Create a Class which can be an Actor and an Instance

Hi, I am new to Unreal Engine so I am kind of confused as to how to work with some of the Base C++ classes. I recently created AI Pathfinding using the Unity Engine. The way I implemented this was I spawned a bunch of nodes and the AI would use those nodes to create a path. The nodes were physical objects (so I could see them) and they had a node script attached to them. Then I implemented the AI pathfinding algorithm which found all of the nodes and ran the algorithm on them.

My question is how do I translate this into Unreal Engine C++ code? I made an Actor class for the nodes so I can spawn them but how I can create an instance of the Actor node class in my pathfinding class. I also tried it with an Actor Component but that didn’t work either. How can I have a class which I can spawn as an Actor but also have an instance of so I can do calculations on it?

get all actors of class:

A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements - Unreal Engine ForumsObject%26_Actor_Iterators,_Optional_Class_Scope_For_Faster_Search

pathfinding with environment query system:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/AI/EnvironmentQuerySystem/UserGuide/

Thanks, I’ll make my way through your posted links. I don’t know if I’ll be using the EQS since I want to make my own path finding system.