I have in my head a concept of a faction that I'd like to implement for NPCs on a private server, or release for others to see.
My concern is the game has not progressed to a point where this is possible, but my hope is that it can within months to a year from now. I will be asking questions before I begin working on the actual building of the ships and structures of this faction. I know for a fact AI hasn't reached it's fullest potential yet, and I'm unsure of the state of, and future of logic. I will lay out the general design, and perhaps the Devs can point out if any of this is outright impossible.
Broad concept: NPC Faction that uses ships similar to the Forrunners in Halo, but is run by a Rampant AI with the infectious desires and behavior of the Flood. Put another way, a physical manifestation of a computer virus, that spreads like a galactic cancer.
Broad design of the faction:
1) Monolithic mother station that spawns ancient looking large mother ships. Likely polygonal or pyramid shaped (possibly two pyramids over a plane that is wide enough for ships to exit an internal shipyard). Defenses would be a turret system that looks like the corners of the pyramid.
[Do any pyramid turrets currently exist, or will I have to build my own
Will factions have the ability to construct New stations? The concept is to have one station per system, growing once a system is overrun to adjacent systems]
2) Large studded mother ship is built at Monolithic mother station. Studs on the mothership are in fact salvage drones (I understand currently broken) that will eject from the ship, help eat asteroids, and then plug back into the mothership, almost like a socket.
[Can a drone function with a plug-like dock, flush against a hull, or are there issues with collision? The exterior of the drone is like a stud that sticks outside of the hull, but functions as the 'front' of the drone. Ideally, once fired, logic would open up the front point (picturing a 4 by 4 array of cannon/salagers) and begin to go to work. Can rails be logic driven to work like this on a drone?]
3) Mothership explores system, seeking first asteroid belts, consuming raw material, gathering enough materials on board until it is full, returning to the mother station, depositing materials. The Station then begins work immediately on another mothership.
[Is it planned for AI to be able to 1)send a ship out (as a carrier) to a sector with materials, 2) to be able to gather resources to return when to dock when full, and 3) be able to be set to auto construct ships that join a fleet or fly out to another sector when complete?]
4) Completed motherships will continue to spread out across a system. When a certain threshold is reached, it will spread to an adjacent system, and begin multiplying, taking control of unoccupied space, and contesting occupied systems as well.
[Ideally, this would be programmed after a certain number of motherships exist in a given system, say 32 or 64 ships constructed would cause half the motherships to leave to an adjacent, non-claimed sector. This would only happen when they have all of the materials needed to construct another station, and enough ships to move out as an invasion force (32, or 64).]
The grand concept is for this to be a villainous faction that should unify other factions in a threatening way. If this faction lands in your galaxy, you would be well to unify to eradicate it before it eats through your galaxy and eventually grows to large to manage. It's growth would be slow, but exponential. 1 System -> 2 Sytems ->4 systems -> 8 Systems ->16 Systems and so on.
For NPC factions, it would be great if there was a threshold for relations. When any factions controls greater than say 1.5 the mean amount of systems controlled by all factions in the galaxy, then diplomatic stance is set automatically to unfriendly, and when the amount of systems controlled is greater than 3 times the mean of other factions in the galaxy, AI factions automatically declare war out of existential danger (Or something like that).
What other ideas have you all had for NPC factions? I understand this would require much optimization, and I am unsure that it is even able to be implemented. But hey, a man can ask, can't he?
My concern is the game has not progressed to a point where this is possible, but my hope is that it can within months to a year from now. I will be asking questions before I begin working on the actual building of the ships and structures of this faction. I know for a fact AI hasn't reached it's fullest potential yet, and I'm unsure of the state of, and future of logic. I will lay out the general design, and perhaps the Devs can point out if any of this is outright impossible.
Broad concept: NPC Faction that uses ships similar to the Forrunners in Halo, but is run by a Rampant AI with the infectious desires and behavior of the Flood. Put another way, a physical manifestation of a computer virus, that spreads like a galactic cancer.
Broad design of the faction:
1) Monolithic mother station that spawns ancient looking large mother ships. Likely polygonal or pyramid shaped (possibly two pyramids over a plane that is wide enough for ships to exit an internal shipyard). Defenses would be a turret system that looks like the corners of the pyramid.
[Do any pyramid turrets currently exist, or will I have to build my own
Will factions have the ability to construct New stations? The concept is to have one station per system, growing once a system is overrun to adjacent systems]2) Large studded mother ship is built at Monolithic mother station. Studs on the mothership are in fact salvage drones (I understand currently broken) that will eject from the ship, help eat asteroids, and then plug back into the mothership, almost like a socket.
[Can a drone function with a plug-like dock, flush against a hull, or are there issues with collision? The exterior of the drone is like a stud that sticks outside of the hull, but functions as the 'front' of the drone. Ideally, once fired, logic would open up the front point (picturing a 4 by 4 array of cannon/salagers) and begin to go to work. Can rails be logic driven to work like this on a drone?]
3) Mothership explores system, seeking first asteroid belts, consuming raw material, gathering enough materials on board until it is full, returning to the mother station, depositing materials. The Station then begins work immediately on another mothership.
[Is it planned for AI to be able to 1)send a ship out (as a carrier) to a sector with materials, 2) to be able to gather resources to return when to dock when full, and 3) be able to be set to auto construct ships that join a fleet or fly out to another sector when complete?]
4) Completed motherships will continue to spread out across a system. When a certain threshold is reached, it will spread to an adjacent system, and begin multiplying, taking control of unoccupied space, and contesting occupied systems as well.
[Ideally, this would be programmed after a certain number of motherships exist in a given system, say 32 or 64 ships constructed would cause half the motherships to leave to an adjacent, non-claimed sector. This would only happen when they have all of the materials needed to construct another station, and enough ships to move out as an invasion force (32, or 64).]
The grand concept is for this to be a villainous faction that should unify other factions in a threatening way. If this faction lands in your galaxy, you would be well to unify to eradicate it before it eats through your galaxy and eventually grows to large to manage. It's growth would be slow, but exponential. 1 System -> 2 Sytems ->4 systems -> 8 Systems ->16 Systems and so on.
For NPC factions, it would be great if there was a threshold for relations. When any factions controls greater than say 1.5 the mean amount of systems controlled by all factions in the galaxy, then diplomatic stance is set automatically to unfriendly, and when the amount of systems controlled is greater than 3 times the mean of other factions in the galaxy, AI factions automatically declare war out of existential danger (Or something like that).
What other ideas have you all had for NPC factions? I understand this would require much optimization, and I am unsure that it is even able to be implemented. But hey, a man can ask, can't he?
