Awesome game so far, but how does Artificial Life work?

[Dragon]

Greetings! New member here that found this hidden gem of a game by chance (like all truly great games), I actually have limits on how many Early Access games I buy but I just could not resist this one, and I don't even remotely regret my purchase! I even got a friend to buy it as well.

 

The game reminds me a lot of a mixture between Starpoint Gemini and X3. Spaceflight and combat reminds me of Starpoint Gemini with a bit more weight and grit to it, whilst the sectors, station types and production cycles is reminiscent of X3. I am quite a fan of X3 and spent thousands of hours on all versions of it for a few years running but, I always hoped similar games would pop up in it's wake. I always hoped someone would take the X3 formula and streamline it a bit more and add some pace to it, Avorion seems like it could be it, with the added bonus of building your stations and ships yourself. It's pretty awesome already despite still being in development.

 

I explored quite a bit and found a nice region around the halfway Trinium area where I decided to settle and establish a permanent presence. I became admired by the local faction from joining their side during faction battles, since their enemy was hostile towards me by default and shot at me first. I further mingled with the local factions and I am now admired by neighbours as well, I can now confidently call this region my new home. I found a perfect hidden sector to claim as my own and start building my empire. There's also two large asteroid fields nearby for mining and also a pirate sector nearby with it's neighbouring hidden sectors filled with pirates for when I'm in the mood for some pirate bashing. I haven't started building stations yet, still accumulating sufficient funds and materials to do so. This region also have plenty of wormholes for easier access to other parts of the galaxy and it's all nicely secluded by a rift. A perfect place for settling down.

 

Now I do understand that mined out asteroids do not regenerate properly yet, which would render those two asteroid fields designated for mining rather pointless you would say, but fortunately, the modding community has provided workarounds to make use of in the meantime so it's no crisis. Asteroids not regenerating is probably the only thing still lacking for getting a fully functional, self-sustaining sandbox game world nailed down, the rest of the game seems pretty feature-rich already from what I gathered so far. Pretty impressive considering it's still relatively new on Early Access. And with the modding community already helping out with solutions, the asteroid limitations will eventually be a thing of the past anyway.

 

I do have a question regarding artificial life though: Some sectors have seen quite a lot of battle, some reduced to wastelands of war. How long does it take for the AI to clean up and rebuild these sectors? Some of them are established trading routes of mine that I would like to see back up and running so I can get back to business. I attacked a pirate sector and a few surrounding hidden sectors as well, and intentionally spared the pirate shipyard so they can rebuild and repopulate (I just love bashing pirates from time to time, it's an Obelix-Romans relationship we have). I've given them quite some time to recover and the same pirate faction still attack sectors from time to time but, they are still missing when I go back to their home sector or the surrounding hidden sectors I've attacked before. Do I need to keep these sectors loaded in memory in order for AI factions/pirates to clean up and rebuild or does it just take time?

 

Anyway, keep on doing what you're doing as the developer of this game. We need innovative games like these to revive the space sim genre from it's constantly dormant state. Your work is highly appreciated and I believe many space sim fans will agree.

[unbekannt1984]

Hi,

 

well, let's begin with the easier problems:

 

Now I do understand that mined out asteroids do not regenerate properly yet, which would render those two asteroid fields designated for mining rather pointless you would say, but fortunately, the modding community has provided workarounds to make use of in the meantime so it's no crisis. Asteroids not regenerating is probably the only thing still lacking for getting a fully functional, self-sustaining sandbox game world nailed down, the rest of the game seems pretty feature-rich already from what I gathered so far. Pretty impressive considering it's still relatively new on Early Access. And with the modding community already helping out with solutions, the asteroid limitations will eventually be a thing of the past anyway.

http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,3055.0.html - Regenerative Asteroid-Fields :)

If you need more resources, search for Mine Corp.-Mod.

 

I do have a question regarding artificial life though: Some sectors have seen quite a lot of battle, some reduced to wastelands of war. How long does it take for the AI to clean up and rebuild these sectors? Some of them are established trading routes of mine that I would like to see back up and running so I can get back to business. I attacked a pirate sector and a few surrounding hidden sectors as well, and intentionally spared the pirate shipyard so they can rebuild and repopulate (I just love bashing pirates from time to time, it's an Obelix-Romans relationship we have). I've given them quite some time to recover and the same pirate faction still attack sectors from time to time but, they are still missing when I go back to their home sector or the surrounding hidden sectors I've attacked before. Do I need to keep these sectors loaded in memory in order for AI factions/pirates to clean up and rebuild or does it just take time?

Well, sectors are freezing when you leave them (5 minutes after you left them to be accurate). AI-factions usually don't clean wreckage, get your salvage-turrets and do it yourself - or reset the sectors by deleting the corresponding sector-files. Let me explain this, I'll show you on my Linux-Server:

torsten@debian:~/.avorion/galaxies/avorion_galaxy/sectors$ ls -la
...
-rw-r--r-- 1 torsten torsten  1895614 Mai  2 16:40 99_-310
-rw-r--r-- 1 torsten torsten     1039 Mai  2 16:40 99_-310v
-rw-r--r-- 1 torsten torsten   617035 Mai  2 16:39 99_-312
-rw-r--r-- 1 torsten torsten      432 Mai  2 16:39 99_-312v
-rw-r--r-- 1 torsten torsten    63771 Mai  2 16:36 99_-317
-rw-r--r-- 1 torsten torsten      349 Mai  2 16:36 99_-317v

Now the big files (those without "v" in the end) contain the sector-data of the corresponding sector. If you remove the file, the sector is generated again, if you start the server and jump into that sector.

torsten@debian:~/.avorion/galaxies/avorion_galaxy/sectors$ rm 99_-317

(rm = remove/delete) Sector 99:-317 is now clean, it will be exactly in the same state as it was when you entered it for the first time.

[Dragon]

http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,3055.0.html - Regenerative Asteroid-Fields

 

Thanks for this one, I actually use another script for asteroid regen that seems to work pretty well. I'll give this one a try either way.

 

AI-factions usually don't clean wreckage, get your salvage-turrets and do it yourself

 

Yeah, this is usually what I do and, since I found a decent salvage laser with independent targeting, it's as easy as parking near the wreckage, activating the laser and enjoying a cup of coffee. The wreckages despawn after some time anyway if you stay in the sector/keep it loaded up in memory. I am actually more concerned about the AI rebuilding destroyed stations and replacing ships lost in battle (I actually meant "cleaning up" like in regrouping surviving assets and replacing where necessary, sorry for the confusion). The means of resetting sectors you provided will be useful if this is still WIP like the asteroids.

 

As for sectors unloading after 5 minutes, I actually changed this to one hour so that sectors can stay active in case it is required for the AI factions/pirates to start rebuilding/replacing lost assets. I am currently busy setting up base and don't jump around a lot so I can afford to keep sectors in memory for that long. I just keep an eye on my RAM usage.