Multiple questions regarding AI, advanced mechanics, features, and plans.

[Rennzen]

Just got game, seems very interesting, but it's hard to find specifics on certain features and things that have me interested. So...

 

Questions for the devs: (Or veterans)

 

1. What is the scope and extent of player owned AI captained ships? For example, can i (as of this writing) have an empire of ships that will automatically resupply, mine, trade, patrol, etc -- and without much input from me, the player? If not, what do you plan to implement? What are you not looking to implement?

 

2. Can i fully manage my AI ships while out of their sector?

 

2. Can you set up player owned AI merchant / cargo freighters that automatically move around cargo, or sell wares from one of your stations?

 

3. Can player owned merchants / freighters intelligently find best price and travel to another sector to sell x ware?

 

4. Can player owned AI autonomously resupply other player owned stations, player owned fleets, etc?

 

5. Can you set up player owned mining ships to automatically mine without any player input. Will they mine even when you are out of the sector?

 

6. Can you control a fleet, or a group of ships that operate in formation; Like a carrier battlegroup? (I know you can issue an order to a ship by getting close to it, selecting it, and going to orders)

 

7. What are the limits of large fleet / group controls, and what do you plan to do with or expand upon in this area?

 

8. How do you make turret factories and so on? What are the factories a player can construct and control?

 

9. Do you need to supply a station / factory with some form of resource, or can they run solely on generated power?

 

10. Haven't gotten around to carriers / hangars yet, but can you explain their size limit / volume limit of ships in hangar, can fighters entering/exiting hangars crash into the 'mothership' & die, are carriers as a role effective or is it better to have just a bunch of battleships?

 

11. How will boarding work?

 

12. Are more weapon types planned - i.e. Flak, different types of missiles (nuke, tomahawks, swarm, EMP, etc) or medium faster firing cannons.

 

13. Any plans for limited, resource intensive 'super weapons' - so that we can build titans / death stars with appropriate armament?

 

14. Can you own or control an entire sector of space? What can you do with this ownership, can you rent out space for example?

 

15. Will you be notified if your AI ships or stations in another sector are under attack? Can you filter out such notifications, for example, by only notifying you if they are facing forces they cannot handle alone?

 

16. Can you set up a defense network of sorts, where when your assets or ships are under attack out of your sector, other defense ships automatically are sent to defend?

 

[koonschi]

Hey there, glad you like it.

One thing to note is: Sectors get unloaded after 5 minutes once no players are in them or in sectors connected to them via gate or wormhole.

 

1. Resupply: No, Trade: No, Mine: yes, Patrol: yes. We're planning at least trading. Best idea would be to tell them to trade in the sector, or tell them 2 sectors to visit for trading.

2. No, due to technical limitations of the server internals.

3. Not yet, see 1)

4. Not yet, see 1)

5. You can set them up, but it's limited due to sector unloading. We're still figuring out if that's a good idea or not (esp. in MP)

6. No formations so far.

7. I'd like to add more orders, such as trading or more strategic orders. Make them patrol a specific route for example.

8. Players can construct all factories that produce normal trading goods. More stations will follow over time (most likely with the upcoming alliance update)

9. You don't have to resupply them, you just have to pay for their crew (which you need to keep it intact so it doesn't decay). Factories will like it when you bring them goods, but NPC traders will do that part, too.

10. Hangars need some space so fighters can start (and most importantly: land!). Fighters will have a stronger role versus large battleship, since their turrets usually turn slowly and the fighters can outmaneuver them easily. If you prefer a beefy battleship over fighters, then you should build that though :)

11. You fly them over with transporters in case the enemy has shields, or get close and beam them over when the enemy has no (more) shields. Boarders will then be on the enemy ship and will try to take it over. The ship will get damaged due to firefights happening. If the enemy has security, the security will have a slight advantage over your boarders, since it's their ship. Crewmen will also fight back, but they won't be nearly as strong as security or boarders. This is only to make sure you can't take a ship with 150 crewmen using just 1 boarder. Once the enemy crew is dead, the ship is yours. Strength of security and boarders will be determined by their level/workforce.

12. Yes.

13. If we find a way to integrate and balance that, that would be cool.

14. We're currently looking into what you should be able to do when you control space. One obvious thing would be: No enemy factions (not including pirates and Xsotan) can spawn there. Taxes for freighters or other stations sounds good. It could be a great incentive for gate building. Or setting up safe zones.

15. I think notifications for ships being attacked would be good. Problem is: How do you define that they can handle it? What if they lose 50% of their hull but still survive? Technically they would be able to handle the situation, but not forever.

16. That would be cool, but complicated. No promises.

 

Final note: Please understand that those are all plans, not promises. This is basically true for everything I say. I mean what I say, but I can't see the future. We like to be transparent, but in software development, things can change. It could turn out to be unhealthy for the game, or other things with higher priorities can come up.

[Rennzen]

Thanks very much for a prompt reply and i appreciate your time and answers! Love the game, wish you the best.

[RosyUnicorn]

First off: You guys have done such an amazing job on this game! Even if it would remain as-is (minor bug fixes aside) it would still be a great game. It's an actual indie beta! Hooray! Honestly surprised on how feature-full the release is. Kudos!

 

Fan related banter and / or suggestions coming from a pseudo-coding-newb:

 

About the sector unloading; Perhaps it could be solved by only loading the data related to player-A.I? As in: ship gets a route between 5 sectors, meaning the basic stats of the sector it is currently in is pulled (stations (type), inventory and % of chance for pirates). If pirates spawn then automatic battle ensues, based on a diceroll with a modifier, such as weapon strength, HP and tech level (modified by shields, systems etc).

 

Super simple calculations (example: weapon strength 15). If the ship encounters an enemy the encounter is randomized, and it pops out a result, and pushes a notification to the player (example: Rifter Mk1 lost in -14:-256 to [Faction] raiders.)

 

I would not mind having some basic text based combats taking place around the sectors I'm visiting. I'm thinking along the lines that in map-mode I can see what's in a sector, which makes me think that some information is "public" to the server, even if said sector is unloaded.

 

If I am not making sense I would be happy to clarify. One failed course in flash programming does not an actual programmer make. :|

 

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Another suggestion is "relay probes" which the player can build, put in a sector which will then prevent said sector from unloading. A simple command line on the server (allow relay blocks) and set "amount per player" could be added for server owners to consider. This could also be warp-gates for players and player AI to connect through.

 

The benefit here would also be you could use said relay probe as a waypoint for A.I to follow. (Example: F-> Orders -> Waypoints -> Add waypoint -> Probe01(51:350) set order: Mine.

 

Questions: Are there any plans on making strikegroups for your fleet? It would make ordering shit around way easier should anything like above be added.

 

 

[koonschi]

I'd prefer not to have simplified mechanics, since that basically means doubled code, which is error prone. How about more stable code, which can be updated at a much lower frequency? That's what I'm planning. Sectors with player crafts will remain in memory (if configured so) and will be updated so you get progress from sectors that have some of your crafts in them.