Bug NPCs

[HolyCookie]

when will the NPCs be fixed there is still a bunch of things not working:

1. putting them on idle does not make them idle, they still move around in a short range
2. when following or using go to, they float really really buggy, like they want to go back or something.
3. you can't take them on board properly, only a admin. using go to you can get near, but each jump will make 1 npc disapear. then later hen you go back to the server they are suddenly all there together with a group of admins that are searching your whole base saying: there is an error coming from your station. and then soon they will delete the glitched out NPCs
4. when in gravity, they tend to be too heavy and sink into the floor for 50%
5. the dance animation doesn't work
6. when they follow you, they should stay at a distance of 1 block instead of ramming you non-stop
7. when following you, they should really follow you instead of that they walk over the exact same vector a you did.
8. you should be able to choose what they say, together with options what people can say back. then you can make NPCs nice to have around your base, instead of that they Always say Hi space astronaut! bla bla bla.

 

[RoyalWolfe]

To be honest NPC's in general are in total need of a revamp. and as such is in the planing at some point, but what that revamp will do, is not yet officially been discussed.

now what we could do is start talking about what we really want to happen. I for one would love some better interactions with and more control of what my crew actually does. for example I want to tell them to go board a ship, and they go to it find a gravity block and actually freakin use it. that way when I then jump away they don't as you say glitch out and disappear.

 

[HolyCookie]

To be honest NPC's in general are in total need of a revamp. and as such is in the planing at some point, but what that revamp will do, is not yet officially been discussed.

now what we could do is start talking about what we really want to happen. I for one would love some better interactions with and more control of what my crew actually does. for example I want to tell them to go board a ship, and they go to it find a gravity block and actually freakin use it. that way when I then jump away they don't as you say glitch out and disappear.

sure:

10 standard skins that are implanted in starmade to change the look of your NPC

vector adjustments to let NPCs patroll or walk around some place

pull out weapon and keep it stead (like dangerous look)

sit down

 

[AndyP]

"Idle":
They dont have a task, but should also not just stay there without moving, idle has a defined "roam range".

"Follow me":
The have a pathing algo, that is indeed only working for easy paths, and straight lines.
The min-distance is a bit weird, they had something like that a while ago, possibly broken.

"Go to":
Is bugged, and does not align them, as they were used to. Issue: T328

"Planets/Gravity":
This is a followup of not being aligned, they sort of clip through the ground as the contact is not properly registered by the game.

"Guard/Patrol/Conversation":
Yes, good point, however this is currently only an option for the spawn-npc by script files. The language behind this (LUA) could cause problems if handing this over to client side without a proper and secure framework being set up before.

So all together, they surely are broken at the moment.

- Andy

 

[HolyCookie]

"Idle":
They dont have a task, but should also not just stay there without moving, idle has a defined "roam range".

"Follow me":
The have a pathing algo, that is indeed only working for easy paths, and straight lines.
The min-distance is a bit weird, they had something like that a while ago, possibly broken.

"Go to":
Is bugged, and does not align them, as they were used to. Issue: T328

"Planets/Gravity":
This is a followup of not being aligned, they sort of clip through the ground as the contact is not properly registered by the game.

"Guard/Patrol/Conversation":
Yes, good point, however this is currently only an option for the spawn-npc by script files. The language behind this (LUA) could cause problems if handing this over to client side without a proper and secure framework being set up before.

So all together, they surely are broken at the moment.

- Andy

hehe :D
well so if idle is roam in a range, then is go to the stay there button?
btw go to does sort of allign with a ship, it only takes a few tries.
this is how i was able to move 3 of my 5 crew members a few meters.
then i jumped and lost 1
another jump another lost
another jump another lost
*leaves game, comes back 3 hours later*
4 crewmembers are in the horizon, about 2500km from the shop
only 2000m away from me. suddenly 2 admins arrive hunting an error.
they despawn the NPCs and the error was fixed.
so weird

for the patrolling:
using control and 7 you will go in a free roam mode, then you go to the first location and hit V
go to the next and hit V the next V and so on, to delete an location hit C then the route will automaticly change to go to the next location after the one deleted. for a simple dev build version you can just make it then you need to plot every corner he has to make.
for the advanced one you can skip a few corners and starmade will look for the shortest way if possible. the route will be showed with arrows.
the locations will be white lined with a number above them, 1 is first location 2 second etc.
you need to end at 1 to make an succesfull loop. blocks can be Ved dubble if the path intersects with itself.
very simple to use for players, maybe not so simple for you to build :D
atleast the advanched one, with predicting and intercepting and such.

 

[AndyP]

Yes "go to" should make that crewmember go to your position and even keep your view direction, so you could line them up with it.
However, most of the time they do not align anymore, when testing this a while ago, I think it was NPC 3 and 5 were aligning, while 1, 2, and 4 always lost their alignment on entering the shipcore, reloading or even just waiting a bit, if they acquired it at all.

