How to make a homing projectile make a more objective path to the target?

Question

I'm having trouble trying to get a projectile thrown by a tower to hit the player quickly.

See the image below:

The projectile hits the ground very close to where the player was.

If the player did not move so much, the projectile would certainly hit him, but even by slowing the player down and increasing the speed of the shot, the projectile often does not hit the player.

What happens almost always is the projectile orbiting the player.

If the player stands still when the tower starts firing, the projectile hits him, the problem happens when the player moves, the projectile does not follow the player correctly.

Expected result:

I have already tried to modify the speed of the player and the projectile, but I have not obtained efficient improvements in the result. I tried to modify the gravity (of the projectile and its mesh), friction. All to no avail.

Projectile BP:

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EDIT 1

With this code I was able to stop the projectile from crossing the floor:

But the projectile still orbits the player:

If the player does not stop moving, the projectile orbits it indefinitely.

Below is how the components went after I turned off the physics at all.

Sphere Collision:

Static Mesh:

ProjectileMovement:

Answer 1

Intercept the target

I'm not too familiar with UE, but the behaviour you describe is consistent with the projectile "naively" accelerating towards the target's current position (from your blueprint, it looks like a constant acceleration is indeed being applied).

To actually hit a moving target, you should predict its location at the time the projectile actually reaches it, and move towards that point*.

If the projectile is significantly faster than the target, an easy approximation for that point would be:

travel time = distance to target / projectile speed
point to move towards = target position + (target velocity * travel time)

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(* Recalculate periodically, e.g. once per physics tick)

Answer 2

This is probably what you need. It's for unity in C# but the maths all there.

http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/Trajectory_Simulation

I use this all the time and it is VERY accurate even at high speeds. It can't predict changes in direction like weaving but it will hit where the target is going to be on the dot every single time. If you want it to predict direction changes you need homing code added but you don't sound like you want homing missiles. You want projectiles.

Hope this helps.