Attractors are now Time Adjustable

In the upcoming Pathfinder 2022.2 release, attractors will receive a feature enhancement. Users will now have the ability to adjust the influence of individual attractors by percentage over time. An attractor can be fully disabled at 0%, fully enabled at 100%, or provide some varying influence. Any value can be set at a specific time.

What are attractors?

Pathfinder Attractors are objects that can be used to change an occupant's behavior based on the occupant's location. Examples might include a food vendor or bathroom. Occupants can have varying levels of awareness of attractors, including by line of sight to the attractor or by room. They can also have varying susceptibilities to attractors (see Section 5.1.2 for more information on per-profile and per-occupant settings for attractors). Once an occupant uses an attractor, they will not use it again for the duration of the simulation.

When are attractors used?

Attractors are used in non-evacuation studies to simulate dynamic objective seeking based on some level of awareness. If an occupant is aware of a food vendor nearby, they may decide to change their current objective towards one that visits this attractor. The occupant's behavior is changed by the attractor until that objective is met, at which point typically the occupant returns to their previous behavior.

With this new feature, attractors such as a food vendor could be configured as disabled while closed, fully effective at peak meal times, and varying in between.

Where can I find more information about attractors?

Attractors were first previewed in 2021.3 and have their own section in the Pathfinder User Manual. They are also related to several terminal behavior action types which were released at that time.

When can I access this new feature?

Attractor time-adjustment will be provided as a feature of Pathfinder 2022.2 which releases on August 3. For more feature previews, subscribe to our newsletter.