- Andy

 

[RoyalWolfe]

this is really good debug data mining, maybe in addition to exploring what we would like to have, we should also test out and debug what we already do.

that way we can help the dev team in actually giving us what we want by showing them how to get there. the point on the conversation mechanic needing some framework is particularly important. What mite that framework entail? I'd suggest a set of simple text files containing the duologue choices and interaction scripts. that way we can set specifically how and what they do upon having the conversations with them.

"Guard/Patrol/Conversation":
Yes, good point, however this is currently only an option for the spawn-npc by script files. The language behind this (LUA) could cause problems if handing this over to client side without a proper and secure framework being set up before.

 

[HolyCookie]

this is really good debug data mining, maybe in addition to exploring what we would like to have, we should also test out and debug what we already do.

that way we can help the dev team in actually giving us what we want by showing them how to get there. the point on the conversation mechanic needing some framework is particularly important. What mite that framework entail? I'd suggest a set of simple text files containing the duologue choices and interaction scripts. that way we can set specifically how and what they do upon having the conversations with them.

you don't need much of programming and such.
i'd suggest a question tree diagram


you can fill in a block and if you click plus you get an extra option to anwer.
[DOUBLEPOST=1435864327,1435864267][/DOUBLEPOST]

Yes "go to" should make that crewmember go to your position and even keep your view direction, so you could line them up with it.
However, most of the time they do not align anymore, when testing this a while ago, I think it was NPC 3 and 5 were aligning, while 1, 2, and 4 always lost their alignment on entering the shipcore, reloading or even just waiting a bit, if they acquired it at all.

- Andy

lol how can that happen? you made each NPC from scratch instead of copy paste the first one? :D

 

[AndyP]

lol how can that happen? you made each NPC from scratch instead of copy paste the first one? :D

I have no idea to be honest, I played around with different NPCs and also picked up one from another player. (If one player "dismisses" his, you can pick them up by conversation), so not sure if some of my npc were broken somehow by this.
Also didnt try that for a while now, as the "first one" didnt align properly I gave up trying.

About "Lua" and "what can happen": See computercraft in minecraft, almost anyone could take down a whole server with a few lines of code in them. In X³ there were similar problems, some "bad written scripts" could make your universe get slow like hell.
As far as I know you cannot limit lua cpu/memory usage, without using a full encapsulation for every running script, which should be an extreme overkill for conversation scripting ^^

- Andy

 

[HolyCookie]

About "Lua" and "what can happen": See computercraft in minecraft, almost anyone could take down a whole server with a few lines of code in them. In X³ there were similar problems, some "bad written scripts" could make your universe get slow like hell.
As far as I know you cannot limit lua cpu/memory usage, without using a full encapsulation for every running script, which should be an extreme overkill for conversation scripting ^^

- Andy

not sure what this part is about where did the subject lua come from? is that what you would need for the npc?
about the computercraft, you could make some sort of computer, but that would just be an interface computer where you can manualy activate doors, look into cameras, activate logic and all those sort of things.
the computercraft idea is kinda useless anyways, only people who can nearly programme a game can use it.
that would seriously lead to a guide of 10 pages dubble printed explanation.

what you can do is give some more tools so people can create their own computer.
mostly with this i mean making blanko light/Rainbow light. it would work like the rail change direction system, this could make logic+lights a bit more usefull, changing the light colours and such, people could exualy create a movie.

whoopsy sidetracked myself lawl. i'm that guy that can get distracted by a fly :D

 

[iceman6491]

computercraft is a minecraft mod that uses Lua. And you dont need to be a programmer to make cool computercraft functions. Like passcode locks etc

 

[AndyP]

Absolutely correct, LUA is flexible and powerful,
however currently its used for NPC conversation scripting.
So its not that easy to open custom NPC dialogs without opening the full LUA functionality. =)

- Andy

 

[iceman6491]

Andy, could you use approved Lua conversation packs? It wouldnt allow for complete customisation on the fly, but packs that could allow for conversations packs that were approved by server owners. People could make conversation packs in notepad for example, then these would be uploaded. Just throwing ideas out there, sorry to derail :p

 

[AndyP]

Andy, could you use approved Lua conversation packs? It wouldnt allow for complete customisation on the fly, but packs that could allow for conversations packs that were approved by server owners. People could make conversation packs in notepad for example, then these would be uploaded. Just throwing ideas out there, sorry to derail :p

This leaves my knowledge. =)
I think NPCs will get some care in the future, they wont stay this way, that is all I can say for now.

- Andy

 

[HolyCookie]

Andy, could you use approved Lua conversation packs? It wouldnt allow for complete customisation on the fly, but packs that could allow for conversations packs that were approved by server owners. People could make conversation packs in notepad for example, then these would be uploaded. Just throwing ideas out there, sorry to derail :p

This leaves my knowledge. =)
I think NPCs will get some care in the future, they wont stay this way, that is all I can say for now.

- Andy

player overtakes developer

 

[Megacrafter127]

Spoiler: Offtopic response

player overtakes developer

Why are you shocked?

NPCs will be fixed eventually™.

 

[HolyCookie]

Spoiler: Offtopic response

Why are you shocked?

NPCs will be fixed eventually™.

ow yea i just forgot that not game making people overtake game making people, that totaly normal and common phenomenon