I've been trying to edit a tiny section of vanilla exterior navmesh to allow for a set of stairs to go up to a gate walkway. I've navmeshed dozens of times before, and I can't see a thing I'm doing wrong. I moved about 4 vanilla triangles, and added a little tiny section to go from the ground up to the existing navmesh on the walkway, just like running navmesh up any typical set of steps. It checks for errors and shows none, I finalize and that produces no errors. However, after finalizing, when I try to save the file I get this:

PATHFINDING: Precomputed path init - Could not resolve location for Road Marker 000f0783, please verify its placement.

This section is not even close to a border, but just in case I moved all around and finalized all the cells joining the one I edited. Everything looks OK to me. This object is a Road Marker in the cell I'm editing. Is there something I need to do to verify it's location or something?

Balok, I've seen that error too, not sure if it's with the same Road Marker or not (in my case, I'm was working outside of the main Solitude gate). When I finally found the road marker throwing the error, it wasn't even near where I was working. So I started with a fresh esp and did more testing. I finally came to the conclusion the problem was always there and that simply making any changes in the cell caused the existing problem to throw the error.

If anyone knows otherwise, I'd love to know because I am tired of always having to see the error in my esp when I save!

There's a thread where a dev commented on the meaning of the "Precomputed path init" warning.

Still looking for answers on this. Where are all the navmesh guru's? Arthmoor, Amethyst, anyone? This is really messing me up.

Thanks

I agree with Sollar.. there are plenty of instances in Vanilla that pop that error up - whether or not a plugin is even loaded or edits have been made. I wouldn't worry about it if you've done everything you're supposed to (and never touched that road marker heheh). Read up on the navMesh threads to get a better idea of what can cause drama (such as auto-gen any Vanilla area or one that has pre-existing navMesh).

Well, the areas I’m needing to edit are in and around Helgen, so I don’t need errors because it has the potential to totally bug the beginning of the game. (You wouldn’t believe how many markers are in these cells.)

And yeah, with being extremely concerned with the original navmesh bugs, and editing the vanilla navmesh being critical to parts of my mod, I’ve followed the navmesh bug threads here from the beginning, and don’t recall this specific error ever being talked about. Also, I can find very little info on Road Markers, what they do and how they work.

I can possibly use prims set to navi_cut where I add new buildings over existing navmeshes, but if simple tweaks like this are going to be a problem, my NPC’s won’t have a way to enter/exit my new stuff which will have a great impact on my mod. So I desperately need some guidance here.

Also, if a moderator would be so kind as to add “PATHFINDING: Precomputed path init” to my title so that it reads:

“Navmesh warning - PATHFINDING: Precomputed path init”

I would be grateful for your help. Thanks!

Balok, you may find you are going to have to answer those questions yourself and post back to us. There is a thread where I asked the dev who responded a follow up question and it was never answered. So I would not hold your breath waiting for a dev to help

I would start with a fresh mod, make a small change that triggers the warning and check if things work. Start a new game with your mod, see if it impacts the intro. Then go back and see if your NPC's can move around - especially the areas you navmeshed. I could be wrong here, but from my own experience and I have edited a lot of vanilla road navmeshes and what the dev states, I don't think it's a mod breaker.

Here's the thread where this pathfinding is discussed: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1384974


From my experience, that would concern me way more than the "warning" the CK is giving. I don't know that tool at all, so I can't say if it will be a problem, but the issues I've heard about from the other tools makes me not want to use any tool atm.

Thanks Solar, sorry I was abbreviating, lol. Those aren't outside tools. Prims = Collision or trigger primitives, which you can set to cut the navmesh (navi_cut) wherever they penetrate it. They work rather well so far, too.

You said you've edited a lot of vanilla roads. What exactly do the road markers do?

Ahh, okay on the prisms That makes sense.

Okay, first, I took great care NOT to edit any road markers, which is why I was so irratated to find those warnings in my mod. That's why, like you, I was concerned. From what the dev said and the warning itself, I wonder if they are used in the big picture pathfinding - like from Morthal to Solitude type pathfinding. I don't see why they would be used in local pathfinding as that's what the navmesh itself is for... but this is just a guess. I will say, the Morthal to Solitude (or any other big picture pathfinding) is horrible anyway. Of course, maybe this is why, maybe all the road markers are broke!! I honestly don't know but I have yet to experience a pathfinding problem - and my mod is all about pathfinding.

