- Joined
- Feb 3, 2016
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- 8
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So it has been announced that AI Fleets will be available soon, but we will need a method of controlling them outside of your own ship.
I propose a new station-only block, the Battle Computer. Entering this computer will bring up a galaxy map with a difference. Firstly this map will be a smaller scale, with sectors rendered with borders much like systems are in the normal map. But it will also show all ships in the vicinity, and colour-code them in a similar way to the systems in the galaxy map, for easy identification.
You can then left-click to select ships, discovered stations and planets, and view their statistics (only available for friendly ships and scanned enemies) and if they're your faction and have an AI module onboard (and not currently piloted), you can issue them orders much like in space RTS games (say, right-click to move/attack, left to select/deselect). The interface would also allow to activate and deactivate computers such as cloakers, jammers, scanners and ion, pierce and punch defensive effects, and automatically charge and activate jump drives if the destination sector is more than two sectors away. From here it opens the door to adding more complex commands, like setting a group of ships to guard something, or patrol a system, to create a transport convoy to ferry materials from one station to another, scouting parties to scan nearby systems, or even sending AI miners to asteroid sectors, to return with ores. The possibilities are endless for this.
Perhaps even, on selecting a station with a shipyard and factories attached, you could issue the station orders to produce a set number of whatever ships are loaded into the shipyard and automatically set them to AI, effectively acting as the RTS vehicle factories and allowing even more automation. And perhaps you could have a station with Capsule Refineries onboard, and set that station as a cargo transfer point for mining ships, so that the miners automatically transfer mined materials into the refinery and the station automatically begins refining.
The Battle Computer on it's own would have a default range of one system. Linking a Scanner Computer with Scanner Antennae linked to it would increase it's range up to a point. (perhaps 9x9x9 systems around the station?) This would mean factions would need to build heavily defended outposts to continue to expand the range that they can control their AI 'units' with.
There should also be a ship counterpart, with more limited functionality and lower maximum range to prevent abuse, and the ship block should have the additional commands 'form up' (to set all friendly AI ships in range to follow and guard the player ship) and 'dock/redock' (for droneships and carriers; may need additional coding and work).
Let me know what you think below.
(EDIT: Added a few more thoughts, clarified usage of defensive effects and jump drives, spaced out paragraphs a bit more for easier reading.)
I propose a new station-only block, the Battle Computer. Entering this computer will bring up a galaxy map with a difference. Firstly this map will be a smaller scale, with sectors rendered with borders much like systems are in the normal map. But it will also show all ships in the vicinity, and colour-code them in a similar way to the systems in the galaxy map, for easy identification.
You can then left-click to select ships, discovered stations and planets, and view their statistics (only available for friendly ships and scanned enemies) and if they're your faction and have an AI module onboard (and not currently piloted), you can issue them orders much like in space RTS games (say, right-click to move/attack, left to select/deselect). The interface would also allow to activate and deactivate computers such as cloakers, jammers, scanners and ion, pierce and punch defensive effects, and automatically charge and activate jump drives if the destination sector is more than two sectors away. From here it opens the door to adding more complex commands, like setting a group of ships to guard something, or patrol a system, to create a transport convoy to ferry materials from one station to another, scouting parties to scan nearby systems, or even sending AI miners to asteroid sectors, to return with ores. The possibilities are endless for this.
Perhaps even, on selecting a station with a shipyard and factories attached, you could issue the station orders to produce a set number of whatever ships are loaded into the shipyard and automatically set them to AI, effectively acting as the RTS vehicle factories and allowing even more automation. And perhaps you could have a station with Capsule Refineries onboard, and set that station as a cargo transfer point for mining ships, so that the miners automatically transfer mined materials into the refinery and the station automatically begins refining.
The Battle Computer on it's own would have a default range of one system. Linking a Scanner Computer with Scanner Antennae linked to it would increase it's range up to a point. (perhaps 9x9x9 systems around the station?) This would mean factions would need to build heavily defended outposts to continue to expand the range that they can control their AI 'units' with.
There should also be a ship counterpart, with more limited functionality and lower maximum range to prevent abuse, and the ship block should have the additional commands 'form up' (to set all friendly AI ships in range to follow and guard the player ship) and 'dock/redock' (for droneships and carriers; may need additional coding and work).
Let me know what you think below.
(EDIT: Added a few more thoughts, clarified usage of defensive effects and jump drives, spaced out paragraphs a bit more for easier reading.)
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