I am trying to make a cooperative puzzle game. I posted earlier about ideas on a AI architecture. Just to summarize, The basic idea is that there are teams of NPCs and teams of players. Each team is presented with the same puzzle. The first team to solve the puzzle wins. NPCs/players can move like a puzzle platformer game. So walk, run, slide, jump, interact etc. The puzzles are spatial arrangements where NPCs/players can move, slide, etc. objects to locations. To make things more complicated, team cooperation is required as some actions require multiple NPCs/players with careful positioning and synchronized motions.

I am trying to come up with ideas for AI. But one potential bottleneck is the need and use for physics simulation to solve things like collision resolution. To use techniques like machine learning or planning it would be very helpful if collision detection and physics simulation could be reduced to look-ups of pre-computed data.

Any pointers to research, blog posts or presentations that describe some approaches that are sometimes used and that are relatively simple to implement ?

To provide some context I am using Unity, the game will have 3D motions and actions (jumping, flying, etc.)

beetree2 said:
To provide some context I am using Unity, the game will have 3D motions and actions (jumping, flying, etc.)

How do your levels look? Arbitrary polygon soups? Or something structured, like modular models on a regular grid?
And i assume your characters are just capsules (physically)? What affects on physics can they have / are needed to solve a puzzle? Just moving crates, or using seesaws / conveyor belts? Can they carry objects, or just push buttons?

Such details would be good to know to imagine the complexity of the game. Also some puzzle example would help.

In general i would try to avoid speculative simulations due to high cost. Traversing a navigation mesh should be enough, ideally.
If you need more detail, maybe convex casts could be of help. I guess any physics engine supports this. You can cast a rigid object along a straight line to see where it hits what. E.g. to test if a character capsule would fit through a hole, or if there are any obstacles along a path.