Comparison

A* Pathfinding Breaks at Scale.
This Replaces It.

A* was never designed for real-time, multi-agent systems. It works — until it doesn't. StrataNav replaces per-agent pathfinding with field-based navigation infrastructure.

Head to Head

The Numbers

Metric	A*	StrataNav
100-agent game tick	111.7ms	7.06ms
Replanning cost	Full re-search per agent	Near-zero (field lookup)
Multi-agent handling	Per-agent collision avoidance	Coordinated field movement
Frame budget impact	High (runs in-engine)	Zero (runs server-side)
Goal change cost	Recompute from scratch	Instant query update
Engine dependency	Tightly coupled	HTTP JSON — any engine

Architecture

The Architectural Difference

A* — Computation Model

Per-Agent, Per-Tick, Disposable

Pathfinding is per agent, recomputed every time goals or environments change. Cost scales linearly (or worse) with agent count. Runs inside the game engine, consuming frame budget.

each agent:
  compute path     → expensive
  goal changes     → recompute
  obstacle moves   → recompute
  repeat every tick

StrataNav — Infrastructure Model

Precompute Once, Query Forever

Navigation is precomputed as a persistent field. All agents query the same structure. Goal changes require no recomputation. Runs server-side — zero frame budget consumed.

precompute field  → once
agent 1: query    → microseconds
agent 2: query    → microseconds
agent N: query    → microseconds
goal changes      → just query again

The Limit

When You Should Move Beyond A*

If you are doing any of the following, you are already at the architectural limit:

Optimizing A* heuristics to squeeze out milliseconds
Batching A* queries to reduce per-frame cost
Capping agent count to stay within frame budget
Spending engineering time on pathfinding instead of gameplay

These are symptoms of an architectural limitation, not an algorithm problem. The fix is not better A* — it is replacing A* with infrastructure.