AI travel option

[FlyingDebris]

So, let's say I have a base, but it is causing massive amounts of lag. The logical next step is to remove the lag, much like Arstotzka removes kebabs. But, if I leave the sector with one of the titans I parked there, I'll have to reload the other three upon entry, causing me a lot of lag.

Or, maybe I have a shipment to pick up from somewhere, but it's 100-odd sectors away.


How do I do that without leaving my base?


With a simple AI function.

Let's say we add an AI function that tells the ship itself to go to somewhere. You click the AI tab, click ship, click Travel, enter the desired coordinates, and activate the AI. That ship then begins to leave to go to the desired location.

Simple, quick, and timesaving addition to the AI tab.

Tell me what you think. -FD

 

[SkylordLuke]

it would be really helpfull if we had that option,but i dont think its possible at this moment,imagine this..
on a medium/large server where you have tons of people,its guaranteed that most of them will take advantage of this,and what it means is that the server has to calculate and simulate every step from point A to point B ,so if another player stumbled upon that AI ship.. he must see it,it would be too much for the server
but i like it,maybe as an option,so you can disable it or enable it,so servers with lots of RAM could have this

 

[hindos]

I'm anticipating massive exoduses of giant torpedoes across the cosmos, hallmarking a DEFCON stance between the many factions and their equally numerous conflicts. No longer will we face war, instead we'll send massive AI travels of Disintegrator Ships in such numbers that they can never all be shot down in time, straight through the heart of their empire.

 

[FlyingDebris]

I'm anticipating massive exoduses of giant torpedoes across the cosmos, hallmarking a DEFCON stance between the many factions and their equally numerous conflicts. No longer will we face war, instead we'll send massive AI travels of Disintegrator Ships in such numbers that they can never all be shot down in time, straight through the heart of their empire.

That was one of the ideas, or maybe have them set to be able to return fire like they would if set to ship like normal.

 

[hindos]

That was one of the ideas, or maybe have them set to be able to return fire like they would if set to ship like normal.

That would be quite amazing, since you would no longer need a huge member base to wage large battles. However, as tenk11kamikaza pointed out that would lead to some performance issues but with continued optimizations it might be a valuable feature that can be enabled/disabled for High-Power Servers, or very small communities that just want to have fun.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

We should eventually weild a fleet like we control an away team of daves. You will have a limited number of ships and you probably cannot just order them across the galaxy because those sectors would ultimately be unloaded.

 

[der_scheme]

Personally I'm still hoping that we will be able to do stuff like this with the scripting API that was announced some time ago. It would be awesome to have my self-programmed minions do my bidding throughout the Galaxy.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Personally I'm still hoping that we will be able to do stuff like this with the scripting API that was announced some time ago. It would be awesome to have my self-programmed minions do my bidding throughout the Galaxy.

That is a slippery slope, yes we are supposed to be able to have the ability to program AI to do custom actions but I doubt the game will allow this to happen away from us, even with only being able to control 5 ships you are adding a lot of potential load to the server. Imagine if every player on a heavily populated server just sends their AI controlled ships out into the black. That is an additional 5 sectors that need to be loaded and simulating. Then you have to add all the surrounding sectors that have to be loaded in order for the game to work properly. This can stack up quite quickly.

 

[Draeke_Forther]

Sven_The_Slayer While your argument makes sense, I do not think that it will be as much of a problem as you may believe. I am not sure how Schema would go about implementing this, but I know that I wouldn't be running the entire sequence for these AI ships, there would only be some broad phase pathfinding, maybe taking into account some percent chance of pirate/hostile faction encounter.

 

[Leanson]

... Lol you are limited with the sectors that are loaded around a player and entity. You could not send a armada to another base because they will only to as far as the sector that is loaded. Now you can have it to were on a server you can place your player entity signature on a ship, much like missiles and it will load the sectors as if you were there driving the ship. You run problems as the AI might get stuck and such. I do like the crew AI but with they had more function and abilities, expanding on these specific AI since they are in place will make managing a fleet better and gives the player more to do. But as it stand AI is limited by the sectors that is loaded around any player.

 

[Draeke_Forther]

Leanson I disagree with what you are saying, I do not believe that a ship on auto pilot would need to be in areas loaded for players.

To my understanding, Schema already has a system implemented along these lines, as of
http://oldsite.star-made.org/content/starmade-0093-ai-universe-simulation

I don't know how Schema would implement a customizable AI, but it could very well have the ability to function even when there is no player nearby.

 

[Leanson]

if a AI ship is created then and put into your faction and under your control then it would have to have the player entity signature assigned to it in order for it to function and its owner to have control over it. If that system does work, which every crew AI I have had I needed to be in a specific range in order for me to control them as in they must be in loaded sectors for me to control and move them. Pirate and trading guild AI work different and can be scripted. But a player control AI
much like the crew AI is limited at the moment with a distance of the player.

 

[Draeke_Forther]

Oh, I see where the disconnect is, you are talking about how things are now, where the npc crew need to be within loaded sectors, but I am talking about in the future, and that a ship on autopilot shouldn't need to have a player nearby to move.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Oh, I see where the disconnect is, you are talking about how things are now, where the npc crew need to be within loaded sectors, but I am talking about in the future, and that a ship on autopilot shouldn't need to have a player nearby to move.

So I guess it would be possible to order your ships around but anything beyond moving between unloaded sectors probably won't happen unless the game simulates battles as well.

 

[Leanson]

yes player controlled AI is limited to loaded sectors, I don't know if the thread you showed me if that includes the player controlled AI. It will be interesting to see how it can be controlled. As of now, you must have a LOS to point where you want your crew to go. Now panel were you can input nav cords and a AI can go there, and once there, bring up the same panel again and return it to home base, or another specific set or cords it the type of control debris was I think aiming for.

 

[Draeke_Forther]

Ah, another disconnect, I was under the impression that when the ship is in unloaded sectors, the specific actions of the npc crew members aboard the ship do not matter, and that the ship would more or less ignore collisions and just move toward the destination. It lacks a few implementation details, but it's a suggestion, so if I can convey an idea, then Schema could adapt it to the game if he were to choose to do so.

 

[Leanson]

what if that ship meets another AI ship and they are enemies? Would they just ignore each other and pass by, or would they battle, when would the collision turn on and off?

it would be cool to get some official insight on this subject.

 

[Draeke_Forther]

I said it was lacking implementation details, and I thought the idea was a player written AI? By it's very nature, I wouldn't know how they would interact, so but I would guess that the fight would be abstracted away to some comparison of the ships and behaviors. I do not think that it would be necessary to simulate the entire interaction though.

 

[Leanson]

hmm then the server would have to compare each ship based on their stats. Shields, dps, turrets, and mass. Also you run into a problem when they are a fleet traveling together, the server would have to calculate each ship and stats and determine the conflict. Not to mention there will be many ships traveling across the server were it will calculate battles on top of its normal operation.i thought I was just player controlled with enhanced features for cross universe travel and functionality

 

[Draeke_Forther]

Well, for fleets I would abstract it further, it would need to be balanced, and combat isn't the only interaction, but in general yeah, the outcome of some interaction between two ai controlled ships would be based on some score derived from the ship stats and the npc pilot's stats.

But who knows, it might be a better investment for Schema to just have the interactions play out normally, we would only know if these interactions need to be abstracted if and or when Schema decides to test this.