AI Ship Spawning ideas - Transmitter Beacon, Wormholes, Jump Drives, etc

[StormWing0]

Just thought of this and was wondering why the devs didn't have an idea like this pop up. It'd also be a nice way or ways to explain why mobs keep spawning as well and give the player ways to counter them.

Transmitter Beacons: These would be a block even players could use and will spawn mobs for them if they are part of a faction and other conditions are met. In the case of AI factions or players they general idea is the same. Placed on a planet or station it would call in mobs when under attack or a guard fleet would spawn beforehand and only be replenished when the threat is gone depending on the setting. In the case of ships only an escort fleet would spawn and the mobs in question would not be any bigger than half the mass of the main ship. These mobs would follow the ship and if they had jump drives they'd use them to keep up. Ship guarding mobs could only be replenished by docking with a station or planet that has a Transmitter Beacon on it. These ships following the main one would also use warpgates if they had to so they could get to the ship they were following.

Now as for the restrictions for the player faction mobs here they are and all are configurable of course. :P

• The faction mush have at least 10 total members
• at least 3 must be active or semi active.
• the faction must have a home base
• the faction must own at least 3 systems
• the faction must have positive faction points
• the faction must have over X number of faction points
• the mobs spawned will be restricted to ships and stations the faction's members have made if any, also admins can give a default list of BPs to pick from if a faction has none
• mobs spawned are like an independent sub faction of the faction they are a part of (Meaning they are the AI faction version of the player faction but not of the player faction directly), this means they'll fire in self defense even against their owner faction. In case of owner they'd only fire enough shots to get their point across.

Wormholes: In the case of wormholes spawning AI mobs a wormhole opens up between two points and unlike the bigger system wide versions these ones only last for between a few minutes to a few hours and only affect the sector they are in and the nearby 1 to 5 sectors with any gravity. Mobs will spawn at either end as if they are coming from the other end and rewards of some kind and stations may be at both ends. Since these spawn randomly it'd be hard to predict where they'll be at both ends. Also stations and ships might auto spawn at both ends to give players something to fight.

Jump Drive: In this case all ships that are spawned for a Mob spawn have jump drives on them and you see the huge flash from them coming out of a jump into an area. Normally if you have a scanner on you and scan fast enough right after they spawn you can see the random locations they spawned at before coming to the destination they are at. In this case also the mobs could come from totally separate locations in the galaxy and hidden rewards of some kind might be at those locations they came from.

Warpgates: Just like with jump drives but for stations. If the station has a warpgate it'll randomly connect to another station's gate of the same faction somewhere in the galaxy but within the usual range it has. You won't see this connection until you go through it and it'll always be a two way connection. When worlds, galaxies, or systems are generated the warp coords are entered after the rest of the generation is done and sometimes a new station needs to be spawned to account for if none in the area the gate can warp have a gate. In the case of spawns they'd come out of the gate and would normally be no bigger that the gate itself.

Shipyards: Yes these would spawn ships when under AI control. The ships spawned would always be ships that could fit inside the area of the shipyard and it'd only spawn one at a time per shipyard.


This list could get longer too. XD

 

[Xskyth]

how about this:

AI/ MOB Patrol Ships
must have faction home base
will patrol same faction system
will only patrol one system and will not leave it
one time cost faction points to set up
cost faction points to maintain
will come to the aid of any same faction ship or station in system including other patrol ships and any ally factions as well
faction point cost based on mass and/or number of blocks
if home base is attacked all patrol ships from all systems could come to its aid? maybe to op?
faction leader sets permissions on who can make patrol ships
when faction system ownership is lost so are the patrol ships?
if not enough faction points to maintain patrol ships, you start loosing them one at a time, randomly, like faction territory
must build ships using resources and activate patrol mode using faction module or bobby ai

AI/MOB Escort Ships
must have faction home base
one time cost faction points to set up, more than patrol ships x10 maybe
cost faction points to maintain, more than patrol ships x10 maybe
faction point cost based on mass and/or block count
faction leader sets permissions on who can make escort ships
can loan out escort ships to allies and neutrals for with faction points being the currency used
limit escort ships per player or faction by blocks/mass, maybe 200,000 blocks/mass in one ship or divided up into 4 ships 50,000 block each with a max number of 10 ships with 200,000 mas/blocks total, as an example
if not enough faction points to maintain escort ships, you start loosing them one at a time, randomly, like faction territory
must build using resources and activate escort mode using faction module or bobby ai