Performance

Documentation Unreal Engine AI Performance

Benchmark results, profiling tools, and optimization guidance for Soulslike Enemy Combat.

Overview

The Soulslike Enemy Combat plugin is highly optimized for performance. All calculations are primarily simple vector math, resulting in negligible overhead even with large numbers of enemies.

Benchmark Results

Use the interactive tool below to see how the performance scales with enemy count. Benchmarks are performed on a Ryzen 9950x.

🚀 Live Performance Preview

Adjust the enemy count to see the estimated Game Thread overhead.

Enemy Count20 Enemies

1 (Duel)50 (Horde)150 (Stress Test)

Output Log - stat SEC

Authenticated user: Client 1

SEC_MovementEvaluator

0.070 ms

SEC_DirectionScoring (16 samples)

0.063 ms

SEC_Avoidance

0.004 ms

SEC_RoleDistribution

0.001 ms

SEC_ThreatDetection

0.008 ms

Total SEC Overhead

0.083 ms

Frame Budget Usage (60fps target)0.50% of 16.6ms

✅ Negligible Impact

Context: At 60fps, you have 16.6ms per frame. Even with 150 enemies, the plugin uses less than 4% of your frame budget.

System Breakdown

MovementEvaluatorComponent

The main per-frame cost. Handles tactical positioning via direction sampling.

Metric	Value
Default samples	16 directions
Cost per AI	~0.004ms
Scaling	Linear with enemy count

Optimization options:

Reduce NumSamples property (default 16, can go as low as 8)
Disable avoidance if not needed

Avoidance System

Prevents AI from bunching up. Already optimized with throttling.

Metric	Value
Update rate	10Hz (every 0.1s)
Cost	Negligible
Configurable	`AvoidanceRadius`, `bEnableAvoidance`

Role Assignment Subsystem

Manages combat roles (Attacker, Waiter, Flanker, etc.)

Metric	Value
Update rate	Timer-based (configurable interval)
Cost	Negligible
Note	Not per-frame

Threat Detection

Tracks player look direction to influence AI behavior.

Metric	Value
Update rate	Per-tick
Cost	~0.0004ms per AI
Note	Simple dot product math

Built-in Profiling

The plugin includes custom stat groups for real-time profiling.

Console Command

Open the console (~) and run:

stat SEC

Stats Available

Stat Name	Description
MovementEvaluator - Total	Full per-AI movement cost
MovementEvaluator - Direction Scoring	16-sample scoring loop
MovementEvaluator - Avoidance	Overlap queries and avoidance
RoleSubsystem - Role Distribution	Role assignment algorithm
ThreatDetection - Tick	Per-tick threat calculation

Unreal Insights

All stats are also visible in Unreal Insights. Filter for SEC_* trace events:

SEC_MovementEvaluator
SEC_DirectionScoring
SEC_Avoidance
SEC_RoleDistribution
SEC_ThreatDetection

Scaling Recommendations

Use Case	Expected Enemies	Performance Impact
Soulslike (typical)	3-5	Negligible (<0.05ms)
Action RPG	10-20	Negligible (~0.1ms)
Horde mode	50-100	Low (~0.2-0.4ms)
Stress test	150+	Acceptable (~0.6ms+)

Key Optimizations Built-In

Precomputed trigonometry - Sample directions cached at startup
Throttled avoidance - Overlap queries run at 10Hz, not every frame
Timer-based roles - Role reassignment doesn't run per-frame
Hybrid movement - Distant AI use cheaper pathfinding, close AI use tactical sampling
Conditional ticking - Melee traces only tick during active attacks

Summary

<0.1ms for typical Soulslike scenarios (3-10 enemies)
~0.2ms for medium-scale encounters (50 enemies)
~0.6ms for extreme stress tests (150 enemies)
Linear scaling with enemy count
Built-in stat SEC command for real-time profiling