What causes an Unreal EQS query returning an exposed cover spot?

The EQS query scores points only on distance and never adds a visibility trace test against the threat, so it happily returns a location the player can see.

How do I catch this when it only happens for some players?

Capture it automatically from the player's device with the full stack trace, the device and OS, the build, and a breadcrumb trail of what they did. That turns a vague complaint into a specific, reproducible issue you can fix without owning the hardware it happens on.

How to Fix an Unreal EQS Query Returning an Exposed Cover Spot

Quick answer: Add a Trace test from each candidate point to the threat and filter out points with line of sight, then weight scoring toward distance from the threat and proximity to the agent.

Your Unreal AI runs to cover that is in plain sight of the player because the EQS query never tested visibility. Adding a trace-to-threat test and scoring it fixes the choice. Here is how.

How to fix it

1. Add a Trace test to the threat

Add a Trace test from each generated item to the querier's threat actor; set it to filter out items that have line of sight, so only occluded points survive.

2. Score safety and reachability

Weight the query toward points far from the threat but reachable by the navmesh. Add a Pathfinding test so the AI does not pick cover it cannot actually walk to.

3. Visualize with the EQS testing pawn

Drop an EQS Testing Pawn in the level to see per-item scores as colored spheres, confirming exposed points score low and occluded ones score high.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every Unreal Engine error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.

Ship the fix, watch the signature disappear from the next build. That's how you know it's really gone.