How to Calculate NavMeshAgent Paths Quicker

Questions & Answers
1

I’m trying to see how many NavMeshAgents Unity can handle, and something that’s really holding me back is the time unity takes to calculate the paths of thousands of agents.

I move my Agents in a big rectangle centered around whatever point I feed in. I don’t let the rectangle of agents move until all of them have found their paths, and this means that after I give them a position they can take seconds before they move depending on how far the path is. I don’t give them any real obstacles either, so the paths should be straight forward.

I feed in the paths very simply:

        if(numOfSoldiers % rows == 0)
        {
            Vector3 startPoint = new Vector3(targetPos.x - (numOfSoldiers / rows / 2) * soldierDist, targetPos.y, targetPos.z + soldierDist);
            for (int x = 0; x < rows; x++)
            {
                for (int y = 0; y < numOfSoldiers / rows; y++)
                {
                    //Stop soldier movement until all paths are calculated(see Update())
                    soldiers[y + (x * (numOfSoldiers / rows))].GetComponent<NavMeshAgent>().isStopped = true;
                    stopped = true;
                    soldiers[y + (x * (numOfSoldiers / rows))].GetComponent<NavMeshAgent>().SetDestination(startPoint + new Vector3(soldierDist * y + Random.Range(-randomDist, randomDist), 0, -soldierDist * x + Random.Range(-randomDist, randomDist)));
                }
            }
        }

and I start their movement again just as simply:

        //If calculating paths
        if(stopped == true)
        {
            bool pending = false;
            foreach (GameObject soldier in soldiers)
            {
                //If a soldier is calculating paths, do nothing
                if(soldier.GetComponent<NavMeshAgent>().pathPending == true)
                {
                    pending = true;
                    break;
                }
            }
            //else, move the regiment
            if(pending == false)
            {
                stopped = false;
                foreach (GameObject soldier in soldiers)
                {
                    soldier.GetComponent<NavMeshAgent>().isStopped = false;
                }
            }
        }

My framerate is still perfect, it’s simply the calculations that take a long time. Is there anyway to do these calculations quicker, or maybe simultaneously? Even if it’s resource intensive, I’d like to know if there’s anything I can do to move all of these quicker when they’re moving to a similar place.

2

I’d recommend just using Aron Granberg’s pathfinding package, it’s a lot more performant than Unity’s and allows for multithreaded operations.