Badniks can fall into single file (and suck at it!)

Badniks can fall into single file whilst A_Chasing the player, which can restrict all but the front enemy from being a threat or using their special moves like Lanceabot charges.

This is caused by the terrible A_Chase Doom-inherited movement code only considering beelines and not thing obstacles, combined with intrabadnik solidity, a new mechanic in 2.2 which this Issue originally revolved around but is unlikely to be reverted because Lanceabots charging through each other would probably be even more jank, AND because it wouldn't solve the base issue of enemies clustering up - which they'd do to the point of overlapping, as Crawlaspamming has taught us over the decades.

Glaber's original description:

This happens in both 2d and 3d modes, but can cause problems in 2d mode.

I have included gifs in the MB topic for the same bug.``` https://mb.srb2.org/showthread.php?t=47812

This issue affects SRB2 the Past as well as anyone porting the old Mario Koopa Blast levels.

I'm not sure when or why this was ever changed, badniks clip into each other in all the classic games

Enemies are supposed to be solid into each other now as of 2.2 (has been since 2.2's release), precisely so they can't clip into each other. I think that used to be a thing in very old SRB2 versions too (?), but that's long before when I started playing SRB2 if so.

in 2d mode, this lack of clipping is a problem as it causes badniks to not be able to get where they need to be. In 3d mode, this is also a problem as if you have 2 badniks charging at the player they get caught on each other instead and stop prematurely.

older versions like SRB2 Christmas were still using a version of Doom's collision system before it get changed out so they clipped into each other like in the official games

Iestyn, that doesn't really give a reason why the change was made

The change was made because it made the experience better for if you spent lots of time getting to know the game in GFZ, accidentially kiting crawlas around. It was a statistical certainty that they'd all bunch up on each other and move as one, which really sucked when they had so much space to spread out with!

I could potentially see the solidity disabled in entirely 2D mode levels, but since that may not happen any time soon I'd simply recommend reducing the Goomba spam in that specific instance so they at least don't start the level stuck, which should allow them to walk around a bit in the Goomba wiggler SSN built all those years ago.

there's more. This is the SRB2 TGF recreation stage Mine Maze same spot in zonebuilder

I think this may actually show that the clipping issue had made a previously reported issue of nearly every badnik going to the right first in 2d mode worse.

Good example in 3d mode

The intention may have been good, but in practice, it's jank.

mentioned in issue #341

EDIT: This image is actually unrelated to the issue being reported Update to the clipping issue. If dropped rings land in a spike, when they exit the spike they can go flying!

I was already not a fan of badnik collision, but all of these gifs make me hate it even more. I've also experienced that issue with rings before and sometimes it's been the bane of a life.

The ring issue is made even worse when they clip into each other in the air and get stuck. I wanted to save that bit for when I had a gif of it though.

The ring issue is an unrelated bug that has existed since whenever thing spikes were introduced, and it's actively misleading to bump this Issue with it.

Really hard to picture that someone would enjoy a Lance-bot charging into you from behind another Lance-bot completely unnoticed and managing to just clip through the other. That's what's jank for me.

As for the spikes, most objects wedged between a set of them in a way that's too small for it to fit will be pushed outwards (which you can try with say, a yellow spring). You may create a different issue for that if you wish, but as toaster said that's a different can of worms.

I thought the ring issue was releated because they're clipping into another thing.

I could double check on that though as I do have older versions of srb2 to confirm this with.

trust us, 100% not related. i've seen gifs of that very same map in 2.1 exhibiting the same bug, and that was way before this change was made

I didn't originally mark this issue as Closed because there hadn't been any active developer interest in at least responding, but since Tatsuru's responded to the negative I think it's clear this isn't going to get "fixed" like you'd like it to. A better change would be to give A_Chase based enemies the ability to try and move around other enemies, rather than getting stuck in single files (which is at least better than them occupying the same physical space, mind). Does that concept mean this issue will get closed and a new one created? I say nah for now, I'll just edit the primary desc.

changed title from Badniks clipping into eachother causes them to stop in place. to Badniks can fall into single file (and suck at it!)

changed the description