AI movement for a non-character pawn

I have an entirely blueprint project where pawns are physics driven meshes. The human controlled player pawn is working so I moved on to the AI. I followed the Behavior Tree Quick Start Guide tutorial in the documentation but then I arrived at the “AI Move To Actor” node which probably requires the movement component in a Character.

What would be the best way to implement that functionality for my physics objects? I have a rough idea how to add forces based on target navigation way point or target actor but I’m not sure where I should implement that logic so it works seamlessly with the behavior trees.

Can’t you just define your pawns as characters, it just takes one menu setting to do that.
You can do that this way:

  1. Open your pawn blueprint
  2. Click blueprint props at the top
  3. Find a dropdown menu in the bottom left where you see pawn selected
  4. Change that to character

The pawns are not meant to be characters, they are physics driven meshes. The character movement component doesn’t really apply as there is no “walking” or “crouching” or anything like that.

I would like some experienced voice help on this as well - I have a feeling that the rabbit hole is deep to figure this out as a UE4 noob. I need to Ai my physics based racing opponents (they fly)

If I was doing this now I would create really light weight, invisible “guidance” characters with standard AI which “attract” the visible, physics based actors.

I would use a “PID controller” logic - it can be used to take in position vector and destination … it uses the previous position against the goal position and updates.