Detour Crowd AI: Units brake/slow down behind friendlies instead of pathing around? (RTS Style)

Development Programming & Scripting AI
1

Hi everyone,

I am working on an Auto-Battler / RTS style game. I am using ADetourCrowdAIController and UCrowdFollowingComponent.

The Goal:
I want RTS-style movement where units find the shortest path around friendly units without losing momentum. If a unit is blocked by a friend, it should smoothly steer around them to get to the target, maintaining its movement speed.

The Problem:
My units are behaving too passively. When a unit approaches a stationary group of friendly units from behind, it slows down significantly (almost to a crawl) as if it is stuck in a “forcefield” behind them.
Instead of maintaining speed and curving around the group to find the open path, they brake and slide slowly.

My Setup:

  1. AI Controller: Custom C++ class inheriting from ADetourCrowdAIController.

  2. Character Movement: bUseRVOAvoidance is FALSE (Relying entirely on Detour). Max Acceleration is high to keep movement snappy.

  3. NavMesh: Agent Radius is set correctly (slightly smaller than capsule).

Here is my current C++ configuration for the Crowd Component. I have set a high optimization range hoping they would look for paths around the blockers, but they still brake.

AMinionAIController::AMinionAIController(const FObjectInitializer& ObjectInitializer)
: Super(ObjectInitializer)
{
UCrowdFollowingComponent* CrowdComp = Cast(GetPathFollowingComponent());

if (CrowdComp)
{
    // I want them to keep distance, so I have some separation
    CrowdComp->SetCrowdSeparationWeight(2.0f);

    // Detection range
    CrowdComp->SetCrowdCollisionQueryRange(150.0f); 
    
    // High value to encourage finding paths "around" obstacles?
    CrowdComp->SetCrowdPathOptimizationRange(1000.0f);
    
    // Using Low quality to reduce jitter
    CrowdComp->SetCrowdAvoidanceQuality(ECrowdAvoidanceQuality::Low);

    // I disabled this hoping it would stop the braking, but the issue persists
    CrowdComp->SetCrowdAnticipateTurns(false); 
}

}

What I have tried:

  • Increasing PathOptimizationRange to encourage the AI to look for side paths.

  • Disabling AnticipateTurns.

  • Adjusting CollisionQueryRange. Lower values stop the braking but cause clipping; higher values make them brake too early.

The Question:
Is there a specific setting in Detour that controls how aggressively the AI “brakes” when it detects a soft obstacle (like another agent)? I want them to prioritize steering around the obstacle rather than slowing down behind it.

here is also a short video that shows it