RAIN{indie} for a 3D flying game? AI pathfinding up/down/left/right?

hey all,

Just researching 3rd party AI solutions for my 3d aerial combat game, more info including some simple dev blog videos covering basic mechanics here: http://www.newbquest.com

My struggle at the moment is that my player is able to fly up, down, left, right and I want an environment of agents able to pathfind, acquire targets and move in the same dimensions. All the pathfinding stuff I see tends to be oriented to agents walking around on the ground, not flying (or swimming would also work) I know that RAIN{indie} uses a navmesh system and I'm wondering if it's likely that this type of system will work in the type of 3d environment I'm creating?

I'm aware that potentially I could use RAIN{indie} Waypoints, and maybe when I understand them better it'll be clear they'll work but right now it seems not. Part of what I'm trying to achieve with the game is having the environment and agents be quite randomized and dynamic, reacting to one another and the player. I don't want to pre-define patrol paths or anything because this will really work against the feeling of emergence and surprise I want to create.

At the moment I've been working with UnitySteer and the wander behaviors so that the AIs move around randomly in 3 dimensions and then having the AI start shooting when a player enters a trigger collider. I also want to be able to have enemies flock (think Boids) and wander into each other and fight.

UnitySteer seems capable of doing what I want but as my name suggests I am very new to both Unity and Scripting and UnitySteer is pretty light on documentation. It looks like a great set of tools but I am starting to realize that I may need something a little more 'gift wrapped' as RAIN{indie} seems to be.

Anyone with experience with any of this stuff who has time to give their thoughts I'd appreciate it very much.

thanks,
Matt

 

Have you made any headway on this?

 

Even if this is a old post I'm looking into something similar right now myself and wondering if there's more information out there now in 2015? Maybe not when I can only find old threads??