Having experimented a bit with AI so far in UE, it seems that the available Blackboard nodes and AI system in general is almost fully directed towards the Character Movement Component. I’m trying to basically do AI movement for vehicles, and in order for it to work properly, the AI needs to apply ‘Input’ to the Vehicle Pawn, like a player applies input from the keyboard.
My Vehicles have a few properties, they can Steer, Thrust/Reverse, Strafe, Pitch their Aim, ‘Jump’ a bit and of course do other tasks like fire weapons and whatnot. What I ideally want to be able to do is create a blackboard task called ‘Vehicle Move To’ or something, that will (via an interface most likely) apply ‘input’ to the vehicle to make it move to a given location. The problem with the default movement system is that it simply gives the AI Character a ‘Vector’ and the movement component directly applies velocity, which is probably fast to compute, but a nightmare for anything other than characters.
The input to the vehicle drives other effects like audio and particles, so this is the easiest route for me to go down without changing any of my underlying systems. Should the Blackboard itself determine what input it should apply to a pawn, or should I still give it a vector direction and the movement system figures out what input it should apply? Additionally, how can I apply values to an Axis for an AI Input Component? It seems like all AI vehicles made so far have been very bodged Character Components, it would be nice to see some kind of engine support for this in the future, but for the meantime I’m hoping I can get some help from some AI wizards.