Polarith AI
1.8
Magnitude Multiplier

The MagnitudeMultiplier is a method for weighting the output of steering behaviours against each other, for example, enemy characters should be a greater threat than walls. This makes the MagnitudeMultiplier a very important aspect when it comes to combining different behaviours. So this parameter is in contrast to the Significance which can be assigned for each individual object by attaching a Steering Tag to a perceived game object.

The following abstract example shall illustrate the concept. Imagine you have an agent, an interesting object and a dangerous wall. The agent has a Planar Avoid Bounds behaviour and a Seek behaviour attached. By having a MagnitudeMultiplier for Planar Avoid Bounds greater than the multiplier for Seek, the agent always prioritize to avoid the wall. By increasing the MagnitudeMultiplier too much, it might be possible that the agent is not reaching the interest object because it is always more important to avoid the wall. If the values are exchanged and the Seek behaviour has got a greater MagnitudeMultiplier, then the agent might crash into the wall because it is more important to collect the item.

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