I can also state that FIXING the vanilla road navmeshes has solved problems. Specifically, one person was getting a CTD (the only reproducable CTD I've had reported) on the road leading from Rorikstead. When I went and checked the location, sure enough, the vanilla navshes is messed up there (one of MANY), so I fixed it and released an update. His CTD went away. (I'll also note that on my PC, I didn't crash but the horse obviously had issues at that spot and would do a 360 degree turn before moving on.)

Thanks again, Sollar. Reading that other htread I found this:


That is exactly what I was doing, although I didn't get any errors that said anything about "bounds". However, I'm hoping that because I was connecting an island to the navmesh on the ground, it was causing the duplicated records, thereby causing the pathfinding error. When I get home, I'll try it again, and just move that island down below the ground, and just add to the mesh I was tying it into.

I've got one like this in Open Cities too, for a cell outside of Whiterun that got pulled in by a finalization. Ignore it, it doesn't seem to have any negative affect on the game.

As for road markers, they're most likely used in long distance path finding the way the old ROAD record was in Oblivion. Even so, if the local navmeshes are borked, NPCs still won't arrive at their destinations on time which could be one contributing factor with the marriage bug and spouses disappearing for days on end.

Thanks Arthmoor, I hoped that was the case and coming from someone with as much experience as you, that makes be breathe a small sigh of relief. And, while I'm totally holding my breath, and expecting it to blow up somehow, I just did my experiment I mentioned. I moved the island mesh I needed to connect to the ground underground. Saved and got no errors. I move a handful of vanilla tri's around to allow for my new stairs, ran the navmesh like I needed it, checked for errors, finalized that cell and all around, and POW! No errors! Now to add a package to my NPC's to test it!

Well, it was too good to be true. I loaded it up in game and my NPC get's stuck and just stands there. Also, another NPC appears to get stuck in his patrol route and just stands there as well. This is consistent with the stuff mentioned in the thread Sollar posted. Interestingly enough, and I don't know if this will shed any light on anything. But, when I saved my plugin the first time after finalizing and having no errors, the next time I loaded it in CK, I got the Pathfinding error that bounds were missing or whatever in my cell and to re-finalize. This time, after finalizing again, I got the road marker error. But the big problem is that they won't navigate.

As I said above, there was an island navmesh at the North Gate in Helgen. It's the type of gate with a walkway above it that guards patrol. This one for whatever reason did not have any stairs up to it, which I personally thought was a poor design decision. Anyway, I would like to be able to add stairs so I can put the guards on a real AI schedule, change shifts and the whole lot.

So, I moved the vanilla island navmesh already there below ground, and added in my own that I connected to the ground via my new stairs. That's ALL I did - a very minor tweak, and it's fubar, lol.

I was afraid that even though the navmesh bug was supposedly fixed, that there were still going to be issues with it. It's apparent that you have to be VERY cautious in what vanilla navmeshes you edit. Sigh.....

You need to check the cell you were working in and make sure you didn't end up with a duplicated navmesh that starts with 01 or 02 (or whatever your normal IDs for the mod are).

It's the new bug, not at all like the old. These duplicate navmeshes appear without any consistent pattern, but are also entirely safe to delete since the originals are still there below them. They also cause the same apparent symptom - NPCs won't navigate, but that's only because the duplicates tend to not get proper connections made to other cells.

You did right by moving the island below ground and then connecting to the proper navmesh, but in the meantime you've probably got residuals left behind. Or, worse, you managed to cause other navmeshes to get deleted without meaning to. Those will need to be undone via the CK details screen.

Caution is warranted, yes. The first rule of navmeshing: Don't try to merge islands into the main grid. This causes navmesh deletions. Once you have those, you won't be rid of that bounds error.

Thanks Arthmoor, I reverted to a save prior to my edits, but I'll go back and try again at some point.