Pathfinding for RTS Games
at Scale
RTS games push pathfinding harder than any other genre. Hundreds of units. Constant retargeting. Continuous collisions. A* was not built for this.
RTS Breaks Traditional Pathfinding
In RTS systems, units constantly change goals, formations break and reform, and collisions cascade. Every tick, every unit needs an updated path. A* handles this by running a separate search for each unit — and at 100+ units, the frame budget collapses.
Studios respond by capping unit count, simplifying AI, or accepting frame drops during large engagements. All of these compromise the game.
What StrataNav Changes
Instead of each unit solving a path independently, StrataNav precomputes a shared navigation field. All units query the same field. Movement becomes coordinated. Retargeting is instant. Frame times stay stable regardless of army size.
Stable
100+ units with dynamic goals
Zero
During large engagements
Smooth
No per-unit collision avoidance
15×
Faster ticks vs A* at 100 agents
Zero Engine Lock-In
StrataNav works via HTTP JSON. Unity, Unreal, Godot, custom engines — all integrate the same way. No SDK. No plugin. No C++ bindings. Ship the game you designed, not the game your pathfinder allows.