Research pedestrian-style spline locomotion for world workers

[SimGamerJen]

Summary

Builds directly on the reconciled Alpha 5 / HelperProfiles 2.1.1.0 development baseline and starts the next world-worker movement investigation inspired by FS25's smooth native pedestrians.

Native pedestrian/runtime research

• adds HP_WorldPedestrianProbe.lua
• diagnostic-only runtime inspection of PedestrianSystem, likely mission/global instances, scenegraph pedestrian nodes, and available GIANTS spline APIs
• command: hpWorld pedprobe [summary|system|globals|mission|spline|scene|all]
• does not alter worker movement

Spline-guided movement prototype

• adds HP_WorldSplinePath.lua
• creates a temporary invisible GIANTS cubic spline at runtime using createSplineFromEditPoints
• shapes the route so its initial tangent follows the worker's current facing before converging on the destination
• continuously projects the worker onto the spline and feeds the validated curved locomotion controller a short (~1.05 m) look-ahead target
• the existing curved locomotion controller remains sole owner of speed, yaw, pose and HumanGraphicsComponentState
• temporary spline entities are deleted on completion/cancel/error/obstacle stop
• existing COME HERE and FOLLOW are unchanged

Experimental commands

• hpWorld smoothcome [slot] [standOffMetres]
• hpWorld smoothgoto [slot] <x> <z>
• hpWorld smoothstop [slot]

Why this approach

FS25 exposes runtime cubic spline creation plus world-space spline position/direction/distance queries. Native pedestrians are spline-driven. This prototype lets us test whether tangent-led spline execution gives HelperProfiles workers the same continuous-flow quality without replacing their identity/appearance/graphics stack.

First test focus

1. Confirm both Alpha 6 startup markers load without Lua errors.
2. Run hpWorld pedprobe and capture the log; then hpWorld pedprobe scene if the summary does not reveal the live PedestrianSystem instance.
3. In clear open ground, place A several metres away and deliberately face A 45–90 degrees away from the player.
4. Run hpWorld smoothcome A and visually compare its initial turn and route flow with ordinary hpWorld come A.
5. Confirm the worker maintains a continuous walking gait, follows a smooth arc and eases into the final stand-off without waypoint-like stop/turn behaviour.
6. Test hpWorld smoothstop A during movement.
7. Do not test obstacle navigation as a success criterion yet; the existing short-range obstacle layer remains a safety stop only.

Release-baseline safety

This branch is based on the current reconciled Alpha 5 head, which is itself 0 commits behind main and retains HelperProfiles 2.1.1.0 Integration API v7, scoped preferred hiring, release metadata and management UI fixes. Alpha 6 changes only the two new modules and their loader entries.