles | Routes: 1000/1000

Completed 42 scenarios
Total Initialization Time: 2796.32ms
Total Pathfinding Time: 5026.64ms
Total Distance: 53160274 tiles
```

## Playground

**That's the fun part**. Watch NavMesh running circles around legacy
`PathFinder.Mini` in real time. Debug inner workings, test edge cases,
share URLs for debugging.


https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/34e2e3f5-fbc1-4b1f-917d-820766e98d5d

## Discord Tag
`moleole`
2026-01-08 13:34:18 -08:00