Is there a way to generate alternative longer paths?

[niv_kor]

I want the bots in my game to act like a human would in a maze, and not always take the shortest path to a point. Is there a built-in way to make a NavMeshAgent calculate a more costly path, based on chance?

[Terraya]

For this type of behaviour you will have to write your own solution.

It is actually pretty easy to do that since you already have a working NavMesh with Agents, you just have to write a logic based on, which path the AI should take in which situation

[niv_kor]

@Terraya

For this type of behaviour you will have to write your own solution.

It is actually pretty easy to do that since you already have a working NavMesh with Agents, you just have to write a logic based on, which path the AI should take in which situation

I get what you’re saying. But how do I get to a point where I have a list of paths to choose from, where the agent would only ever calculate one shortest path?

[Terraya]

Create a List with your available paths you have got.
Another List with the ones in use.

The ones which are available are the only ones you can choose from,
based on your “requirement” you can write a logic which choose one of those available paths to
walk through.

also in another thread i have posted a similar answer but more performant:

You could create an Global Path Manager which at initialization calculates all possible Paths between them.

you can do so by:
Code (CSharp):

• NavMesh.CalculatePath

Unity - Scripting API: AI.NavMesh.CalculatePath

each Vector3 is an identifier by itself, that way you could create a Dicctionary which
shows up “available” positions with its calculated path you can use, so no need to calculate it over and over again.

and if any of those Vector3 positions is beeing used, you could store it in another Dicctionary.

that way you have available waypoints in one dicctionary and used one in another.

A solution from unity is not available, so would have to write your own

Just in your case, if you have available path, i dont know the criteria you want which decides which path should have been taken, depending on that you could go for X path in your available path list.