Quote Originally Posted by JernejL View Post
a* and djikstra are highly similar and to my knowledge only differ in node weight calculations
Actually A* is an extension of Djikstra algorithm.
Main difference between A* and Djikstra is that Djikstra spreads outward evenly from starting node while A* tries to predict the distance to finish node and this spreads out first across the nodes that are in general direction of the destination node. This generally means that A* needs to traverse through lesser number of nodes in comparison to Djikstra. But since in A* you need to calculate predicted distance toward destination node while this isn't needed in Djikstra it means that A* isn't better in all scenarios. in fact in certain scenarios it could be quite a bit slower in comparison to Djikstra.