How to get the nearest player from a part/npc?

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#1

How would I be able to get the player that is the closest to a part? (in this case humanoidrootpart)

I want to save the player as a variable, because I am planning on implementing it into the pathfinding script I am currently working on. I might also add a range, but that’s for another time. Please send some help as I cannot finish my script without this. I have looked through countless other posts, but none seem to work for me.

Thanks in advance.

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#2

https://devforum.roblox.com/t/find-the-nearest-player/1258855

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#3

doesn’t work because i want it as a variable, if i place my script inside of the loop, it bugs. i tried that one before

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#4

so you want to hold the nearest player’s position as a variable?

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#5

if possible yes, i tried placing my code in a loop before and it stopped working for some reason.

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#6

Can you show the code you are working with,and perhaps we can find the error?

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#7

well, that is quite simple. If you look at the post I’ve provided above it shows how you can get the nearest player, and to get their position, you could do:

local nearestPlayerPos = player.Character.HumanoidRootPart.CFrame
                                or
local nearestPlayerPos = player.Character.HumanoidRootPart.Position
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#8

yes, so i believe it is not possible to do it without a loop?

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#9

i don’t understand what your issue is, mind putting your code here?

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#10

Just use a reuseable function:

local Players = game:GetService("Players")

local function nearestPlayerToPart(part: BasePart): Player?
	local nearestPlayer = nil
	local nearestDistance = math.huge
	
	for _, player in ipairs(Players:GetPlayers()) do
		local character = player.Character
		
		if character  then
			local rootPart = character.PrimaryPart
			
			if rootPart then
				local distance = (part.Position - rootPart.Position).Magnitude
				
				if distance < nearestDistance then
					nearestPlayer = player
					nearestDistance = distance
				end
			end
		end		
	end
	
	return nearestPlayer
end

nearestPlayerToPart(Instance.new("Part", workspace))
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#11 
local Players = game:GetService("Players")

local rs = game:GetService("ReplicatedStorage")
local forbidden = rs:WaitForChild("Forbidden")

local ai = require(forbidden:WaitForChild("AI"))
local NPC = script.Parent
local target = workspace.dest

wait(2)
ai.SmartPathfind(NPC,playerhere,true,{Visualize = true, Tracking = true})

this just uses an api from a youtube video, so theres not much to see.
‘ai.smartpathfind’ function is what bugs when i put it in a loop. and in playerhere is going to be the variable if possible.

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#12

does this allow me to use the nearestPlayer in another function?

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#13

Yes, because the nearest player is being returned from the function.

local nearestPlayer = nearestPlayerToPart(Instance.new("Part", workspace))

if nearestPlayer then
    -- there might not even exist a nearest player.
    -- make sure to validate it before doing anything.
end
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#14

could you show me how this would work? i don’t really know how the return function works.

this is my function:

ai.SmartPathfind(NPC,playerhere,true,{Visualize = true, Tracking = true})

i want it to be something like this:

local nearestPlayer = nearestPlayerToPart(NPC.HumanoidRootPart))

if nearestPlayer then
       ai.SmartPathfind(NPC,nearestPlayer,true,{Visualize = true, Tracking = true})
end

(the parthfinding works perfectly without it being in a loop. but i think a loop is required to constantly get the closest player)

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#15

Looks fine to me. Since we want the pathfinding to be constant (running at all times), we do wrap it in a while loop:

while true do
	local nearestPlayer = nearestPlayerToPart(NPC.HumanoidRootPart))

	if nearestPlayer then
    	ai.SmartPathfind(
			NPC,
			nearestPlayer,
			true,
			{ Visualize = true, Tracking = true }
		)
	end
    task.wait(0.1) -- you *might* want to add a cooldown for each look up.
end
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#16

it already is constant, but i’ll try it out.

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#17

it works, thank you so much : )

one issue though, my pathfinding seems to be laggier than before, i’ll work on fixing that

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#18

Likely because the path is being recalculated a bunch of times a second. I’m fairly sure SimplePath optimizes this, though. So you might want to use that.

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#19

tried it in 2 player test, but it doesn’t switch when i come closer to the npc.

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#20

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